Let the "gaymes" begin.
Pride Week, an annual celebration of diversity within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community at Penn State, begins today as it has in past years with a rally at noon and a drag show at Late Night Penn State.
The rally, which will take place at Old Main, will feature speeches by Vicky Triponey, vice president of student affairs, and several students, said Sara Ryan, director of Allies, the week's main sponsor. The rally and other Pride Week events offer "a chance for visibility for the LGBT community," she said.
"The goal of Pride Week is to foster a sense of pride within the LGBT community and the Penn State community at large," Ryan said. "It gives the larger community the opportunity to learn more about the LGBT community and their experiences at Penn State."
Tonight's drag show will be a big attraction, judging from its success in previous years, she said.
"A group is coming in from Pittsburgh to do the show. They're great -- they dress up as famous women," she said. "It should be really fun."
Pride Week events will continue every day next week and culminate next Saturday with the annual Unity Prom.
"The Unity Prom provides a chance for LGBT students to have a formal setting, dinner and dancing in a safe space," Ryan said. "It originated to give LGBT students the chance to go to a prom with whoever they didn't get to go with in high school."
She added that two prom kings and two prom queens will be crowned -- one of each gender.
Students who would like to attend the Unity Prom can still purchase tickets by sending an e-mail message to allies@psu.edu.
Tomorrow night, students can be simultaneously entertained and educated during Safer Sex Cabaret, a collection of comedic skits about practicing safe sex.
The purpose of the event is to "depict safe sex in a fun way," because most safe sex education on college campuses comes in the form of serious lectures or free condom handouts, said Bob Graybill, Allies member and the Cabaret's director.
Most of the skits were written by Allies members, he said.
Other Pride Week events include a "Gayme Show" on Tuesday and Sankofa with Black Caucus Wednesday.
The purpose of the Sankofa, which is a community dialog the Black Caucus usually holds every Wednesday, is "to promote diversity and address racism within the LGBT community," Ryan said.
There will also be a keynote address by Danny Roberts, an openly gay character from MTV's The Real World: New Orleans, on Thursday.
He is expected to talk about issues such as being an openly gay celebrity and the U.S. military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy toward sexual orientation, Ryan said.
In addition, the Coalition of LGBTA Graduate Students is co-sponsoring Pride Week with a weeklong, LGBT-themed film festival beginning Friday, April 2.
Titled "One in Ten," which statistically is the number of Americans who identify themselves as LGBT, the festival will feature eight films and several short films having a variety of LGBT-related themes, said Trevor S. Brown, coalition member and the film festival's chair.
It will be a very diverse group of films that reflects the overall theme of Pride Week, he said.
"We want the festival to be an ice breaker," he said. "We hope it will get conversation started within the Penn State community."
