Starting Friday night the 2019 Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Asexual College Conference, or MBLGTACC — pronounced mumble talk— will kick off at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas.

“MBLGTACC is an annual conference held to connect, educate and empower queer and trans college students, faculty and staff around the Midwest and beyond,” according to the MBLGTACC website.

Brad Freihoefer, director of the Center for LGBTQIA+ Student Success, said that MBLGTACC is the largest student-run LGBTQIA+ college conference in the country.

This is the 27th year of MBLGTACC and it will be held in Kansas for the first time. The theme this year is “Beyond the Rainbow and to the Stars.”

“Our theme ties together rich traditions in Kansas with continual goals of social justice and equal rights for all, regardless of gender and sexuality,” according to the MBLGTACC website.

The MBLGTACC website stated that “Beyond the Rainbow” is a nod to Dorothy’s adventures in the Wizard of Oz and “To the Stars” refers to the Kansas state motto, “Ad Astra per Aspera,” meaning “To the Stars through Difficulties.”

According to the MBLGTACC website, the motto refers to “the pioneering spirit of Kansans.”

This year’s conference will host four keynote speakers: Jessica Pettitt, Pidgeon Pagonis, Nyle DiMarco and Janaya Khan.

Other featured speakers and entertainment include Mikey C. Apollo, a drag show with host Penny Tration, Robyn Ochs, Sam Brinton, Cody Charles and Jon Paul Higgins.

The speakers and entertainment will be mixed in with ten sessions of around nine workshops each where attendees can learn about a wide range of subjects including polyamory, toxic masculinity and creating queer families.

The entire conference was planned by a student committee like it has been every year from the start.

“The Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Asexual College Conference emerged in the early 1990s as an answer to the question of how to connect, educate and empower queer students throughout the region,” according to the MBLGTACC website. “This came at a time when the continued growth of the mainstream lesbian, gay and bisexual rights movement, largely underrepresenting transgender and gender non-conforming individuals, was most present and powerful on the east and west coasts, isolating students in the Midwest from national LGBT work by geography, political realities and access to resources.”

In 1991, college students at a conference in Des Moines came together and dreamed MBLGTACC into existence. They wanted to give a voice to queer students in the Midwest and to make MBLGTACC a destination for entertainers, activists and leaders.

“The conference started from a gap of resources and spaces for LGBTQIA+ folks in college to gather, collaborate, learn and be inspired,” Freihoefer said.

They sought to create an oasis in what Justin Connor of MBLGCC in 1994 said was seen as “a queer desert.”

The group came together in 1992 to lay down the organizing principles and logistical roadmap for a conference of LGBT students, to be held each year at a college or university in the Midwest.

The first annual MBLGCC was held at Iowa State University in February of 1993 and was a collaborative effort between students at Iowa State and Drake University.

Since then the conference has undergone three name changes. In 1997 the conference was renamed Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender College Conference (MBLGTCC), in 2001 the conference was renamed Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference (MBLGTACC) and in 2018 it was renamed Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Asexual College Conference (MBLGTACC).

“Iowa State has been involved in the conference since the beginning,” Freihoefer said.

MBLGTACC has been hosted at Iowa State two other times since the first initial conference, in 2004 and 2012.

According to Freihoefer, MBLGTACC planners are hoping to choose Iowa State to host the conference again soon.