Keweenaw Pride

Winter Carnival was this past week on Michigan Tech’s campus. As part of the festivites, Keweenaw Pride built a statue to go along with the theme of “Games we know, Captured in Snow”.  The Keweenaw Pride statue was inspired by the game LIFE, this year.  The game of life is much like real life, starting with going to school, then finding a career, and a home.  You adapt to the ups and downs of Life as you spin the rainbow wheel, accepting your downfalls or celebrating in the joys of a life tile. Why not be able to celebrate with the partner of your choosing; whether it be a pink or blue piece of plastic. We’re all following the same road.  We’re all just spinning a dial and rolling with what we are dealt.  Being able to choose who gets to sit next to us in our plastic car as we hop from square to square can make all the difference in this game of life.

Check out our photo gallery!

The Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, and Ally College Conference (MBLGTACC)  is coming up quickly.  We lovingly refer to it as the Big Gay Conference (BGC).  Every year members of Keweenaw Pride travel to this conference to represent Michigan Tech and bring back with us information and ideas from the speakers and workshops that are presented.  This year’s conference is being hosted by the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  The conference is one of the largest student run and organized yearly conferences in the nation, and one of the only Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender conferences aimed at college aged people.

Below is a re-posting of some of the thoughts of people about the conference in February 2008.

Read the rest of this entry »

Keweenaw Pride along with the Society of Intelectual Sisters, and KISS (Keep It Safer Sweetheart) will be doing a World Aids Day event in Fisher from 10AM to 2PM handing out Red HIV/AIDS awareness ribbons, information about the ongoing fight against HIV/AIDS, and condoms. We will also be accepting donations to be given to the AIDS Memorial Quilt Foundation. Please stop by and say hi, or stay to help out if you can as we really need people to be there to make it work. Remember tomorrow in Fisher from 10-2 if you can make it, all you have to do is help pass stuff out, spread awareness and have a good attitude. Hope to see you there!

So you think you might be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or are just questioning your sexuality and don’t know how to take the next step . . . opening up and working through the walls you’ve built up for years is tough. . .and you’re not alone.   Keweenaw Pride meetings may be too open too fast, but campus also offers a confidential support group for students who are struggling with their sexuality. If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or just questioning, there is a place for you to talk openly about what you’re thinking, surrounded by your peers who are going through the same things.

For more information, contact:

lgbtsupport@mtu.edu or counseling services at 906-487-2538

On Sunday, October 11, Keweenaw Pride members marched with more than 200,000 other Supporters of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Rights in Washington D.C. with a strong message of EQUALITY for all.

Speakers such as Cynthia Nixon (from ‘Sex & the City’), Dan Choi (out servicemember), Cleve Jones & Lady Gaga spoke at the rally that followed.

http://equalityacrossamerica.org/

We’re adding a new feature to the KP website.  To make the site more informational and interactive, starting today, the main page of keweenawpride.com will double as a place for guests of the site to write their own amateur blog entries!   This is not limited to just members of KP or Michigan Tech students.

Write about whatever you want (as long as it’s somehow LGBT-related)!  You read an interesting story about some state or national queer politics?  Write about it.  Want to discuss how feminism fits in with the LGBT movement?  Write about it!  Want to tell your coming out story?  Write about it!  We want everyone that’s even the slightest interested in writing about anything queer to give it a shot.

To submit a blog entry, type it up in a word document, email, or whatever else and send it to me, Andrew, at awboutch@mtu.edu.  I’ll give it a quick scan and then throw it up onto the site.  I’m also going to try and figure out how to attach a pic of the guest blogger to their entry if that blogger is interested.

Andrew Boutcher

Saturday September 19, 2009 is Parade of Nations!  The theme for this years’ parade is ‘Dancing with Diversity’.

Dance is a great theme because it is something that is so universal.   It is an expression of emotion and a form of communication that doesn’t need words or verbal communication and therefore connects us all.    It could communicate a particular culture, a country, a way of life, or just an emotion.  We all dance, and the idea of this parade seems to be about bringing together all kinds of people to respect eachothers differences, and also realize our commonalities as all part of the human existence.

Keweenaw Pride has organized a float for this event for the first time!  It’s very exciting!  It has also been a topic of discussion of how GLBT fits into diversity.   It was once said in lecture done by Dr. John Corvino that “GLBT is like the uncle of diversity”.  ( . . . or something like that)   We aren’t a nationality; we aren’t a race; you can’t really know if someone is GLBT just by looking at them.  GLBT people are instead found in every country & race; brought together by a similar culture (or a similar dance to go with the theme ).   So, although we do not not have separating borders like ethnic groups in the parade, GLBT people have culture and dance with all the colors of human existence.

Written by: Dan Ehlke

K-Day, which is short for Keweenaw Day is today. Keweenaw Pride will be there doing a Drag Race and will also be helping out with the Jake Parkhurst Memorial Union Scholarship Fund which will be taking donations at the event.

K-Day is held every year up at McClain State Park from 12-5 PM and is always a lot of fun, has free food, great music and lots of cool stuff that student organizations give out.

Directions to McClain State Park from campus and a map can be found HERE! OR there is a free shuttle running from the MUB directly to the park and back from 12-5

Hi there…

For those of you visiting the website for the first time, this is KeweenawPride.Org the website for Keweenaw Pride. KP is a group of mostly students, but also faculty, staff, administration, and community members devoted to the social, activism and support of GLBTA peoples in the Keweenaw Area. We are very excited starting off this 09-10 school year and hope you will join us for meetings, which are at 8PM in the Alumni Lounge of the MUB.

Meetings are a lot of fun because right after the meeting we usually have a social…sometimes we go to perkins, sometimes we go bowling, sometimes we just talk, either way its definietly not something you want to miss. Throughout the year KP does a lot of events that we encompass in what we call the rainbow calendar. Upcoming we have the Gay? Fine by me. Tee Shirt giveaway, and K-Day, both of which are a lot of fun.

So…you should get involved…remember 8PM in the Alumni Lounge of the MUB…hope to see you there.

~KP