NC Pride Wrapup

[Ed. Note: Last year, we started to recap BDU and Center events with pictures and firsthand accounts. This past weekend was the 27th annual NC Pride Parade, which began right here on Duke's East Campus! A friend of the blog, Chelsea, was awesome enough to share her thoughts with us. And a special thanks to Robert and Cesar for use of their pictures.]

Last Saturday, September 24th, I participated in my first Pride parade. Being what we call a “straight ally” and having lived most of my life in a country (Italy) where LGBT Centers are underground and the idea of supporters doesn’t really exist (and we also have the Pope? Minor detail), you can imagine how this opportunity had not made its way toward me in the past. But this weekend it did, and I immediately jumped on that bandwagon… But actually. I climbed on that float, lathered my torso in body paint, through my hands in the air and cheered on like there was no tomorrow.

Last Saturday, the sky was dull and it poured, but that didn’t faze us. Durham was vibrant. Durham was a bubbling melting pot of people of all different kinds of backgrounds, ages, sexualities and beliefs who stood as one while asking for a simple request: let us all be equal.

There are two levels on which one could experience NC pride: first, you had the more general aspect which entailed a herd of advocates for equality parading down the streets, as most Prides go. But on the other side, you had the Duke/Durham level, where one bonded with their community, home or home-away-from–home; where one lent a helping hand to a peer; where one celebrated while embracing their best friend, smiling at their RA, cheering with their lab partner, high-fiving their professor; where one could directly reach out to their neighbor, friend, significant other, relative, passerby and affirm, “This is for you”.

Going back to that day, I find a cluster of words and images whirling in my mind:

Swarms of smiling faces
Color
Bright color
Glitter
(SO MUCH glitter)
Banners
Fliers
Flags
Signs
Stars
Heels
Insane hairstyles
Motion
Action
Movement
Cheering
Dancing
Jumping
Laughing
“Work it!!”
Showers of hearts
Actual showers
Rainbows
Energy and Pathos
Happiness
Advocacy
Goliardery
Affection
Equality
Support
Love

Love=Love Candelight Vigil Wrapup

[Ed. Note: Last year, we started to recap BDU and Center events with pictures and firsthand accounts. On Monday Night, Duke hosted a candelight vigil (Chronicle coverage here)to protest the anti-LGBT amendment that was recently passed in the N.C. state legislature (at the time of the vigil, the House of Representatives had passed it and the Senate had not yet voted). By clearing the NC General Assembly, the amendment will appear on the ballot in May. Read more about the bill here, and if you've registered to vote in N.C., and join the FB group to figure out what you can do to stop this bill from becoming a N.C. constitutional amendment. A friend of the blog, Sarah, was awesome enough to share her thoughts with us. You can read more about the vigil at Pam's House Blend. I also recommend reading Megan's remarks, watching Dean of Duke Chapel, Sam Wells's speech (see video below, text here), and checking out sophomore student and NC-native Ryan's reflection on what the marriage amendment means to him. Also, special thanks to Chelsea and Ollie for lending us the use of their photos and to Jess Evans and the student volunteers for coordinating the vigil!]

For my first vigil, the experience was subtle, hushed, but lifted me off my feet. It was like a breath of fresh air after being submerged in water for a slight period. There’s something heavy in the exertion as your chest burns with the contractions and expansion of your exhausted lungs. The burn came from my ignited candle, and that heavy something was indescribable in the wake of the moment. Though I had my mind half working on distributing candles and half catching the quiet, poignant, powerful words released into the wind and into the opened hearts of everyone participating, I could tell something shifted in me, around me. We are united; we don’t support this intrusion of one’s choices. Were we not a country opposed to such invasive cruelty? Was this country not incepted because select individuals refused to recognize our rights as human beings? Reverend Dr. Sam Wells put it quite eloquently: “Our nation’s Constitution doesn’t regard these qualities of our national life to be controversial, or even up for debate. It holds them to be self-evident. Self-evident.”


Monday night, we showed Duke University, we showed Durham, and in extension, we showed legislators of the state of North Carolina, that we cannot deny these rights simply because of these notions of marginalization. For many of us, North Carolina has allowed us to be ourselves, perhaps even for the very first time of our lives. And although I submit this in omission for various and personal reasons, know this: This state is my home, you cannot take that away from me. To see people rallying together against a bill that doesn’t take into the consideration of everyone here encourages me every day to be far more courageous than I was three, five, ten years ago. That night I felt overwhelmed, brilliant, like I belonged, like coming home.


Video of Dean Wells's speech begins at 3:00, courtsey of Pam's House Blend.

Lavender Graduation Wrap-Up

[Ed. Note: This year, we started to recap BDU and Center events with pictures and firsthand accounts. A friend of the blog who wishes to remain anonymous wrote the following about their experience at Friday's ceremony. And of course, congrats to the Class of 2011! We will miss you tremendously.]

Upon entering the center, I was greeted as I normally am by Janie and a number of frequent visitors and student workers at the Center. Immediately, I felt a sense of community and pride as I ventured into the multi-purpose room and chose my seat prior to the beginning of the ceremony. I had never attended a Lavender Graduation before so I had no idea what to expect. Based on my experience, I’m certain that I made the right decision to go this year. To see the family members and faculty that were in attendance was a testament to the all of the support and unity that the Center promotes. If never I had felt comfortable in the Center before, today was the day that I felt I truly belonged. As parting words and quotes were shared, certificates and rainbow tassels distributed, inspiring and encouraging words spoken, tears shed, and hugs given, there was an undeniable sense of love in the air. I was privileged to be in the room at that time and I am anxiously awaiting my senior celebration with the LGBTQ. As a first timer, it was truly an honor to share my experience with the class of 2011. There are many members of the senior class that have contributed to my undergraduate career here and I will miss their presence on campus dearly in the upcoming school year.

(Photo by Alex Daniel. Many thanks to him for letting us use it and to the anonymous author of this wrap-up for taking the time share their thoughts!)

Lavender Ball Recap

"Dirt and glitter cover the floor,
We're pretty and sick,
We're young and were bored" –Ke$ha

Duke’s LGBTQA students were anything but bored Saturday night as they celebrated the annual Lavender Ball in the Freeman Center for Jewish Life. The event, hailed by some as a comedy of (drunken) errors, drew hundreds of students and was a function of Blue Devils United, Duke’s undergraduate LGBT student association. Event chairs Ari and his co did an outstanding job of planning and executing the event. Thanks also to DJ Chris “Gays-just-don't-appreciate-their-gay-icons-anymore!” Perry [Ed. Note: I just wanted to play I'm Every Woman at a gay event. Is that so wrong?!] and photographer Ollie “Prom-pose!” Wilson.

The night started slowly because, according one slightly slurred suggestion, attendees were “running on gay time.” The dance floor quickly crowded, though, and disorderly conduct increased over the course of the night (see chart).


Social columns used to be newspaper staples in big cities. These columns would report to the masses the proceedings of all the biggest parties and outline who did what, and with whom. I’ll refrain from doing the same—you’re welcome. What I will divulge, however, is that the event was a ton of fun. Whether dancing, reconnecting with LGBT students from all around the triangle, or watching Spencer Paez werq, everyone involved had a blast.

The theme of the event was “The prom you never had,” but I’m not sure anyone has ever had a prom quite like that.

(Above photos by Ollie Wilson. Many thanks to him for letting us use them, and to those pictured, for looking absolutely stunning!)

Coming Out Day Wrap-Up

[Ed. Note: This year, we've decided to recap BDU and Center events with pictures and firsthand accounts. When Matt B. was unable to attend this Friday (he has yet to understand that class is optional and how to prioritize accordingly), first-year Jacob stepped up because of how being a superstar works. Thanks Jacob!]

I’m not sure if I’ll ever forget the moment when I walked through the archway and onto the Bryan Center Plaza for the first time on Coming Out Day. Thanks to Megan Weinand and all of her AMAZING work, there were rainbows everywhere—on flags, posters, balloons, pins, pens, cookies, and even tablecloths—and the energy that buzzed in my ears was so contrary to what I normally feel on campus that I couldn’t help but smile. To sum it up in a word, it was wonderful.

I spent the day flitting about between the many different tables that were on the plaza, eating skittles from the BDU table, saying hello to my friends, and offering them free pride flags and “love = love” t-shirts. But aside from the pride flags, the brochures, and the wonderful music wafting over the plaza, something so much more important was happening: I was finally beginning to get the sense that I have a family here on campus. Sometime between running to the printer in Perkins to get sign-up sheets for the BDU table and taping posters onto the trees in the plaza, or perhaps sometime between eating the rainbow-sprinkled cookies at the Jewish Center table and hugging Summer for the fifteenth time, I thought to myself this is home. I’m not sure when it hit me, and I’m not sure exactly how it did, but at some point during the day I began to feel for the first time that the enigma that is Duke University, with all of its faults and eccentricities, was something more than where I went to school.

The event was an extraordinary thing for our campus, and it was a fantastic way to show our solidarity and love, but looking back on it, I can’t help but feel that something fundamental was missing. For a day that was supposed to be about coming out, I never once heard someone say the words “I’m gay.” Yes, it was a display of our community’s pride and support, but it was only about the end result of coming out. On Coming Out Day, we celebrate the end result of being yourself, but we don’t really talk about what we’ve all been through to get there.

And I guess that’s what I want to share with you, my dear readers, and especially with those of you who are still struggling in the closet. What you saw on Coming Out Day was the end result, but don’t think that it was the whole story. Yes, you saw me strutting around the plaza celebrating who I am, but don’t think that that is something that’s always been easy for me to do. I’ve been there too; I know how dark it can be in the closet and I’ve learned how hard it is to open the door; I know how terrifying it can be to think that your friends and family would disown you if they knew who you really were; I have been through the crushing marginalization that comes with identifying as gay; and I have experienced the terror and joy that comes with first uttering the words, “Mom, Dad, I’m gay.”

So when you walk by the BC Plaza on Coming Out Day and see all of the colors, know that they symbolize not only the joy of being who you are, but also the struggles of getting there. When I celebrate on Coming Out Day, I not only celebrate who I am; I celebrate how far I’ve come as an individual, how far we’ve come as a community, and how close I’ve grown to my family here at Duke.

Come and celebrate with me.

NC Pride Wrap-Up

[Ed. Note: This year, we've decided to recap BDU and Center events with pictures and firsthand accounts. Our first-year friend Matt B. was awesome enough to write these up for us, because it's what people who are The Best do.]

As someone from outside the South, I was totally surprised that North Carolina even had a Pride parade, much less one as well-attended as yesterday’s event. The News & Observer, the Triangle’s local paper, estimated that roughly 10,000 attended or marched in the parade. It was basically Gay Christmas.

Starting in front of Duke’s East Campus and wrapping around the 9th Street district, the parade consisted of about 20 floats among 100 marching groups and almost 200 vendors. Organizations represented ranged from UNC at Chapel Hill’s GBLTSA to Raleigh’s Legends Nightclub. As usual, however, Duke’s float was the best, thanks in no small part to Justin Harris, who organized the float, and Chris Perry, who probably saved several people from dehydration with a valiant Dollar General water run.

I was lucky enough to find space on the float, and it was amazing. Several times during the parade we were warned that our dancing was compromising the structure of the float. You know you’re doing something right when you’re dancing so hard that you might break the float. From the glimpses of our reflection that I caught in the windows of 9th Street storefronts, I feel qualified to say that we looked fantastic, all rainbows and body paint and Love=Love shirts.

Sign highlights:
“All the cool Duke girls are lesbians”
“Bisexual: it’s the best of both worlds!”
“When rapture comes, all the fun people will still be here!”

Regardless of how liberal Duke may (or may not) be, Durham is still in the Bible Belt and because of that I was expecting religious organizations to have a huge presence at the parade. They did, but not at all in the way that I imagined. I was pleasantly shocked to find the religious role in the parade was less “GOD HATES FAGS” and more “(Insert-church-name-here) loves gays!” There were a few protesters, but their relatively inoffensive arguments were widely ignored. Furthermore, I’m pleased to report that as the Duke float passed their somber-faced contingent, a certain Lily Allen song just happened to come on over the speakers…

After the parade, I ran right to the shower. I did my best, but I have a feeling I’ll be finding glitter in weird places for the next week or so.

Chocolate Fountain Social Wrap-Up

[Ed. Note: This year, we've decided to recap BDU and Center events with pictures and firsthand accounts. (More pictures to come when I figure out how to embed a nice-looking photo gallery into Blogger.) Our first-year friend Matt was awesome enough to write this up for us, because it's what people who are The Best do. Thanks, Matt!]

Drawn by the promise of new friends and, let’s be honest, chocolate, Duke’s LGBT and ally community converged yesterday on Trinity Café, a cozy venue adjacent to the Marketplace on Duke’s East Campus. A few minutes into the social, Ollie Wilson, fearless leader of the gays, stood on a chair and addressed the gathering. He recapped a few of last year’s events, notably the Day of Silence activism campaign, and outlined the events BDU has planned for the coming year (which sound amazing, by the way). The mingling then reconvened. I met so many friendly people at the social today- it’s a shame I’m terrible with names.

I totally loved seeing all of the other first-years at the social today, even if most of them had smudges of chocolate on their faces. It’s awesome to know that I’m not in this alone. I can’t get over how welcoming Duke’s LGBT community has been. It’s hard to think that just a few weeks ago I was packing for college and obsessing over how hard it was going to be to enter college as an openly gay student. I figured that if regular students typically had a tough time adjusting, it would be even harder for someone, you know, like me. I feel like things are working just the opposite- two weeks in and I already have a supportive, friendly and undeniably fierce group of friends, thanks to the Center. If today’s event was any indication, the next four years are going to be amazing!

Towards the end of the social, I picked up a giant rainbow flag. It’s now hanging from my third story window. I wonder if my roommate has noticed yet…