Student Life: LGBTU Collection

The Oberlin College Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Union, also known as the LGBTU, was an Oberlin College student group that supported LGBTQ+ students. The LGBTU existed from 1971 to the early 2000s. It was founded as Gay Liberation and eventually became a part of the Multicultural Resource Commons (MRC). Throughout its existence on campus, the LGBTU offered programming to LGBTQ+ students, including participating in national organizing efforts, running educational events, and providing community spaces for students to gather. Throughout the organization’s history, it was rechartered several times. The original charter for Gay Liberation was approved in 1971. Gay Liberation was rechartered and renamed the Gay Union in 1977. In 1984, it was rechartered again as the Lesbian and Gay Union. In 1988, it was renamed the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Union. In 1997, the LGBU added a “T” to its name to represent transgender students. In 2003, student board members wrote an editorial in the Oberlin Review, saying that the LGBTU would be known as the “Lambda U,” or simply, “The U,” but few materials produced by the organization reflect this change. Over a period of time in the mid-2000s, the LGBTU's functions were absorbed by the MRC, which added a LGBTQ+ Community Coordinator to its staff in the mid-1990s.

The LGBTU’s signature programming included Pride Week celebrations (week-long festivities featuring film screenings, lectures, dances, and picnics), Coming Out Day events, Trans Awareness Week, and Drag Ball. Drag Ball was the largest student event on Oberlin’s campus in the 1990s, with attendance totaling over 1,600 people in 1997. Drag Ball began in 1991 in response to the success of the popular “Lesbutante” or “Lesbitante” Balls hosted in the 1980s. Drag Ball has been an annual tradition at Oberlin since that time, despite setbacks that resulted in the event’s cancellation in 2010. In April of 1998, the LGBTU and LGBT Community Coordinator Cara Wick organized Oberlin College’s first Trans Awareness Week in response to student requests to support the LGBTU’s representation of transgender students through programming as well as in the change to the organization's name. Oberlin's Trans Awareness Week was widely reported to have been the first of its kind on a college campus in the United States, according to a letter written by Holly Boswell OC ’72 in the Oberlin Alumni Magazine and an article by journalist Dawn Leach in the Gay People’s Chronicle. Trans Awareness Week continued to be hosted in April throughout the early 2000s, supported by the LGBTU and the MRC's LGBT Community Coordinator.

The LGBTU contributed to programming and events on campus for many student groups, frequently collaborating with groups such as Zami and Queer Peers. At times, the College's records identify the LGBTU as the parent organization of organizations that are included in the same charter but operate autonomously, such as the Bisexual Community group (1984). LGBTQ+ programming became the responsibility of the MRC from the 2000s to 2024, when the Office of Gender, Sexuality, and Attraction Initiatives (GSAI) expanded into a standalone office to support programming for LGBTQ+ students. As of 2025, GSAI maintains the efforts of the LGBTU alongside student groups such as LILAC (which focuses on trans students and programming).

Note written by Lee Must.