Members of the Social Workers Advocating for Equality club set up a table March 25 in Free Speech Alley to encourage students to engage in conversation about LGBTQ women’s issues as part of Women’s History Month.

Graduate students Madelyn Operario, Miya Tate and Abby Taylor are members of the club and host a series of table sits once a month to discuss relevant and timely issues. 

“As a social worker, I feel obligated to have the voice for the voiceless. So, with that, birthed the table sit series,” Tate said.

For Women’s History Month, the table-sit was geared toward discussing three bills: the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, a bill that would ban discussion of LGBTQ topics in kindergarten through eighth grade classrooms in Louisiana; Senate Bill 156, a bill that bans transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports; and House Bill 570, a bill that prevents transgender people from receiving health and mental health coverage, Operario said.

Operario said there was a march being held in New Orleans to protest these bills on the day of the table sit, March 25,  and that their table ties into that discussion.

“We’re really just trying to show unity to women or really anyone in the LGBTQ community, and we’re just showing the community that they’re not alone, that we are here,” Operario said. “Especially in some fields, like STEM, or something like that, it can feel kinda isolating if you’re the only woman in your field.”

The club members also conducted a survey about women’s opinions on campus safety.

The survey was conducted using fliers that students could fill out and return to the table. The data collected from the survey will help show statistics about how safe women feel on LSU’s campus at different times of the day. 

“As a woman, I do sometimes feel unsafe on campus. I work on campus. I leave sometimes late at night, especially when it’s still dark,” Taylor said. “It’s pretty common for all the girls to link up and walk together, but there is still some unsafe on campus. There have been so many incidents on campus about violence with women.”  

Tate, vice president of Social Workers Advocating for Equality, says the table sit-series highlights different issues every month.

“Every month, we pick a population or a demographic to focus on to highlight basically the injustices,” Tate said. “For example, for February, we did a Black History Month table sit, and we kind of highlighted the injustices that Black LSU students encounter in their everyday lives of being Black at a PWI (predominantly white institute).”

Tate says the series has been growing since its start, and she loves interacting with students and listening to their stories.

“I’m so excited because our first table sit series had like 30 people come, and it’s been a growing population ever since,” Tate said. “I think our last table sit had over 200 people stop by getting fliers and telling us stories about basically their time at LSU.”