Diversity Education hosted a National Coming Out Day on October 11 which featured watching coming out episodes from TV shows, signing the purple coming out door, photos with Attila, and crafting origami. “This was an opportunity to continue to celebrate our LGBTQ+ identities and build community,” said Liliana Delman, Assistant Director for Diversity Education.
The National Coming Out Day celebration was only one event in Stevens’ celebration of LGBTQ+ National History Month. Other events this month included a Professional Gender Affirming Clothes Swap, a spoken word performance by Kay Ulanday Barrett (a poet, performer, and educator navigating life as a disabled pilipinx-american transgender queer in the U.S. with struggle, resistance, and laughter), Safe Zone Training, and a Lavender Luncheon. Later in the academic year, Diversity Education will be partnering with St. Matthew Trinity Lutheran Church for a Transgender Day of Remembrance Memorial Service in November, and with student organizations for Pride Day in April.
The celebration was an example of the recently increased amount of LGBTQ+ resources and events at Stevens. “I’ve received positive feedback from students and alumni regarding the increased resources, organizations, and events for LGBTQ+ students on campus in the past couple of years,” said Delman. Current resources include the All Gender Restroom Map, the Guidance on the Rights of Transgender Members of the Stevens Community, and Name, Gender and Pronouns Changes at Stevens. Other events include ally trainings such as Safe Zone and monthly meetings of transgender and gender non-conforming students at Stevens. Additionally, there are three organizations serving the LGBTQ+ Community: Torch, oSTEM, and TranSIT. “New clubs like oSTEM and TranSIT are in the process of becoming full RSOs and are providing more specialized support for students, which allows Torch to not have to scramble to do everything by itself,” said Julia Martin, President of Torch.
More information on LGBTQ+ resources at Stevens can be found at
https://www.stevens.edu/LGBTQ.
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