You can read about her time at the UO in “ A Duck reflects on Pride Month and her journey to graduation.” She worked as a student photographer and videographer for the Division of Equity and Inclusion and university communications. You can also listen to LGBTQ students discuss Pride hear about a recent queer alumna peruse a nationally recognized project on the history of lesbians in Oregon and review a digital project from the UO Libraries on the Oregon newspaper, Just Out: Oregon’s lesbian and gay newsmagazine, published from 1983 to 2013.Īs a University of Oregon student in the School of Journalism and Communication, Jasmine Jackson was a featured artist at the 20 UO Queer Film Festivals and was involved with projects such as the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art Don’t Touch My Hair exhibit. Explore a few of their experiences below. Pride will swell in June when Lavender Graduation occurs and LGBTQ seniors receive their hard-earned diplomas. Events have included a keynote Pride speaker Alok addressing Beyond the Gender Binary, a Pride Craft and Tea Time, and Oregon Hillel Pride week events. As many on campus are gone for much of June, university Pride events take place in May.
Throughout the year, there have been social groups, movies, lectures, discussions, and more.
Pride Month is different this year, as we navigate how to connect while being physically distant. Visit the UO Libraries digital exhibit, Creating Change: Forty Years of LGBTQ Activism at the University of Oregon, for more on LGBTQ history at the UO.
In 1993, the first position in support of LGBTQIA+ students was created. In the late 1980s, a Standing Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Concerns was formed at the UO to enhance the quality of life for the LGBT community and the university as a whole. It was the first organization of its kind at a West Coast university and one of few such organizations recognized as a formal student group eligible for university funding. In the same year as the uprising, University of Oregon students founded the Gay People’s Alliance. In 2016, President Barack Obama designated the site of the Stonewall uprising a national monument. Many consider the Stonewall uprising a decisive moment for the fight for gay rights, in the context of a civil rights movement.
It was common in those days for police to raid and shut down gay bars “homosexual acts” were illegal in every state except Illinois. Two transgender women of color resisted arrest, sparking what became an uprising over multiple nights. The origins of Pride Month date to 1969, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a queer bar in New York, fought back against police who were again raiding their bar.