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EIU Pride Week starts Monday with daily events hosted by the Center for Gender and Sexual Diversity planned for April instead of national pride month in June, according to second year clinical psychology graduate student and GSD graduate assistant Theo Edwards.
The reason for this change is so Eastern students can experience these events on campus, said Edwards.
“What I’ve kind of decided my graduate assistantship is that it’s easier to have it consolidated to a week of events,” they said.
The first event on Monday is a friendship bracelet making event located in the West Reading Room of Booth Library from 5-7p.m.
“That one is a collaboration between EIU pride and Booth Library staff,” Edwards said.
On Tuesday there is Safe Zone training from the Safe Zone Project, which provides training resources to educate about how to help and be an ally LGBTQ+ people and will take place in the Arcola-Tuscola Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. Union from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Participants are asked to RSVP to the event.
On Wednesday, a forum is being held in the West Reading Room of Booth Library starting at 6 p.m.
“The queer forum is around learning about resources in the community and nation resources that can be given to queer students but also giving people more agency and how we can participate in that of familiarly ourselves with resources but then also discussing how we can be activists and fight for our rights,” Edwards said.
The forum will feature panelists from the Women’s Resource Center, Booth Library, EIU students for socialism and the Latin American student organization.
The tagline “The first pride was a riot,” is a reference to the Stonewall riots which took place in 1969 in New York City and are considered the start of the LGBTQ rights movement.
The first pride parades started in the 1970s to commemorate the anniversary of Stonewall.
The final event for the week is on Thursday with drag bingo with EIU alumni and drag artist Lady Deviant hosting.
It is at 6 p.m. in the Vending Lounge of the MLK Jr. Union.
“I just encourage anyone to come, even allies,” Edwards said. “It’s fun, especially the queer forum and the bingo I’m really excited for.”
Jason Coulombe can be reached at 581-2812 or at jmcoulombe@eiu.edu.
