National Coming Out Day may not start until midnight, but the organizers of Queer Awareness Month will kick it off this afternoon with a Coming Out Day Carnival in the Barnard Quad.
In addition to offering candy, the carnival will include tabling by a variety of student groups, campus offices, and off-campus organizations, such as Amnesty International and Lambda Legal. It will be followed on Saturday by a Barnard-sponsored alumnae brunch.
“We wanted to do something that would be as inclusive as possible,” said QuAM co-coordinator Anna Steffens, BC ’10 and co-president of Barnard’s LGBT group Q. While the QuAM 2008 theme is “Beyond the Closet,” she explained “we didn’t want to necessarily say that everyone has to come out of the closet or has to be gay to be involved.”
The carnival will also mark a debut of sorts for Lea Robinson, the Columbia Office of Multicultural Affairs’ new assistant director for LGBT programming and advisement.
“It’s kind of her grand ‘coming out’ to us,” said Natalie Wittlin, BC ’09 and QuAM planning committee member and Q co-president.
As a celebration of what marks a formative experience for many in the LGBT community, Coming Out Day plays an important role in QuAM. Will Simpkins, program director for Barnard’s Community and Diversity Initiatives and a point person for the brunch, pointed out that it differs in tone from many other highly visible LGBT occasions, such as April’s Day of Silence.
“It’s really the one day of the year that, in terms of the GLBT community, is a celebratory day,” he said. “We really want to celebrate this community and provide a hopeful time for it to connect.”
The carnival, organizers hope, will illustrate both the universality of the coming out experience and variations it holds for each person.
“It’s really important to acknowledge that this is a hugely important day, and that the process of coming out is hugely important, but that the process is different for everyone,” Wittlin said. “There are a lot of commonalities, but everyone has different and unique experiences.”
The brunch, which will take place at the downtown restaurant Ate Ave, is co-hosted by Barnard trustees Rosa Alonso, BC ’82, and Amy Lai, BC ’89, both of whom identify as queer. Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda, will speak about both the recent successes of the New York movement for LGBT rights and the challenges he sees ahead. In its third year, the event aims to forge connections across Barnard’s community.
“It’s always been a time for students, faculty, staff, and alumnae to mix and mingle,” Simpkins said.
The carnival’s location is not linked to the brunch, but is rather part of an attempt by QuAM organizers to avoid Columbia-centrism in what is designed as a University-wide series of events. The month’s launch, Steffens explained, was originally planned for Barnard, but was moved to Roone Arledge Auditorium to accommodate the wide audience drawn in by speaker Augusten Burroughs.
“We’re trying to plan as many events as possible at Barnard,” Steffens said.
According to Simpkins, QuAM at Barnard may already be a unique experience.
“The good thing about QuAM is that it allows them [students] the opportunity to think about what it means to be a lesbian, bisexual, or transgender student at a women’s college, which is very different than being that at a big coed university,” he said of Barnard students. “But they also get to celebrate with a larger, more diverse community.”
Togetherness also makes up an important part of the celebration’s goals.
“In the past few years the queer community at Columbia has really come together,” Wittlin said, “but it’s always great to get more opportunities to do that.”
Current students hope to lay a foundation for those who follow them. The carnival, new this QuAM, is intended to be a yearly affair.
“We’re hoping to start it as an annual event,” Steffens said. “We hope it becomes a big tradition.”
