Thirteen courageous students chose to share their happy or struggling experiences of coming out.

Every wall in the ballroom, except the mainstage, consisted of different colors resembling a rainbow.

Warmer colors such as red, orange and yellow were on one side of the room and wrapped around towards the other side containing cooler colors such as green, blue, purple and pink lights.

The Coming Out Monologues was a showcase held on Nov. 13, hosted by the LGBTQA Pride center at the USU Ballroom from 5 to 7 p.m.

The showcase was broken into two segments and in each segment there were six monologues to be told with an intermission in between.

During the intermission, host, Fernanda Garcia Hernandez, said to the audience that they should introduce themselves to the person next to them, and give hugs to the speakers.

Some stories contained experiences of coming out to their family, their best friends or the inner battles of coming out to themselves.

The monologues allowed the speakers to truly tell their stories within the LGBTQIA+ community and others who they call “allies.”

Before Shovan Vantandoust, the ___ speaker, entered the stage, Hernandez said Vantandoust wanted a drum roll before speaking. The audience created their own drum roll for Vatandoust by slapping their hands on their laps or stomping their feet on the floor.

After the showcase, the LGBTQA Pride Center hosted a reception where anyone was welcome to join the LGBTQIA+ community, the speakers and allies.

Hernandez said that she created the idea of the reception, so the audience would be able to create dialogue with the speakers, “people just leave and they’re left with wanting more.”

The event was originally from 6 to 8 p.m., but due to a request to start earlier, Hernandez said she was able to work together with the directors of the building to get an earlier time for the event, which gave an extra hour to create the reception.

During the reception, some of the speakers such as Danielle Diaz and Marshall Waddy shared to the audience what pride means to them.

Diaz said, “pride means to me loving myself, because in the past I haven’t [loved myself] very much.”

“[Pride means] knowing who you are and being okay with it,” said Waddy.

If anyone is interested in finding out more information about the LGBTQIA+ community, The LGBTQIA+ Pride Center is open Monday to Thursday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.,

Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or email them [email protected].