By Ciara Hooks

Pride made themselves noticed last week in the student center circle as the group celebrated National Coming Out Day.

National Coming Out Day represents a time for people from every walk of life to come express themselves and be proud of who they are with a focus on raising awareness of the concept of coming out.

“Coming Out Day is a day traditionally celebrated by the queer community, but on campus we’re trying to make it so it’s open to other clubs, other students, everyone as a day to come out and be proud of who you are,” said Cali Babey, president of Pride.

National Coming Out Day originated in 1987 as the March on Washington for lesbian and gay rights. Four months later, over 100 LGBT activists met outside of Washington and chose the anniversary of the March on Washington as an annual day of celebration of coming out and the LGBT community. The first official Coming Out Day was held on Oct. 11, 1988.

Coming Out Day is generally a day for members of the queer community to come out as gay, lesbian or bisexual, but Pride decided to incorporate a new element and make it about every type of diversity and identity.

Pride had a table decked with decorating utensils and chalk for people to write whatever they liked and a disc jockey playing all different kinds of music. Pride also had a decorated “coming out door” made of cardboard for the participants to walk through. Like a show there was a host who was a well-known drag queen in the queer community who was talking to and entertaining everyone. People straight and gay were hanging out, talking, dancing and having fun together, executing Pride’s mission.

“We usually get a pretty good turnout; there’s a drag queen and a microphone so we usually get a lot of people, but this particular one we’re hoping to get clubs and student run groups so we’re hoping we’re going to get an even bigger turnout,” said Babey.

“We had Laso come out, different sororities and fraternities and the Black Student Union. They talked about what it means to be who you are. What it means to be proud of who you are because not everyone can relate to being queer, but everyone has an identity and everybody can be proud of that identity so to make it all inclusive that’s what we’re talking about today,” said Melissa Cordner, vice president of Pride.

University President Jack Miller and Vice President of Student Affairs Lisa Tordenti spoke to the CCSU community in support of LGBT students. There were also faculty and student guest speakers, and an open mic for members of the community to share personal experiences and creative stories and poems.

To go along with Pride Awareness Month there is a display case set up in the Student Center in which they incorporated present history with past history. There are pins, pictures, movies, magazines and t-shirts inside the display, as well as a flyer from the first annual Lavender Celebration and a picture of the homosexual rights movement that took place on June 28, 1970.

“There’s a pin in there from the march on D.C., which Coming Out Day is based off of, which is what we’re doing today so it all fits nicely. There’s a picture in there of the one in 10 Committee and the Pride E-Board with Judy Sheppard standing outside the space that is now the LGBT Center. It’s a part of CCSU history because now there’s a center.”

Pride has a Drag Ball coming up on Oct. 27, 2010 and in the spring they usually do a drag fundraiser. They also take part in the program True Colors, which is the biggest LGBT conference in the nation.

Pride meetings are on Wednesdays at 7:15 p.m. in the 1849 conference room.