Charleston Pride is coming up on July 25! The parade will be held on Saturday, August 1, the last day of the week-long festival. If anyone will be in Charleston that weekend, we would love to march with you!
We need a minimum of five people to register a group, so if you are interested in representing CofC GSA in the parade, please contact Kaitlyn Manley on Facebook or check out our Facebook page.
Still in Charleston? Looking for something to do on a Tuesday night? Want to congratulate all the awesome LGTBQQIAP and Ally seniors graduating this spring?
Tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. in the School of Education, Health, and Human Performance, we will be holding our second annual LGBTQQIAP and Ally Lavender Celebration, sponsored by the Gay-Straight Alliance, Safe Zone, and the Gender and Sexuality Equity Center. The first official Lavender Celebration was held in 1995 at the University of Michigan (called Lavender Graduation there).
Click the invitation below to learn more about our own Lavender Celebration and to join the event on Facebook!
As we enter November and Christmas carols begin sneaking onto our radio stations, it may seem like the semester is coming to a close. Midterms are over, finals are starting to rear their ugly heads, and most clubs are finalizing their last few meetings before Thanksgiving break.
BUT WAIT!
Don’t be fooled – there is still one MAJOR event left in 2014 for GSA, and it is going to be the biggest (and most awesome) celebration of the semester.
Transgender Day of Remembrance is on November 20, and for the first time ever, GSA will be hosting a TDOR fundraiser concert to benefit Sea Haven for Youth (an lgbtq-friendly homeless shelter) in lieu of the regular weekly meeting. Two amazing transgender singers, Jeff Miller and Shishmanian, will be flying from across the country to CofC just for this event.
“So… What’s Transgender Day of Remembrance?”
I’m glad you asked! TDOR is the culmination of Transgender Awareness Week, and it is a national, annual observance that honors the memory of those whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. The Transgender Day of Remembrance was founded in 1998 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a trans woman who is a graphic designer, columnist, and activist, to memorialize the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts.*
“I want to go! When and where is this spectacular shindig?”
The TDOR concert is being held on November 20th from 6-9pm in the Stern Gardens. It is free to enter, and GSA will be accepting donations for Sea Haven, through sales of concert memorabilia and general donations. Please give what you can to help homeless youth!
This is an event you do NOT want to miss!
*Information provided by wikipedia
Hey everyone, KT here.
I don’t know about you, but when I get really excited about something, I can’t shut up about it. Seriously, it’s obnoxious. I start to drive people crazy talking about the secret midnight release of Beyonce’s new album (which was monumental, to be fair), or that Geico commercial about the oldest trick in the book (which is hilarious, thank you), or how I got a new dog six months ago (and she’s awesome), etc. And I know, I know, I’ve been talking nonstop about Second Chance Prom.
But here’s the thing. Second Chance Prom is important.
Someone asked me, “Why prom? Isn’t prom a little cliché? Why not call it a ball? We’re not in high school anymore.” And that person is absolutely right. We–at least most of the people who will be attending SCP–are not in high school. We’re college students. We could put on our grown-up pants (or skirts, or jeggings, or whatever adults are wearing these days) and call it a ball. So why don’t we? Why prom?
Because prom has a certain connotation. Prom night is supposed to be–according to moms everywhere–one of the happiest nights of your life. One might even consider it a rite of passage. And LGBT youth often cannot enjoy prom the way it ought to be enjoyed for fear of being stigmatized or excluded. Let’s be real: South Carolina is not the most progressive place in the country. So for LGBT students at the College of Charleston, Second Chance Prom is a shot at a real prom night without the worry of being ostracized for gender expression, sexual orientation, or anything else either.
And really, if you want to get right down to it, Second Chance Prom because it’s a second chance for everyone. If you spilled something on your clothes, if your date stood you up, if you had to leave the dance early, if ANYTHING about your prom night wasn’t TOTALLY perfect, don’t worry. We’ve got your back.
The Gay-Straight Alliance has been working hard to create a welcoming campus environment for everyone, and our foremost goal is to foster a community where people of all backgrounds and identities can coexist in a positive way. The purpose of SCP is not only to give everyone an opportunity to feel awesome about themselves, but also to feel awesome about their campus and their community.
Speaking of community, we’re excited to be giving back to ours this year. Since our first SCP was such a success, the officer team decided to help raise awareness (and proceeds) for victims of domestic abuse. We’ve chosen My Sister’s House as the organization we’ll be sponsoring this year. While prom itself is 100% free, we are asking that everyone contribute whatever they can. We’ll be selling raffle tickets starting at $1, and also accepting item donations. A list of needed items can be found here.
Happy Halloweek everyone! Tomorrow is the big day… Come celebrate with GSA at our annual Gender Bender Party!
Every year, we hold our Gender Bender Party to celebrate the fluidity of gender in its many forms. As attendees, you are encouraged to bend your gender expressions in any way you see fit!
Need a little inspiration? Here’s a picture from the 2011 party!
Think you can top that? We’ll be having a costume contest and handing out prizes!
Remember, we’re reverting to our regular meeting time and place, 5:30 PM at the Multicultural Center. Don’t miss it!
Hello again everyone! A certain officer (*cough*KT*cough*) has been slack with updating the blog for the past few weeks, so thank you to everyone who has attended our recent events, including our Naitonal Coming Out Day ceremony and the counter-protest turned Judy Shepard welcome party we co-hosted with SSA.
Tonight, in lieu of a regular meeting, GSA will be attending An Evening With Alison Bechdel, which begins at 7PM in TD Arena! She will be discussing her graphic novel Fun Home, this year’s College Reads book. If you haven’t read it yet, you should definitely check it out.
Our regular events will resume next Thursday, October 31st. For Halloween, we will be holding a Gender Bender Party in the Multicultural Center! Stay tuned for more information. In the meantime, we hope to see you all at TD Arena tonight.
Don’t forget to check the Facebook and our twitter page for updates on events and activities.
Have an excellent weekend!
You asked, and we delivered. The GSA officers have collaborated with Residence Life and Housing to provide you with an Open Mic Night! This meeting will start at 6PM, not 5:30 like usual. That’s because we’ll need a bit of extra time to set up. The wonderful RAs of Rivers have been generous enough to help out with coffee, snacks, and setup. Now all we need is you! Bring your instruments, your writing, your creativity, and your enthusiasm.
As of right now, we’ll be having the event in Hawkins Living & Learning Center, a classroom in the Rivers dorm (across the street from Addlestone Library). Due to some issues with the building this past week, THE CURRENT LOCATION IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE! We will inform you via email, Facebook, and Twitter of any alterations.
The Open Mic will be more of a drop-in event than our weekly meetings–feel free to come and go as you please. We WILL be sending an officer to the Multicultural Center to meet up with anyone who is not sure where they should go for the event. Fear not–we’ve got your back.
I hope everyone is having an excellent weekend so far. The officer team will be working this week to finalize the details–we’re really excited about this event, and we hope you’re excited too! Bring your friends!!! We can’t wait to see you there!
It’s majorly important to have allies. CofC’s SafeZone Allies are our best friends on campus, and they’re everywhere! This week’s Scavenger-Raffle challenge is to find an Ally sticker or door hanger and snag a picture of it!
Send us your pics! You can post them to our Facebook page, tweet them, or email them to charlestongsa@gmail.com!
If you didn’t complete last week’s challenge, you should still take some time and introduce yourself to David, Chris, and Tom–our wonderful SafeZone crew!
Good luck with this week’s challenge. We’ll be drawing names at this Thursday to see who wins the Tegan & Sara tickets!
This week, we’ll be talking about soup.
I know what you’re thinking. Soup? What soup? What in the world does soup have to do with anything?
Well, we’re talking about alphabet soup–our acronym, LGBTQQAAIP. A lot of people are only familiar with the first four letters, which represent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans* individuals, respectively. But as you can see, there are lots of other letters up there!
We’ll be exploring the meanings behind the rest of the letters, and also discussing just how accurate any strict definitions can really be. We’ll also be discussing the difference between sex and gender and talking a good bit about the gender spectrum.
Don’t forget to bring your pictures from this past week’s scavenger challenge. We’ll have a new task for you!
Lots of you submitted the survey for last week’s installment of the Scavenger-Raffle! This week, we’re asking you to step it up a notch.
To have your name entered this week, grab a picture with any member of the SafeZone crew and send it to us! That’s David Michener, Chris Gilliard, or Tom Holcomb, Jr. You can find David or Chris in the Multicultural Center and Tom on the second floor of the Education Center. Your name will be entered one time in the drawing for each SZ guy with whom you get a picture!
You can email your pictures to charlestongsa@gmail.com or post them to our Facebook page!
Remember, the winners of the Scavenger-Raffle win one ticket each to see FUN with Tegan & Sara on September 24th. The more challenges you complete, the better your chance of winning.
Good luck!
College of Charleston Gay-Straight Alliance 