The PRIDE Center at Sacramento State held its annual “Guess Who’s Gay” event Tuesday night in the packed Redwood Room.

PRIDE Center coordinator and senior history major Rachel Hogue said the purpose of the event is to educate people to separate stereotypes from sexual orientations.

“This event serves to break down stereotypes that are associated with the different sexual orientations, but in a fun, light hearted way,” Hogue said.

There were 12 panelists, mostly students, sitting at the front of the room. The participants were either straight, gay, lesbian or pansexual.

Student Affairs Professional and the event host Josh O’Connor said pansexual is defined as someone “attracted to members of the entire gender spectrum.”

The audience had the opportunity to ask the panelists questions to help it decide who was what sexual orientation.

However, there were some rules.

The panelists could refrain from answering any question they wanted to, and the audience could not ask the panelists how they have sex or what their favorite position in bed is, said O’Connor.

O’Connor also had the authority to turn down any question he deemed to be too inappropriate.

“This room has to be a safe place where we have respect for each other,” said PRIDE Center Administrative Support Coordinator Chris Kent.

More than 30 questions were asked, such as, “Do you shave your legs?”, “If you have any piercings, where are they?” and “What is your favorite term of endearment?”

These questions were meant to help the audience decide the sexual orientation of each panelist.

O’Connor made light of his own sexual orientation, which seemed to put the audience at ease.

“I talk and pretty much a purse falls out (of my mouth),” O’Connor said.

At the end of the evening, the audience had to make their guesses about the orientations of the panel.

O’Connor asked for votes for each panelist. The label that received the most votes for each panelist was given to them until the panelist revealed his or her true sexual orientation.

After the audience voted, each person revealed their sexual orientation. Out of the 12 panelists, the majority of the audience only guessed three correctly.

“What this program really is designed to do is to break down those stereotypes,” O’Connor said. “Please, do not judge a book by its cover. We all do it. Anyone who says they don’t do it – they’re lying.”

Tony Castro, a freshman biology major who attended the event said it had a good message of not reducing people to a stereotype.

“No matter what you look like, it doesn’t really identify you as anything in particular; you are who you are no matter what,” Castro said.

Jackie Everhart can be reached at [email protected]