In response to conservative protestors hosting an anti-abortion event on campus, UNCA students threw a “Big Gay Spring Fling” at Reed Plaza in support of the Transgender Day of Visibility and the LGBTQ+ student population.
“We’re essentially protesting for LGBTQ rights. We’ve had many, many, many protestors come here on campus trying to dismantle the many years of fights that we’ve had,” said Maverick Riordan, a queer student attending the event.
According to Riordan, events like the Big Gay Spring Fling are important for queer students to find community on UNCA’s campus, especially for those who don’t have the support elsewhere.
“I grew up in a very conservative Christian household so I was very neglected and shunned for being a bisexual,” Riordan said, “I was not allowed to be my own person, so being here in this space with all these people that are open about who they are, that are proud to be who they are, it’s very strengthening for me.”
Another point of the protest, according to Riordan, is establishing that queer students are people too, and they aren’t going anywhere.
“We have a ton of supporters coming out– we have vogue battles, we have lip-sync battles, we have a bunch of people banding together in support and solidarity of one another,” Riordan said.
According to UNC Asheville junior Ko Dowling, the independent organizer for this event, having community and joy in the face of adversity is the best thing that can happen for resistance, especially in the current political climate.
“Queer joy is queer resilience and I wanted to have an event that really highlights that, that really highlights queer joy, unbridled being queer,” Dowling said. “To be negative is to give in, to be upset and to be hopeless is to give in. I will never be doing that, and I will never allow anyone else to do that.”
The UNCA junior said the “Big Gay Spring Fling” could also be seen as a statement to the school in response to the removal of DEI and programs that have a lot of queer history, like theater. Dowling said it won’t entice people to attend the school, but it will make more people want to leave it.
“Start promoting your queer campus and be proud that it is a queer campus. You can not cover it up, you can not just sit here and market towards people who don’t like others for who they are. This school has a lot of listening to students to do, they don’t listen to the loud majority, they listen to the silent minority,” Dowling said.
According to Dowling, one of the main reasons a lot of LGBTQ+ students attend this school is how openly queer and progressive a lot of the student body is. They said “Turning Point USA,” the club responsible for the anti-abortion protest, should not be made to feel welcome on campus if they are solely here to combat that.
“That’s weird and that’s dumb,” Dowling said. “(UNCA) can not just sit here and market towards people who don’t like others for who they are.”
According to Mickey Cody, another queer student attending the event, the school should not be giving organizations like “Turning Point” and other anti-abortion protestors as much of a platform or nearly the amount of space they have.
“In this case, this isn’t just a matter of free speech, it’s a matter of spreading misinformation,” Cody said. “Take their opening statement that abortion is violence. That is factually incorrect. You can look at this woman’s talking points and see that they are factually incorrect.”
Misinformation is already abundant in the news on all sides of the political spectrum, so Cody said that supporting an organization that conducts a misinformation campaign is incredibly dangerous.
According to Cody and Dowling, a united front is the best way to combat negativity in political spaces, and that is what the “Big Gay Spring Fling” achieved.
“We are here, we are queer and we’re never gonna leave no matter how many rules, or how many laws or how many protests these people do, we’re still going to be here. We’re still going to celebrate and we’re still going to be happy,” Dowling said.
