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Updated September 22, 2025, at 3:25 p.m.

Two LGBTQ student groups, the Harvard Undergraduate Queer Advocates and the Queer Students Association, gathered in Cambridge Common this Friday to mourn the recently closed Office of BGLTQ Student Life.

Harvard College shuttered the “QuOffice,” which had served as a resource center and community space in Thayer Hall’s basement for LGBTQ Harvard students since 2012, in July as part of a wave of diversity office closures amid the Trump administration’s campaign to brand diversity, equity, and inclusion programs illegal.

The College incorporated the QuOffice’s staff into a new center within the Office of Culture and Community, alongside staff from the former Women’s Center and the Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations. But students said the loss of the QuOffice’s rooms, which are now available for student groups to book for events, and resources dedicated to LGBTQ students was disappointing.

“The death of the QuOffice is so much more than the loss of a physical space to be in community together,” said Amber M. Simons ’26, co-director of HUQAD, in a speech at the Cambridge Common event. “It represents the silencing and erasure of queer voices.”

More than 75 students gathered in the park to listen to speeches from former undergraduate QuOffice interns and resident tutors who used to serve as dedicated resources for LGBTQ students, a title that was removed for the 2025-26 academic year.

“It meant a lot to me and to many people in our community to have physical recognition for our space,” Hannah L. Niederriter ’26, HUQAD’s co-director, said in a speech. “I met some of my dearest friends through the QuOffice, and I was so fortunate to have found a place that encouraged me to embrace my queer identity loudly.”

Kevin B. Holden ’05 — a former BGLTQ tutor who advises an entryway in Kirkland House — called the QuOffice’s closing “disgraceful,” but in its absence, he encouraged LGBTQ students to build their own “families” on campus.

“Be together, find community,” he said. “Solidarity is now more important than ever, and it’s definitely possible for us to find that on our own.”

Katie B. Kohn, a resident tutor at Quincy House, said in a speech that she would continue to use Harvard’s resources to support LGBTQ students — even if Harvard would no longer attach the word to its materials.

“Under the umbrella of Culture and Community, we are going to keep creating spaces for queer joy, for folks to be together, and we’re going to keep spending Culture and Community money on gay shit,” Kohn said.

After this article’s publication, Kohn objected to the inclusion of her remarks, writing that her comments were “included without her knowledge or consent” and misconstrued her stance on the breadth of OCC programming.

Dressed in all black and wearing what she described as a “Southern widow hat,” Caroline Light — the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Women, Gender, and Sexuality — ended the funeral with a “eulogy” for the QuOffice.

“Our QuOffice, as we’ve heard, was far from perfect, but it was beloved by many,” Light said. “It stood for something powerful: the radical idea that LGBTQ+ students deserve not just to survive at Harvard, but to find community — to find care and joy.”

“Now, as we lower the rainbow flag at half-mast, we breathe a gaping hole in our campus community,” she added. “While the QuOffice may be gone, queer students remain as loud, fabulous, and stubbornly visible as ever. May the memory of the QuOffice be a blessing and an inspiration to us, and may its ghost continue to haunt those who would mistake cowardice for neutrality.”

Student organizers then invited attendees to write notes on rainbow-colored paper cranes and drop them into a coffin with the words “RIP” inscribed onto its lid.

“It is said that if you get a thousand paper cranes together, you can make a wish,” Niederriter said. “So we hope that the queer community will continue to thrive here with the wishes of all of you today.”

According to Ellis W. Schroeder ’29, a board member of HUQAD, the group plans to display the paper cranes as a public art installation on campus.

“It’s a way for people to reconcile with the loss, and then also create a sense of hope,” Schroeder said in an interview at the funeral. “You can create so many, and it can really be a symbol of a community amalgamating and coming together.”

Some funeral attendees had never been to the QuOffice before.

“The fact that it’s not here now and we’re entering as first-years — that’s the normal,” Mark C. Snekvik ’29 said in an interview at the event. “So it doesn’t really feel like a loss, but it’s interesting hearing how for so many students, this was their safe space.”

Celina E. Varchausky ’28 said the QuOffice was a lifeline.

“My first semester, I spent nearly every single day in the QuOffice,” she said. “I was looking forward to it, and when I found out the news that that wouldn’t be possible, it was just really devastating.”

Some students said the loss of the QuOffice was a symbolic blow, but that the office itself had its limitations.

“We ran out of snacks too quickly. We got burnout trying to drive institutional change, and oftentimes we felt sad that we were confined to a basement that didn’t have much sunlight,” Niederriter said.

Steven T. Hall-Nunez ’28 said after the funeral that he was “sad about the QuOffice,” but its closure was not his most pressing concern.

“I’m much more scared of the fact that I’m trans, and if I lose my passport, I can’t get another one with my gender marker right,” he said. “That is way more terrifying than not having a space with some free coffee and printing in the basement.”

Correction: September 22, 2025

Due to incorrect information in Harvard’s directory of student groups, a previous version of this article incorrectly referred to Hannah L. Niederriter ’26 as treasurer of Harvard Undergraduate Queer Advocates. In fact, Niederriter is a co-director of HUQAD.

—Staff writer Wyeth Renwick can be reached at wyeth.renwick@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @wzrenwick.

—Staff writer Nirja J. Trivedi can be reached at nirja.trivedi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @nirjatriv.