After months of deliberation and formalizing the position, on March 28, the Weber State University Student Association student senate voted in favor of creating a new student senator position for gender equality and sexual diversity at their weekly meeting.

The new senate seat was proposed by Amber Fast who is the current traditional student senator. Fast was first approached by Alisha Stucki, the LGBT Awareness Chair, who also works at the Women’s Center on campus, back in September with the idea of creating this new seat.

The seat was born out of a need for representation of students on campus who do not fall into the traditional gender categories of male and female. The new senate seat will bring the total number of seats up to 23.

Several students spoke in favor of the new senate seat before the proposal was made, including Sarah Dosier, who was the executive chair on the elections committee and is a student leader in the Women’s Center.

Others who spoke in favor of the senate seat being approved included Janis Branca, the new senate elect for non-traditional senator and Kestin Page, assistant director for Diversity at WSU.

The senate seat was approved by a three-fourths vote and no official statement has been made yet regarding when the position will be filled.

This article has been edited to clarify who spoke in favor of the senate seat approval.