Sunshine. Summer break. Rainbow flags. Pride Month is right around the corner, and the DU Cultural Center is already celebrating.
As DU will not be in session for most of the annual pride festivities, the DU Cultural Center celebrated with Pride Prep Week. Last week’s festivities included “Queerstories” documentaries on Monday, a Pink Party on the roof of the commons on Tuesday, a Wednesday luncheon with historian Aaron Marcus and Lawn Gay-mes on Thursday.
Monday’s documentaries included a range of queer films, each available on Kanopy for free to DU students. The Pink Party featured a Barbie box and other props, and Aaron Marcus discussed how he designed and curated the LGBTQ History exhibit at History Colorado over lunch.
Pride Prep Week culminated in Lavender Graduation on Friday, in which graduating queer students participated in a graduation ceremony complete with lavender sashes and speeches.
The Cultural Center will also be partnering with the DU Alumni Network to have a booth at PrideFest on June 24 and 25.
To Eric Duran, head of the Cultural Center, celebrating pride is more important now than ever.
“Especially with the over 500 state bills that have been introduced that attack LGBTQ individuals, [Pride] is still to celebrate who we are and our authentic selves,” Duran said.
The year 2023 has already seen over 520 anti-LGBTQ+ laws introduced in state legislatures across the country; 70 have been passed into law. These bills target LGBTQ+ content and history in school curricula, non-binary and trans people’s right to identify with their gender and receive appropriate healthcare, public drag performances and other forms of queer expression, identity and healthcare.
The most infamous of these include Florida’s’ Parental Rights in Education Bill, commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which Ron DeSantis signed in late March; a bill in Kentucky which bans trans youth from accessing gender-affirming healthcare; and, introduced in Montana just a few weeks ago, an LGBTQ Erasure Act which seeks to bar LGBTQ+ Montanans from claiming discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
“The political and social go hand in hand,” said Duran. “We should still be visible. We should still spread awareness. We should still be who we are as much as we can.”
Looking to next year, Duran is looking forward to continuing to celebrate Pride Prom and Homecoming-Out while establishing queer spaces and visibility on campus and supporting students with intersecting identities.
“Really partnering more with my co-director on the BIPOC student side to really figure out how we program for students who have multiple identities,” said Duran.
