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Mesa Pride Center

 

Welcome to our Pride Center Website!

The Pride Center at San Diego Mesa College aims to promote a safe environment where LGBTQIA+ students, staff, faculty, and allies can be their authentic selves, feel welcomed, comfortable and at home. Whether you identify as LGBTQIA+ or an ally, thank you for visiting our page.

Remember, there is always a place for you on our campus!

Join our mailing list to receive information about our resources, events, and much more!

Pride Center Services

The Pride Center offers centralized services for LGBTQIA+ students:

  • Academic/Career/Personal Counseling
  • Specialized Workshops – Identity, academic, mental health related
  • Computer Lab and Printing
  • School Supplies
  • Pride Library filled with LGBTQIA+ affirming literature and authors
  • Safe Zone Trainings offered to students and faculty
  • Gender-Sexuality Alliance Student Organization meetings
  • Space to connect with other folx
  • Free Personal Hygiene & Care Supplies
  • Connections to Community Resources
  • Leadership Opportunities
  • and much more!

lgbtqia+ Library

What is the LGBTQIA+ Library?

Hello Mesa Olympians! We are excited to inform you that your San Diego Mesa College Pride Center will be opening an LGBTQIA+ Library in the near future. This library will consist of literature that are representative of the diverse identities within our community and that which reflect Mesa's student and faculty populations. Such books can include LGBTQIA+ representation in characters or may be written by LGBTQIA+ identifying authors.

Share your recommendations for LGBTQIA+ literature. Fill out our form.

Mesa's Pride Resource Guide - Learn more about LGBTQIA+ Pride by checking out Mesa College's Pride Resource Guide. This guide consists of everything regarding our LGBTQIA+ history and the emergence of the Pride movement. The Pride Resource Guide is brought to you by Mesa Learning Resource Center and the Equity & Engagement Librarian, Edeama Onwuchekwa.

pronouns

Why are Pronouns Important?

Using someone’s correct pronouns is a way to respect, affirm, and validate them. This creates an inclusive environment for our LGBTQIA+ community. This is similar to how we use a person’s name as a sign of respect. Just as it is offensive to not use someone's preferred name, it can be offensive to guess at someone’s pronouns and refer to them using those pronouns if that is not how that person identifies. Or worse, by actively choosing to ignore the pronouns someone has stated that they go by , this could imply that their identity is not valid. This is especially harmful toward intersex, transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people.

Why Pronouns Matter

Additional Resources

how to be an ally

What is Ally-ship? 

Ally-ship is used in contemporary social justice activism to describe efforts by groups of people, to advance the interests of marginalized groups, both in society at large, and within in particular social contexts, such as universities or workplaces. The term and related behaviors are controversial, with critics alleging that it is an ideological, performative, and insincere term that may ignore prior concepts of tolerance and solidarity.

How can you take action as an Ally?

  1. Dialogue and Ally-ship
    Moving toward positive change will require people to listen and engage in genuine, diverse, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about differences and ideologies about the LGBTQIA+ community.  Being in structured, well-facilitated, and open dialogues that affirm the diversity and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ allow personal and community learning.
  2. Cultural Consciousness
    The process of developing awareness of culture in the self, which can result in expanding understandings of culture and developing deeper cultural knowledge about other individuals and contexts.
  3. Advocacy and Partnerships
    Through collective advocacy, we enable partners to benefit from each other's comparative advantages and leverage, while respecting each other's independence, uniqueness and diversity of interests.
  4. Inclusion and Accountability
    A willingness to see these differences and to make an effort to promote equity eliminating "otherness" even while acknowledging difference. Allies do not speak for or over the communities they support, they stand with them. It's hard, it takes practice, but it makes for genuine community.

Mesa Ally List

The San Diego Mesa College LGBTQ+ Ally/Out List, featuring members of the Mesa community who proudly serve as advocates for respect, inclusivity, and acceptance. This directory is comprised of faculty, staff, and administrators who choose to identify themselves as either allies or members of the LGBTQ+ community.

San Diego Mesa College LGBTQ+ Ally/Out List