Emphasizing humor and honesty, Internet sensations Dannielle Owens-Reid and Kristin Russo, founders of Everyone Is Gay, will visit Ohio University in an effort to encourage change.
Everyone Is Gay started as an advice website, and though it focuses on LGBTA concerns, the site is geared toward everyone and not just those in the LGBT community.
Amber Gemperline, president of ALLY and an OU senior studying communications studies, explained that the pair also has a YouTube channel and does weekly videos.
“They’re both gay, and they have this website, and they do Q&A,” Gemperline said. “They do LGBT awareness and they answer a lot of questions that LGBT youth ask.”
Open Doors, another OU group geared toward the LGBTA community, is responsible for bringing Everyone Is Gay to Athens.
Renee Stammen, treasurer of Open Doors and a senior studying history and political science, was the one who first reached out to Everyone Is Gay and then organized the event.
“It’s going to be a great event, and it’s going to be great for a lot of different people,” Stammen said.
The event will feature an hour-long presentation focused on ways everyone can easily change the world. A Q&A will follow the presentation.
“I love the Q&A afterwards,” Owens-Reid said. “I do love our presentation. I think it speaks volumes to tons of people, but afterwards the Q&A is so powerful.”
The Q&A will last about a half hour. Afterward, Owens-Reid and Russo will be at the merchandise table and will be available for photographs and to talk with people.
Owens-Reid and Russo’s main message in their presentation is for people to be nice to each other.
“So many of us face the same confusions and the same struggles and the same feelings, despite who we’re sleeping with or how we identify,” Russo said. “We can all sort of find a common thread of humanity.”
Owens-Reid and Russo said that the event is much more geared toward the non-queer community than it is the queer community and that it is “engaging and not preachy.”
“I think that what Dannielle and I do is unique. I don’t think anyone else is doing it,” Russo said. “You’ll laugh for probably 75 percent of the event.”
je726810@ohiou.edu
