Shirtless and clad in glittery butterfly wings, Mr. Gay North Carolina waved to spectators along Main Street and in front of East Campus Saturday in the annual N.C. Pride parade.
While N.C. Pride is not directly affiliated with the University, it kicked off this year's Coming Out Week, presented by the Alliance of Queer Undergraduates At Duke and co-sponsored by the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture and the Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Life.
"This year is probably one of the most diverse weeks we've had since I've been here at Duke," AQUADuke president Jessie Rosario said. "The dinner is usually the highlight, but this year we'll also have [a] speaker addressing LGBT [issues] in the Muslim community and older events like the kiss-in, which I didn't think was a big deal but which turned out to be a big deal last year. I guess we'll just have to see what people come out to and what the turnout is like."
Events this week will include dinners, film presentations, discussion groups and a speech titled "In the Name of Allah: Muslim LGBT Community" by Faisal Alam, a new addition to the program. Rosario said she hopes this year's Coming Out Week will have a more social tone than previous years have had.
"In my reign as president, my biggest concern is that the organization has lost a lot of its social aspects," she said. "I hope to create some safe social spaces for people [and] create dialogue like we're going to on Tuesday. We want more people to come--straight people, gay people, if you're out, in the closet--we want to spark dialogue, we want people to come and to have fun."
This is N.C. Pride's 19th year and the fourth year Duke has hosted the parade, which Volunteer Coordinator Sandy Janowski called a success. "Last year we had 6,000 spectators [and] I think we have more than that this year," she said. "The Duke festival grounds are so perfect. We feel welcome here and Durham is a very progressive city." Although the parade usually falls at the end of Coming Out Week, this year it was moved up and instead coincided with the beginning of the week. "We had a lot of fun, I'm glad it worked out this way," Rosario said. "What I hope is that it puts the spirit out and gets people to come out to the events." Rosario added that events are not just aimed at the LGBT community, but at the larger University community as well. "Hopefully, non-LGBT students will come to our events... and get a better understanding of the LGBT community, especially here at Duke," she said.
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