TARA SEFCHICK, Staff Writer—
This year, Denison Outlook is partnering with the Center of Belonging and Inclusion to observe LGBT history month with a week of activities to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community on campus.
These events are taking place this week to honor National Coming Out Day, which is celebrated annually on October 11. This holiday started in 1988 to mark the anniversary of the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Later, Rodney Wilson, a gay high school teacher in Missouri, created LGBT history month with fellow colleagues in 1994, in order for students to learn the history that he hadn’t learned while growing up.
Caroline Crowder ‘25, president of Outlook, elaborates on why National Coming Out Week is important. They said that “National Coming Out Week is the building of community on Denison’s campus, but also with the greater queer community.” It also “allows people to have that difficult conversation on learning about what coming out means.” Crowder mentions that coming out can look different for every individual, and it’s important to acknowledge how special the exploration of oneself can be.
This year, National Coming Out Week will be a bigger event than in previous years, and Crowder says this is because the Center for Belonging and Inclusion is playing a bigger role in the festivities by working with Outlook to make many more events possible.
To kick the week off on Monday, a Queer Dialogue and Dinner will be taking place in the Curtis Provost Room. Crowder is especially excited for this event from an educational standpoint, since it will explore the intersectionality between Hispanic Heritage Month and LGBT History Month. A chalking event with Outlook will also be taking place outside of Slayter.
On Tuesday, which is National Coming Out Day, a similar dialogue on intersectionality within the LGBTQ+ community will be held at Slayter, in partnership with ACSA and BSU, along with a Drag Bingo night at Slivy’s.
Wednesday will feature a Coming Out Week Service at Swasey Chapel, followed by a candlelight vigil, in which important figures in the LGBTQ+ community and movement will be honored and acknowledged.
Denison Day of Pride, which is taking place this Thursday, will feature a Queer Celebration and a Pride-tober Festival, which includes a drag show, a movie and mocktail event with the movie Booksmart. Crowder said that Denison Day of Pride is actually a new event this year, and is a result of a DCGA initiative for Denison to recognize LGBT history month with a day of recognition and celebration.
Crowder said that the week typically ends on Friday with a lighthearted, fun event, which this year is a kickball tournament on South Quad, along with queer trivia at Slayter.
Overall, Crowder is very happy that there’s a week for students to learn all about what Outlook and the Center for Belonging and Inclusion have to offer. By collaborating with many different organizations to put on events for the week, they said that they really enjoy how “National Coming Out week takes all these different parts of campus and merges them together.”
Denison’s most recent measures to support the LGBTQ+ community on campus include a new preferred name policy and pronoun stickers for student IDs in the Curtis Community Center. Under the preferred name policy, students can add a preferred name to their Denison profile in addition to their legal name to be used wherever possible throughout the university. Furthermore, Outlook’s current plans are to advocate for more trans-inclusive policies on campus.