Much of Western Washington University’s queer community gathered on campus Thursday, June 4 to celebrate the institution’s third annual Lavender Graduation.

The 2025 ceremony was canceled due to a strike by the university’s operational student employees following more than a year of failed negotiations with WWU. This year, though, about 60 graduates walked the stage inside Viking Union

. Multiple keynote and student speakers took to the podium to congratulate the university’s outgoing students on reaching an academic milestone, and touted the importance of community building during a time when shifts in the country’s social and political fabric have negatively affected minority communities.

Still, the ceremony was filled with joy as those same speakers recounted how the friends and family they’d fostered on campus changed their lives for the better. During the event, four Western Washington University graduates took the time to speak with Cascadia Daily News and reflect on their growth while in school.

Their responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Juleyana Cabrera

What did you learn outside of the classroom during your time at WWU?

I think it’s more like another thing I just kind of survived. I’ve lived a really rough life, and I’m the first generation in my family to graduate from any college. So there’s a lot of pressure, but there is also the knowledge within myself that I’ll probably be okay no matter what happens after this. I learned a lot on campus about myself and how I adapt to things.

What does queerness mean to you?

Queerness means to me, it means community, it means family, it means the thing that saved my life. I’m just kind of more grateful than anything. My first ex-girlfriend is the whole reason I moved to town. Rest in peace, she’s not with us anymore, but I don’t know where I’d be without my queer fam.

Did you find WWU to be a welcoming space for you?

There are certain pockets that are OK but there are certain teachers that were straight-up transphobic that I absolutely hate.

Do you have any words of advice for queer students who are about to start the next step of their education at WWU?

Remember to get full sleep. Don’t forget to stay hydrated. Avoid the drama if you can avoid it. Figure out what works best for you and keeps you safe and sane, because keeping yourself safe and sane while navigating all of this is the most important thing.

Joshua Riley

What did you learn outside of the classroom during your time at WWU?

Even as you build community with people, you have to put yourself first. I think that’s the biggest step in building community. When you put yourself first, you can be your most authentic form, and I think that that’s really helped me accept who I am and be happy with who I am.

Do you have any words of advice for queer students who are about to start the next step of their education at WWU?

Go to all of the events you can, talk to all the people you can. Showing up really is the best thing you can do. It helped me get integrated and find my people a lot faster. The events are great and they’re there for you. You should attend them.

Did you find WWU to be a welcoming space for you?

Yes, Western was very welcoming. They talked a little bit about intersectionality (during Lavender Graduation), and my experience as a queer person has been really great. My experience as a person of color has been less great. So that comes together in ways that are sometimes not great and then sometimes really great because you get spaces like Black LGBTQ+ Thriving as well.

I would say ultimately yes, especially as a queer person. Even as I talk about the struggles of being a person of color in these predominantly white spaces, I have been more accepted here than a lot of the white spaces I have been in prior.

What does queerness mean to you?

It means accepting alternate truths and realities, I suppose. There is a heteronormative standard set in place, and when you break that, you accept queerness. To me, that means having pride and joy in the person that you are, no matter who you are and what you bring to the table. Like I said, you kind of put yourself first and learn yourself and love yourself.

Casper Suter

What did you learn outside of the classroom during your time at WWU?

I learned a lot about community. I spent the three-and-a-half years that I was here as a part of the drag campus club on campus. I was a part of it from the day it started. Prior to that, I didn’t have a whole lot of friends or even people within the queer community that I knew at home, so I learned a lot about other people and how they fit into the community and how we all interact together.

What does queerness mean to you?

Being yourself, even through adversity. When I first came to Western, I presented myself very differently than I do now because I felt like it was how I had to be in order to be valid in my identity, and now I feel a lot more comfortable in both my identity and also how I present, regardless of how they overlap.

Do you have any words of advice for queer students who are about to start the next step of their education at WWU?

Find your people. One of my best friends is someone I met the day I moved into the dorms and we’ve stuck together ever since. I know people who went through all of college without really knowing anyone in their community. It took me until my third year to meet other people in my major, so just like finding your people and having people around you so you’re not alone.

Gabriel Diaz-Kelly

What did you learn outside of the classroom during your time at WWU?

I think Western really taught me to listen to people. I came in thinking that I was the only person with my experience. When I came into college, I thought that I knew the most about everything and that no one else could relate to me, and this made me special in a lot of ways. I learned that uniqueness doesn’t really come necessarily from the identities that I hold, but the experiences that I get to share with people.

I was really lucky to be able to find such wonderful queer friendships here. Queer professors, queer mentors and even just in general, college has really forced me to take uncomfortability and turn it into lessons and education.

Did you find WWU to be a welcoming space for you?

I came out as trans super, super young, when I was 13, which is younger than most people my age. One of the main reasons I picked Western is because of their gender-neutral housing. I remember very specifically a call that we gave to Western when I was going through universities calling and asking, “Hey, what is it like to find a dorm when you’re trans,” and they had all of these systems already in place, and I remember me and my mom in the car together becuase she was so worried that her kid wasn’t going to be safe in college.

But I did find a lot of gaps. It wasn’t necessarily because people weren’t working hard enough; it’s just that there weren’t enough people or positions. So it was very easy for me to find a community and support network when it came to my personal life, but when it came to the broader structures of Western, there was kind of a gap that I was lucky enough to fill when I was working as the advocacy and education co-coordinator (for LGBTQ+ Western).

I am leaving this with the full knowledge that my co-coordinator, my other employees, my supervisors have my back 100% of the way, and they’re going to have the next person’s back.

Do you have any words of advice for queer students who are about to start the next step of their education at WWU?

Shut up and listen. I love to talk, I love to get to know people, but you really have to just be on the sidelines to get to know people. Be the dumb person in class, ask the questions, don’t wait for someone to tell you what you’re supposed to know.

Take every opportunity, look up every resource. We have 1,001 resources here at Western. Most students don’t know that we have free audio editing and sewing machines, and we take students out to Mount Baker and we have gender-affirming resources. Say hi to everyone you can say hi to and talk to the people that you don’t think you’d like, because chances are you’re probably going to like them at least a little bit.

What does queerness mean to you?

I think queerness is a way for me to show other people that I want to love them in a very kind way. If I’m alone, I don’t think of myself as queer and trans; those are labels I give to the outside world so that they get some glimpse into what I am.

I don’t need anyone to tell me that I’m valid, I don’t need anyone to tell me that I’m enough because I know that, I’m very secure in that. So what I have in the label “queer” is a billboard to everyone else that says, “I want to love you back. I want to talk to you, I want to get to know you.”

Santiago Ochoa is a CDN visual journalist; reach him at santiagoochoa@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 105.