Laurier undergraduate student finds queer community on campus through research and advocacy

May 29, 2023

In her research paper titled “Limp Wrists, Clenched Fists,” Neha Verma studied the use of queer performance art as a tool for political resistance. She felt uplifted by queer artists who channeled their oppression into drag and parody, using humour and eroticism to resist bigotry.

“Many of us see hate and feel defeated by it, but these artists took something painful and turned it into something that they could build community around,” says Verma, who recently completed her fourth year of Wilfrid Laurier University’s Law and Society program. “It’s inspiring to see an alternative way to respond collectively.”

Verma, too, has found strength in community at Laurier, serving as coordinator of the Queer Sphere on the Brantford campus and a student outreach assistant for sexual violence response at the Office of Human Rights and Conflict Management. As she prepares to graduate, she reflects on how research and advocacy enhanced her student experience at Laurier.

What was an example of queer performance art that stood out to you during your research?

During the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States, Mark Doty used performance art poetry as a tool to resist the state's neglectful and homophobic responses. What really inspires me is the legacy of queer people confronting their oppression head on and thinking, “What tools do I have to fight back against this?" A lot of this resistance is educational work. These artists create a space for reflection through their art and audience members can begin to dissect their own biases, or even begin to mobilize against the oppression they're facing.

Has that approach informed your own activism?

Definitely. I have a background in performance art and my cultural background is Indian. A lot of our ancestors used textile art as a way of resisting colonial power and patriarchy, so I'm really drawn to that. It's something that has inspired my work with Queer Sphere.

Tell us about the Laurier Brantford Queer Sphere.

Queer Sphere is a student support service under Laurier’s Centre for Student Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. We run programming for events like Transgender Day of Remembrance, when we hold a vigil. We also create community spaces, like queer trivia nights. It’s a place for queer people to meet other queer people on campus and feel like they are part of a community.

Why is it important to have queer-specific spaces?

Because queerness and queer identity are placed in the margins by our sociolegal systems, a lot of the time in public spaces, queer people can feel ostracized or alienated or othered. Queer-specific spaces allow us to walk into rooms where people look like us and reflect us. It’s an amazing way to be seen and explore your own identity and expression, because when we see ourselves reflected, we have more space to truly come into ourselves. I think there's a lot of beauty in that.

What sort of work do you do with Laurier’s Sexual Violence Response team?

I do a lot of outreach for sexual violence education. We have an annual sexual violence response certificate program which I've been running alongside my colleagues for the past three years. It's open to all students and helps folks develop a more intersectional understanding of the ways sexual violence functions. I got introduced to this job through my role at Queer Sphere. Getting involved with extracurricular volunteer experiences has allowed me to meet so many people outside of my program, in different years and with different experiences.

During your time at Laurier, you decided to pursue your master’s degree in gender studies rather than become a lawyer as you’d originally intended. How did engaging with research help shape that decision?

Working on my research paper brought a lot of joy because I was learning about the community-based activism that queer people have engaged in throughout history. And because it was really enjoyable for me, it made me feel like maybe research is something I can do. I had never seen myself in that role before. I haven’t had many racialized professors, or any racialized queer professors, so I didn’t know that research was something that was accessible to me. I never saw myself reflected in it. But through this project, I stumbled upon the work of people with similar experiences to me, and that was a huge factor in my pursuit of academia.