By Billy Huang, Oct. 24, 2023
The month of October marks the annual celebration of LGBT History Month, a time for everyone — gay and straight alike — to commemorate the achievements and struggles of those who walked before them and continue to raise awareness of the ongoing discrimination they still face today.
To celebrate on campus, CPP students have a safe space like the Pride Center that welcomes freedom of expression, offers education on LGBTQ+ topics and allows students to create bonds with like-minded peers. This year, in collaboration with César E. Chávez Center for Higher Education, the Pride Center hosted a Jotería Night in celebration of both Latinx Hertiage Month and LGBT History Month.
The CPP Pride Center is a sanctuary for LGBTQ+ students to be the part of themselves they cannot share elsewhere. Thirty years ago, widely known queer organizations had to remain discreet for their own safety, let alone a school organization that provides safe space students need.
“It’s nice to know that we don’t have to be so secretive anymore,” said Pride Center social justice leader Kyle Abblett. “There’s an opportunity for us to have our own faces and our own names on what we campaign for and the fact that you know there’s safety in that.”
LGBT History Month was founded in 1994 by Rodney Wilson, a high school teacher in Missouri. He suggested October as the month to celebrate the history of the queer community because it also coincides with other monumental events in the month. Since 2006, the Equality Forum has showcased 31 LGBT icons, one for every day of the month, and “assumed responsibility for providing content, promotion and resources for LGBT History Month.”
Cal Poly Pomona visual communication design professor Ray Kampf, who is also the author of “The Bear Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Those Who Are Husky, Hairy and Homosexual, and Those Who Love ‘Em,” said there’s not one way to celebrate queer life and history.
“I don’t necessarily do it specifically during this month,” Kampf said. “I do it all year by just being normal and very approachable. And being gay is just part of everyday life. I celebrated every day just by being married and being open about who I am.”
Although there has been movement and success by the queer community, Abblett emphasized the importance of recognizing the tragedies that LGBTQ+ members faced in order to be here they are today.
“It’s important to know what’s happened to us in the past, and that includes the harder topics — the persecutions, the beatings, the deaths, the murders,” said Abblett. “It’s important to know those so that we can prevent that from happening to us again.”
According to the Trevor Project, an American non-profit organization that focuses on suicide prevention among LGBTQ+ youth, suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10 to 24, and LGBTQ+ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
CPP sociology professor Anthony Ocampo, who last year published his book, “Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons,” explained why this is the case for so many queer and trans teens.
“LGBTQ+ youth have much higher rates of depression and suicidal ideation, in large part because of the way LGBTQ+ are systematically discriminated against,” said Ocampo. “Celebrating LGBTQ+ is an act of resistance to let people know that queer and trans people exist and are here to stay.”
Despite the challenges the LGBTQ+ community still face today, the Pride Center’s Identity Development and Education Coordinator Joshua Salazar recalled how different it was to celebrate queer identity before queerness was normalized.
“I think back then, in the early ‘90s when this month-long celebration was created, it was founded on the need for survival and preserving the story of so many POC that lost their lives to the AIDS epidemics in the ‘80s,” Salazar said. “Today, we also remember those who lost their lives and continue to fight for our rights, but we are also in a much more privileged space than we were 30 years ago. Now, it’s about creating new moments of history and continuing the story of our predecessors.”
Feature image courtesy of Lauren Wong