Several students dissatisfied with a "sensationalist" publicity campaign for National Coming Out Day will blitz the Yard today with posters advocating an alternative group to the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters' Alliance (BGLTSA).
Clifford S. Davidson '02, who is helping to coordinate today's effort as well as organize this new group, said the BGLTSA claims to represent all members of the gay community, but their tactics actually alienate many students.
"By putting up obscene posters and declaring themselves as queer political radicals, they don't help anyone," said Alexander A. Boni-Saenz '01, noting that the BGLTSA recently used several sexually explicit posters. "Not everyone wants to be identified as that."
Boni-Saenz, who is currently a member of the BGLTSA, plans to help in today's postering effort and in the group Davidson hopes to start.
And while BGLTSA officers said yesterday that National Coming Out Day is designed to celebrate visibility, encourage openness about sexual orientation and to reaffirm the pride and strength of the gay community at Harvard, Davidson said the organization's poster choices are unrepresentative and counterproductive.
"It alienates members of the gay community who don't agree with those kinds of things," Davidson said. "And there's a lot of them."
Davidson added that he left the BGLTSA in part because of the offensive posters.
"I realized I wished to be no part of an organization that would condense my entire romantic nature into a trite, sensationalist, anatomical marketing slogan for the purposes of a poster," Davidson said.
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