Written by: Grethel Ramos Fiad/Contributing Writer
National Coming Out Day is around the corner, and the University celebrates by hosting an event to bring awareness, to educate students and to embrace diversity.
The annual civil awareness day, which takes place Sunday, Oct. 11, recognizes members from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.
The University event will not be held exclusively to the LGBT community, however. It will be open to anyone who wants to show support through rainbows and cheers, said Jazmine Clifton, multicultural programs graduate assistant.
Participants at the event will visualize the process of the LGBT community sharing their sexual orientation. A physical door will be strategically placed, which people can walk through to get their pictures taken.
The idea is to bring light to the importance of accepting sexual orientations and gender identity and to spread the message to other people through different channels of social media, said Clifton, coordinator of the event.
“The door sketch is both humorous and serious,” Clifton said. “We want to empower people by making fun of the stereotype.”
Students will have access to campus resources to educate themselves on the LGBT community or to seek counseling.
“Sometimes students don’t know who to talk to or where to go,” Clifton says. “This is an opportunity for them to get help in whatever point they are in their personal lives or whatever stage in their transition process.”
Volunteers at the event will come mostly from a queer study program that the University offers to individuals who want to learn about the history of the LGBT movement.
The event will also be an opportunity for people to get involved with the community, or to get educational support for each unique individual’s life. There will be a sign-in sheet, and individuals can write their emails to receive information about future events related to the community.
There will be food and refreshments in the event as well as music from different genres and styles. Participants will be given gay pride symbols such as T-shirts and rainbow pins.
George Escobar, a political science major, said that the National Coming Out Day event will give people incentive to be who they are instead of conforming to a social norm.
“FIU is a progressive University that accepts students from all walks of life; interacting with students from multiple backgrounds has made the University more inclusive,” said Escobar.
Escobar also said that he sees the relevance of National Coming Out Day in the panorama of recent legislative decisions. He thinks that even though the Congress legalized sex marriage this year, discrimination continues to be a reality.
“Probably it is not as prevalent as it was before, but the ideology is still out there,” Escobar said. “You can change the law, but you cannot change the people, and that is the important part.”
The event will take place Friday, Oct. 9 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Graham Center Pit at the Modesto A. Maidique Campus.
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Image by Julie Missbutterflies, courtesy of Creative Commons
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