"Coming Out Day was founded in 1988 by Richard Eichberg, a psychologist and Jean O'Leary, a gay rights activist, to raise awareness of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and its civil rights movement. They chose October 11th to mark the anniversary of the second major National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, which took place 1987. With estimates of half a million people participating, it was nearly five times the size of the first march in 1979. National Coming Out Day is observed throughout the U.S. and other countries around the world."
American Psychological Association (2013). National coming out day. APA. https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/coming-out-day
Central to the Coming Out Day celebration at MVCC is the listening station where attendees can hear the coming out stories from a variety of people at MVCC. These stories are collected and stored as a kind of LGBT+ oral history project which highlights and preserves the rich rainbow culture on campus. Existing recordings can be listened to anytime here: https://www.mvcc.edu/lgbtq/coming-out-stories/index.php
Every year the LGBT+ Workgroup and the Gender and Sexuality Alliance come together to host an educational celebration of National Coming Out Day. This celebration is a chance for LGBTQ+ people to come together and support one another whether or not they have come out of the closet. It is also a chance for all people to learn more about LGBTQ+ terminology and experiences.
The latest information about the event can be found here: https://www.mvcc.edu/lgbtq/coming-out-day.php
If you are interested in adding your own coming out story to the collection, visit the library during the display period on October 11. We will be hosting a recording booth in study room 6. Together we can reinvigorate the coming out story collection, ensuring that it reflects the diversity of our campus as it develops over time.
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