GVSU to host upcoming LGBTQ-centered events

Update on April 5, 2022: The Transgender Day of Visibility event has been moved to Tuesday, April 19 4:00-5:30 p.m. in the Milton E. Ford LGBT Resource Center, Kirkhof Center room 1161

GVSU, in partnership with the Milton E. Ford LGBT Resource Center and student organizations, will be hosting multiple events celebrating LGBTQ visibility.

In celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility, campus will be welcoming Bailey Sell, owner of Transfigure Print Co., for an event.

Sell is a 23-year-old printmaker living in Grand Rapids and running his own queer-centered screen-printing business. Identifying as transgender, he focuses his business around supporting the local LGBTQ population in any way he can. To date, his business has raised over $24,500 for nonprofits and organizations such as the Grand Rapids Trans Foundation and Stand with Trans MI. 

Attendees will be given the opportunity to work with Sell to make a free screen-printed T-shirt as well as hear Sell’s backstory on how and why he got his start in the art of screen printing. 

“[This] is an annual international celebration of the resilience and success of transgender people, as well as a campaign to raise awareness of trans rights,” said Finn Marcks, coordinator of the event.

The event will take place from 4-5:30 p.m. on March 29 in the Pere Marquette room of the Kirkhof Center and will include a keynote, art show, pop-up shop and a screen-printing workshop. 

Transgender Day of Visibility is internationally recognized on March 31.

Following Transgender Day of Visibility will be Pride Prom from 7-9 p.m. on April 1. It will also take place in the Pere Marquette room. This year’s theme is “Stargayzing,” a nod to astrology. Pride Prom is free to attend and anyone is welcome—no dress code required.

“It is centered around the idea that not everyone got to attend their high school proms with the partner or gender expression that is authentic to them,” said Rachael Anderson from the Student Senate’s Diversity Affairs Committee. “The event offers a chance to relive the prom experience as your authentic self.”

This event is the result of a collaborative effort by the Milton E. Ford LGBT Resource Center, Student Senate, In the Margins Poetry Club and Whale Radio.