WPI Celebrates Pride Month 2023

Pride Month 2023

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) celebrates Pride Month 2023 by honoring and highlighting the diverse identities, spaces, and contributions of the LGBTQIAP+ community throughout history. Pride Month centers and celebrates the wide spectrum of sexual orientations and gender identities of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Aromantic, Agender and Pansexual (LGBTQIAP+) individuals, advocates, allies, and communities. The “+” represents the additional identities and orientations recognized and those that are still to be discovered. Pride month is a celebration to increase visibility and honor the impact the LGBTQIAP+ community has had on history. 

STEM Scholar Highlights:  

• Dr. Lauren Esposito, Co-Founder of Islands & Seas and creator of 500 Queer Scientists 

• Dr. Richard Summerbell, Gay Rights Activist and Associate Professor at University of Toronto 

• Dr. John Pham, Molecular Biologist and Editor-In-Chief of Cell 

Read, Watch, Listen, Learn

• Explore the Gordon Library’s LGBTQIAP+ Pride & Culture Library Guide online

• Explore The Stonewall You Know Is a Myth. And That’s O.K.  

• Explore Human Rights Campaign’s My Body, My Health online resource 

• Explore Social Science Research Network (SSRN)’s Pride Month Hub online 

• Explore During Pride Month: Learn to Be an Ally to Transgender People in Your Community online   

• Read How to Honor Pride Month Amid Anti-LGBTQ+ Attacks online

• Read The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist by Ben Barres  

• Read Global Gay: How Gay Culture Is Changing the World by Frédéric Martel 

• Read Gender(s) by Kathryn Bond Stockton 

• Read Butch Heroes by Ria Brodell 

• Watch The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) on Freevee 

• Watch East Palace, West Palace (1995) on Freevee 

• Watch Reel South Season 8, Episode 806: A Run for More (2023) on PBS 

• Watch specials on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)’s Pride Month Collection 

• Listen to the Pride in STEM podcast 

• Listen to the She Her Dyke podcast 

• Listen to the Nancy podcast 

Take Action  

• Attend Out in Tech Pride online on June 1, 2023 at 4:00 PM EDT 

• Attend Take Pride: A Chat About LGBTQ+ Challenges on June 14, 2023 at 1:00 PM EDT 

• Support Safe Homes, Worcester: a program supporting LGBTQIA+ young people, and their straight allies, between the ages of 14 and 23 

• Register to Vote -OR- Check Your Voter Registration  

• Everything you need to vote. Vote.org  

“Today, our Nation faces another inflection point.  In 2023 alone, State and local legislatures have already introduced over 600 hateful laws targeting the LGBTQI+ community.  Books about LGBTQI+ people are being banned from libraries.  Transgender youth in over a dozen States have had their medically necessary health care banned.  Homophobic and transphobic vitriol spewed online has spilled over into real life, as armed hate groups intimidate people at Pride marches and drag performances, and threaten doctors’ offices and children’s hospitals that offer care to the LGBTQI+ community.  Our hearts are heavy with grief for the loved ones we have lost to anti-LGBTQI+ violence. Despite these attacks, the LGBTQI+ community remains resilient.  LGBTQI+ Americans are defiantly and unapologetically proud.  Youth leaders are organizing walkouts at high schools and colleges across the country to protest discriminatory laws.  LGBTQI+ young people and their parents are demonstrating unimaginable courage by testifying in State capitols in defense of their basic rights.” 

A Proclamation on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Pride Month, 2023 (The White House, May 31, 2023)

The Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Multicultural Education (ODIME) promotes and oversees all student facing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) learning experiences, programs, services, trainings, and initiatives for WPI.