By Kate
A space heater hums away in the corner of an office barely
big enough to fit four people, stirring up a walled mosaic of GenderBread posters and a
rainbow-embellished Canadian flag. These vibrant, cozy quarters in the Lower
Level of SUB house OUTreach the largest LGBTQ*
student group on campus and the imaginative force behind the University of
Alberta’s first-ever official Pride Week. After sitting down with members Kalyna,
Eric and Laura, I’ve learned how great things can stem from humble beginnings.
“My story isn’t super-exciting: I went, I found really good
friends, and I just ended up staying,” Eric laughed when talking about how he
joined the group.
Like Eric, Kalyna and Laura admitted that they came to OUTreach
in the same way: looked-up the group online and went to the weekly meeting in
Athabasca Hall—nothing too out of the ordinary. However, they all stayed for
the same reason: the community.
After chatting in the OUTreach office, I got a taste of this
community when I followed the group to one of their meetings. Although there
was no space heater whirring in the corner, Athabasca Hall manifested a
different kind of warmth that Tuesday evening: the dark, woody room was lit up
by carbonated laughter between a circle of friends framed by subdued, yet
engaged conversations around the outside of the room. Instead of being
separated by their differences in age, study and background, the atmosphere in
Athabasca Hall incubated some seed of similarity. Kalyna explained that the
community that grows here acts as a haven from the struggles of hanging out
with other groups.
“If you’re hanging out with your straight crowd of friends,
you don’t relate to their experiences sometimes and you kind of feel like an
outsider. And that makes you wonder ‘what’s wrong with me?’” Laura said.
Providing a safe space for LGBTQ* students has always been a
goal of the group, but their plans of action have shifted over time. From their
roots as a more political group in the 90’s, they have grown to become a social
club on and off campus. Currently boasting over 50 members from both the
university and greater Edmonton, the group is now equipped with a greater
volunteer force and has established institutional networks: the building blocks
to an event as big as Pride Week.
While the group has had similar events in previous years, none
have been matched by the scale and quality anticipated for this year’s Pride
Week. With the support of the university and community organizations it will be
on a league of its own, making OUTreach one of the first student groups in
Canada to run such an event.
“To have the university back this as an institutionally-supported
and sponsored event is a huge deal because basically it’s saying everyone from
the ground-up—essentially everyone from OUTreach to the president of the
university—is all a part of this and we’re all pushing this forward,” Kalyna
said.
At this year’s Pride Week, “pushing forward” takes the shape
of a week full of entertainment and education, with events that range from a
pride parade, to a drag show, to a production of the “Coming Out Monologues,”
the week is full of events that aim to bring awareness to the challenges still
faced by LGBTQ* people on campus and beyond, and will help foster a culture of
understanding.
“It would be nice to get people to stop and think and
understand that it is not just a theoretical question, not just an abstract
concept of ‘oh, someone might get harassed in the bathroom’ but these are actual
people struggling on campus,” Laura said.
Pride Week will be taking place March 13 to March 22. For
more information about the events taking place and how to get involved, check
out http://www.prideweek.ualberta.ca/
*Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning
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