You may have heard of DragBall, but have you heard of DePride? Her Campus had the pleasure to sit down with Lizzy Gering and Aislee Nieves, the masterminds behind DePride! I asked them all about it, and hopefully this will not be the last of this remarkable event!
Q: What is DePride?
A: DePride is a first annual event on Depauw’s campus that will be highlighting the lgbtq+ communities and our allies, as well as anyone else that wants to attend! This year it is not a parade (but look out for this possibility in the future) but more of a festival. We are excited and expect to have a food truck, bounce house, DJ, open mic, bean bag toss, banners, painting, and arts and crafts!
Q: Why create this event?
A: The idea came while doing my thesis, which focused on the perceptions we have on the LGBTQ+ community. I wanted to see what people thought and felt, and wanted to bring the community together in a new and exciting way. That’s when Aislee suggested we try and do something that would be an event for the community, and this is where DePride came in! We need a festival because so much is happening right now with visibility and representation in our culture. We want to celebrate our community and intersectionality doesn’t happen much at DePauw. There are events, but we often stay isolated in our different social groups. We need these big events to bring us together, to celebrate and highlight that we are queer and we are here! This event in our eyes will help combat the hookup culture on our campus, and most importantly the lack of social queer space on campus. Pop up spaces and events do happen, but they are not always social or have too much structure. We want to create a social space that combats these events that are meant to bring the queer community together, but don’t exactly fulfill what we need.
Q: What do you look forward to?
A: We are both hoping for a clear day with no rain, as the festival will be taking place outside in Bowman Park. If this doesn’t go according to plan we will find another venue, but we are looking forward to the activities that we have planned! We are looking forward to the open mic pieces because they will be fun, different, and hopefully people will feel comfortable enough to share their own stories. Being able to hangout with people in the community in this shared space is also something we are looking forward to; to meet new people, spark conversations, create bonds, and keep up community ties. We want everyone that comes to feel good! There may be people that attend that are not out yet, and we want this to be a safe space to celebrate unity and have fun with people that we may not otherwise hangout with.
Q: Do you see DePride expanding in the future?
A: We definitely see this event coming back, in fact we are trying to involve Josh Selke so we can get new ideas and expand on the event. Next year we hope to make this festival into a parade and hopefully this will continue into the years to come. Absolutely we want this to be an annual event that involves more and more people every year. In order to expand the event we know that we have to get the word out earlier, book space in case of rain, and in general get everything set early.
Q: What are some things that you had trouble doing?
A: Without support and help from various members of faculty and staff this wouldn’t be the event that it is. However, even with this support it was a huge headache trying to figure out different locations in case of weather, and a location that would accommodate all the activities and people we have planned to attend. The weather is unpredictable, and we just have to work with what he can. Aside from the weather and planning for the weather, everything was easy. We have strong support circles and people that want to see us succeed.
BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR DEPRIDE 2018!