Students from Columbia and Barnard made the pilgrimage to Washington, DC to participate in the National Coming Out Day march.

Students explained why they were participating:

"I'm marching for my uncle who came out in San Francisco, told his parents he was gay and they sent him to therapy."

"The fact that there are people like my uncle who are denied so many rights but can't even imagine having them is really ridiculous to me. And that's really the reason, I'm marching.

While some students feel the march will bring them closer to the LGBT community, others see the march as a protest against the treatment of homosexual and transgender individuals.

Said one student, "So long as we don't have equal rights, it continues to validate the kind of homophobia and hatred that we see on our streets and in our schools."

Said another, "I'm sick of sitting around and just saying that I'm angry and not actually doing anything about it. Something needs to change."

Another student explained what prompted her to get involved: "I met someone from Wyoming who saw a bumper sticker that said, " In Wyoming, we don't take offense to gay people, we take gay people to a fence." I'm marching because that's completely unacceptable. I'm all for free speech but the fact that someone would have to live with that complete slight of their identity is mind-boggling."

Yet other students see the march as a political statement and a catalyst for change that concentrates on today's youth.

"I think it would be very cowardly of me to hide behind the idea that this isn't my country. I'm not actually living here; I just go to school here. I think that this is really the cause of people, the world over, to fight for human right, to fight for equal rights.", said one.

"I'm really angry and fed up. Obama made all of these promises during the campaign to LGBT Americans: We're going to repeal 'Don't ask, don't tell.' "We're going to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act"...all these things and nothing's happened!"

One of the organizers told us, "The march organizers have asked the student contingent to march at the very head of the march which I think is really exciting and reflects the commitment the event organizers have made to really prioritizing the youth. It won't just be college students but also high school students who are coming for the march."

"Facebook statuses are great but they aren't real activism. I'm marching because I do everything I can but the world is a bigger place than Barnard and Columbia and eventually we're going to be out and our responsibility is to make it better."