Student groups at UCLA have celebrated National Coming Out Week throughout the week, beginning with art-themed festivities on Monday.
The event, put on by 20 student groups from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, has been celebrated on campus since 1992. The official National Coming Out Day was Tuesday.
Raja Bhattar, director of the LGBT Campus Resource Center, said the week-long event is often one of the first events attended by students new to the campus.
“For a lot of our first-year students this is one of the first times they are able to be open about their sexuality, so we like the fact that it comes so early in the year so we can help them find the community and support, and know that they’re not alone,” Bhattar said.
National Coming Out Week was the first LGBT event Marcus McRae attended on campus as a first-year.
Now a fourth-year, the anthropology-linguistics and political science student and co-director of Queer Alliance said the event began a new phase in his life. Growing up in a religious household, McRae said he was not assertive of his sexuality. He became active in advocating for LGBT issues after participating in National Coming Out Week at UCLA.
Throughout the week, LGBT student groups put on events including an art show, music night, dances and a panel with faculty and staff to discuss what it means to be queer.
Amalia Mesa-Gustin, a third-year theater student and co-director of Queer Alliance, said her favorite event of the week was QueerFest, an event in which all the LGBT groups on campus came together to celebrate with music on Thursday at Bruin Plaza.
Besides allowing LGBT students to feel comfortable about who they are, Mesa-Gustin added that the week’s events also encourage LGBT allies to become a part of the community and find better ways to help support their fellows in the community.
The week’s events were co-sponsored by campus organizations including the Office of Residential Life and the Undergraduate Students Association Council, as well as several off-campus groups.
“So often our communities only gather together when there are hate crimes,” Bhattar said. “This (week) is an opportunity for us to celebrate our identities and it’s where community happens.”