The LGBT Center will be hosting a series of events to give people assurance that they have a place in the community.
“You Are Enough Week” allows students to visit the LGBT Center to participate in their photo project which involves students making signs that affirm their sexual orientations. This idea comes from many students feeling they don’t fit the stereotypes surrounding their sexuality so they’re not enough.
The LGBT Center hopes this week-long event will help dispel the idea.
“(The photo project) validates identities in the LGBT community,” Sam Haug, a junior studying wildlife biology and global studies Asia, said. “(We want) to raise awareness for people, and to offer a place of acceptance and support. There is a place here for everyone.”
Payton Wilks, a freshman studying theater and anthropology, said he thinks the event is important for LGBT individuals.
“I think it’s a necessary thing to promote,” Wilks said. “Lots of people can feel insecure about their place in the community because they don’t fit the stereotypes.”
Along with the photo project, the week will feature a National Day of Silence on April 11. Students are encouraged to stay silent on this day to raise awareness of people who are silenced or feel they don’t have a voice because of their gender or sexuality. The day will conclude with a breaking the silence rally where people who participated will break their silences together.
“(The day) is for people who can’t be open and out about their identities because of safety issues,” Anna Turner, a junior studying women's, gender and sexuality studies, said. “It’s a silence to honor that struggle, and the breaking of silence is to say ‘this is not the end.’”
Wilks said he sees the problem of people feeling they don’t fit in among people who identify as LGBT.
“I can see people put in awkward situations because of their preferred pronouns or the gender they identify with,” he said. “It’s a problem even within the gay community, (not) accepting people that don’t fit the stereotypes.”
Wilks believes the event is a good way to raise awareness about the problems people who identify as LGBT have. He thinks the event will be successful in drawing many people from across campus to attend.
“I’m always interested in helping the community,” he said. “I think others would be too.”
Mae Yen Yap contributed to this report.
