PRIDE! Kent encourages everyone to share their own stories as they celebrate Coming Out Week.

The theme is “What’s in Your Closet?” It is a way for PRIDE! to reach out to the straight community and the gay community, PRIDE! President Trae Ruscin said.

“With the theme, we want people to kind of come out in their own ways of being not gender normative or not hetero-normative in what they do or how they feel,” Ruscin said. “So if there’s some real macho football player that likes to sing show tunes, come out about that. If you’re a girl that likes to work on cars, come out about that.”

Coming Out Week begins today on National Coming Out Day with a scavenger hunt from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Those participating should meet in the PRIDE! office.

Tuesday, members of PRIDE! are gathering together for a potluck dinner.

Wednesday, PRIDE! is hosting a campus-wide Speaker’s Bureau at 7 p.m. in Room 306 of the Student Center to discuss important LGBT issues. It will be like a Q and A, where anyone can come to ask questions and participate in the discussion.

Thursday, during their regularly scheduled weekly meeting at 8 p.m. in the Governance Chambers, members will be sharing their own personal coming out stories.

PRIDE! will conclude the week by hosting a dance party Friday for anyone who wishes to attend. The time and place has not been decided, but students can find more information on the group’s Facebook page.

“We want people to literally ‘come out of the closet’ about anything that makes them unique, and makes them an individual,” Martonyo Caddiell, programmer for PRIDE!, wrote in an email. “PRIDE! Kent wants to shatter all sorts of stereotypes.”

Contact Lydia Coutré at [email protected].