Northwestern Rainbow Alliance’s annual Rainbow Week took on new meaning this year following successes and setbacks in the gay community.
Despite the suicides of several gay teens in high-profile, national bullying cases, the gay rights movement made significant political progress, Rainbow Alliance Co-President Zach Wichter said.
“It’s very dynamic in that especially this past year we saw so many huge steps forward like passing marriage equality in New York and (the repeal of) Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” the Medill junior said. “But at the same time we still have these people who, even as things are getting better in the political realm, are in such a terrible place that they feel that taking their own lives is the only answer.”
Rainbow Week, a series of events focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, and allied causes and visibility, aimed to acknowledge these steps forward in gay rights, Wichter said. Rainbow Alliance painted the Rock and chalked the sidewalks around campus to publicize events including “Gayme Night” and a candlelight vigil on National Coming Out Day in remembrance of teens who have committed suicide. The group plans to offer free HIV testing and safe space training Friday.
JAC Stringer, Rainbow Week’s fall speaker, discussed gender and trans issues Thursday night in Fisk Hall. Much of Stringer’s presentation focused on ways to be more inclusive, including the question of what pronoun to use when referring toanother person, such as he or she.
“When you meet someone and you’re in a safe space like this one, you can ask them what pronoun they use,” Stringer said. “But for other people who’ve never been in that situation before, they will be like, ‘What? What do you mean? I’m a guy.'”
Stringer took questions from the audience and addressed the different ways people identify themselves.
“Transgender and transsexual, the difference is in the words,” he said. “‘Transsexual’ came from the medical community by non-trans people to describe trans people. ‘Transgender’ came from the trans community.”
About 20 students and faculty attended the speech, including Weinberg sophomore Katie Kunstman.
Kunstman said she attended the speech to learn about trans issues and was impressed with Stringer’s knowledge.
“This past summer I’d been educating myself on trans issues. Just being part of the community, I thought I should educate myself,” she said. “I saw it was a speaker on trans issues and I thought I could get the insider’s perspective.”
According to Wichter, spreading awareness and information is a main goal of the Rainbow Alliance and Rainbow Week.
“Rainbow Week is more about visibility,” he said. “There are aspects of Rainbow Week that are celebratory, but there are aspects that are reflective and looking back at the past and the tragedies and the other hard events that brought us to where we are today.”
