Thursday, November 19th 2009

By selma al-samarrai

The Queer Students Community Centre (QSCC) held the annual Mac Pride week from Nov. 9 to Nov. 13, which was concluded with the first pride parade ever held at McMaster University.

QSCC is an MSU service that offers support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite and queer students at McMaster and provides an open social space five days a week from 9.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m at their MUSC location.

McMaster’s Pride week’s events included an opening ceremony on Nov. 9, a movie night that played Milk on Nov. 10, a Gay Trivia night on Nov. 11, a drag show on Nov. 12 and the pride parade on Nov. 13. Most events were held on campus except for the drag show, which was held in the Marauders bar in the basement of Kelsey’s on Main Street.

The Mac Pride Parade began at Les Prince residence, went through campus, and concluded at Mary Keyes restaurant and garnered the involvement of about 20 people. Suzanne Kane, coordinator of QSCC explained, “The parade was good, it was smaller than I expected it would be, but I think it went really well and next year it will be bigger. 20 people attended, that’s ok for its first year.”

According to Kane, the remaining events for QSCC garnered popular involvement and she hopes that next semester’s QSCC-arranged events will bring about a similar success. “It did go as I planned, it was a lot of planning just trying to get everything together… but everyone was really helpful and I think it turned out really well.”

Information and updates about QSCC are provided through their website, their forum and their office in the McMaster University Student Centre.

Tags: bisexual, gay, homosexual, lesbian, parade, Pride, pride parade, pride week, QSCC, transexual, transgendered