LGBT Campus Center hosts Out and About Month in April

The University of Wisconsin–Madison LGBT Campus Center is sponsoring Out and About Month in April.

This year’s theme is intersectionality, which highlights marginalized groups of people to bring awareness to their communities.

The LGBT Campus Center is partnering with a number of groups on campus, including PAVE and Sex Out Loud, who are hosting the closely related Sexual Assault Awareness month, to bring almost daily events to campus.

“I hope that it’s an educational month for most people, and that they learn a little bit more about violence against the LGBT community and about different populations within the LGBT communities that are often left voiceless,” says Robin Matthies, LGBT Campus Center interim director.

Each week in April has a different sub-theme relating to the overarching topic of intersectionality. Week one highlights people of color, culture and ethnicity. The second week focuses on disabilities, body image and health. Week three features gender and intersex, and the final week spotlights people of faith.

The nationally observed Day of Silence falls in the middle of the month, on Friday, April 16. The campus community is invited to join the LGBT Campus Center and other co-sponsoring organizations on Library Mall at 4 p.m. to march silently to the capitol to break the silence.

Other notable events include a discussion with HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive), a national organization dedicated to fighting the discrimination, poverty, violence and disease facing sex workers, at 7 p.m. in the Satellite Conference room. The discussion will highlight transgender identities and struggles for trans-identified sex workers.

On Tuesday, April 20, S. Bear Bergman, author of “The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You,” will speak the Room of One’s Own at 6:30 p.m. Bergman is a writer, theater artist, longtime LGBT activist, and one of the original founders of the first Gay/Straight Alliance.

In the spirit of the national Day of Silence, on Monday, April 26 the LGBT Campus Center is co-sponsoring a Die-In with Queer Student Alliance. At noon, participants will lie silently on Bascom Hill to “echo the silence of those voices taken away by violence against the LGBT communities,” Matthies says.