June is Pride Month, but UNC Greensboro is an inclusive campus for the LGBTQ+ community year-round.
PRIDE ON CAMPUS
People around the world celebrate Pride Month in June, but UNCG’s Office of Intercultural Engagement (OIE) holds its own Campus Pride Month in April to engage students while they are on campus for the spring semester.
In April 2023, OIE, along with Recreation and Wellness, held a “Pride Pool Party” as one of their many Campus Pride Month events. The pool party also included a drag show with local drag artists and LaLa Ri, a drag performer from VH1’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Teaming up with Recreation & Wellness and student group No Labels, OIE also hosts LGBTQ+ Speed Friending at the start of each academic year. Students can participate in the LGBTQ+ lunch and learn series as well as events recognizing Transgender Day of Remembrance, Transgender Day of Visibility, National Coming Out Day, and more.
UNCG also hosts “Lavender Graduation” every semester – where LGBTQ+ identifying graduating students receive recognition for their hard work.
CONNECTION AND SUPPORT
UNCG offers multiple programs and resources intended to connect and support the LGBTQ+ community on campus:
- The Office of Intercultural Engagement aspires to be a model of excellence for inclusive student-centered intercultural engagement and education, dialogue, and community building. The office has put together this list of LGBTQ+ Resources.
- LGBTQIA Education and Resource Network (LEARN) seeks to provide a network and support to faculty, staff, and students interested in advancing the health, wellness, and quality of life of LGBTQ+ populations through research, education, and community development.
- UNCG’s Gender Diverse Working Group (GDWG) is made up of students, staff, and faculty, all committed to identifying and removing barriers to success for gender-diverse, transgender, and non-binary members of the campus community. GDWG has developed the Gender Diversity Resource Toolkit, which is intended to be an accessible document for gender-diverse students and all who support them within and beyond the university.
- OIE provides helpful information about changing your name on campus. UNCG also hosts LGBTQ+ Name Change Clinics that are put on several times a year in partnership with Elon Law, NC A&T, and the Guilford Green Foundation and LGBTQ+ Center.
- OIE hosts Safe and Trans Zone Training which provides students, faculty, and staff an opportunity to learn more about LGBTQ+ identities and how they can be more thoughtful and inclusive forward LGBTQ+ people.
- The university has an active list of all-gender and single use restrooms.
PRIDE! OF THE COMMUNITY
Pride Month is celebrated each year in June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, the spontaneous protest following a police raid of the Stonewall Inn in New York City. The first Pride march was organized in New York on June 28, 1970, the one-year anniversary of the uprising. Decades later, LGBTQ+ communities and their allies continue to gather and demonstrate for equal rights.
In 2018, UNCG launched the first-ever large-scale initiative to document the LGBTQ+ history of the Triad region. Pride! Of the Community is a collection of easily accessible digitized stories and artifacts of local LGBTQ+ life, culture, and politics.
For those who live in the area, Greensboro Pride is an annual festival that includes performances, food, and other vendors. This year’s event will be held on October 1 along South Elm Street.
Story by AMBCopy and Avery Craine Powell, University Communications
Photography by Sean Norona, University Communications
Feel the pride at UNCG
