Queer Bombing

I am not sure if just in the spirit of a newly elected President of the Unites States that inaugural events seem to be exciting now, but today was the Inauguration of the new chancellor of the University of California, Riverside.  The theme chosen for the event was "Living The Promise;" the new Chancellor Timothy White shared what that theme means to him in his vision for the UCR community.

Today a group of students (including myself) decided that this would be an appropriate event to queer bomb.

Queer Bomb --verb-- 1. the collective action of a large group of persons gathering in a public space that is either 1. usually crowded and dominated by heterosexuals and/or heteronormative ideals OR 2. does not usually include queer/LGBT people or ideas for the purpose of increasing Queer Visibilitity, creating a Safer Space for queers in the public sphere through safety in numbers, and/or confronting normative hetero space to recognize, coexist, and converse with Queer persons and Queer presentations and Queer existance.

Example (used in a sentence): "Did you know we are going to queer bomb the bowling alley on friday night? Don't forget to wear your queer bomb t-shirt, it's mandatory!"

Definition provided by UCSB Queer Bombers.

We want Chancellor White to acknowledge and recognize the FULL diversity of the UCR community.  We wore our queer bomb shirts (with that logo on them) to the Inauguration and certainly got a lot of recognition and received many compliments.

The ASUCR (Associated Students) President told us how awesome it was that she could she see and recognize us from the bleachers while she gave her speech from the stage.

Chancellor White also greeted us and took a group picture with us.  He told us he was very proud of our community!  He was a great guy!

We felt this visibility was important, because so often LGBTQ people are left out of the vision for diversity.  We cannot let any communities go unrecognized or unacknowledged.  Putting faces to the topic and issues make them personal.

The events ended with a citrus tasting, which I was quite new to this concept of a "citrus tasting;" I am now a huge fan!

UPDATE:  This photo is actually from the UCR website in their section for the Inauguration.  Now the whole UCR community can see Chancellor White's support for the LGBTQ community on campus.