Slam the Hate was an event held at The Barn at UCR on Saturday November 17, 2012 from 6- 10 pm. The event was advertised as an “evening of spoken work and music by queer and trans performers of color, LGBTQ community resources, food and community building.” The event was sponsored by UCR’s Associated Students Program Board, Resident Hall Association, Diversity Initiatives, LGBT Resource Center, KUCR 33.3 FM, and by “Prism” of La Sierra University. The event did not start until around 7:30pm with performers such as Crystal Cheatham, J Mase III, Emotions, and Regie Cabico. When the event began, Rebecca Kem of La Sierra University took the opportunity to thank UCR for allowing the event to be made possible. Kem is the president of Prism, a gay and lesbian club, that cannot get permission from La Sierra University to grant them official recognition because of Seventh-day Adventist Church teachings on homosexuality. Due to this, LGBT students in this university do not have services they can rely to for help or acceptance. She explained to the audience that there are many students who do not count as the student body because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Since La Sierra does not permit non-sanctioned clubs to be held on campus, UCR was more than willing to help students who are in search of resources that they can use and improve. Since the Adventist Church supports the values of the SDA Church, they turned down the club because they teach same-gender sexual activity is a sin, but same-gender sexual orientation is not. One of my favorite performers was the singer-songwriter Crystal Cheatman. She explained her love for music and her love for God as well as fate and religion. Since she is lesbian herself, her struggles were real and inevitable for people in her situation. Cheatman began singing at church when she was young about her love for god and her defiance. Even though she still signs about defiance, she also sings about the stigma about being a lesbian while practicing Christianity and being able to love God openly. People who practice certain religions are usually taught that it is a sin to be homosexual. In her heart, she believed that people of all religions should be okay to be who they are anywhere in the world. It is scary to come out about your sexuality when it is considered taboo, so she sings about support for those who are not as privileged as her to have support. Her goal is to bring awareness in hopes to prevent suicidal people who think that is their only choice when the world that surrounds them rejects them. She sang Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning” beautifully because not many love songs are featured on the radio that are from women to women. This stuck on my mind because it is one of those little issues that are quickly overseen because of the United States stands for its patriarchy. Domaine Javier was also a guest speaker who was featured on MTV’s “True Life: I’m Passing As Someone I’m Not.” Her appearance has helped to spread the word out for transgender community. She was attending California Baptist University after transferring from Riverside City College, but that was short lived when someone recognized her from the MTV episode. School officials claimed that she had committed fraud and identity concealment. Javier had marked “female” as her sex on her university application, but after a background check they discovered Javier was born a male. She did not think that would be an issue because the application asked for “sex” and not “gender.” Currently, there are over 200 schools nation wide that can deny or expel students for being transgender. Although I do not believe this event touched on many issues about racial inequality, besides the fact that the main speakers were non-white, it dealt on sexual orientation and gender identity. La Sierra University is not the only university that is going through this, but many cases are not made public. Transgendered people are seen as an invisible minority because they do not get enough recognition.