Throughout June, allies show their support for the LGBTQ+ community through social media campaigns, statements of solidarity and rainbow themed merchandise. However, some advocates are calling for this support to extend beyond Pride month and manifest in different ways.

Penn State’s Center for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CGSD) is a group composed of students and staff that are asking: “What does it mean to be an ally when no one is watching?”

“Genuine allyship shows up in how people act,”Kate Rawson, assistant director of CGSD said. “Come to Pride events. Use inclusive language. Talk to your lawmakers.”

While suggesting ways for people to engage in allyship through more public means, she also mentioned how to be an ally on a personal level.

“Ask the people in your life what support actually looks like for them,” Rawson said. “Every person needs something different.”

Rawson is among a group of educators and students calling for a more consistent form of support that doesn’t vanish when the month ends or the parades are over. Alongside her colleagues, she works to equip allies with the language, resources and context to move beyond symbolic gestures.

Small shifts in language can also signal large changes in mindset, according to Rawson. One example she suggested was using phrases like “everyone,” “friends” or “colleagues” as opposed to “ladies and gentlemen.”

“To be an ally to the community, I specifically look for active engagement.” Sam Brooks, a fourth year student studying digital art and media design said. “A rainbow sticker is nice, but it’s also understanding, actively trying to understand why these symbols even matter. Allyship isn’t a passive label, it’s an active pursuit of celebration, education and community.”

Brooks said allyship often begins with curiosity and humility.

“Understanding builds empathy, and empathy creates tight knit community bonds,” Brooks said. “Don’t be afraid to learn. Don’t be afraid to engage.”

To help foster learning, the Center offers year-round programming, including its “Queer Voices” peer-education group and “Safer People, Safer Places” workshops. These sessions give participants the opportunity to hear personal stories, discuss inclusive practices and reflect on how to better support LGBTQ+ people in their workplaces, classrooms and communities.

One foundational practice Brooks said is sharing pronouns, something which he models in both professional and social settings.

“I’ll introduce myself and say, ‘Hi, I’m Sam, I use he/him pronouns,’ to model that it’s okay to share,” Brooks said. “It signals that this is a safe space.”

That kind of modeling, Rawson added, helps normalize inclusion.

“Even just coming to Pride events and being visibly present as an ally sends a message,” Rawson said. “We always tell folks on campus, come to our events even if you’re straight. We need our allies in the room to keep this work going.”

Outside of campus, LGBTQ+ organizations across the state are making similar appeals. Michel Lee Garrett, a board member of Centre LGBT+, an organization serving central Pennsylvania, said the stakes are especially high this year.

“We, the queer community, are currently in a moment of profound difficulty, profound challenge and profound fear,” Garrett said. “Anti-LGBT forces are working tirelessly to put policies and legislation into place that would rip away life-saving gender-affirming medical treatment and undo much — if not all — of the progress that the queer community has made over the last number of decades.”

She called for a more courageous and public form of allyship, saying people who are willing to show up, be visible and push back anti-LGBT speech and actions are needed.

“Passive allyship, allyship that will listen to others spout anti-LGBT rhetoric and not push back against it, is not allyship. It is complicity,” Garrett said.

Garrett urged supporters to speak up, whether in private conversations or public spaces.

“We need people who speak up in their families, in their workplaces, in their places of faith,” Garrett said. “We need people who are calling their elected officials. We need people who are showing up to public meetings. We have gotten to where we are as a community by being loud and proud and visible, and in this moment, perhaps more than ever before, we need our allies to be loud and proud and visible.”

She also emphasized the importance of respectful language and the willingness to learn, while also saying it’s okay for people to have questions and make mistakes. Garrett said the goal of inclusive language isn’t to make people fear saying the wrong thing, but to support and uplift marginalized people.

When it comes to terminology, Garrett acknowledged the complicated legacy of the word “queer.”

“Some people have a visceral reaction to it because of its history, but many queer people have reclaimed the term and use it very, very proudly,” Garrett said. “Queer encompasses everybody. We are all part of the queer family, and that sort of openness — that sort of ‘open-armed-ness’ of the term — is something that I think a lot of us respond to.”

Still, Garrett cautioned allies to be mindful.

“Some people don’t necessarily love it when allies use the term ‘queer’ because of its history,” Garrett said. “But it has become a term of pride and endearment (for some).”

Garrett also spoke about newer, inclusive terms like “gender-expansive”, which she described as a broad umbrella term for identities that move beyond the traditional gender binary.

“Gender-expansive people have existed throughout history, across cultures, across time,” Garrett said, noting that they always have and always will.

For allies looking to educate themselves without placing additional emotional labor on LGBTQ+ friends or colleagues, Garrett recommends engaging with queer media.

“We’re exhausted,” she said. “We appreciate being asked, but self-education is key. Read books by queer authors. Watch films by queer creators. Learn from the voices already doing the work.”

She named Centre LGBT+ as a local resource for education and advocacy and pointed to other organizations doing similar work, including the Pennsylvania Youth Congress, the Eastern PA Trans Equity Project, the ACLU, and the Human Rights Campaign.

Garrett noted there are so many resources already in the community.

As Pride Month draws to a close, the message from advocates across Penn State and Central Pennsylvania is clear: allyship is a commitment.

“Pride is about joy and celebration,” Brooks said. “But it’s also about history, resilience and community. Community means everyone is welcome, but you have to show up.”

Garrett put it even more directly: “Don’t just celebrate Pride. Live it through action, compassion and courage every day.”

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At just 18, Youngstown Phantoms forward Charlie Cerrato was on the cusp of his lifelong dream. His name was officially entered into the NHL entry draft, an ambition set when he was just a mere 6-7 years old. 

However, Cerrato’s 13 years of tireless work didn’t lead to fulfillment on draft day. He went undrafted in his first two years of eligibility before heading to Penn State for his freshman year. Yet, Cerrato didn’t back down — he continued to put in the work and inched closer to his ultimate goal. 

“It’s a chip on your shoulder when you don’t get drafted,” Cerrato told The Daily Collegian. “Two years of not getting drafted, looking back on it, it’s just whatever, it is what it is. Whether you get drafted or not you still have to go out there and earn your contract. At the end of the day, we’re all in the same position no matter what.”

Fast forward to 2025 and Cerrato is heading into this year’s draft with heightened expectations. After being ranked 222nd and 175th among North American skaters in the previous two College Hockey Inc. draft guides, he now enters the 2025 draft at 110th per NHL.com. 

That substantial leap to a 3rd-4th round draft grade hasn’t come without reason. In Cerrato’s eyes, many professional scouts and team management look for “guys that show up in big moments,” and there wasn’t a higher stage than the one Penn State was on this past season. 

While the Nittany Lions fell just short of a national title, Cerrato entered the spotlight with his tremendous play and clutch performances — most notably his behind-the-back assist to Matt DiMarsico that sent his program to its first Frozen Four. 

“Playing in big games like that, learning to prepare and focus in huge games is huge in the minds of scouts and management,” Cerrato said. “So just being able to experience that and learn from our journey and our stretch that we went on at the end of the year is going to be huge in the future when you play professional hockey.”

Throughout the blue and white’s substantial postseason run Cerrato flashed his vision, hockey IQ and 200-foot game. The freshman set his teammates up at will, and he did so when it mattered most.

“He has a lot of great physical attributes, but his IQ sets him apart,” DiMarsico told The Daily Collegian. “You could even see on the goal that sent us to the Frozen Four, the play to slip at the blue line and then the behind the back pass, like not many players in college hockey can make that play. It showed his full tool set.”

But what really makes the center such a hot commodity is his defensive prowess. Cerrato can shut down teams from his own zone and turn it into offense in a split second. 

That two-way game projects Cerrato as a middle-six center in the NHL, and he shares that same vision. The lefty forward said he models his game after Florida Panthers’ center Sam Bennett — someone who sizes up similarly and will cash in this offseason with a long-term contract. 

“(Bennett’s a) similar size, 6-foot-1, 190-195. He’s a playmaker, he’s physical, he works his butt off,” Cerrato said. “He scores goals, makes plays in the big moments and I feel like that’s a guy I try to model my game after and play like. If I turn out like him, I’d be super fired up with how my career went.”

Standing 6-foot-1, 195 lbs, Cerrato definitely matches up in stature with Bennett, but they share other similarities as well. Both play with an edge to their games that leads to getting under opposing players’ skins, this was seen when the freshman taunted Michigan’s bench after converting a penalty shot to essentially clinch the best-of-three Big Ten quarterfinal series.

But the resemblance that stands out the most is the physicality both players showcase. Cerrato credits that toughness to his football background, mentioning he plays with a “fearlessness” because of his time with a pigskin.

Growing up as the kid of a former NFL executive, Cerrato picked up the sport at the early age of five — the same time he started to play hockey. His work on the football field translated to the rink, with his former Phantoms coach Ryan Ward even saying Cerrato is a “football player wearing hockey equipment.”

“When you start playing football at a young age, you’re not scared of contact,” Cerrato said. “Throwing my weight around from Day 1 when hitting was legal in hockey was never a problem. I’ve never been scared of going to the hard areas, I’ve never been scared of contact or afraid of hitting guys that are bigger than me.”

Not only will Cerrato’s physicality need to transfer over to the NHL, but his blindness to outside noise from the media will be a valuable trait. Despite having high expectations his entire career — entering college ranked as a 4.5-star and being a potential draft pick — he doesn’t care about what others think.

“I don’t really look at the whole star stuff,” Cerrato said. “You know what Twitter says or Instagram, whatever the h— they talk about. At the end of the day, I feel like I’ve always had the confidence in myself to take that next step and be a pro player. If I keep getting bigger, faster (and) stronger, working on stuff in the offseason and progressing through the season, I’ve always had the confidence in myself that I can make an NHL team and make a big impact.”

His maturity with off-ice activities has only grown with age, although it’s one of the only knocks on his draft stock as an overager. Cerrato, 20, enters his third and final draft of eligibility starting on June 27, but he doesn’t want teams to shy away because of that. 

When asked to give his pitch to teams as to why he should be drafted, Cerrato said  “I’d tell them ‘Look, I’m 20 years old, you’re looking at 18 years olds but I’ve been through it, I’ve faced adversity my whole life and I’ve overcome it. So if you want a guy that’s going to go out there and work his butt off every day, whether it’s practice, on the ice, off the ice or in games, you know where to find me.’”  

He’s dealt with adversity his entire life, but that hasn’t halted him from putting in the work. Being a hockey player from a non-traditional hockey market in Maryland, there were plenty of challenges to overcome. The main hurdle was that he practiced and played in Philadelphia two to three times a week, which is over an hour drive from his hometown. 

Regardless, he continued to push himself, in large part due to his parents, but it’s also just the player and person he is — he often emphasizes his continuous effort, which is a sentiment shared by his collegiate coach Guy Gadowsky.

“The role he’s evolved into is something that he’s earned,” Gadowsky said in February. “He wasn’t given anything.”

As Cerrato gears up for a second season with the Nittany Lions, he plans to spend time training in State College with his linemate DiMarsico. From there, Cerrato will likely get drafted and work out at that team’s development camp. 

But for now, Cerrato is in Michigan, which is a place he called home for five years. The upcoming sophomore is skating, working out and training at the USA Hockey Arena before he eventually makes a lengthy car ride to his home state to await a potential life-changing phone call with his family. 

Whether his name gets called or not, he’ll be with the support group that’s backed him since he was a child and perhaps experiencing one of the most thrilling moments of his life together. 

As Cerrato’s name has flown around in mock drafts and social media the past few seasons, he’s trying to “stay in the present, focus on (himself) and not listen to the outside noise,” ahead of the 2025 NHL draft. 

“If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t,” Cerrato said.

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