SOGLBT Welcomes New Members, Celebrates Old

The Student Organization for Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and the Transgendered, (SOGLBT) is kicking off the semester with its bi-annual barbeque at 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18, at Fort Collins’ City Park.

Kay Lambert, SOGLBT co-chair and senior studio art major, said he sees the barbeque as a welcome back for the fall semester as well as a membership drive.

The barbeque provides an opportunity for Lambert and other long-time members to see who will be involved in the group this year to determine the  events students prefer, Lambert said.

He expects about 50-60 people and hopes to see some members stick around after to see in what direction the group would like to go . Membership has waxed and waned in past years, and this past year has seen fewer students in participation.

Lambert said he’s hoping for the organization to provide as many resources and opportunities as it can, while hoping to hang on to members.

“Things will kind of ebb [with participation] and I don’t think it’ll be a permanent downturn,” Lambert said.

Passionately driven to make SOGLBT a thriving resource for the CSU community, Lambert said he knows that it’s going to be hard bringing back a solid membership. But he’ll continue to keep pushing, focusing on getting the word out through social-networking sites like Facebook and putting more publicity out on campus about the group’s presence.

With student organizations, “it sounds like everything’s going to hell,” said Lambert. “It’s not as awful as it sounds.”

In fact, SOGLBT events draw huge crowds, and it is one of the oldest continuously active organizations for GLBT individuals in Northern Colorado.

In 1973, it was established as the Fort Collins Gay Alliance, and has since changed its name many times “to be more inclusive of the rapidly progressing sexually aware population,” said Gabe Case, CSU graduate and former SOGLBT co-chair and media coordinator.

One of the more well-attended events thrown by the organization is its biannual drag show, usually held to celebrate both National Coming Out Day on Oct 11 and Transgender, Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Awareness Days, a week-long event, in the spring. TBGLAD also includes educational seminars, guest speakers and hosts open-mic sessions.

SOGLBT coordinates with the community during TBGLAD in holding a Queer Prom as well as taking part in the National Day of Silence in the spring, which is recognized in bringing attention to anti-GLBT name-calling and harassment in schools, said Case.

As the current co-chair, Lambert said his goals include rebuilding the infrastructure of the group. He took initiative to become co-chair when most of the old leadership graduated or left the group, leaving no guidelines for folks to keep the structure going, Lambert said.

Although the GLBT Resource Center for students exists on campus, SOGLBT is important to the larger GLBT student community because it functions as a student-run voice in the CSU community at large, Lambert said. The GLBT Resource Center provides something different for students, where as a student organization provides the opportunity for activism and student-oriented goals,  he said.

With a student focus, the group can promote awareness in fresh, thought-provoking ways that are relevant to the GLBT student community. The students get to make their voice heard and that’s what they want, said Lambert.

“It’s been proven through history that not talking about [the issue] doesn’t help intolerance,” said Lambert. “Hiding has never made any group feel better about themselves.”