Iowa LGBTQ Students Band Together To Protect Each Other

This year’s legislative session activated young Iowans to speak out on issues ranging from private schools to LGBTQ rights to gun violence. Starting Line connected with members of some of the student groups leading the action and invited them to talk about how their organizations work, what inspired them to get involved, and what the future holds for them. This is part three of a multi-part series. You can read part one here and part two here.

Katy Crowley was still in the closet when she was in high school, but since coming out, she has been a vocal advocate for queer youth in Iowa.

“I can remember how intimidating the whole college process is, and I can remember how intimidating it is to be queer in high school when not everyone is,” said Crowley, who attended Valley High School in West Des Moines before earning her associate degree from Des Moines Area Community College.

Her past experience is one of the reasons why Crowley and other Iowa college and high school students created the Iowa Queer Student Alliance (QSA), a group focused on supporting LGBTQ youth. Crowley, now a junior at Grand View University in Des Moines, serves as the organization’s community outreach coordinator.

As the outreach coordinator, Crowley has set up most of the QSA’s events—including the March 8 rally in the Capitol Rotunda—and has been responsible for getting LGBTQ students connected to each other and to other resources. Iowa’s LGBTQ community—particularly transgender Iowans and young LGBTQ Iowans—was hit hard by this year’s legislative session, so the QSA and other like-minded organizations had their work cut out for them.

“It’s beautiful. It is so heartwarming. All of us are recognizing that we are all stronger together when we’re united and supporting each other,” Crowley said of the events the QSA has been part of. “Figuring out ways to do that has been truly joyful and just heartwarming.”

The organization’s main goals are to help LGBTQ students connect with each other, develop leadership skills and help students find LGBTQ-friendly colleges. For the colleges that don’t have LGBTQ-friendly policies in place, Crowley said the QSA helps students there propose those policies to their schools.

The QSA is primarily active on Instagram, but Crowley said they’re building up their website and the group has a private Discord server where they host virtual events.

“There’s a lot of students that want to be involved,” Crowley said. “They just don’t necessarily know how. So I feel like Iowa QSA is helping give that space of like, here’s what you can do for us. And then these are the skills that you need to do whatever else you want to do.”

In doing all of this work, Crowley’s learned that community is one of the most important things, particularly when your community is being attacked. That’s why the QSA also emphasizes making LGBTQ students feel like they belong.

This year, the QSA has organized around the legislative session and the bills stripping rights away from LGBTQ youth, such as restricting trans students’ bathroom access, banning gender-affirming health care, requiring school employees to out LGBTQ students to their parents and prohibiting any education about sexual orientation or gender identity until after 6th grade.

“I’m just really exhausted and tired of seeing all of these things happen without doing anything about it,” Crowley said. “This year, when our legislators started really hammering it down on the LGBTQ community, I was like, I don’t want to let this just happen without being vocal.”

“That is so insane to me that it’s considered okay, it’s considered part of your freedom of speech, to say these hateful, horrible things about other groups. It’s disturbing and scary,” she continued. “I don’t want to live in a world where anyone has to be scared of who they are.”

And it’s not easy being a student and an activist, so Crowley said that makes it even more important to have connections within your group as well as to other student groups.

At Capital City Pride this year, the QSA will have a booth and Crowley invited members from other organizations to join them for a day. The QSA also works closely with Iowa WTF, Iowa CORE, and March For Our Lives Iowa.

It’s easier to talk to people who are close to you in age and have some of the same formative experiences, Crowley explained.

Being a student activist brings a risk of drawing attention—and potential harassment—to yourself, and Crowley said she couldn’t get through it without people in her community.

“I’ve never felt more loved and supported in my entire life than I have this past year and especially this past semester. Being able to connect with all these people has been life-changing, and I want everyone to be able to experience that,” she said.

“Everyone needs human connection,” Crowley continued. “And I think that’s also how people can fall down the slippery slope of getting into some of these more hateful groups. They feel connected and heard. And I wish that there were ways that people can feel that way without having to go down those slippery slopes.”

Nikoel Hytrek
5/24/23

[inline-ad id=”0″]

If you enjoy stories like these, make sure to sign up for Iowa Starting Line’s main newsletter and/or our working class-focused Worker’s Almanac newsletter.

Have a story idea or something I should know? Email me at [email protected]. You can also DM me on Twitter at @n_hytrek. 

​​Iowa Starting Line is part of an independent news network and focuses on how state and national decisions impact Iowans’ daily lives. We rely on your financial support to keep our stories free for all to read. You can contribute to us here. Find ISL on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.