Why lavender graduation

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To learn more, please read our Privacy Policy. Accept More Information. Why a Lavender Graduation Ceremony? Topics: College. Love conquers hate. These events provide a sense of community for minority students who often experience tremendous culture shock at their impersonalized institutions. For many students, they are the payoff for staying in school, and friends and families find the smaller, more ethnic ceremonies both meaningful and personal.

Lavender Graduation is a cultural celebration that recognizes LGBTQ students of all races and ethnicities and acknowledges their achievements and contributions to the university as students who survived the college experience. Through such recognition, LGBTQ students may leave the university with a positive last experience of the institution thereby encouraging them to become involved mentors for current students, as well as financially contributing alumni.

Lavender Graduation is an event to which LGBTQ students look forward, where they not only share their hopes and dreams with one another, but where they are officially recognized by the institution for their leadership and their successes and achievements.

It is a combination of the pink triangle that gay men were forced to wear in concentration camps and the black triangle designating lesbians as political prisoners in Nazi Germany. Participants are given an invitation link to share with family, friends, colleagues, or mentors of their choice.

Register at go. Participants can register with a legal or chosen name, customize how they are honored during the ceremony, and designate the amount of visibility they are comfortable with. It combines the pink triangle that gay men were forced to wear and the black triangle that lesbians were forced to wear while political prisoners in Nazi Germany. LGBTQ activists took these symbols of hatred, combined them, and created a symbol and color of pride and community.

Now tradition at more than colleges and universities across the country, Lavender Graduation began in at the University of Michigan. She initiated Lavender Graduation after being denied access to attend her own children's graduations due to her sexual orientation and out of a desire to celebrate LGBT students. Attend the event, and bring your friends! Sign up here for the GSC newsletter to get updates and reminders closer to the event. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and Instagram.