Dartmouth will celebrate the 18th Annual National Coming Out Day today with a community dinner and speech by Joanne Herman '75, a transgendered alumna.
"National Coming Out Day is a day to encourage people to come out of the closet," said Jamal Brown '08, co-chair of Dartmouth's Gay-Straight Alliance. "It is also a day for [lesbian, gay, bisexual, trangendered, queer and allied] people to reflect on their coming out experience and to reflect on what it means to be 'out' and what [the LGBTQA] community means."
Brown said he hopes the meeting will encourage students who question their sexuality to talk about it.
"It's serving as a day for our community to unite and come together and for people who are questioning their sexuality to come to a safe space and feel comfortable with people who understand them," he said. "It gives them a general idea of who the people are in the community."
Pam Misener, assistant dean of student life and advisor to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, said that the community dinner has three main goals, mainly the celebration of the fact that Dartmouth has been included in the Advocate College Guide as one of the top 100 friendly campuses for LGBTQA students.
"It hasn't always been a pretty sight here at Dartmouth for LGBTQA students," she said. "In fact, when I got here in 1999 students were feeling pretty challenged at best and struggling at worst. I think the efforts that have been made...have brought us to this moment where we not only got considered [for the Advocate College Guide] but actually noticed."
The community dinner, hosted by the Office of Pluralism and Leadership and GSA, also aims to celebrate the broader LGBTQA history and to include both straight and homosexual students in shaping the future of Dartmouth's LGBTQA community.
"We're going to invite people to participate and ask them to help us figure out where we go from here -- where do we raise the bar to next?" Misener said. "What's our vision for where we want Dartmouth to be next in terms of the experiences of LGBTQA students and the campus as a whole in relation to sexual orientation and gender?"
Because October is also National Coming Out Month, there will be additional events throughout the month.
Candace Gingrich, who has been active as a spokesperson for the LGBTQA community since 1995 and is younger sister of Newt Gingrich, will speak on Thursday. GSA will host an event called Coming Out Stories next Tuesday at the Top of the Hop, where students from the LGBTQA community will share their coming out experiences.
"Coming Out Stories is one of the bigger events for GSA just because everyone wants to hear everyone else's coming out stories," said Rigel Cable '10, publicity chair of GSA. "It's really cool to hear because it's so different for each person because of circumstances like parents and friends that get so complicated. It's like hearing a soap opera or something."
