Ithaca College

Former Ithaca City Council member Roey Thorpe, who has worked on behalf of civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans for the past 20 years, will serve as this year's National Coming Out Day speaker. Thorpe's talk will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 9, at 7:30 p.m. in Clark Lounge, Egbert Hall.

Each year our campus hosts a featured speaker on campus in commemoration of National Coming Out Day; the speaker usually has unique ties to our local community. In past years, highlighted speakers have include notable people in the fields of research, writing, the arts, and law and public policy.

Featured speaker Roey Thorpe is the Advocacy Services Director for the Equality Federation, where her job is to build the political power of grassroots LGBT organizations across the country. An activist for social justice for over 20 years, Roey worked at Empire State Pride Agenda (New York's statewide LGBT civil rights and advocacy organization), Freedom to Marry, and served for five years as the executive director of Basic Rights Oregon (the statewide organization seeking to attain basic civil rights for LGBT Oregonians). Roey was the first openly LGBT elected official in Tompkins County, elected in 1994 as a city councilwoman and later as acting mayor of Ithaca, New York. She was named one of Portland's 50 Most Powerful Women, is a recipient of the Ann Shepherd Award for her leadership, and was recently selected as one of GO NYC magazine’s “100 Women We Love.”

Sponsored by the Center for LGBT Education, Outreach & Services. Free and open to the public.