Changes, nine years in the making.
On September 19, 2002, The Chronicle reported on “Coming Out Week” at Duke. The Alliance of Queer Undergraduates at Duke (AQUDuke) organized events to both allow gay students to feel comfortable being themselves and to bring other students’ reactions to their peers into the spotlight.
AQUDuke transformed the East Campus bridge into a rainbow as a reminder to all of the week and its purpose. Perhaps more apparent to students than the colors, however, was the “Kiss-In” event—a picnic-style lunch hosted on the lawn of the Chapel. Here students, gay or straight, did not have to shy away from showing their affections. Although many did not sieze the opportunity to display public affection, the event attacked a major issue concerning gay couples.
"You can deal with the fact that [someone is] gay, but can you deal with seeing it?" said junior Brian Barrera, president of AQUADuke, to The Chronicle in Sept. 19, 2002.
The week also included a Coming Out Week Dinner where instead of a prominent speaker, students read other students’ coming out stories.
Jessica Rosario, chair of Coming Out Week said, "The intention is that someone very unlike you will be reading your story and that people from an outside [non-LGBT] organization will get an idea of what coming out is like."
Many students involved with Coming Out Week also participated in the annual Pride Parade and Festival. This week marks the 27th anniversary of the Parade, hosted by the Pride Committee of North Carolina. Held right off of Duke’s own East Campus, students decorate a float every year to show support for the LGBT community.
Kelly Chong, Trinity '06,—who was only “semi-out” before coming to Duke but then fully came out—said, "Duke is known as homophobic, so I'm hoping this will change. I know it can't happen overnight, but maybe gradually it will."
So just how far have students come since then?
Even now with its growing Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Life (LGBT), Duke has students who still face many of the same issues. Just as the organization’s name has evolved from Gothic Queers to AQUDuke to the Center for LGBT Life, the issues that gay students face continue to change.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.