“Queer Fest” held at FSU

On November 6^th in the Armor of the lane center, a special art show was held.  It was a part of the “Queer Fest” for the week, which focused on the celebration and uplifting of LGBT students on campus.  This event, along with all of the others this week were planned and facilitated by Spectrum. “Spectrum is the only student organization at FSU that is specifically intended to better the students here that identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or anything else that is gender or sexually diverse,” Matty, the Public Relations Chair of Spectrum said.  This was the last event held this week for the “Queer” Fest.  Matty says that the art show was held because the club wanted to let students or people in general know that there are outlets for “queerness”.  “People might not always be able to show, may it be flamboyancy on the surface or how they may have interpersonal relationships and it’s also an outlet for people who by choice remain closeted but want to express their inner feelings.”

Matty says that at least 10-15 artists participated in the art show, and there was no overall theme for the art.  “There is artwork in here that does not directly relate to gender and sexual diversity, but by an artist submitting their work here, they are showing that they support Queer Fest as a whole and they support the organization that sponsors Queer Fest, which is Spectrum,” Matty says.

Matty gave an in depth run through of all the events held for the Queer Fest, which many students came out to, in an effort to show support for the cause. “Wednesday we had Queer 101, which was an educational forum where I, the president of Spectrum and Dr. Hartman Link, the advisor for Spectrum, gave a brief education on why celebrating queerness is important.” Matty says that they attempted to explain some ambiguities that exist within the language that the LGBT community uses as a whole. “On Tuesday we hosted a movie night.” Matty said.  The movie was entitled “But I Am a Cheerleader”, which featured the popular drag queen “Rupaul” “It was made in Australia.  The premise of the movie was that a teenage girl was suspected of being a lesbian by her parents because of the way she acted. It turns out she was, but that’s not the point of the movie.” Matty says the point of the movie was that at a camp, they tried to force gay people into being straight by having them do stereotypical things associated with their gender.  “Women performed duties like cleaning and vacuuming, men chopped wood,” he said. “It was a comedy but it brought up a lot of real issues.  I would recommend it to anyone.”

Monday night from 7-9 there was a poetry slam. There were over 20 people in attendance for this event.  “The winner of Frostburg’s Got Talent spoke there, Blue, and several other artists.”  Matty says that a lot of the artist spoke about black empowerment.  “They all tied it back to LGBT issues, and how there’s that intersectionality there and that multiple forms of oppression exist that affect them.  They also talked about how they could empower themselves and overcome it.”  Overall, Spectrum will continue to host events in the future catered to the LGBT community of Frostburg, that will hopefully leave as much of an impact as the Queer Fest.