Retro anime, ‘90s classics, and one of the most colorful decorations of the semester adorned the BBQueer event on March 11, kicking off this year’s Pride Month.
The Gender and Sexuality Center (GSC) and the OU LGBTQ Employee Resource Group hosted the annual casual get-together in North Foundation Hall. Aside from community building, the event served to get the word out about the various Pride Month events on campus.
“The GSC is very small, so a lot of people can’t stop by and know what’s going on,” Elenore Friedseerg-Luft, GSC member, said. “However, people can come to these events once a semester or so and get to know us.”
Attendees celebrated the BBQueer event as it allowed the GSC to grow in numbers and encourage incoming students to participate in the OU community.
“The incoming freshmen don’t want to leave their dorms at all,” GSC member Lynx Mallett said. “The GSC used to have a bunch more people than they do now. Now, it’s like 20 people in the room at the same time. Last year there were a hundred of them probably.”
This year’s theme was the ’90s decade, not only as an aesthetic choice reflecting how the LGBTQ+ was portrayed and lived years ago but also to remember the progress made by the community.
“We have a lot of people who were teens in the ‘90s and talk about the ‘90s and that’s really important for young people,” Friedseerg-Luft said. “We have to remember that queer people have always existed even if there is a straight hegemony.”
“We’re proud of the progress and the history that we have made on this campus,” Joey Colby, Graduate Assistant for the GSC, said. “Every time I see a student succeed or do well on an exam or that maybe doesn’t do so well but gets up and keeps going, and keeps at it — that makes me proud.”
The events also celebrated the collaborations and the supportive community on campus made up of student organizations and university departments alike.
“We work with the Graham Health Center, we work with the Counseling Center,” Colby said. “We have relationships with the Academic Success Center, Writing Center and all sorts of different offices like the Office of Student Involvement.”
Colby explained that the collaborations were geared towards ensuring students have open and safe access to campus resources and spaces.
“I’m glad that the center provides students with the resources that they need,” Colby said. “Students in this community face a lot of difficulties, and being able to have the academic resources, and the work resources through our center is designed to help students succeed.”
Colby added that their involvement on campus is similarly celebrated and supported not only by fellow student organizations but also by the administration.
“Dr. Ora Hirsch Pescovitz and Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Glenn McIntosh do a really wonderful job of supporting our community,” Colby said.
Friedseerg-Luft illustrated how between drag shows and book club events, the GSC aims to diversify this year’s pride month celebrations and also be more present on campus.
“[The events] allow the LGBTQ+ community to come together and to be exposed to the larger community at OU,” Friedseerg-luft said. “It would be great to have potential students come as well because then they could see the community we have here.”
