SMC’s first annual Gaypril Pride Month celebration

Graphic by Katie Easterson

On Tuesday April 1, Santa Monica College’s (SMC) Pride Center hosted its first annual event for the inaugural “Gaypril” Pride Month celebration. 

Throughout the month of April, the Pride Center will be holding various pride events that will provide resources and a chance to build community with fellow queer students on campus. The month-long celebration will consist of events like panels and lectures speaking about various queer topics, safer binding and tucking workshops, and legal name and gender marker change appointments. 

Dr. Yamissette Westerband, faculty leader at the Pride Center, spoke about the purpose of Gaypril, stating, “We specifically created a month long of events celebrating our queer community and really highlighting our queer community on campus.” 

Pride month officially starts in June, but due to graduation and other scheduling conflicts the Pride Center thought it would be best to celebrate it earlier. The celebrations kicked off its first affair with a screening of the documentary “Stonewall Forever” followed by a group discussion. 

The documentary was chosen by the center's trans and nonbinary student group in order to spread awareness about the battles the queer community has faced. “Often when you talk to members of the LGBTQ+ community, oftentimes they don't even necessarily understand or know about their history, so we thought this would be good in terms of doing a little bit of educating,” Westerband said. 

Attendees were given questionnaires before the documentary and spoke about their opinions once it finished. “We felt like the documentary was really timely and necessary given everything that is going on politically, so talking a little bit about the history like where we come from, and to also understand where we’re going and all the battles we’ve fought to try to gain equality to try to gain space within the social fabric of our society,” Westerband said. 

The next event for Gaypril will be a LGBTQ+ allies panel with SMC faculty and staff on April 10 at 11:15 a.m. in the student equity center lounge. After this, a 2:15 p.m. lecture, “Fairness or Policing? How science and politics shape the inclusion of intersex and trans athletes in sports,” will be held in the orientation hall.