Pride Week signifies the unity and confidence within the LGBTQ community, but for sophomore Kevin Moore, the celebratory week at Elon University is a symbol of comfort.
Moore, president of Spectrum, said he was in the closet until the events throughout Pride Week revealed a group dedicated to acceptance and support.
Pride Week signifies unity, said Raafe Purnsley, a member of Spectrum. The rainbow flag, a symbol of the LGBTQ movement, represents the aim of the week and symbolizes different colors coming together.
“It started as a sign of unity to show the community this is what we are, this is what we want to be, let us be this,” Purnsley said. “We’re not aggressive. We’re not foreign. We’re not evil.”
Spectrum observed Pride Week April 16 - 21 so the celebration coincided with the observance of the National Day of Silence.
“You’re silent for those who cannot be true or honest for who they are,” Purnsley said.
In consideration of the diversity within the organization, inclusivity and equality drive all the events, Purnsley said.
Other events included the screening of a film, “Gen Silent,” which chronicles the struggles of queer individuals who feel a need to hide their identity when they go to an assisted living home, an open-mic night, a pride parade and a drag show.
The Queer Zoo, part of the series of events Spectrum organized for Pride Week, was designed to combat the social stigma that defines queers as “other.” Although, according to Purnsley, not everyone is comfortable forcibly making people view them as different, the event communicates queer cannot not be identified visually.
“It speaks to the fact that we’re not ‘other,’ so why is there a need to section us off,” Purnsley said.
The series of events was built around the controversy surrounding Amendment One, a piece of legislation that, if passed, would ban legal recognition of all unmarried couples and would define marriage as an exclusively heterosexual union.
“The drag show is called Race to the Finish and is dedicated to bringing people together to show that we can unite together differing opinions and still have it toward a common goal of equality and voting this amendment down,” Moore said.
Moore said Spectrum welcomes dissenting opinions to show various perspectives and achieve equality.
Pride Week provides a forum to invite different ideologies and create an environment appropriate for different events, Purnsley said.
“Elon can be a very flat place — flat energy, flat culturally — there’s just a general mentality, and Pride Week shakes it up,” he said. “We give Elon a dose of nuance and energy, and Elon has been very good to us.”
The week developed in memoriam of the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969, during which gay and lesbian patrons resisted the police that raided Stonewall Inn, a gay club in New York.