Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) hosted their annual Pride Week from Monday, March 21 to Saturday, March 27.

“The purpose of pride week is to give Bucknellians a time to celebrate together since we aren’t at school during Pride month. It also encourages students to feel comfortable with who they are and lets GSA be available to more people,” Talia Housman ’21, the secretary of GSA, said. 

Each executive member of GSA was tasked with organizing an event each day that celebrated the gay and queer community on campus. Monday’s event was a discussion about “Ace” by Angela Chen, which explores the growing role of asexuality in the cultural landscape. On Tuesday, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Alex Kelly led a talk on being queer and non-binary in their field of academia. The film “Booksmart” was screened in Trout Auditorium on Wednesday. A Tie-Dye Art event was hosted in collaboration with Seventh Street Studio & Maker Space on Friday. The week ended with a Drag Brunch outside MacDonald Commons, which featured student performers dressed in drag. 

GSA altered much of their activities to adhere to COVID-19 protocols. “The events  looked different than they normally did with our talks on zoom and movie nights socially distanced. Art night was outside so that more people could come and socially distance and we did a Drag Brunch that allowed people to be outside and could spread out instead of Drag Ball which is usually held in Uptown,” Housman said. 

Emma James ’22 echoed Housman’s sentiments: “This year was a little different, but it still allowed us to feel the sense of community that Pride Week always offers. I was really glad that we were able to still do it, even if it did look slightly different than the traditional Drag Ball to be COVID-safe. It’s nice to just let loose and have some fun together.”

Housman encourages all students who identify as gay or queer to attend GSA meetings. “While we do have a set aside week, GSA is constantly hosting meetings and events throughout the school year and they are always open to anyone who would like to come,” Housman said.