Fabian Venegas-Ramos
Saint John's University
Fabian, a junior at St. John’s University, is an active campus and community leader striving to work toward change for members of the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities. Fabian is passionate about creating awareness of not only the needs of these marginalized populations, but also about the many contributions they have made to our communities. As a Safe Space Educator, Fabian conducts training across campus on how to create inclusive environments. Fabian also serves as a facilitator for an Inclusion Dialogue group on campus focusing on being non-binary on a binary campus. Last summer, Fabian interned with Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement and plans to continue work with a similar organization this summer through the Summer Leadership Fellows program.
Personal Statement
My work to help create and organize spaces for queer folx to heal, exist authentically, and have critical conversations about root systems of oppression is driven by my awareness of the violence and harm that stems from the lack of intersectional queer safe spaces to exist. Through an internship, I have applied and nourished this passion by advancing the mission of Familia: TQLM for collective liberation through building community, advocacy, and education. On campus, my work as a Student Assistant and a Safe Space Trainor with the Intercultural and International Student Services, a department that aspires to model transformative inclusion and serve historically marginalized students, is to educate the campus community on diversity, inclusion, and justice. This also entails delivering safe space trainings by addressing the violence and harm that occurs to LGBTQ+, non-binary, and transgender students on a cis-heteronormative campus, which includes learning and unlearning how society indoctrinates oppressive gender norms that lead to inequities and injustices. After graduating, I plan on entering the non-profit sector to continue educating, advocating, and organizing to uproot intersecting systems of oppression and imagine and create new ones that center community, love, healing, and joy.
