The tea party is a twice- yearly event. OUSA queer support co-ordinator Hahna Briggs was hoping for a good student turnout today.
"We’ll hopefully welcome 100 to 150 people coming through over the two hours," Ms Briggs said.
Tea and coffee, muffins, brownies and other "delicious homemade food" would be served to students at noon in the union building common room on Cumberland St, and short films would be screened about gender diversity.
The event was an opportunity to socialise but the films were also a "really good education resource". They were about queer people who fell outside of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) acronym, and hopefully some students would be able to "see themselves in the medium", Ms Briggs said. A cupcake-decorating competition would also be held with three categories: "best globally aware cupcake", which would be judged by a representative from Otago Amnesty International and was included as a joke category, "cutest cupcake", and "queerest cupcake". Coloured icing and "lots of little fun things like that" would be available for students to decorate their cupcakes.
Dunedin students and the University of Otago were also getting involved in other Pride Week events, with a public screening of The Thin End of the Wedge: Homosexual Law Reform in Aotearoa New Zealand on April 12 in the Burns 2 lecture theatre. Students had also entered the Dunedin Pride Art Exhibition, which opened on at the Dunedin Pride Hub at 23 Princes St last night.