Victories within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community may be small, but they are still significant.

The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Student Services will celebrate victories within the LGBT community through Small Victories, an event that will focus on emerging transgender issues on campus, said John Faughn, LGBTSS coordinator and graduate student in educational leadership and policy studies.

Faughn said the group would also recognize the addition of the Queer Studies course on campus and the addition of gender identity to the ISU non-discrimination policy.

“We have a group of students a lot of times that face oppression on campus,” Faughn said. “I have learned since becoming coordinator since July how difficult it is for many students to come out.”

Faughn said exposing homosexuality is often difficult because of the harassment some students receive, which can lead to lower grade point averages and higher dropout rates.

To uphold the theme of transgender awareness, the two keynote speakers at the event will be Jay Wilson and Galen Smith, who Faughn said are a female-to-male transgender couple: Individuals who were born female, but live their lives as men.

“One of the things our office has been doing this year is trying to focus more on transgender issues,” Faughn said. “It is the one area we do not do a lot of programming around.”

In addition to the speakers of the event, Faughn said awards and scholarships would be given away to people who have shown commitment to promoting LGBTSS on campus.

The scholarships include the Scott Rohlf Presidential Leadership Initiative Award and the Walter J. Allen and Shaun B. Keister Scholarship, he said.

According to the LGBTSS Web site, the Small Victories awards, given to members or allies of the group, include the Academic Excellence Award, the Community Development Award, the Student Service Award, the Emerging Leader Award, the W. Houston Dougharty Ally Award and Student of the Year Award.

Justin Hope, president of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Ally Alliance and senior in early childhood education, will also speak at the event, which is being held for the ninth consecutive year.

Hope said he would focus on what has been accomplished and what his group is planning in the future, including a Drag Show meant to raise funds for the group in early February at the Maintenance Shop of the Memorial Union.

“I think Small Victories is important because it is a chance to see as a community the progress we’ve made,” he said. “And also to reiterate our direction and our focus of where we are heading on this campus by making diversity more appreciated and increasing awareness.”

Hope also said he will be joined by Ashley Hand, junior in sociology, to speak about the effort to get gender identity added to the non-discrimination policy. The effort included petitioning and sending memorandums to the equal opportunity office on campus, he said.

Also speaking will be Warren Blumenfeld, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction and member of the LGBTSS advisory board.

Blumenfeld also co-teaches the new Queer Studies course with Kathleen Hickok, professor of English.

“We’ll be talking about our course because it is the first time a course like this has been taught at Iowa State University,” he said.

Blumenfeld said it is important for people to R.S.V.P. by e-mailing the group at [email protected] as soon as possible Monday so organizers know how much cake and punch to order.

“This has been a really remarkable event throughout the years,” Blumenfeld said. “We have got a lot of support from the administration on campus as well as other groups on campus.”

The Small Victories celebration will be at 7 p.m. on Monday in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union, and is open to the public.