Peace Corps at Gay Pride Events Summer 2008

Each summer for more than a dozen years, Peace Corps offices around the country have participated in Gay Pride events. Peace Corps was at San Francisco, Boston, Burlington, Vt., and Washington DC Pride festivals. We have reports from a couple of recruiters who participated. Have not been able to get any information about the DC presence. Both the San Francisco area and Atlanta offices held online web based information sessions for the LGBT communities in June. No doubt there were other events that we haven’t heard about.

A special thanks to the recruiters, public affairs specialists, other PC staff, and to the local LGBT RPCVs who helped out at the recruiting/information tables.

On another and somewhat related note – Peace Corps has proposed closing both the Denver and Minneapolis recruiting offices at the end of the year (Denver to be consolidated with the Dallas office, Minneapolis with the Chicago office). Both the Denver and Minneapolis offices have participated in Gay Pride events there in the past. We appreciate their involvement.

San Francisco:

Nick Bosustow, Recruiter SF Bay Area office reported that three local RPCVs helped out the Peace Corps table at the San Francisco Pride Festival at Civic Center Plaza. This year their table was next to a Starbucks booth, and the recruiters talked with lots of people waiting for their coffee. Location, location!

Nick reports that this year there were no questions about Peace Corps being anti-gay, which has happened in the past. So, some progress. Questions came up about same sex couples, spouses serving together. Peace Corps as a federal agency, has to follow federal law on this subject (Defense of Marriage Act). Most other questions were pretty standard, how long are assignments, can you chose your country, do you need a foreign language etc.

Nick finish up his report to us with this comment. “Seriously it is extremely important to Peace Corps to participate in this major event and to be able to reach out, talk, answer questions, hand out our material, and have the participants meet Returned Peace Corps Volunteers at the booth, both straight as well as gay. The PRIDE festival is by far the greatest opportunity for us to reach this unbelievably diverse population.”

Boston and Burlington, VT:

Recruiter Josh Strauss reports. “This year, the Boston Regional Office attended two Pride events in New England.  The first was in Boston, MA, where I and a couple of gay RPCVs answered questions, gave out information, and spoke with about 100 people. The second was in Burlington, VT, where I and another recruiter spoke with about 35 people about Peace Corps, the application process, and our experiences during service. At both events, people were very happy to see Peace Corps represented, and we have already received a couple of applications because of our presence there. At both events, LGBT RPCVs from the 60s to the present who were celebrating Pride came up to chat.”