Dear reader,
At the beginning of this year, the Daily Beacon staff made you a few promises.
Besides the obvious duties like keeping you informed and accompanying your morning coffee, we promised to tell your story. Or, to tell your story to the best of our ability.
The problem is, we can’t always do everyone’s story justice.
Admittedly, walking into the Daily Beacon newsroom can often seemlike walking into the entire state of Wisconsin: most of us are white, most of us are cisgender and most of us are heterosexual.
And, that’s not something we’re proud of (please come work here if you’re not any of the above).
So, on Sunday morning this past week, the Daily Beacon staff came into the newsroom at 9 a.m. to hear from Pride Center director Donna Braquet on how to tell these stories with the accuracy and respect they deserve.
We wanted to learn how to write about the experiences of so many students and faculty on our campus who don’t often get a platform to voice the pride they have for their individuality and to celebrate their uniqueness.
We are fortunate to attend a university that doesn’t discriminate against people based on their color, gender identity, capability, intellectual ability, history or sexual identity. This is no small deal, and it is a privilege we should all be taking advantage of. Having Donna answer our questions Sunday morning and learning about a culture of people living right here in Knoxville was like a receiving a present.
We’ve realized that none of us fit into any one box, one label. Straight people and LGBTQA+ people don’t represent exclusive communities. We have more in common than we do differences, and we’re all trying to promote a society that welcomes diversity and self-expression.
The LGBTQA+ students and faculty at UT aren’t any smarter, more creative or funnier than you or us. They are just people. People in our community with different experiences and stories. They have perspectives and ideas to share, and their stories are just as important and can be just as typical as anyone else’s.
And we as a paper have promised the UT community that we will provide the platform for all these stories.
With the historic same-sex marriage Supreme Court ruling this summer, the debate over LGBTQA+ rights has once again taken center stage in our political sphere. Combine this increased media attention over the past few months with Pride Week this week and Coming Out Day this Sunday, and these stories are just begging to be told.
In this issue, in addition to standard, journalistic articles that discuss asexuality and reconciling religion with being LGBTQA+, we asked people to tell their stories themselves. When you see the heading “My Story,” know that these are real people’s stories, without a reporter as the middle man.
We at the Daily Beacon want to thank Donna Braquet for being patient with our emails and for guiding us through this paper, the Pride Center as a whole for allowing us into their sphere and being willing to point us in the right direction and all the individuals who let us into their lives to help us share their experiences. This issue exists because of them.
Thank God there’s a space on our campus for this community. Thank God they’ve not been shoved out by the haters in the Tennessee legislature or the good ole’ Southern bigots that use a book which preaches love to justify hate.
Thank God for those who keep fighting.
– Jenna and Bradi
