In a haunting yet defiant farewell, about 50 Iowa State University students gathered in silence and resistance this week — dressed in black and circling a rainbow-draped coffin — to mourn the death of their LGBTQ+ sanctuary, the Center for LGBTQIA+ Student Success. The shutdown wasn’t a budget cut. It was a direct result of Iowa’s new anti-DEI legislation — Senate File 2435 — and it’s sending a very clear, very ugly message to queer students: your existence is political, and now, inconvenient.
The funeral outside Parks Library wasn’t symbolic — it was a very real goodbye. The Center, once a hub of queer affirmation, education, and visibility, was axed under a sweeping state law that bans universities from promoting terms like “allyship,” “intersectionality,” and “gender theory.” The goal? Erase anything that dares to acknowledge privilege, oppression, or the fact that gender isn’t black and white. Now, the Center’s old website description — a place where LGBTQIA+ students could “explore who they are” — has been replaced with sterile phrasing about generic academic goals. One student described it as “a gut punch,” and frankly, she’s not wrong.
“It was a space that celebrated queer joy and accomplishment, academically and personally,” said Silvera Dudenhoefer, one of the student mourners. “Above all, it was a clear mark that LGBTQIA+ students mattered to this school.” But now, that mark has been scrubbed off, all in the name of “neutrality” — a flimsy cover for a reactionary political agenda that makes queer students collateral damage in the culture war.
The law goes into effect officially on July 1, but Iowa’s Board of Regents decided to go ahead and enforce it early, giving universities until December 31, 2024, to gut any DEI-related programming. What used to be the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Student Services since 1992 — later rebranded as “The Center” in 2019 — is now just another reservable study room, stripped of its identity like too many LGBTQ+ students have been forced to do.
This move doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s part of a larger push across the country to target LGBTQ+ visibility, especially trans rights and queer academic spaces, all under the guise of fighting “ideology.” What Iowa has done is dangerous. It leaves queer students without resources, without representation, and without the institutional validation that they, too, belong. It’s the state signaling that queer people can stay — as long as they stay silent.
For a community already battling mental health disparities, housing insecurity, and campus discrimination, removing support systems like the Center is more than a policy choice — it’s an attack. Queer students deserve more than closets and coffins. They deserve a campus that doesn’t just tolerate them, but uplifts them. Iowa State’s funeral may be the first, but if other states follow suit, it won’t be the last.