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Duke in Pics: Coming Out Day on the Plaza

Duke community members celebrate LGBTQ community with T-shirts and songs

Duke's Coming Out Day celebration was held Nov. 1 in the Bryan Center Plaza.
Duke's Coming Out Day celebration was held Nov. 1 in the Bryan Center Plaza.

Surrounded by stacks of teal, lime-green, pink and orange shirts, Duke students Katie-Rose Orr and Steven Conklin volunteered to spread an important campus message: “Love=Love.”

On Tuesday, Nov. 1, the Duke community celebrated Coming Out Day, which fosters support and awareness of coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ). National Coming Out Day is recognized each year on Oct. 11, which is during Duke’s fall break.

Organized by the Duke Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, volunteers at the Duke campus event gave out 1,500 “Love=Love” T-shirts and 600 Monuts donuts on the Bryan Center Plaza.

“The people at the Center are my favorite people and they’re like my family, and I want to share that with other people,” said Orr, a first-year Duke mathematics student, as students lined up to receive a shirt.

“Other than just handing out T-shirts, you’re helping people support equality,” added Conklin, a third-year Duke chemistry graduate student.


Duke students Katie-Rose Orr, in the middle, and Steven Conklin, on the right, hand out "Love=Love" T-shirts.

Duke’s Coming Out Day also focused on advocacy and education. Singers performed on the outdoor plaza stage, and organizations and offices such as Duke Athlete Ally, Duke University Libraries and the Duke Student Wellness Center set up tables to meet with community members and share information.


From left to right, Duke University Libraries' Jennifer Scott and Kelly Wooten fold and hand out mini-zines.

Kelly Wooten, research services and collection development librarian for Duke University Libraries’ Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, handed out free copies of “A Big Gay Library Mini-Zine,” a custom-created, miniature magazine about Duke Libraries’ LGBTQ collections, which include Duke history, personal papers and films.

“I thought this would be a great outreach opportunity, not just for people to learn about our academic resources but our entertainment resources as well,” Wooten said. “I like seeing such a broad group of people at Coming Out Day and how the shirts being handed out are meaningful to the community.”