The mission of the Gender and Sexuality Center (GSC) is to provide opportunities for all members of the UT Austin community to explore, organize, and promote learning around issues of gender and sexuality. The center also facilitates a greater responsiveness to the needs of women and the LGBTQ communities through education, outreach, and advocacy.
The road to establishing the Gender and Sexuality Center goes back decades. After separately establishing the Women’s Resource Center in 1997 and the GLBTA Agency in 2001, the two groups decided to pursue a joint center in the spring of 2002 in order to demonstrate greater student demand and establish an organization that would have greater long-term sustainability. The groups benefited from a new Dean of Students, Teresa Graham Brett, who was sensitive to women’s and GLBTQ issues and a new Student Government President, Brian Haley, who campaigned on a promise to establish a Gender and Sexuality Center. A proposal for a Gender and Sexuality Center was approved in March 2004 and its doors officially opened in August of that year. Since its establishment, the GSC continues to grow in attendance and visibility.