In an atrium filled with recipients, students and faculty, the third annual Gender and Sexuality Equity Awards took place early Wednesday afternoon.

Sponsored by both the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center and LGBTSS, the award reception was established as an opportunity for both organizations to celebrate people who dedicated their time at Iowa State to make a positive impact regarding either gender or sexual equity.

The guest speaker for the reception was Dian Squire, a visiting assistant professor in student affairs.

Squire used his experiences as a member of the LBGT community to advocate and attempt to make a difference for other LGBT students.

Growing up in Miami during the 1990s, Squire was exposed to Miami’s LGBT community, but Squire didn’t come to the conclusion about his sexuality until later in his life.

“I didn’t identify myself as gay until I was in grad school,” Squire said.

Squire also acknowledged that he struggled growing up because he was unable to fully embrace his Asian heritage.

“I wasn’t racially diverse,” Squire said. “I never had an Asian-American teacher until I was obtaining my Ph.D.”

During Squire’s time at the University of Maryland, where he was pursuing a master’s, he established an award-winning first-year experience program to target LGBTQA students at the university known as The One Project.

Squire challenged students and faculty to tackle racial justice within the university and to stop straying away from the much-needed conversations involving race and sexuality.

“We must be in solidarity together if we plan to move forward together,” Squire said.

After Squire’s passionate speech, nine scholarships and awards were presented to the recipients. The scholarships awarded included the Lee Hardley, Scott Rohlf Presidential Leadership Initiative Award and Division of Student Affairs Adult Student Scholarship.

LGBTSS and the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center collaborated to select and present two awards: the Gender and Sexuality Research Award and Student of the Year Award.

This year’s Student of the Year recipient was Hayden Moffitt, a fourth-year architecture major who dedicated his time to speaking of his experiences as a transgender and educating people on the transgender community.

“I was really surprised,” Moffitt said. “I felt that I don’t do much.”

Moffitt’s work includes his role as president of Gamma Rho Lambda, an LBGT sorority on campus. He also participates in forums, like the one in October where Moffitt and three other transgender students discussed their lives. Moffitt also has a YouTube channel where he creates videos educating and sharing his experiences.

“With any marginalized group, visibility is really important for all to have,” Moffitt said.

Moffitt may think he hasn’t had much of an impact, but he continues to dedicate his time to educating and sharing his experiences. He believes it is important to continue to speak out.

Lorraine Acker, director of the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center, finds joy in hosting the reception.

“It puts a face to the works,” Acker said.

With the center approaching its seventh year on campus, the program hopes to continue acknowledging people for their work and to expand their services.

“We hope to develop a men and masculinity curriculum,” Acker said.

She hopes to help educate men on what it means to encourage women and the feminist movement sweeping the current culture.

The center is also looking for volunteers to blog. The idea for bloggers is to create content about current issues, such as race and sexuality, that affect women.

The organizations and Squire agree that there’s still work to be done.

“In order to work for a better world, we have to imagine one,” Squire advised.