Last Wednesday Oct. 28th, Diversity Club hosted a human rainbow event on campus in honor of LGBTQ History Month. Club members, as well as other students and faculty, lined up in the Quad at the beginning of advisory, forming a rainbow with the colors of their clothes. Through the event, Diversity Club hopes to make visible and normalize the LGBTQ community within the school.
“I think it’s important to celebrate gender identity and different kinds of sexualities because it’s part of the Trinity family,” co-adviser of Diversity Club Jay Jay Stroup said. “I think the more people know about something that’s different from themselves and can actually interact with somebody who’s different from them, the better it is.”
Diversity Club President Annie Guber believes there is a large stigma around the LGBTQ community at Trinity, and she hopes to encourage students to show more support for each other through this event.
“I guess [what I hope to accomplish] would be to show that this is just like any other event, and to show students it’s okay,” Guber said. “It’s to support others, and yeah, it’s scary sometimes because your friends might not agree with you, but stick up for what you believe in.”
Stroup said that she received lots of positive feedback from faculty who were excited to have this visible, approved event on campus. US Dean of Students Kelly Aull, one of the administrators who approved the event, said she appreciates the efforts of Diversity Club and thought they did a good job with the organization of the event.
“I thought it was a nice statement for the club to bring awareness and also to send a message of inclusion and acceptance to the student body,” Aull said. “I think that was a really cool thing. I hope to see more events like that for other history months to kind of bring more awareness of the diversity that exists on campus.”
Aull said the school rejected previous activities by Diversity Club and those involved in the club as they did not want to make a statement as an institution about their stance on political issues.
“Often, students, organizations, or groups like to make statements about political issues, and that’s okay,” Aull said. “Students are allowed to have thoughts and be political creatures. We just don’t, as a school, want to send a message because we don’t want to leave students or faculty with the impression that not everyone is welcome here.”
Guber feels that difficulties in receiving administrative approval for previous ideas have been discouraging, but hopes to continue working towards a community that embraces diversity.
“We’ve had multiple conversations [with administration] leading up to events like this to get things passed … and it is a very long process which is a shame,” Guber said. “It makes students not feel as connected, but once it does get passed, then it really feels like an accomplishment.”
Currently, Diversity Club’s future plans include holding an event for Diwali in November and creating merchandise, most likely through Redbubble. Guber said Diversity Club’s mission is not only to support the LGBTQ community but also to teach others about the differences in our community including culture, religion, race, mental health, and more.
“[Normalizing these topics] makes the community flow better in my opinion, to other people, it’s very controversial sometimes, especially in our Trinity family,” Guber said. “We want to form a community that embraces everyone and doesn’t [just] say that we embrace. We want action, not words.”
