Joyfully Queer: 12 Essential Insights on LGBTQ+ Life at Sterling College
At Sterling College, we embrace and celebrate the diversity of our community. As June rolls in, we join the rest of the world in commemorating Pride Month, a time to honor and uplift the LGBTQIA+ community. We stand together in support for all who choose love, with a vision toward equity and belonging. Sterling College is a place where love knows no bounds, and where everyone's unique journey is celebrated. Our campus radiates with inclusivity, understanding, and a vibrant kaleidoscope of identities. Let's come together, amplify queer voices, and create a space where everyone feels safe, seen, and empowered. This month and always, we proudly celebrate love, authenticity, and the beautiful spectrum of human expression available to each of us.
More than half of our community and half of our senior leadership team identifies as queer!
Being the only queer human at any event at Sterling is an incredibly rare occurrence. However, even if you were to find yourself in such a situation, rest assured that you would be embraced by a community of people who genuinely love and support you. Our powerful commitment to your well-being and safety is unwavering.
Moxie, (they/them), our Dean of Admission, lives on campus in Firefly House. Favor, (she/her), our Dean of Community, lives on the other side of campus in the Corner House. Both gleefully fly the progress flag from their porches, bookending the campus with queer love and joy, and a very clear message about queer belonging at Sterling.
Every single bathroom on campus is gender neutral. Many bathrooms are single-use. This is important because everyone needs to be able to pee safely and in peace, and on their own schedule.
In Vermont, Pride Month is celebrated in June just like the rest of the country. However, Vermont takes it a step further by also celebrating Pride Week in September, coinciding with the return of all the students to the state. At Sterling College, we go above and beyond to celebrate Pride every minute we can.
Sterling loves marching in the Pride parade in Burlington. We haul our garden carts full of campus-grown vegetables and flowers and hand them out to all the cuties lining the parade route. People are so happy to go home after a full day of queer revelry with a giant zucchini!
We have a large collection of chest binders that you can try-on and take home.
Vermont has one of the highest rates of LGBTQIA+ people in the United States.
Vermont has the most comprehensive transgender healthcare protections in the United States.
Our ReUse room (where the community gathers for clothing exchange) is sorted by type of clothes, (pants, tops, shoes) because we know clothes have no gender.
We love carpooling to Fox Market on the weekends for queer dance parties and community.
We have disco lights and a bubble machine because we believe in less hate, more disco.