Gaypril

CELEBRATE GAYPRIL!

Every year The Claremont Colleges community celebrates a month of LGBTQQIAA Pride in April. Pride month is a once-a-year opportunity for LGBT individuals to enjoy visibility and support from a wide community, while celebrating our allies and promoting awareness about issues surrounding the diverse intersections of queer identity. The Gaypril calendar represents the combined efforts of students, staff, and faculty from organizations across The Claremont Colleges. These individuals come from many different organizations: campus-specific queer groups, 7C-wide resource centers such as The QRC, The AARC, and OBSA,  as well as other community resources like KSPC, 5Cs Out Loud, and The Pomona College Museum of Art, to name a few. In April we come together to celebrate pride and advocate for queer and allied college communities (and beyond) with events that range from social, to supportive, to educational, to just plain incredible!

The QRC would like to thank everyone that came out this year to make the 2013 GAYpril a fantastic success. With over 40 events this year we had a record number of queer events on the 7 C's!  Take a look below for some highlights of this year’s events and come back in March of next year to see announcements for the 2013-2014 Gaypril Celebration!

2013 Gaypril: Highlights

In the 2012-2013 school year, The QRC hosted events like Queer Prom and Lavender Graduation, and of course - our Gaypril Kickoff event: Painting Walker Wall! We also saw the return of some newer events, like the Queer Geek Social and the 2nd Annual Graduate QBBQ. And we can’t forget all the awesome ally actives this year including the formation of a 5C ally chain, ally t-shirt making and no less than 3 campus-specific ally trainings at HMC, CMC, & CGU. And what about all our alumni events? Not only did we have a lovely lunch at the third annual bridging generations event, we had our first student and alumni mixer, and we invited alums back to campus to talk about navigating careers as lgbtqia folk! We welcomed Alex Sanchez to The Claremont Colleges this year. We also helped to facilitate important conversations around identity and queerness in a great dialogue series: Expectations of Identity and Queer Across Cultures. All of this and we were still busy going to the many events put on by Queer groups across the campuses. Below are descriptions of just a few of the many events held this year.

Film Screening & Discussion of How to Survive a Plague

7:00 PM Monday, April 1st @ The QRC

The CGU School of Community and Global Health and the Queer Graduate Union hosted a screening and discussion of the academy award winning documentary How to Survive a Plague: the story of two coalitions - ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) - whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. For more information about the film, visit the website: http://surviveaplague.com/

Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Queer Women’s Social

6:30 – 8:30 PM Friday, April 5th from @ The Women's Union, PO

The QRC and the Women's Union co-hosted an evening of fun with snacks and folks. Anyone who is committed to building community amongst bi, queer, gat ext. women identifying people at the 7Cs was welcome!

Painting Walker Wall

2:00 PM Sunday, April 7th ALWAYS @ Walker Beach, PO

The Official “Unofficial” Gaypril Kickoff: Once more, it is that time of year to kick off Gaypril at the Claremont Colleges! There was yummy Lily's Tacos, a super fun bounce house, live music, a performance by Reverb, and of course a ton of rainbow paint!

QPOC Talk

4:15 – 5:15 PM Monday, April 8th @ The QRC

A supportive, confidential student-lead discussion group. The dialogue series is meant to provide a safe, supportive space for LGBTQIA folks and allies to engage with topics on identity, coming out, queerphobia, community, and related themes.

Second Annual Graduate Queer & Allied Social and BBQ

5:00 – 8:00 PM Friday, April 12th @ The GSC House, CGU

KGI, CST, & CGU were invited to join the Queer Graduate Union for the 2nd Annual Queer & Allied Social and BBQ.

There was BBQ for vegetarians and meat-eaters, and delicious drinks. Over 50 LGBTQ and Ally students, staff and faculty from Claremont Graduate University, Keck Graduate Institute, and Claremont School of Theology showed up for a fun evening to mix, mingle, and build community. The event was sponsored by The Graduate Student Council, The Queer Graduate Union, The CGU Dean of Students Office, and The Queer Resource Center of The Claremont Colleges.

Ally T-Shirt Making

12:00 – 2:30 PM Sunday, April 14th @ The QRC

Arts & crafts, snacks, music, community, fun and a free t-shirt. Students came to The QRC to make their very own Ally T-shirts using stencils, spray dye & paint, and their creativity!

Career Check-in with LGBTIAQ Alums and Students

6:00 – 8:00 PM Thursday, April 18th @ The QRC

Dinner and conversation with queer alumni and Pomona’s Office of Career Development to discuss life and work post-college. What does it mean to be queer in the workplace and how have alumni, who have been active in the LGBTQIA community, navigate activism outside of Claremont? This is a space to share experiences, concerns, joys, and ask lots of questions. This event was organized by The Career Development Office of Pomona College.

Alex Sanchez Reading & Talk

4:00 – 6:00 PM Friday, April 19th @ Smith Campus Center, Room 208

With the help of cosponsorships from across the 5Cs, the QRC hosted an afternoon with Alex Sanchez, author of the Rainbow Boys trilogy, So Hard to Say (Lambda Literary Award 2004 Winner), Getting It, and many more.

Alex spoke about intersections of queerness, faith, and racial identity, growing up gay and a Mexican immigrant, how he came to write his books, and the remarkable effect they are having on young people across the country and internationally.  He also read from his book The God Box and answered questions after his talk. 

A reception followed the reading.

Queer Across Cultures

5:00 - 6:30 PM Friday, April 26th @ I-Place

How does being Greek, Indian, Guyanese, Egyptian, or Chinese intersect with being LGBTQIA? How does being a product of multiple cultures intersect with queer identity, language, class, religious/faith practice, gender, and everything in between? We met to share our experiences as queer people within and across cultures in this 2nd event of a three-part series.

Bridging the Generations LGBTQQIA Alumni Lunch

Saturday, May 4th from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM – The QRC , PO

5C Faculty, Staff, and Students at the 3rd annual LGBTQA Alumni Luncheon. This was an amazing opportunity not only to share your experience as current students with curious lgbtqqiaa alum, but to learn about their experiences during their years at the 5Cs and later. The Queer [his/her/their/zir]story project  will be conducted interviews with alumni this year, adding to our growing collection of queer oral histories at The Claremont Colleges. These interviews will not only serve an academic purpose to catalogue different individuals’ experiences, but also as a practice of reclaiming and authoring our own histories.

21+ Social [LBTQIA Student and Alumni Mixer]

9:00 to 11:00 PM Saturday, May 4th @ The QRC

Later on Saturday alumni returned to join current students and graduating seniors from across the 7C's for a swanky soiree at the QRC celebrating the end of the year.