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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Diversity Dispatch: Pride Week


MCC’s Pride Week is April 11-15--but what IS Pride Week?

Pride Week is also known as Gay Pride Week, a week of activities to celebrate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, allies, and intersex (LGBTQAI) people, history, and culture. Pride Week celebrations started in the 1970s and 1980s as gay people began emerging from the “closet” of invisibility after events such as the Stonewall riots in New York City in June 1969 against a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar.

As explained in a Columbia University virtual exhibit, “Stonewall 25,” “Raids were not unusual in 1969; in fact, they were conducted regularly without much resistance. However, that night the street erupted into violent protest as the crowds in the bar fought back … Prior to that summer there was little public expression of the lives and experiences of gays and lesbians. The Stonewall Riots marked the beginning of the gay liberation movement that has transformed the oppression of gays and lesbians into calls for pride and action” (https://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/case1.html).

Different communities celebrate Pride Week at different times of the year; Rochester’s Pride Week, for example, takes place in early July (this year, from July 8-17). Pride Week activities run the gamut from lectures and workshops to parties and parades. They are as varied as the LGBTQAI people who plan and attend them, and offer a great way to learn more about issues that concern the LGBTQAI community as well as achievements to be celebrated.

The Pride Alliance and DCC Pride Alliance, MCC’s student clubs for LGBTQAI students (https://web.monroecc.edu/pridealliance/), have planned several activities for MCC’s Pride Week. Please stop by, if you can, to support the inclusion of LGBTQAI people in the MCC community.

Monday, April 11:
12 noon-1 PM (DCC 4th Floor Lounge) – Ice Cream Social
12 noon-1 PM (Brighton, Flynn Campus Center Forum) – Drag 101: instruction in the art of drag transformation

Tuesday, April 12:
12 noon-1 PM (Brighton Terrace) – Un-Blood Drive: protests the exclusion of many LGBTQAI people from donating blood

Wednesday, April 13:
12 noon-1 PM (DCC Room 4-013) – Talent Show
4-6 PM (DCC Room 4-151) – Film “Bullied” followed by discussion

Thursday, April 14:
2-3:30 PM (DCC Room 4-151) – Rochester Victory Alliance speaker on HIV/AIDS
6-8 PM (Brighton Room 8-200) – Trans-Trivia and Panel Discussion: transgender speakers

Friday, April 15:
12 noon-1 PM (Brighton) – Day of Silence: activities to support a national youth-run effort using silence to protest the actual silencing of LGBTQAI people due to harassment, bias, and abuse in schools (https://www.dayofsilence.org/)
1-4 PM (DCC Room 4-013): Safe Zone Training

This is the first in a monthly series of articles from the Diversity Council about topics related to diversity and multiculturalism.

Debbie Mohr
ETS: Libraries
04/08/2011