Where can I find information about LGBTQIA+ student life today? 

Stanford University has an active LGBTQIA+ community, with many opportunities to meet other like-minded students and allies. One place to look for events, support, and community building is Queer Student Resources. They offer a full calendar of events, virtual social gatherings, and numerous other services. You might also reach out to LGBTQIA+ student organizations on campus, via QSR's list of affinity groups. 

Who were the first LGBTQIA+ people affiliated with Stanford?

LGBTQIA+ people have always been a part of the Stanford University community. There are multiple notable LGBTQIA+ people that have passed through the Stanford campus, and whose lives and activities have been documented, starting in 1894. They include: 

• Samuel Walter Miller: Samuel Walter Miller (commonly known as Walter Miller) and Charles Howard Durham shared a passionate romantic relationship, after meeting as students at the University of Michigan. Walter Miller would later lead the first American excavation in Greece and founded the Stanford Classics department in 1894.
• Dr. Alan Hart: In what may be the earliest documented queer relationship at Stanford, Dr. Alan Hart and his female partner, Eva Cushman, enrolled in Stanford as junior transfers from Albany College in Oregon. Publicly, Dr. Hart passed as an ordinary and successful undergraduate woman. However, outside of school, he frequents cabarets and dive bars in San Francisco dressed in masculine clothes. Hart returned to Stanford in 1916 for one quarter at the Medical School. After medical school, Dr. Hart continued to live life as a man, working as a radiologist and physician until the early 1960's. He published multiple novels, including one in 1936, titled "The Undaunted," featuring a homosexual character.
• Harry Hay: Harry Hay attended Stanford from 1930-1932. In fall 1931, he announced his homosexuality to several nonplussed dorm neighbors. In the spring of 1931, he maintained a private love affair with a member of his eating club, Smith Dawless. They both published ambiguous poems about their relationship in a Yearbook of Stanford Writing. Dawless's poem was awarded a student prize and published in a book by the Stanford University Press. Hay leaves Stanford after his sophomore year in 1932 for social and financial reasons. In 1950, Hay was a founding member of the Mattachine Society, the first major homosexual rights group in the country.
• Jane Rule: Jane Rule enrolled for one quarter in the English graduate program, where she submitted lesbian-themed short stories to her writing professor, Wallace Stegner. Rule went on to publish the classic lesbian novel "Desert of the Heart" in 1964.

It is worth noting that terminology and identification have changed over time among the LGBTQIA+ community and society generally. People who might be identified as LGBTQIA+ today may not have thought of themselves as such in the past. Another point worth considering is the overall lack of archival materials related to historically marginalized groups, like LGBTQIA+ people, relative to collections about prominent people and activities from dominant groups. Based on contextual information, we know there have been LGBTQIA+ identified people at Stanford since the inception of the school, even if they are not documented in the archives. 

To learn more about LGBTQIA+ history at Stanford, visit the Queer @ Stanford exhibit's timeline.

What was the first LGBTQIA+ organization at Stanford? 

In 1965, the Stanford Sexual Rights Forum registers as a voluntary student organization, the earliest known student group nationally to advocate civil rights for homosexuals. Members also seek change in campus regulations limiting visits between men and women in dormitories, and lobby for access to contraceptives at the Student Health Service. The group is active through spring 1966.

In 1968 "Wendell Anderson," (probably a pseudonym for an anonymous Stanford student) starts the first documented LGBTQ+ organization at Stanford: the Student Homophile League of Stanford University.

In 1970, Stanford community members found the Stanford Gay Students Union, a social support and consciousness-raising group of men and women, students and non-students meeting off-campus in private homes. The founding of Gay Students Union marks the beginning of the continuous organizational history of gay men and lesbians at Stanford.