Quick Navigation

Northern Illinois University

NIU Office of Public Affairs


News Release

Margie Cook , LGBT Resource Center
(815) 753-2235

March 21, 2005

NIU celebrates annual LGBT Awareness Month

DeKALB – The signs of spring in DeKalb include almost daily events focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender topics during the month of April. April is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Awareness Month, and that means LGBT speakers, performers, musicians, workshops and more are sprouting up all over NIU's campus.

This year's calendar offers a total of 21 events.

The celebration kicks off in fine fashion with the ninth annual Gay Jam drag and variety show at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 2. This is home-grown fun, with an evening of local performers offering high camp drag skits, comedy, music, poetry and more. Gay Jam has become a DeKalb tradition, with NIU students and DeKalb community members taking the stage for a packed house. The fun is for a good cause, as Gay Jam is an annual benefit show for Prism of NIU's yearly service project. This year, Prism is raising money for Ben Gordon Community Mental Health Center. Gay Jam takes place in the Holmes Student Center Diversions Lounge.

Featured speakers and performers for the month represent a wide diversity of topics and talents. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, Edna Johnston from Columbia College in Chicago will present “Identity of a Deaf Woman: Perceptions and Awareness” in DuSable Hall, room 212. Johnston will talk about her life experiences as a deaf woman and as a deaf lesbian, relating some perceptions about the LGBT deaf community as well. The program is sponsored by DeafPride and the Women's Studies Program.

Singer and songwriter Sacha Sacket will bring his melancholy, brooding, and darkly introspective music to the NIU campus at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 7, in Cole Hall 101. Based in Los Angeles, Sacket released his second CD, “Shadowed,” in 2004.

“I experienced a harrowing descent on this album,” Sacket confesses. “I felt it was time to delve into ‘dark things,' go places where I degraded myself, where I was a doormat, where I would destroy someone if I could; not in an attempt to immediately rectify or justify myself, just to express it. I had to be damaged, to have faults, to show the darkness.”

Darkness is not the only theme, however. Sacket continues, “In all my struggles, I found an incredible peace and quietude, a powerful sense of faith and purity. In reality, it is the most difficult times when we discover how strong and resilient we truly are, where we are actually renewed.” Sacket's appearance at NIU is sponsored by Prism.

Professor Thomas Nakayama will address the issues of Asian/American stereotypes in his presentation “The Problem of Asian American Sexuality” at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 13. Nakayama, professor of communication at Arizona State University, notes that understanding Asian America and its sexualities has been a problem for European America since the first encounters between these cultures. Asian American sexuality has been confused and distorted. Looking at historical regulations of Asian American sexuality, Nakayama then examines contemporary media representations.

Nakayma's presentation is in the Illinois Room of Holmes Student Center and is sponsored by the Presidential Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

Mark Brostoff, associate director of Undergraduate Career Services at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, will present a workshop titled “Gay Lives, Straight Jobs: Sexual Orientation and Career Decision-Making” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 19, in Campus Life Building, Room 100.

Brostoff's workshop offers practical advice about career planning challenges related to sexual orientation. He notes that, “GLBT students often find that university life has been a supportive environment, with many colleges offering GLBT resources and nondiscrimination policies. The workplace can be quite different from the college campus in terms of openness of and support.”

“Out Loud: Works and Words of Lesbian Visual Artists” is the title of a presentation by Professor Laurel Lampela at 5 p.m. Monday, April 25. Lampela, from the University of New Mexico, gives voice and visibility to the many lesbian artists who have been silenced, ignored or neglected. Her presentation takes place in the Jack Arends Art Building, Room 100.

Lampela presents a multi-layered presentation/performance using both visual and audio format that includes readings of the words of historical lesbian artists spoken through contemporary lesbian voices, audio statements by contemporary lesbian artists about their work, and visual images of work by lesbian artists or about lesbians from antiquity to the present.

Lampela co-edited the 2003 book “From Our Voices: Art Educators and Artists Speak Out About Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues.” She is the co-founder of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Issues Caucus of the National Art Education Association. Her presentation is sponsored by the School of Art.

In addition to these major guest speakers, the calendar of events for LGBT Awareness Month offers receptions, a rock concert, a gender workshop, Prism dance, a poetry potluck and more. The full calendar for LGBT Awareness Month is online at www.niu.edu/lgbt/april.htm. For additional information, contact the LGBT Resource Center at (815) 753-LGBT or lgbt@niu.edu.

###