About Us
Catered specifically to Colby’s queer community, The Bridge is Colby’s all-inclusive, LGBTQIA2S+ student-run club. We work on intersectional community building through campus outreach/education and justice-based action. The Bridge strives to create and foster spaces that serve the diverse range of identities at Colby and sponsors events such as Tea Times, Family Dinners, and our annual Transgender November Month and Pride Week programming. All Colby students, whether they identify as queer or allies, are encouraged to attend our events. Members plan events that they want to happen at Colby, and this member involvement directly translates into a more empowered, unified, and engaged community on campus. Often within the LGBTQIA2S+ community, queer experiences are centered around those who identify as cisgender, white men. As part of our goal to be as inclusive and equitable as possible, The Bridge will be a space that centers the experiences of QTPOC within our work; we strive to create spaces where all members of our community feel welcomed. This means that our club will not tolerate the values of white supremacy, misogyny, transphobia, ableism, colonialism, and other forms of oppressive principles. In order to guide this work, we draw upon these (updated) quotes from “Queers Read This”: “Being queer is not about a right to privacy; it is about the freedom to be public, to just be who we are. It means everyday fighting oppression; homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny … and our own self-hatred. Being queer means leading a different sort of life. It’s not about the mainstream, profit-margins, patriotism, patriarchy or being assimilated. It’s not about executive directors, privilege and elitism. It’s about being on the margins, defining ourselves; it’s about gender-fuck and secrets, what’s beneath the belt and deep inside the heart; it’s about the night.” Therefore, we strive to draw upon and learn from our QTPOC elders who have led the continuous fights for queer rights and seek to continue this work within our own programming.
