If you have ever attended a campus event hosted by the LGBT Center or Women’s Center, chances are you’ve seen Jessica Flatequal running around the venue to make sure that everything is running smoothly. Jessica started her employment here at MNSU in 2004 as the first full time director of the LGBT Center. Years later it was decided that The LGBT Center and Women’s Center’s work was so similar, a new position was created to collaborate the two. This is how Jessica acquired her current position as Director of Gender and Sexuality Programs.
HC: What does the Director of Gender and Sexuality Programs do?
Jessica Flatequal: “I go to a lot of meetings and with that I’m representing our viewpoint in the world, representing feminism, and making sure that women, gender and LGBT needs are being met at higher levels of the university and not just within the programs we put on.”
As director, Jessica supervisors the three assistant directors of LGBT Center, Women’s Center, and Violence, Awareness & Response Programs and helps these three separate departments to work together as a collective whole. She is also a representative on several different committees, including (but not limited to) President’s Diversity Commission and Commission on the Status of Women. Jessica was recently involved in the passing of the new policy, The Preferred Name Field, which allows students to choose the name that will appear in their campus email addresses, system directories, class rosters and other University records as technically feasible except where a legal name is required. You will also notice that as campus buildings are being renovated that more gender neutral restrooms and lactation spaces are being built. Jessica oversaw these changes to help make the university a safe place for students, especially those of the LGBT community.
HC: Was it always your plan to work in Gender and Sexuality Programs?
JF: “I never saw this as my career, I didn’t even know you could do this as a career to be quite honest, but I was involved in the LGBT center when I was in college. I’ve always had a commitment to social justice and I also know that just in my own life, the LGBT Center frankly saved my life, because I was very, very dark in 1991 when I was trying to come out. So for me this place was salvation.”
HC: What is your response to those who think we don’t need a Women’s Center?
JF: “Part of my goal about the Gender and Sexuality Programs was to understand and accept that there are issues we should be helping men with like hyper masculinity, misogyny, and also when they are victims of crime, etc. I don’t think it’s easy to be a guy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need a Women’s Center.”
HC: What would you like to say to the MNSU community?
JF: “If I could give one bit of advice to students, I would say that this college gives you the opportunity to get out of your comfort zone and if you are willing to get out of that comfort zone; talk to people that are different from you, talk to people of different races, abilities, sexual orientations, whatever it is, because that will help you to be happier and more successful.”
Fun Facts:
● Jessica is a self-proclaimed “townie” from Mankato and is an alumnus from MNSU. She graduated in 1999 with a master’s degree in Art and has continued to live and be involved in the Mankato community.
● Jessica has been highly involved in the past 13 South Central Minnesota Pride Festivals in Mankato.
● Jessica and her partner, Maria, recently got married in the summer of 2015. The couple has been together for 12 years. Even though same-sex marriage was legalized in Minnesota in 2013, they vowed not to get married until everyone in the United States had the right to marry legally.
● MNSU has the second oldest LGBT Center in the nation.