LGBTQ+ History Month programs held throughout October were designed both to help connect the queer community at Trinity and to educate and enrich the campus as a whole, said Crystal Nieves ’08, M’23, director of LGBTQ+ life and Trinity’s Queer Resource Center.
“This month was all about digging in deep to some of our traditions and roots around activism on campus, and about visibility for the queer community,” Nieves said. “This year, we thought in particular about Trinity’s role in the queer history of Hartford.”
The October 22 panel, “Queer Hartford: Our Stories,” was moderated by Richard Stillson, visiting associate professor of the practice in psychology at Trinity, who was also a panelist. In addition to being a licensed psychologist who spent 26 years working for the state of Connecticut, Stillson also is a longtime LGBTQ activist and is well known in the region as the drag personality Mucha Mucha Placer.
Nieves said, “I remember back when Professor Stillson was teaching at Central [Connecticut State University] while I was also working there, they were a powerhouse of love for every student on campus who needed it, especially trans students. I was familiar with their work and activism in Hartford. Professor Stillson is a treasure of Hartford, of Connecticut, and now I’m proud to say of Trinity.”
Stillson said during the panel that Trinity has long been a hub for queer life and for queer organizing in Hartford. “This campus is so significant to queer Hartford,” they said. “There used to be a gay-owned café on Zion Street down the hill, the Arts and Leisure Coffeehouse. After going to Cinestudio and watching movies—and you know there have been queer movies here throughout the decades—we would move down there.”
The 1990 documentary film, Paris is Burning—which Stillson and many others saw at Cinestudio—inspired the local gay community to host drag balls in Hartford, they said. “In our effort to put these events on, we raised about $100,000 for aid service organizations, the former gay and lesbian community center, and the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective, which is still here,” Stillson said. “And I want to inspire any activists out here: we need a community center back in Hartford.” In spring 2025, Stillson will teach the psychology course “Human Sexuality” at Trinity.
The other panelists were: Evelyn Mantilla, a former member of the Connecticut House of Representatives and LGBTQ activist; Regina Dyton, former chair of the Hartford LGBTQ Commission, LGBTQ activist, and AIDS crisis activist; and the Rev. Aaron Miller, pastor of MCC Church in Hartford and a trans rights activist. Watch the panel discussion here.
Nieves said, “Each panelist talked about queer Hartford, their memories, and their history. The panel morphed into an empowering conversation about queer Hartford’s future, how Trinity is involved, and how young people can be a part of the movement. Anyone at that talk left with the sense that no matter what, there’s always something you can be doing.”
Leon Dell’Era ’27, a student worker in the Queer Resource Center, helped to organize this panel after taking a class with Stillson last semester. “We wanted a way not only for queer students to know that they belong here, but for students in general to know that there is a rich queer history in Hartford, on Trinity’s campus and beyond,” Dell’Era said.
Nieves added, “I hope that every time we do this programming in October, it helps students understand that they’re a part of the ongoing historical narrative in the present.”
During Ally Week, which was October 16 to 18, members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies held the annual night of “pride chalking,” during which they wrote messages of pride and inclusion in chalk on the sidewalks across campus. “For a while, that action on campus became something that felt like a fun, social thing, but the message of just how dangerous, consequential, and difficult that visible activism movement was in the 1990s to 2000s got lost,” Nieves said. “The impact of doing that is so different when you do it with the mentality that you’re part of that movement, that there’s activism in it.”
Nieves and Dell’Era are both members of the LGBTQ+ Committee of Trinity’s Task Force on Campus Climate. The committee will develop an action plan focused on creating a more inclusive campus environment. Nieves said that while there is still much work to be done, Trinity has been recognized recently with a 5-star rating on the Campus Pride Index for the second year and also received its second Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award.
One tool to help that committee and the entire community to better understand LGBTQ+ life at Trinity is the exhibit “A Queer History of Trinity College,” which was on display at the library throughout the month. “Knowing our history is essential to understanding our present and successfully advancing our future,” said Nieves, who assembled the research project for Trinity’s Bicentennial in 2023. View the story map online here.
Other events held during the month included Pride Mass at the Trinity College Chapel, screenings of the films Seahorse Parents and We Have Never Been Modern at Cinestudio, a mixer for LGBTQ+ faculty, staff, and students, and a QRC open house and alumni reception during Fall Weekend.
