BUZZ
Key Takeaways
- Harvard students held a 'funeral' for the QuOffice, the university's LGBTQ office, which was closed as part of a broader shutdown of DEI offices due to Trump administration directives.
- The event featured a coffin and notes on rainbow-colored paper cranes, symbolizing grief and the emotional impact of losing a space for the LGBTQ community.
Harvard University students recent hosted a “funeral” to mourn the closure of the campus LGBTQ office, called QuOffice.
The university closed the office, along with other DEI offices, as part of a campus wide shutdown in response to Trump administration directives, the student newspaper reported.
The Friday evening funeral included a coffin and eulogy.
“Student organizers…invited attendees to write notes on rainbow-colored paper cranes and drop them into a coffin with the words ‘RIP’ inscribed onto its lid,” The Harvard Crimson reported.
“We recognize that while there are still queer communities on campus, losing physical recognition for our community has brought up a range of emotions – disappointment, frustration, sadness, confusion,” the groups wrote on Instagram prior to the event. “The QuOffice was not a perfect space, but it mattered.”
“It is said that if you get a thousand paper cranes together, you can make a wish,” one student activist said at the funeral. “So we hope that the queer community will continue to thrive here with the wishes of all of you today.”
“The death of the QuOffice is so much more than the loss of a physical space to be in community together,” Amber Simons, a director of one of the groups, said at the event. “It represents the silencing and erasure of queer voices.”
Another activist said the closure won’t deter LGBT activism.
“Under the umbrella of Culture and Community, we are going to keep creating spaces for queer joy, for folks to be together, and we’re going to keep spending Culture and Community money on gay s***,” Katie Kohn said.
The gender studies director, Caroline Light, even wore all black and a “widow’s hat” while delivering a “eulogy,” according to the student newspaper.
“Our QuOffice, as we’ve heard, was far from perfect, but it was beloved by many,” Light said. “It stood for something powerful: the radical idea that LGBTQ+ students deserve not just to survive at Harvard, but to find community — to find care and joy.”
The closure left a “gaping hole,” according to Light.
“Now, as we lower the rainbow flag at half-mast, we breathe a gaping hole in our campus community,” she said, according to the student newspaper.
“While the QuOffice may be gone, queer students remain as loud, fabulous, and stubbornly visible as ever,” Light said. “May the memory of the QuOffice be a blessing and an inspiration to us, and may its ghost continue to haunt those who would mistake cowardice for neutrality.”
Others said there are more pressing issues facing the LGBTQ community.
“I’m much more scared of the fact that I’m trans, and if I lose my passport, I can’t get another one with my gender marker right,” an individual said. “That is way more terrifying than not having a space with some free coffee and printing in the basement.”
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