Roger Life: Grayson Scanlon is Here and Proud

April 14, 2021By Anna Cohen

This week is Pride Week at RWU. Hosted by the Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA,) it's a full week celebrating Queer and Trans people. Junior Grayson Scanlon, SAGA's Outreach Chair, is helping to put on Pride Week events including Queer Fest, an upbeat outdoor event with food, drinks, tie-dye, and a mechanical unicorn ride.

Living as Full Queer Self In Person, On Campus: “Growing up, a lot of my queer identity was founded in an online community. To go to college and be able to celebrate my queer and trans friendships in-person means so much to me. When we had to be remote in the spring of 2020, it felt like I had to regress to having that identity only be online. Being able to go back on campus is a big deal because we are still here and proud, despite everything that is going on.”

Cultivating a Community of Love: “As queer people, our identities are inherently political. You’re going to get political outlash from people who don’t agree with certain things. As an organization, we want to educate people and show them that we’re not about doing bad things, we just want to cultivate a community full of love on campus.”

When the Wider Queer Community Shows Pride: “When we are at the SAGA meetings, it is nice to see the people who are always involved, but when we have these campus-wide events, we get to see allies really show support, and we see people who are part of the queer community but who don’t usually show up for SAGA meetings show their pride on campus. They enjoy what we do, even if they aren’t involved in the planning. I think it’s great that we have the ability to provide events for them without them having to go out and do it themselves. They don’t have to ask for it.”

Scanlon, of Jefferson Township, N.J., is majoring in Architecture and minoring in Computer Science.