Spectrum Center
The history of the Spectrum Center, described as a campus center meant to serve and support the LGBTQIA2S+ community at the University of Michigan, provides insight into the change of identity labels over time. Founded in 1971, the Spectrum Center was the first higher education center dedicated to supporting the queer community. It's official name, as well as the identity labels used in the activities and meetings that the center held, changed several times over the decades it has existed. This collection will go through its history in the context of identity labels, showing how there is a rise in inclusivitiy as well as a greater sense of self-claiming identity labels over time.
The Spectrum Center was initially named the “Human Sexuality Office” when founded by a group of activists in the 1970s. The Office was not able to use their own identity labels in naming themselves, as the school did not give them permission too. One of the founding activists was Jim Toy, who was involved in other Detroit-area activist groups, including the Detroit Gay Liberation Front. This is a copy of the speech he gave at the 2011 Spectrum Center anniversary celebration, where he references the initial name of the Center.
The Center was involved in a number of projects aimed at ending harassment and increasing visibility of queer students on campus, including the “Opening the Doors” artifact included here. The report is from 1991, when the Center was named the “Lesbian-Gay Male Programs Office”. The Office is now able to use identity labels in its name, but is limited to only two identity labels within the queer community: ‘Lesbian’ and ‘Gay’. Within the report, the labels of ‘lesbian’, ‘gay’, and ‘bisexual’ are used to define the identities of the campus community
By 2004, the office is now called the Office of LGBT Affairs, as seen in the February and March event calendars here. There are now more identities represented in the label given to the office, in this case the identities of ‘bisexual’ and ‘transgender’ as represented by the ‘B’ and ‘T’ in LGBT. There are also different instances of abbreviations put forth by the Office in the event programming during these two months, including ‘LGBTA’ and ‘LGBTQ’.
The ‘Building Relationships’ report, also from 2004, continues to use the acronym “LGBT” as an identity label when describing the campus community. At this point in time, the University of Michigan has been named as one of the “Top 20 Campuses for LGBT Students”, while the report describes how there still needs to be connections built between members the LGBT community as well as their allies on campus.
In 2009, a proposal put forth by campus activists suggests the implementation of gender-neutral housing in order to better address the needs of students. The proposal argued that it is discriminatory to treat those engaging in gender non-conforming behavior, expression, and identity as "special cases," a label which the proposal contended was harmful. The report uses "transgender" as an identity label, as well as "gender non-conforming" and "gender-neutral"
In 2009, the Open House even seen here uses the identity labels of "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, ally, and similarly-identified community" to describe the queer community on campus. This inclusivity is also reflected in the office's name, which is now the "Spectrum Center," indicating a commitment to representing the full spectrum of identities beyond just “LGBT”.
In 2011, during the 40th anniversary celebration of the Spectrum Center, this shift towards more inclusive language continues. One event for a "Pride picnic" describes how "everyone under the rainbow" is invited. This inclusivity can be directly compared to Jim Toy’s speech about the origin of the center, highlighting how it has evolved from its initial stages to upflit a more inclusive array of identities.