Marking 30 years of national and University gay activism, Sunday was National Coming Out Day and the beginning of a week-long University-wide celebration of expression.
Daily events sponsored by the Queer Student Cultural Center this week will allow students to celebrate and express their sexuality as well as discuss ongoing issues within the gay community.
“The spirit of the day is for people to be honest,” said Kjersten Reich, co-chair of the Queer Student Cultural Center. She said the day is an opportunity for people to be honest with themselves, their friends, their families and their community.
The activities kick off today with a lecture by Mandy Carter at noon. The executive director of the National Black Gay and Lesbian Forum, Carter has been speaking about gay issues for more than 20 years.
The keynote speaker for the week, she will discuss interlocking oppression: the way overlapping identifications — such as a person’s color, race, sexuality and religion — can create a complicated web of oppression.
Reich said people often have to choose an identity in situations where they belong to more than one community; there isn’t one place to go. One of the objectives of the week is to confront racism in the queer community by allowing the leaders of the community to point out and talk about the problem.
“A second objective of the week is connecting with more queer students on campus,” Reich said. By walking through a lavender door on Coffman Union on Tuesday, students will celebrate National Coming Out Day in a physical way.
“A lot of new students have come through the center this year and I hope to see a lot of new faces come through the door,” she added.
Other scheduled activities for this week include a panel discussion, an open house and speeches by Karen Clark and Alice Hom. Clark is a lesbian and representative to the Minnesota State House of Representatives; Hom is a doctoral candidate at Claremont University in California who edited “Q & A: Queer and Asian America.”
This week’s events aim to empower queer student organization individuals, build community and end oppression. Following a history of University activism beginning in 1969, the week embraces the history of the center and shows changes within the University community, Reich said.