For the uninitiated, drag performance may come off as shocking, over-the-top, dripping with innuendo, and sometimes downright crass. That is by design! Drag performance has a long history in the LGBTQ community, first being performed by trans women and gay men in small bars and at extravagant balls across the country since at least the early 20th century. Drag is purposefully transgressive, pushing the envelope in order to satirize what is acceptable to normative society. Drag kings and queens seek to expose the ridiculousness of gender roles and sexual repression through their performances.

Free and open to the public.

Lavender Graduation is a cultural celebration that recognizes the achievements and contributions of LGBTQIA+ students who have successfully navigated the college experience. During the ceremony we will honor graduating students with lavender cords and this special moment in time.

Undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students graduating in 2024 (May, August, and December) are welcome to register for the ceremony by using the link here.

Those looking to RSVP for the audience (friends, family, and supporters) may use the form linked here.

If you have any questions and/or need any accommodations to ensure you have an accessible and comfortable event, please contact the Center for Inclusion and Cross Cultural Engagement at inclusion@olemiss.edu or 662-915-1689.

Join Lambda for an opportunity to meet and talk to drag queens in the Oxford area. Panelists include Blake Summers, Vivica Vanity, Lady Pluto, Atheria, and Simone Striker.

Food will be provided. RSVP here!

Join our community gathering for fellowship and a fun kick-off to Pride Week. Additional details coming.

The Oxford Pride Events Committee invites people of all faiths to join us for an open dialogue about the intersections of faith, spirituality, and sexuality. The theme for this year’s discussion is “Listening to Understand.”

The event is open to all.

Presented by Ian Whalen, UM Alum (2015 and 2017) and Sociology Ph.D. Candidate, University of Colorado-Boulder.

About the Presentation:

It is impossible to ignore the acceleration in legislation explicitly targeting transgender individuals in contemporary society. Legislation in other states and at home (“Don’t Say Gay Bill”-FL 1 Gender Affirming Care Ban—FL 2 & MS 3 ) demands us to take the growing specter of fascism seriously. Mississippi is no different. Just this year alone, a staggering 31 house bills were introduced and debated in committee review. The aims of these bills are clear in their motivation and goal—to criminalize and ban transgender healthcare and their public existence. 4 Regardless of the success such legislation has, they nonetheless exemplify the growing influence of governing silence(s) in the everyday lives of LGBTQ+ Mississippians. This talk will engage data drawn from the Queer Mississippi Oral History Project and explore how governing silences are negotiated and resisted by LGBTQ+ Mississippians.

About Ian:

Ian is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research interests include men and masculinities, queer theory, and LGBTQ Studies. He completed his BA in History (2015) and his MA in Sociology (2017) at the University of Mississippi. His previous research has examined the social construction of gender and its intersections with sexuality and technology. He has also collaborated on research that examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gendered division of labor within family households. His dissertation engages archival data and life history interviews to interrogate the social processes that influence the formation of queer selfhood in rural contexts. 

Hosted by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

In honor of one of this year’s honorary grand marshals, Colby Kullman, we are offering a night of queer poetry. The evening will begin with a reception that will offer food and drinks and the opportunity to get a book (or books) signed by our featured readers.

Featuring Readings by:

• T.K. Lee

• C.T. Salazar

• Maggie Graber

Additionally, a number of audience members will be randomly selected to read as part of the event.  If you are interested in reading some of your original work or reading your favorite poem by a queer poet, please click the button above to sign up.

Free and Open to the Public!

Lambda and Justice for Jay Lee invite you to join them for a sign making party before the Oxford Pride Parade. Some supplies will be available. Bring your creativity!

ABOUT THE FILM

LOGLINE

After discovering case files from a 1950s gender clinic, a cast of trans actors turn a talk show inside out to confront the legacy of a young trans woman forced to choose between honesty and access.

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL SYNOPSIS

Agnes, the pioneering, pseudonymized, transgender woman who participated in Harold Garfinkel’s gender health research at UCLA in the 1960s, has long stood as a figurehead of trans history.

In this rigorous cinematic exercise that blends fiction and nonfiction, director Chase Joynt explores where and how her platform has become a pigeonhole. Framing Agnes endeavors to widen the frame through which trans history is viewed — one that has remained too narrow to capture the multiplicity of experiences eclipsed by Agnes’.

Through a collaborative practice of reimagination, an impressive lineup of trans stars take on vividly rendered, impeccably vintage reenactments, bringing to life groundbreaking artifacts of trans healthcare. 

Joynt’s signature form-rupturing style radically reenvisions the imposition of the frame on the cultural memory of transness through his brilliantly crafted, communally-driven excavation. This reclamation tears away with remarkable precision the myth of isolation as the mode of existence of transgender history-makers, breathing new life into a lineage of collaborators and conspirators who have been forgotten for far too long.

Join our community gathering for fellowship and a fun beginning to Pride Week featuring a kickball game and family-friendly potluck picnic and cookout.  Awards for this year’s Outstanding Allies and Advocates will be presented.

Come visit Mississippi's only queer feminist bookstore, the morning before Oxford's Pride Parade. Bear Bergman will sign copies of his new book at 10am, and offer free advice at his "Ask Bear" table outside the bookstore. At 11am, Tyler Gillespie will read from his book, The Thing about Florida.

The 2022 Glitterary Festival will be part of Oxford Pride.

Angela Chen will be delivering the inaugural Asexuality (Ace) Lecture as an opening event for the 2022 Glitterary Festival. It will also serve as the official lecture for Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi American Heritage Month in partnership with the Center for Inclusion and Cross Cultural Engagement.

About Angela Chen:

Chen is a senior editor at Wired Magazine, where she oversee the ideas section. Previously, she was a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal, Vox Media's The Verge, and MIT Technology Review.

Chen is also the author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, Electric Literature, and Them.

Her reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Aeon Magazine, Paris Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, Lapham's Quarterly, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and more.

At its core, Missy is by/for members of the LGBTQ+ community & allies to that community, but submitted work does not need to be LGBTQ+ related– we’re just here to amplify your voices, not to restrict them.

We believe the circulation of Missy will increase the visibility of LGBTQ+ students & allies as well as builds networks across campus, with alumnae, the greater Oxford area, and with other marginalized communities.

More details coming soon!

OxFilm , the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, Yoknapatawpha Arts Council, and Oxford Pride present the documentary “The Hollidays in Mississippi, created by Christina Huff, MFA student in documentary expression.

Free and open to the public.

Details coming soon!

We are working to create a virtual pride parade video and would like to include your images or videos from previous years. Deadline for submissions is 4/29/2020.

https://forms.gle/gqfkrdgjRCBhpmMBA

Even thought we can’t be together, there is no reason for you not to don your best Queerantine pride outfits — go all out! Put on pants for the first time in weeks...or don’t! 

Post photos and videos to social media using #oxfordprideonline and #queerantine and tag the Sarah Isom Center (@sarahisomcenter) 

We will reshare photos to our stories, make grid posts, and do a parade highlight so that Oxford Pride Queerantine Edition is permanently on our social media.

Join Hooper Schultz and Mai Gooch for a watch party of No Secret Anymore: Founders of the Modern Lesbian Rights Movement (see below) and a virtual chat session (click here to join the GroupMe).

Showing:

Frameline & Roxie Virtual Cinema Present: an online community screening of NO SECRET ANYMORE: THE TIMES OF DEL MARTIN & PHYLLIS LYON. This is a tribute to Phyllis Lyon who died on April 9, 2020 and a fundraiser for Lyon-Martin Health Services, which is in dire need of funds. The screening is free, but 100% of donations go to the Clinic. Kate Kendell and Jewelle Gomez will be offering remembrances and stories about Phyllis and I will introduce my film. Please join us for this special screening. More info here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/no-secret-anymore-the-times-of-del-martin-phyllis-lyon-tickets-103381041478.

About the film:

Founders of the modern lesbian rights movement, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon were partners in love and political struggle for more than fifty years. This film reveals Del and Phyl’s passionate public activism as well as their charming private relationship.

When Martin and Lyon courageously launched the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955, it became the first public organization for lesbians in America. With incisive interviews, rare archival images and warmhearted humor, No Secret Anymore traces the emergence of lesbians from the fear of discovery to an expectation of equality.

Trailer:

Stonewall Uprising: THE YEAR THAT CHANGED AMERICA

Sponsored by Oxford Film Festival, OutOxford, and Sarah Isom Center for Women & Gender Studies.

About the film:

When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City on June 28, 1969, the street erupted into violent protests that lasted for the next six days. The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement in the United States and around the world.
A discussion will be held after the film.

Tickets Here

Facebook Event

University of Mississippi LGBTQ+ student groups OUTGrads and UM Pride Network present their annual Lafayette-Oxford-University Awards Ceremony and Gayla as the kickoff to Pride Week!

Come out to the Powerhouse for drinks and dancing — and celebrate awards for LGBTQ+ and Allies who have affected our community in a major way in the last year. Last year’s awards were given in the following categories: Activism, Education, and the Arts.

Tickets are $5 in advance and $7 at the door. Although this is a fundraiser for LGBTQ+ organizations at the University of Mississippi, no one will be turned away due to lack of funds!