A safe space at Simon's Rock

The Bard Queer Leadership Project (BQLP), originally slated to begin in the fall of 2024, opened its doors a year ahead of schedule.

Due to the alarming rise in anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation nationwide aimed particularly at schools of all levels, from elementary through college, the starting date was pushed up to September 2023, making this the first year for this progressive program.

Carla Stephens, director of the new project on the campus of Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Mass., described BQLP as a transformative space for LGBTQ+ students. The program offers a dual concentration bachelor’s degree, integrating leadership with students’ chosen fields of study.

The average age of this first BQLP cohort is 17 years old. “The project was conceived as one for traditional college-aged students seeking their B.A. degrees and a couple of current BQLP participants are 18 and older,” said Stephens. “We are very excited to invite high school seniors and college transfer students to apply to the BQLP. “

Simon’s Rock is known as “an early college” so when recruiting for the program, Stephens and John B. Weinstein, provost and vice president of Bard Academy and Bard College at Simon’s Rock, have found that early college applicants (ninth and 10th graders) are attracted to the opportunity to participate in the BQLP Bachelor of Arts degree program. They understand that Simon’s Rock is, and historically has been, a welcoming community for LGBTQ+ young people, faculty and staff.

Said Stephens, “We have a good proportion of our students who identify as LGBTQIA+ so it just seems very natural that this new innovation, this effort to become possibly the first LGBTQ+ college within the college, it just seems like a natural place for it to start.”

BQLP offers a safe space for students. Stephens said of the program that it is, “sadly, an escape from persecution as the current political environment seems to be becoming worse.”

From drag bans to sports restrictions, 75 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have become law in 2023 along with restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender youth the most common. In total, 21 such laws passed this year. Stephens said, “The original plan was for this project to start next year but there was an ‘urgency of now,’ to steal a phrase from the civil rights movement.”

With 13 incoming students this year, Stephens and Weinstein began working with various community partners and avenues of outreach to expand over the next few years, making BQLP the first intentionally queer-serving college in the world.

Stephens recently attended the Learning with Love Conference, the PFLAG — the nation’s first and largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and their families — convention in Washington, D.C. She said, “It was a bit sad for me to have parents of queer young people and chapter members and leaders tell me that they are grateful that our program exists.”

Stephens participated in a lobby day with PFLAG and said: “The politicians in Massachusetts, not surprisingly, are amazing. So they were fantastic visits. However, I was talking with some PFLAG members from Texas and their meeting with an assistant to [Sen.] Ted Cruz [R-Texas] was terrible. The assistant actually denied the existence of trans folks to a trans person. It was terrible. And so, again, it’s sad that we are we are so necessary.”

BQLP’s curriculum is further enriched through its speaker series, The Queer Leaders Vision Forum, which provides opportunities for students, as well as other audience members, to learn about leadership and the LGBTQ+ community directly from LGBTQ+ leaders.

The four pillars of the BQLP are: queer leadership in theory and practice; queer theory; queer history and culture; and career pathways.

Through storytelling about their lived experience, intellectual exploration, career paths and visions for the future, the forum guests are models and provoke areas of inquiry for the program’s students.

In December 2023, the forum’s guest was Paula M. Neira, a nurse, lawyer and renowned trans rights and health care advocate.

Neira graduated with distinction from the United States Naval Academy in 1985, where she served as a surface warfare officer until 1991 when she came to terms with her gender identity. At that point, serving as an openly transgender woman in the military wasn’t an option, which led Neira to leave the Navy behind and begin a career in nursing.

“Nursing allowed me to have a career path where I could continue to serve,” said Neira.

Neira served as an emergency room nurse for five years before attending law school.

Of her varied career as a nurse, lawyer and naval officer, Neira said the common thread was helping other people. She said leaving the Navy was the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life but added: “I didn’t give up my calling. I gave up my career in uniform because my calling, that sense of purpose, is service. It’s finding ways to try to make the world a little better for everyone. I’ve always considered myself blessed that I could do that.”

Because of her work, Neira shared: “There are now midlevel officers, senior officers that know nothing of being in a service that doesn’t accept them. That’s a wonderful thing. We have, unfortunately, the realization that those breakthroughs, that progress, is now probably threatened.”

Neira explained that “don’t ask, don’t tell” was essentially a compromise — one could stay in the military as long as they also stayed in the closet. She said: “it forced people to constantly compromise their honor, which also constantly compromises the honor of institutions because there is no honor when you ask people to lie. There’s no moral courage in forcing policies that were grounded in ignorance and prejudice.”

Neira was emotional and vulnerable with the small crowd and inspired applause by saying: “Yes. You should feel righteous anger. But then you need to channel that anger into, ‘How can I make change that’s going to achieve what I want to achieve?’ And it’s incremental, folks. So you have to think in terms of evolution, not revolution and you also have to take care of yourself. This is a long fight.”