Elwim Sorto, president of UTA’s The Queer Social Work Association, said the group’s leaders have chosen to suspend operations due to what they called institutional disregard and systemic barriers to advocacy. (Photo courtesy Elwim Sorto)
CAROLINE SAVOIE | East Texas Staff Writer
CaroSavo@StoryDustSearch.com
ARLINGTON — Leadership for The Queer Social Work Association, once the only LGBTQ+ student organization at the University of Texas at Arlington, has suspended operations indefinitely, citing deep frustration with what members describe as institutional disregard and systemic barriers to advocacy.
Social work graduate student and TQSWA President Elwim Ectoni Sorto announced the decision in an Oct. 3 email to faculty and administrators, saying students had grown “unmotivated, discouraged and fearful.” The email explained that participation and recruitment had dwindled as “people no longer see safety or purpose in stepping forward.”
“This was not a decision we made lightly,” Sorto wrote. “Education cannot exist if fear and lies win over truth.”
A pattern of frustration
In correspondence reviewed by Dallas Voice, Sorto traced the group’s decision to what they called a “pattern of dismissal” by university leadership.
Earlier this year, Sorto said he recorded a podcast episode with UTA’s Blaze the Mic, a podcast from the School of Social Work that features interviews with students and alumni. Sorto said his episode was intended to spotlight queer advocacy within social work.
According to Sorto, the episode’s publication was delayed for months without explanation. When it was finally released, Sorto wrote, “the lack of communication served as a reminder that our voices were treated as secondary rather than integral from the beginning.”
The group also faced what members saw as bureaucratic interference. The university reportedly required them to change their name to include the word “student,” a move that leaders viewed as symbolic of diminished autonomy.
Plans for a campus event titled Queer, Sex & Power collapsed after counseling staff withdrew under administrative direction, leaving organizers without promised institutional support. Later, when TQSWA posted a letter on social media responding to a political figure’s anti-LGBTQ+ statement, the group said their response was rejected as “too emotional” — an assessment Sorto described as silencing.
Sorto said the university cancelled a drag performance the organization had planned on campus in the summer, although, he said, UTA’s Student Organizations Office initially told TQSWA that no policy barred drag shows. But soon after, the UT System board adopted a systemwide drag-show ban, citing compliance with state and federal directives.
“The school that we the people pay for is refusing to stand up for its marginalized students for fear of Trump pulling federal funding,” Sorto said.
The graduate student has submitted a Title IX complaint against the university’s Counseling & Psychological Services department for rescinding mental health services for Queer, Sex & Power. He included Dr. Kirk Foster, dean of the School of Social Work, in the complaint, alleging discrimination against the student organization.
But, Sorto said, the final blow came when the School of Social Work’s communications department recently contacted the group to participate in a story highlighting LGBTQ+ inclusivity.
“They want the credit for ‘amplifying our voices’ without actually backing us up,” he said.
“Yeah, we’re not going to do that — for the sake of our dignity.”
“Visibility means nothing”
In a follow-up social media post titled To Be Continued…, TQSWA leadership framed their decision as an act of integrity rather than surrender.
“LGBTQ+ students deserve more than the feeling of recognition during awareness months,” they wrote. “Visibility means nothing when institutions seemingly restrict the people they claim to celebrate.”
For Sorto, the group’s closure is not about disappearing; it’s about refusing to participate in what they called “surface-level allyship.” The message also hinted that TQSWA may reemerge in a different form.
“We will find new spaces where our voices will no longer feel managed or muted,” the post reads.
Administrators at UTA and the School of Social Work did not respond to Dallas Voice’s requests for comment before publication.
A broader landscape of restriction
TQSWA’s suspension comes amid sweeping political attacks on DEI efforts in higher education — both in Texas and across the United States.
In January 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order ending federal DEI offices and training programs, directing agencies to terminate related contracts. Federal education officials followed up with letters warning universities that they could lose funding if they did not certify compliance.
In Texas, state leaders have moved even faster. In March, the University of Texas System banned drag performances across all campuses, citing “compliance with executive orders,” though the system did not specify which orders. The Texas A&M University System soon followed, claiming Title IX and executive-order risk.
These bans build on Senate Bill 17, the state law that took effect in January 2024 eliminating DEI offices at all public universities in Texas. The law prohibits schools from requiring DEI statements or trainings and restricts employee advocacy for “any particular group.”
Civil rights organizations say the cumulative effect is a chilling one. The American Association of University Professors has already filed a lawsuit challenging DEI-related restrictions, arguing that the policies suppress free expression and academic inquiry.
“Across the country, LGBTQ+ students are seeing the doors to advocacy quietly close,” said Dr. Lisa Morgan, an education policy expert not affiliated with UTA.
Losing community, losing trust
For TQSWA members, these political currents are not abstract. They have felt the consequences in classrooms, on event flyers and in conversations with administrators.
Sorto said that, as social work students, they were taught to advocate for marginalized voices yet felt punished when doing so. “It was like we were being told to care, but only up to a point,” Sorto said in an interview.
Former members described the group as a crucial space for connection and mutual care. Without it, they worry incoming queer students will face isolation.
“There’s something powerful about walking into a room where you don’t have to explain who you are,” said one former member who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation. “Now that room doesn’t exist.”
The group’s departure leaves UTA — a campus of roughly 40,000 students — without any active LGBTQ+ student organization.
The silence that follows
Sorto’s closing message to the university carried a tone of exhaustion but also defiance: “We have chosen to step away rather than keep performing gratitude for systems that refuse to see us,” Sorto’s email to administration read. “If we must disappear, we will do so on our own terms.”
For now, the group’s social media accounts remain quiet. Whether TQSWA will return under a new structure or outside the university altogether is unclear. What is clear, Sorto said, is that their decision was meant to protect students’ sense of worth.
“We wanted to die out with dignity rather than continue being tokenized,” he said. “So we did just that.”