The college will hold three events this week during its annual Coming Out Week in observance of National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11.
The events, on Tuesday and Wednesday, are designed to raise awareness about the school’s LGBTQ community.
“Coming out is a process,” said professor Zoe Farquhar, the faculty adviser for the student Genders and Sexualities Alliance, said. “I think when people attend [these events, they can really understand that it’s a lifelong process.”
The first event, the Queer Community Wellness and Advocacy Resource Fair, will run from 11 a.m. until 1 pm. on Tuesday, Oct. 10. The fair will offer mental health and other resources to LGBTQ students.
Faculty and staff will discuss LGBTQ identity and its relation to religious faith at the second event, on Zoom, on Oct. 10 from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Farquhar will host the third event, where students will share their own coming-out experiences at a Zoom panel on Wednesday, Oct. 11, from noon to 1 p.m.
Farquhar said the Wednesday panel is “about sharing the experience of people in the community,” and that it is meant to “raise awareness for the community.”
Eva Parry, a first-year transfer studies student, said the week’ activities might not “ help with major issues of discrimination, but [they] could definitely help with inter-community understanding.”
Forrest Caskey, a gender and sexualities professor who will co-host the Coming Out Week activities, called the events “very important.”
“Being queer is not something that you can see like some other identities, and that’s why we are so vocal, because if we’re no, we get erased because history has tried to erase us,” Caskey said.
Caskey continued, “Most people don’t learn about LGBT contributions or identities or culture or celebratory moments or history in school, so the only way to learn is just by continuing to talk about it.”
Farquhar said the events will “personalize all of it, so [students] can really see the humanity and community.”
Caskey added activities like the ones on campus this week “make us more empathetic and kinder people to one another.”
“Doing it as a community builds community,” Caskey said. “Friendships are formed. We learn about one another.”
