Georgetown’s LGBTQ community held its third annual Lavender Graduation Monday night, celebrating the graduation of 61 undergraduates, graduates and law students of the class of 2011.

The event in Copley Formal Lounge featured keynote speaker Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.). One of four openly gay members of the 111th Congress, Cicilline (LAW ’86) drew examples from his own life while urging the graduating class to become active members of the political community.

“We need visible LGBT leadership in the war on poverty, in our work to rebuild our economy, in bringing an end to the war in Afghanistan … in helping our children get the best education and in finding ways to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” Ciciline said. “At the same time, we must never, ever, ever stop fighting for full civil rights for our community and basic human rights for our fellow citizens.”

Modeled after the University of Michigan’s Lavender Graduation, which was started in 1995, the title of the event hearkens back to the Holocaust by combining the pink of the triangles worn by gay men and the black of those worn by lesbians in Nazi concentration camps.

This year’s Lavender Graduation class was the final class to remember life on the Hilltop before the LBGTQ Resource Center was established.

At the event, awards for LGBTQ community leadership were given out to both students and faculty. Ellen Greer (SFS ’11) offered “A Reflection On Our Time at Georgetown,” a period which she felt was marked by challenge and liberation. Greer recalled the hate crime committed her freshman year, in which a gay student was mocked and then attacked due to his sexual orientation. The student-led response catalyzed her involvement in social justice and the LGBTQ community.

“We gathered by the hundreds in Red Square and marched across campus. I myself held one end of the rainbow flag,” Greer said. “We shouted for justice. We cried for a stop to homophobia. We demanded greater university support for our community.”

Greer’s reflection on a challenging time in Georgetown’s history complemented the closing remarks offered by Sivagami Subbaraman, the director of the LGBTQ Resource Center. Subbaraman justified the need for a separate Lavender Graduation ceremony in conjunction with commencement by highlighting the struggles of members of the LBGTQ community at this time. While graduation should be time of great joy, some members of the LGBTQ community face bitterness and rejection from loved ones, according to Subbaraman.

“There is heartbreak.” Subbaraman said. “Our parents are often the first ones to discriminate against us … But we are part of families, and we are family.”

The greater Georgetown family showed their support Monday, as University President John J. DeGioia, Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson and the associate deans of Georgetown’s four undergraduate schools and law school all attended.

“We look forward to seeing the kinds of women and men you become and the kinds of work, the kinds of responsibilities that you take on, and the kind of difference you make in each of your communities,” DeGioia said.

Subbaraman said she hopes that future Lavender Graduations will fill Copley Formal Lounge with family members, friends and all of the Hilltop family gathered in celebration.

“We are part of the fabric of the world … Our places of coming out need to be spaces of coming together,” she said.