Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality

Originally founded in 1970 as the Women’s Referral Center, the Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality (CWGS) is the second oldest collegiate Women’s Center in the country. With strong activist roots, the women who created the Women’s Referral Center began contraceptive and abortion rights advocacy and education before the 1973 decision of Roe vs. Wade. Over the past four decades the Women’s Referral Center has evolved first into the Women’s Center, then in 1996, it became the Women’s Resource Center, and in 2011, the Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality, each time expanding its mission and services to provide progressive inclusive services and resources to students.

The CWGS amplifies and advocates for women and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer community, with the purpose of eliminating barriers, diminishing prejudices, and creating a supportive climate and space for all. The CWGS recognizes that investigations of gender and sexuality take place within systems of oppression, and are deeply impacted by experiences of racism, classism, ableism, immigration status, and xenophobia. The CWGS offers intersectional education, support, and resources that work to dismantle systems of oppression, especially those that allow sexism, homophobia, and transphobia to thrive. We strive to do this work through an actively anti-racist lens that decenters white supremacy.

In addition, the CWGS coordinates campus initiatives to prevent sexual assault and intimate partner violence.  As a department of Student Affairs, the Center also acts as a central coordinating agency for campus and community groups.  The Center is located in the McLean Campus Center in Suite 207.