This year, the WGSS Department welcomed J.T. Martin back to campus as the keynote speaker for our commencement ceremony.
J.T. Martin
In 2014, J.T. Martin received their B.A. in WGSS – with specializations in both Gender and Social Change and Gender, Sexuality, and Public Health – after completing a brilliant honors senior thesis on the effects of student debt on racially and sexually marginalized communities. They remained a vital part of Stony Brook’s campus life for the next three years as an M.A. student in the Higher Education Administration program, an intern at LGBTQ* Services and the Office of Multicultural Affairs, and as a mobilizer for the graduate student workers union.
In 2017, J.T. accepted a position as the director of Amherst College’s Queer Resource Center. They have spent the last six years fiercely advocating for queer, trans, and non-binary students and developing inclusivity trainings, educational programming, community-building initiatives, and LGBTQ-affirming policies. Earlier this year, J.T.’s reputation as a trusted and effective campus leader led to them being asked to take on a new role at Amherst. J.T. is currently serving as the Interim Assistant Dean of Students for Identity and Cultural Resources.
At this year’s graduation ceremony, J.T. reflected on their time as a Stony Brook student. In addition to sharing amusing anecdotes from their undergrad days, they expressed deep gratitude for the friends and mentors they met through their WGSS classes and for the skills and knowledge they developed as a WGSS major. Learning how to do “critical intersectional analysis,” J.T. explained, has provided them with the theoretical and practical tools they need to create social and institutional change – both in their professional life at Amherst and in their broader activist and political life.
J.T. concluded their remarks with a few “pearls of wisdom” for this year’s graduating class (and, really, for all WGSS students):
- Listen to those who love you (until you learn to love all of yourself). Find rituals, practices, and communities that provide you with opportunities to process your feelings and experiences.
- Stay engaged. But! do so, only as long as you rest. Remember Audre Lorde’s important lessons on self care and community care. Learn from Tricia Hersey and the Nap Ministry: rest is resistance.
- You are enough. Don’t let anyone, or any institution, tell you your worth. Accolades are nonsense. We need everyone present for building and actuating a more just and equitable world.