ORLANDO | The University of Central Florida held PrideFest at the Student Union on campus Oct. 2 to celebrate LGBTQ History Month with its students and educate them on local LGBTQ organizations.
Decorated with Pride flags and rainbow lights, PrideFest was the opening ceremony for a series of events at the university throughout LGBTQ History Month.
Hosted by the Multicultural Student Center (MSC), the event included LGBTQ history trivia, musical performances, games, a photo booth, a rainbow ball pit and tables from various LGBTQ organizations in Central Florida. These organizations included the Zebra Coalition, UCF’s Pride Student Association, QLatinx, The LGBT+ Center, Spektrum Health, Watermark and more.
A crowd of about 75 UCF students of all identities joined in the festivities. MSC Pride Director Percy Crabtree says that they wanted to create a safe space for LGBTQ students and educate them on their history with the events this month.
“[LGBTQ History Month] means remembering what has been done in the past,” Crabtree says. “It means remembering the contributions of our ancestors like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and highlighting the fact that LGBT people of color are the foundation of the LGBT rights movement that we move forward from now.”
Crabtree and psychology student Maddie Judy both agreed that LGBTQ history is important to continue to share.
“This is a really good opportunity for us all to embrace our history,” Judy says. “This is really important for us to acknowledge that the ways we can exist in society today are due pretty much entirely to the people who came before us.”
Human communications major Dwight Stewart II agreed, saying that he is grateful that LGBTQ activists in the past paved the way to creating a safer community for him as a gay man, especially in Orlando.
“I feel grateful to be able to walk around and just be myself everywhere I go,” Stewart says.
Various organizations at UCF will be holding events for the entire duration of LGBTQ History Month. Events include Pride Chats, movie nights, a National Coming Out Day event, an LGBTQ Employer Panel, an amateur drag show and more.
“[It’s important to hold events like these] to bring awareness,” Crabtree says. “A lot of it for me is humanizing LGBT people who for a lot of time have been ostracized. And I just want people to know that we’re people too and we want to celebrate. We have a beautiful history that everyone needs to know about.”
Check out the photos from PrideFest below and check in with Watermark throughout the month of October for information on upcoming events.
Photos by Lora Korpar.
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