The Occidental published Vivian Pei’s club profile on September 30. Trans Action Front of Occidental College is new this fall. Founder Tessa Taylor, a junior, stood outside the Arthur G. Coons Administrative Center for the photo on September 24. Treasurer Nicole Smith is a senior. The ask in the piece is not a ranking. It is a corner for clothes.
The Vermont Cynic ran UVM as the #1 LGBTQ-friendly college a day earlier. Millersville put PrideFest on the calendar for October 15 with a free thrift table. Those are three different objects. Steal the hanger.
We already wrote that UND’s Pride Center is a room, not a blog anniversary. A new club is even earlier in that sequence. It does not have a department yet. It has a list.
The club is a list with officers
Taylor’s quote is the founding document. It never seemed like there was a space for her on campus. Before TAFOC, there were not really many LGBT-focused organizations. She wanted a group so people did not have to do things alone. That is a community story because it names the gap in the existing org chart, not because it vibes.
The events on the record are still in the works. Transgender Day of Remembrance. Day of Visibility. Karaoke or movie nights, format unknown. Treat those as calendar holds, not as proof the club has a room. A movie night without a booked space is a group chat. Ask which office signs the reservation.
Smith said faculty and students have been friendly and supportive, and that the college is aware of trans issues. Her example is specific: a packet in the library about starting hormone replacement therapy. A packet is not a clinic. It is still more useful than a rainbow sticker on a syllabus. If your campus is not Occidental, walk to the library and see whether that packet exists. If it does not, that is the first inventory item, the same way we told you to inventory a center before you need it.
Drey Chan, a junior who is not a TAFOC member, is the control group in the same article. They knew Taylor meant to launch before the semester. Occidental is where they could explore identity in ways that were not available in Hong Kong. They are not in explicitly queer orgs. They go to queer events, lived in the queer Themed Living Community, and named Oxy BlackPines Rugby and Glee Club as places that already behave like community. Rugby sits in a circle after training and reintroduces names and pronouns. People can change both. That is a practice you can copy without founding a club. It is also not a closet.
If your campus already has a GSA, a Pride Center, and a themed floor, TAFOC’s existence is still the tell. A trans-specific org showed up because the broader queer infrastructure did not feel like enough. Do not argue with that from a ranking page. Ask the officers what they cannot get from the existing center.
The closet is the product
Taylor’s material initiative is the line to steal. A year-round closet in the Lavender Lounge or the Intercultural Community Center. A corner with gender-affirming clothing in as many sizes as they can gather. Her reason is not fashion. When you are transitioning, you have to get rid of basically your entire wardrobe, and the costs add up fast.
That is a storage problem with a community attached. It needs a rack, a size sort, hours someone will restock, and a room that is not locked when the one student with the key has class. Lounge vs ICC is a facilities fight. Pick the room that already has foot traffic from the people who need the clothes. A closet that lives in a storage cage behind an office that closes at 4 p.m. is a donation pile.
Millersville’s PrideFest, on October 15, already built a temporary version. The 13th annual event near National Coming Out Day adds, new this year, an Out of the Closet free thrift organized by the President’s Commission on Gender and Sexual Diversity. It sits next to the free celebration: WIXQ, face painting, balloon art, and more than a dozen vendors including the LGBT Center of Central PA and the Rainbow Rose Center. A once-a-year table is not year-round. It is proof the clothes can move if someone staffs a table.
If you are on a campus without TAFOC, the steal is still the corner. Ask Student Life whether a lounge will accept a rack. Ask the GSA whether they will take donations in labeled size bins, not garbage bags. We already said to judge a rainbow sticker like a procurement list. Sizes on hangers are procurement.
Do not turn the closet into a branding wall. The clothes have to leave on someone’s back. If the rack is only full for photos, you built a display.
Hameetman has no gender-neutral bathroom
Smith’s facilities complaint is a map, not a vibe. The number and placement of gender-neutral restrooms is inconsistent across buildings. The college has already converted some single-occupancy bathrooms, so Smith argues it is not impossible. Hameetman Science Center completely lacks them.
Walk your own science building with that sentence in your pocket. Single-occupancy conversions are the cheap version. They do not require a remodel of a gang bathroom. If your STEM hall has none, the club’s first win might be a sign on a lockable room that already exists. That is less glamorous than a day of visibility. It is how people stay in the building between labs.
Taylor listed gender-neutral restroom access, transgender healthcare, and policies beyond campus as issues TAFOC plans to tackle. Rank those in the order you can photograph. A bathroom door is a photograph. A state bill is not a club meeting. Keep the off-campus policy work, but do not let it postpone the signage.
Emmons already refills ADHD meds
Smith’s healthcare ask is also a comparison, which is why it belongs in a campus story instead of a medical advice column. Beginning gender-affirming care has to happen off-campus. Other help is available on paper: let preexisting hormone prescriptions refill at Emmons Wellness Center. Emmons already refills ADHD medication. The precedent is in the same building.
Wait times to start seeing providers are extremely long in Smith’s experience, which pushes people toward inconvenient off-campus clinics. The Bengal Bus giving rides to those appointments is the transportation version of the same ask. A campus that will not start HRT can still move a student to the clinic that will. If your campus has a shuttle, put the clinic on the route sheet. If it does not, the club’s spreadsheet is clinic address, bus number, and hours, not a mission statement.
None of that is a diagnosis and none of it is a protocol. It is a facilities and transit list, the same genre as the bathroom map. Copy the list. Do not copy a dose.
Rugby already does the circle
Chan’s rugby detail is the community practice that does not need a new org to start tomorrow. End of training, sit in a circle, names and pronouns, permission to change them. Glee Club is named in the same breath as queer-inclusive. Themed Living Community is housing, which is a different product we have covered in other weeks.
If you are starting a trans club on a campus that already has rugby, choir, and a themed floor, go to those rooms before you book a speaker. Count who already shows up. TAFOC can still be necessary. It should not pretend those rooms are empty. Taylor’s own line at the end is “strengthening the communities we have” first, then using the club as an activism base when the time is right. Sequence matters. A club that skips the existing circle will wonder why the movie night is empty.
Chan’s housing note is the other existing product. They lived in the queer Themed Living Community. That is a door with a roster, not a club Instagram. If your campus has a themed floor, ask how people actually get assigned to it, and whether the application closed in the spring. A new org cannot rebuild that in October. It can walk new members to the housing office with the form name written down. UCF’s speed-friending piece we already ran was a table with flags. Same idea: the object you can attend this month beats the org that is still writing bylaws.
NCAA sports policy shows up in Taylor’s comments as a future voice TAFOC hopes to be: permissions, classification, documentation, a blanket ban on trans women regardless of how long they have been on estrogen. She called it messy, including room for accusations about trans status. That is advocacy, and it is also not the closet. Keep it on the agenda after the rack has hours. A first-semester club that leads with a national athletic-policy fight will skip the bathroom map that Smith can win locally. Hameetman is a building you can walk to. The NCAA handbook is not.
Jackie Aliotta, Millersville’s director of campus life, described PrideFest as a reminder of nine dimensions of wellness, not one. The quote is institutional. The useful objects next to it are still the free thrift and the $5 student ticket. If your student-life office only knows how to write a wellness paragraph, send them the vendor list: Embrace Lancaster, Lancaster Chooses Love, LGBT Center of Central PA, Sweetish, Rainbow Rose Center. Community groups on the Quad are how a one-day festival becomes a phone number someone can text in November.
A $5 ticket is not a lounge
Millersville’s Monster Ball is a paid show on top of a free festival. Students get one discounted ticket for $5 through Get Involved with a password in the event description. Alumni and community pay $20. Faculty, staff, and other college students pay $10. That is a door price. It is a legitimate community event. It is still a night.
UVM’s ranking, from the student paper, is a night of a different kind. Rankings do not hang clothes, refill a prescription, or put a sign on Hameetman. If your administration forwards a “most friendly” list this week, reply with the bathroom map and the closet hours.
The steal from September 30 is small enough to fit in an email to Student Life. Name of lounge. Corner for a rack. Size bins. Library packet, or the lack of one. Shuttle to the off-campus clinic. Circle after practice. If those exist, you have a community. If they do not, a new club is the honest response, and the first deliverable is still a hanger.
