On Wednesday, Oct. 11, California Lutheran University’s LGBTQIA+ Faculty and Staff Affinity Group, Pride Club and the Talent Culture and Diversity Office hosted Born to Shine, a National Coming Out Day celebration in Kingsmen Park.
The purpose of this event was to recognize the LGBTQIA+ community on campus in honor of LGBTQIA+ History Month.
“It’s an important event for making this act of coming out visible to people. I mean, no one ever comes out once. The problem of coming out is that it’s a process, you can come out in one community or with one group, but that doesn’t mean that you’re out to everybody,” Dru Pagliassotti, communication professor and Pride Club advisor said.
Pagliassotti said making this day visible can be incredibly supportive to people who might be on the verge of coming out, and also help those who aren’t completely sure whether or not it’s safe to come out, especially in religiously affiliated institutions.
“Knowing that you are supported by the university and by faculty and staff here as well as by fellow students, I think is really important, just making it known that this is a place where you can be out if you want to, and it’s okay, no one’s gonna condemn you,” Pagliassotti said.
Senior and President of Cal Lutheran’s Pride Club, Dylan Gallagher, said he played a big part in helping organize this event. He said Pride Club included a continuing tradition by bringing an actual door to the event that students could paint on to symbolize the act of coming out of the closet.
“I know the door’s a little on the literal side symbolically, but it’s just a really cool thing to be able to have that, especially like, if you saw the inside part. Last year, somebody wrote ‘when you’re ready’ on the inside,” Gallagher said.
Colleen Windham-Hughes, associate vice president for Mission and Identity, also helped plan this celebration.
“It’s a day to really celebrate coming out and being visible and it’s a day for everyone in the community to be able to focus on that aspect of people’s identity to open themselves up and learn something new,” Windham-Hughes said.
Earlier this year, the Human Rights Campaign declared a crisis in the United States for LGBTQIA+ people, Pagliasotti said. They said because of the numerous anti-gay, anti-lesbian and anti-trans legislations going through, it is very crucial to have recognition of the LGBTQIA+ community in a time like this.
Name change policies, Pagliasotti said, where students can give a preferred name are ways Cal Lutheran helps queer students feel supported. They said these steps are invisible unless they matter to certain individuals or others are aware of them.
“I think it’s important to recognize that while it is a month, it’s also something that can be integrated and seen everywhere, like throughout the rest of the year. It’s just a month where we get to really take a pause to look at those really important pieces of history,” Gallagher said.
In addition to co-hosting the event, Gallagher said Pride Club will also host their very first Pride parade festival on Saturday, Oct. 21. Gallagher said this will be a larger-scale event to celebrate LGBTQIA+ History Month.
“It’s important for us not to get complacent. We know that it’s always somebody’s first time to be encountering somebody who’s coming out,” Windham-Hughes said. “It’s always somebody’s first time to practice pronouns or to hear them or, you know, to enter into friendships or to talk about controversial topics in the classroom.”
Windham-Hughes said the LGBTQIA+ support present on campus should not only be in the month of October, but year round. She said Cal Lutheran students have access to the Center for Cultural Engagement and Inclusion and leadership that is convening students year round.
“We’re connected to the ELCA, which has a very open and inclusive stance, not just for participation, but also for ordination and leadership, and that is year round,” Windham-Hughes said.
Upcoming LGBTQIA+ History Month events on campus can be found on The Hub, Cal Lutheran’s student events calendar.
