Feminist Elon Professor Makes Gender Studies Approachable
By Gabe Wingate
This is part of a series of blog posts written by students in an Elon University First Year Writing course. For the course, students wrote profiles of people, places, and events that contribute to LGBTQ+ life in Alamance County.
(Credit: Lauren Guilmette)
At a time when gender studies and feminism are being scrutinized at a national level, Dr. Lauren Guilmette (she/they) finds a way in their classroom to connect their students to the topics in a meaningful and approachable way.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Guilmette moved around the northeast for college. They eventually found their way to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, finishing their education with an M.A. and a Ph.D in philosophy. The idea of feminism was introduced to Guilmette when they were 19. “I had never really encountered the term before. I really loved philosophy, but I really found the term through organizing on campus.” In 2006, they were one of the first six students who started a women’s center at their college. Dr. Guilmette recalled how radical spaces like the women’s center felt at the time but “now I love that we have the GLC (Gender and LGBTQIA Center) and that it’s not so centering women’s experiences.”
During their stint in the women’s center in their early 20s, Guilmette was inspired to open people’s eyes to what feminism is all about through connecting to feminist writers such as Drucilla Cornell. “Drucilla mentions this really beautiful concept of what she calls the ‘Imaginary Domain’ in what we give space for folks to be able to imagine about their lives and that it’s important to bemoan how terrible dominant representations are but how really we can create different kinds of representations simultaneously" said Dr. Guilmette when we spoke to her in her office. By connecting with the many different sides of ourselves or “worlds”, a term coined by feminist writer, Maria Lugones, it can help make us feel more genuine. Dr. Guilmette exemplifies this in the classroom and is able to bring the importance of genuineness and self-identity to light.
(Credit: Gabe Wingate)
Moreover, Guilmette is a Transcend Alamance board member and is an active coordinating member of both the GLC and the Gender and Sexuality Living Learning Community at Elon University . Dr. Guilmette had seen the inclusion of gender in everyday life in larger cities like Atlanta and Durham, but when coming to a town as small as Elon and Burlington, places like the Gender and LGBTQIA Center felt more special to them. They were at one time scrambling for quite a while to try and make a list of gender affirming and queer affirming therapists and doctors in the local area. Bringing in similar support systems to Alamance helped create even stronger community connections
“I admire having to or figure out how to create safe spaces, Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro and Chapel Hill are very much blue bubbles but Alamance really isn’t and so it only made it more important to create these spaces.” Dr. Guilmette mentioned to a student, “The beauty of having that space where community folks [The Town of Elon] and Elon folks [students] come together around a shared safe space that makes it more connected.” The GLC is the only LGBT+ center in the county of Alamance, and by being able to strengthen networks of support in local communities, it enables Alamance natives, students, and faculty to build a rapport and a family of LGBT+ and allied individuals.
Dr. Guilmette is able to use these bonds with their students and is able to tailor learning styles to individual needs, which makes students excited to learn. Queer Theory has deep ties in feminism, so Guilmette’s experience working with the GLC makes it all the more important. Highlighting Guilmette’s presence and work in Alamance County is important to the LGBT+ community because they invest in people. Everyone needs a supportive ally in their journey to find themselves.
