Located in the Pride Resource Center as a free resource, The Lavender Cabinet provides gender-affirming items to those in need, and it plays a crucial role in the LGBTQIA+ community at Colorado State University.
“A lot of times, these products have really high costs on them, … so having them free and accessible is life-saving for a lot of our students here on campus,” Associated Students of CSU Budgetary Affairs Chair Nora Aslan said. “I think that’s the most important part of why The Lavender Cabinet exists.”
However, The Lavender Cabinet was not always a well-funded resource. The lack of funding for products within the cabinet is what inspired Aslan to propose a bill in spring 2023.
“At the point where I wrote the bill, we were very low on funding but were receiving more and more requests for products,” Aslan said. “The Pride Center and The Lavender Cabinet were a really big, central part for the queer community on CSU’s campus, so it was getting used more and more, and we needed the funding for it to continue supplying for the students.”
While Aslan’s bill was geared toward providing funding for The Lavender Cabinet, this was not the first time ASCSU stepped in to help.
“It was just a recommittal of something that had been done a couple (of) years previously through ASCSU,” ASCSU President Nick DeSalvo said. “The money that they had allocated the first time they did it, they expended that money faster than anticipated, so that was when this last renewal came along.”
In terms of goals for The Lavender Cabinet, DeSalvo said he would like to see a more permanent funding source secured.
“When it comes to the long-term sustainability of The Lavender Cabinet, doing it through student fees every few years, I think, is a misstep,” DeSalvo said. “I’d like to see the Pride Resource Center secure a donor to make sure that the cabinet is fully stocked.”
While ASCSU takes care of funding for The Lavender Cabinet, the PRC handles the up-front mechanics of running The Lavender Cabinet.
“As far as the upkeep of it, that’s entirely on the Pride Resource Center,” DeSalvo said. “All we did is we just transferred the funds so that they have the resources to make sure it doesn’t get depleted.”
Representatives from the Pride Resource Center were not available for comment, nor were representatives from The Lavender Cabinet’s other collaborator, the Women and Gender Advocacy Center.
While funding is ASCSU’s way of providing assistance to The Lavender Cabinet, others can pitch in by donating clean or gently used garments. Specific guidelines for donations are listed on the PRC website.
Despite assumptions that it is only a resource for transgender students, The Lavender Cabinet supplies materials for all.
“I wish more people knew that it didn’t just hold gender-affirming products like binders and trans tape and stuff like that, but it actually holds a lot of menstrual care products,” Aslan said.
This common assumption is the reason the cabinet is not a more popular resource on campus.
“We have a lot of resources within The Lavender Cabinet that a lot of students don’t use because they think it only has gender-affirming garments and not things that can be widely used by our campus population,” Aslan said.
Reach McKenna Van Voris at life@collegian.com or on Twitter @mckenna_vv.
