|
 A rainbow American flag hung over the Idaho Commons during the National Coming Out Day Social Wednesday night at the Diversity Center. Jake Barber/Argonaut
Students on campus today may be met by speakers sharing some of their most personal stories about coming out of the closet.
Sophomore Kory Larabee, who is openly gay, said Coming Out Week is meant to let people know “that this is a safe time to come out and to be openly gay.”
“People are starting to realize that there are a lot of us here,” Rebecca Rod, program adviser for the Women’s Center, said. “ … students have been suffering in silence in their dorm rooms with these issues and when they see someone out there for them and creating programming, it starts to make them feel like … it’s not so bad.”
This week and into the next, several organizations on campus are hosting events in celebration of National Coming Out Day on Saturday.
When celebration of National Coming Out Day began four years ago, it was a single day of events. However, it has gained support since then, and the events were lengthened to a week’s worth of activity.
“It kind of feels like it’s on an upward trajectory,” Rod said.
National Coming Out Day was founded in 1988, in celebration of the second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights that occurred one year earlier. That day, around 500,000 people marched on Washington, D.C., for gay and lesbian equality. Since then, observance of the holiday has grown to include several other countries outside the United States.
Today the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual and Queer/ Questioning Association, along with a number of other groups, is hosting the third annual Ally Fest. It’s the biggest of the planned events in a week full of activity.
A large number of student organizations will be tabling in front of the Idaho Commons, showing their support for the gay and lesbian community.
In the afternoon several students at Ally Fest will be allowed to publicly tell their personal coming out stories.
Which students exactly is a decision that might be made just before the event.
At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, The Kenworthy Theater will be rented out for the showing of “For the Bible Tells Me So,” a documentary about homosexuality and whether or not it conflicts with religion. Several local ministers will be present for a discussion afterward.
Monday there was a viewing of the film “Project Laramie,” a collection of reenacted interviews gathered ten years ago after the infamous torture and murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, WY. Afterward there was a brief discussion, in which attendees stressed the importance of Coming Out Week.
The showing was actually to mark the tenth anniversary of Shepard’s attack, which happened on Oct. 7, 1998.
Wednesday, the Gay Straight Alliance held their annual social in the Student Diversity Center.
Every Thursday at 12:30 p.m., LGBTQA holds a lunch meeting, but this week they showed a film on anti-gay legislation in Idaho.
Also related to Coming Out Week, but not necessarily a part of it, there will be two other events. The film “Southern Comfort” about the final year of transsexual Robert Eads’s life will be shown at 10 a.m. on Saturday in the Agricultural Science Auditorium, and there will be the “Poetic Landscape” poetry reading on Monday at 6 p.m. in the Silver & Gold Room of the Student
Union Building.
 Add as favorites (34) | Views: 648
|
