Happy Pride Week! Pride Week is a whole week at Penn State dedicated to celebrating and creating awareness about the LGBTQA community. It is organized by the school’s LGBTQA Student Resource Center. This year’s Pride Week includes a HUB takeover, rally at Old Main, and a pride march. Special guest Angelica Ross, a transgender actress and star of Her Story, will be speaking Wednesday.
The LGBTQA community is strong at Penn State. The Resource Center offers education, support, and advocacy for LGBTQA individuals on campus. Their office is in 101 Boucke Building and is a safe space. Their vision is “(to) work to eliminate homophobia and heterosexism at The Pennsylvania State University so that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students and their allies have equity in every respect and are included in all areas of the Penn State Community.”
Zack, 19, is a freshman at Penn State and identifies as gay. He spoke about his experiences.
One of his struggles is that he is a business major at Smeal and he worries the business world may not be as accepting. He mentioned though, that there is a group at Smeal, OUT & Allies in Business, that holds career resources specifically to create a diverse and welcoming environment.
“That’s important to me,” said Zack. “Being a Smeal student, I sometimes feel like a minority. You don’t know how a lot of Fortune 500 people feel. It’s comforting to know that they’re going to look past my sexuality and just look at my resume.”
We also spoke about the LGBTQA culture on campus.
“There is definitely a subculture on campus. I have a lot of friends that participate in the drag circuit at Chronic Town. The music and theater building have decorated the area as an LGBTQA pride area, and there’s a lot of support on campus. The All In campaign is supportive as well. Even though it started out as racial and cultural, it’s cool to be represented as a subculture for my identity.”
To learn more about the LGBTQA Resource Center, click here.
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