KU Center for Sexuality and Gender Diversity celebrates LGBT students with showing of “Paris is Burning”

To help mitigate the stress students at the University of Kansas are feeling as the semester comes to an end, as well as celebrate queer students in the community, the Center for Sexuality and Gender Diversity has a myriad of events scheduled this month, embracing the month of  “Gaypril.”

Gaypril, a play on the words “gay” and “April,” is a dedication of the month of April to queer members of the KU community. The month is full of LGBT events, including two Queer Coffee hours, a screening of the film “Paris is Burning,” a gay brunch and the lavender graduation to celebrate LGBT graduates.

The showing of “Paris is Burning,” a film from 1990 on the 1980s ballroom scene in New York, took place on Saturday. The movie shows the individuals of BIPOC queer and trans community expressing themselves freely and creatively in regards to gender and performance despite the oppression they have and continue to face from society. 

With things like voguing and drag becoming more popular in mainstream media, SGD believes that it is important to remind people of the queer BIPOC that are at the root of all of it. 

“We really just wanted to showcase, you know, what is ballroom culture and the voguing, and especially a lot of the language that comes from folks in the field,” said Tezbah Smiley, a graduate assistant at SGD. “So, you know, when we talk about the language that's used heavily within the queer community, that also has root as well, coming from certain communities and, you know, just celebrating that as well.”