Spring Break
Do GLBTQ students feel comfortable on campus?
Daniel Jacobs
Issue date: 10/8/08 Section: News
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In recent years the situation on campus has improved for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) students. Over the past two years the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) has increased its average attendance at meetings from five students to around 25 students, and as part of the push for diversity on campus the administration is promoting events and initiatives that will make homosexual students feel more comfortable and encourage discussion about homosexuality.
But at the same time, students interviewed for this article indicated that the majority of GLBT students on campus prefer to keep their sexual identity private, and some GLBT students describe continued low-level verbal harassment that is both intentional and unintentional. There have also been reports of GSA signs being destroyed.
"I do think the feeling on campus has gotten more embracing and more accepting," said Jennifer Ross, the Kinney GLBT Advocacy Organizer. "That's not to say that it's perfect. I've heard a lot of things from students where they felt things were said around them that were really mean simply because they might be or they might appear to be gay or lesbian."
A 2003 survey by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force of GLBT students, faculty and staff at 14 colleges across the country found that a fifth of those surveyed feared for their physical safety in the last year due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, and that 36% of GLBT undergraduate students said they had been harassed.
An incident of harassment occurred last week at Rhodes when unidentified students in the Williford Dormitory used shaving cream to write the word "fag" in the first floor bathroom and on another student's message board. Ross described this as the type of harassment that, while it is not directed specifically at gay students, makes the campus feel less comfortable for GLBT students.
"I think that students need to realize that their words have power," said Ross. "That what they say, even if they're joking or not serious, still has weight. And that goes beyond those phrases like 'that's so gay,' and into how they approach subjects or other words they use. I think there is still that feeling on campus that homosexuality or any kind of differing sexuality is something weird or unnatural or not okay, and I think that feeling makes Rhodes inhospitable and not an easy place to be if you identify as GLBT."
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