Gender and Sexuality Empowerment Initiative

Board Liaison: Cecilia Granda-Scott

Formerly known as the Women’s Initiative (founded in 2011; incorporated as a committee in 2013) and later the Gender Empowerment Initiative (founded in 2015), the Gender and Sexuality Empowerment Initiative was renamed in 2021 to raise awareness about issues that women and LGBTQ+ individuals face in debate, as well to empower those individuals and provide education for the entire APDA community.

As the oldest intercollegiate parliamentary debate league in the nation, APDA provides a unique forum for excellent and competitive debate. Like most debating organizations, however, APDA continues to struggle with lower participation rates and less competitive success for non-cis-male individuals. GSEI has made strides towards understanding and alleviating these unequal outcomes through research and resources, many of which are available on this website.

Our current and past programs include our mentorship + hybrid program, a gender-equity analysis project in conjunction with the EOFs, workshops and community building events hosted online and at tournaments throughout the year.