1) The Badger Herald; UW students march for LGBT support
2) Rock Hill WBTV; Gay students warned to ‘act straight’ in wake of teen attacked by mob
3) Outsports; Gay coach and lacrosse player are opening closet doors at Bowdoin College
4) Huffington Post; St. John’s University Students Fight for Gay-Straight Alliance
5) Associated Press; Roommate charged with hate crime in NJ webcam case
6) Dallas Voice; An open letter to Texas A&M Student Senate, signed “An Aggie No More”
7) Inside Higher Ed; Equal Time for ‘Traditional Values’
8) Inside Higher Ed; Gay Linebackers
1) UW Students March for LGBT support
By Grant Hermes; 04/17/2011
Friday marked the nationally recognized Day of Silence, and hundreds of students gathered in the Historical Society building on Library Mall to march to the Capitol in an expression of support for increased tolerance for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.
The “Break the Silence” march was organized by the University of Wisconsin’s LGBT Campus Center. The rally aimed to raise awareness and promote communication about violence against the LGBT community.
More than 1,000 students and supporters turned out for the march to the Capitol. Students from around the UW System who were bussed in free of charge bolstered the number of attendees. In recognition of the Day of Silence, attendees made the march to the Capitol in silence. Some rally attendees hoisted signs with slogans expressing tolerance while others were dressed in costumes or held large flags as a show of support.
Onlookers braving the elements lined the sidewalks on State Street to watch the procession. Marchers received cheers of support from some as they passed and also encountered the occasional sign in opposition to the cause.
When the procession reached the Capitol, activists screamed simultaneously in order to symbolically break the silence. Events in front of the Capitol included performances by student groups and speeches from LGBT rights activists from across the country.
Kasandra Brown, LGBT Campus Center leadership and involvement coordinator, said the event was organized to send a strong and united message that certain negative actions are unacceptable.
“We need to let the public know that the level of homophobia and general intolerance is disgusting,” said Brown, a UW sophomore.
The rally was a part of the LGBT Campus Center’s campus-wide anti-bullying campaign. The UW Foundation, as well as many other anti-harassment organizations from around the state helped to fund the campaign.
Chancellor Biddy Martin — herself a proud member of the LGBT community — endorsed the rally in a letter of support, writing that although there is no simple solution to LGBT intolerance, rallies like the one on Friday are opportunities for the UW community to show compassion and support for a serious issue. The UW LGBT Campus Center has hosted other rallies like the one Friday, although “Break the Silence” proved to be the largest. The center previously promoted a march in October to raise awareness about recent LGBT suicides as a result of prolonged harassment.
UW freshman RJ Hayes said he attended the rally in hopes of helping to end negative stigmas and to show support for efforts to discourage homophobic and transphobic harassment.
“It is extremely important for students to be aware that it happens everyday, and too often LGBT issues get put on the back burner,” Hayes said.
Hayes added that efforts from UW organizations like the LGBT Campus Center are making a significant impact in the battle to get students informed and make UW an increasingly “gay friendly” community in Wisconsin.
The rally was a part of the LGBT Campus Center Out and About Month held during April, which includes 25 events around campus to promote tolerance and awareness of LGBT issues.
2) Gay students warned to ‘act straight’ in wake of teen attacked by mob
April 19 2011
ROCK HILL - The brutal attack of a gay teenager by a group of men at a Rock Hill gas station has a Winthrop University professor warning gay students to "act straight."
The warning comes after 19-year-old Joshua Esskew was beaten by a group of at least eight men at the Spot Convenience Store on 990 South Cherry Road on April 9th. Esskew believes the attack happened because he is gay.
The attack has sparked an investigation by the FBI and the York County Sheriff's Office, who are hoping to identify the men who attacked Esskew. Images of the attack, which was caught on surveillance video, have been released to the public, in hopes of identifying the men.
Esskew says when he was walking to the gas station when someone yelled a derogatory homosexual comment at him. Words were exchanged and when he turned back around, someone hit him in the head with a 40-ounce malt liquor bottle.
He was then beaten by at least eight men for nearly 15-seconds, being kicked and punched by the group.
The attack has angered many in the community, including professors and student advisors at Winthrop University.
“I’ve got to let my students know [about the attack], so when they’re out and about in Rock Hill they act straight,” said Kelly James who teaches sociology and criminology at Winthrop University. (See editor's note below)
James is also the advisor for GLoBAL, Winthrop University's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender ally league. She says the attack has her worried about students' safety in Rock Hill and she welcomes the federal involvement in the investigation.
She feels South Carolina laws don’t go far enough in protecting those who are the victims of targeted violence like this.
“The legislators aren’t interested in it," James told WBTV's Steve Crump. "There’s been grassroots activism, but there’s been no change in the system.”
Special agent Earl Burns with the FBI told WBTV on Tuesday morning that the agency is coordinating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice to determine if the case can be moved up to the federal level with a hate crime charge.
The assault is not being investigated as a 'hate crime' by the York County Sheriff’s Office because the state of South Carolina does not have an enhancement of penalties for what might be deemed a 'hate crime.' Lieutenant Mike Baker with the Sheriff’s Office says they are seeking charges of Assault and Battery by a Mob 2nd degree against the attackers.
That charge is a felony charge. If convicted, the suspect can spend up to 25 years in prison.
The lack of a 'hate crime' charge is one thing the Gay American Heroes Foundation, a group that advocates for gay rights, hopes to change in the wake of this attack.
"It's been 18 months since the Matthew Shepard Law was passed and there have been hundreds of gay beatings and murders, but not once has been prosecuted under the new law," group founder and president Scott Hall told WBTV. "It's time to make our voices heard and make this a landmark case. These are horrendous crimes and while driven by hate, [they] are not always prosecuted as such."
That's why the group is calling for a full investigation into the attack, and fully supports federal agencies getting involved.
Hall says there is a similar attack taking place every six hours and every nine days there is a murder of a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, & Questioning person, "just because of their sexual self-identification."
"I looked at that video [and] I said 'I don't know how I'm still living, I should not be here today.' That's what I think. I should be dead," Esskew said. “I whole heartedly believe it [was a hate crime] because of the sexual derogatory comment that was made.”
What happened to Esskew is making students who are gay or lesbian think twice before going out. Some are even considering hiding their identity.
“It’s just scary. It blows your mind that it’s happening here,” one student told WBTV.
Drive into Rock Hill along Dave Lyle Boulevard and there’s a sign that says the city has no room for racism. Perhaps that explains why the lunch crowd at the Old Town Bistro is calling the violence 'appalling.'
“It seems like we’ve become so desensitized that we stand and watch," said Rock Hill resident Alonda Simmons. "Even if it’s in awe, [we] watch but we won’t go forward to try to help someone.”
Agent Burns with the FBI told WBTV that it could take some time to determine if federal charges will be filed in the case, if the attacker are ever identified and arrested. The agency needs to determine if the attack meets the federal hate crime statutes.
So far, no suspects have been identified.
The Sheriff’s Office is asking for any information that could help identify the subjects involved in this attack, persons with information can call the Sheriff’s Office at 803-628-3059 or, if they wish to remain anonymous, they can call the Crime Stoppers tip-line at 1-877-409-4321, or send anonymous email tips from www.yorkcrimestoppers.com. -------------------
Editor’s note:
Emotions are running high following the brutal attack of a gay teenager in Rock Hill, SC last week, and following a story WBTV produced Tuesday, the story has attracted a great deal of reader attention and also provoked a good deal of vitriol directed at one of our interviewees.
A Winthrop professor who advocates for more protections for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people, has become a target based on the airing of part of her interview with Steve Crump, in which we quoted her as warning students to “act straight” when they are out in Rock Hill.
Kelly James, professor of Sociology and Criminology says her comments for our story have prompted a great deal of hate mail aimed at her. She feels her comments were taken out of full context. We wanted to make sure that readers fully understand the context in which she made that statement.
In an email to us today, Ms. James says, “ I am receiving hate mail at work and on Facebook because of the way you presented a part of a sentence in my comments to you. I thought you understood that I meant it was ridiculous that I would have to tell my students to act straight, that I meant it ironically. “
She goes on to say, “I posted online on WBTV last night that my intent in commenting was to point out how ludicrous it was that gay kids had to fear strangers. I even mentioned to you (Reporter Steve Crump, WBTV) in our interview that homosexuality was removed from the DSM in 1973 and that our society should have moved on with tolerance and acceptance by now. It was blatantly obvious that I was not suggesting gays should be closeted.”
This is the whole paragraph that the soundbite was clipped from for the broadcast story:
Kelly James says, “But, my first thought was that, “I’ve got to let my students know’ so that when they are out and about in Rock hill that they, you know, act straight, And that’s a sad lesson in 2011 to be teaching young people. I mean, it’s been off the books as a mental illness since 1973.”
Steve Crump used a few soundbites from Ms. James in his broadcast story and felt that he had portrayed, in the story as a whole, her sentiments on the story correctly. However, time restraints, a daily part of newsgathering, resulted in using a portion of the comment. In the interest of being fair to Ms. James and to our readers, I have decided to not only include the full paragraph from which the bite was excerpted, but to include the entire interview so that readers can understand all of her statements.
Yvonne Simons, Assistant News Director, WBTV
3) Gay coach and lacrosse player are opening closet doors at Bowdoin College
Cyd Zeigler; April 18, 2011
Bowdoin College head men’s tennis coach Colin Joyner knows all too well the pain and solitude of the sports closet. When he graduated from Bowdoin in 2003, he was a superstar. He played the school’s No. 1 singles all four years of his career. He was a three-time All-American. He was named the school’s Male Athlete of the Year his senior season.
When he graduated, many people on campus knew he was gay; He had been coming out gradually during his four years at Bowdoin. But when he graduated he moved to Palm Springs, hit the semi-pro circuit, served as a hitting partner for such stars as Justin Henin, Chanda Rubin and the indomitable Martina Navratilova…and he went right back in the closet.
“The semi-pro circuit was cut-throat,” Joyner said. “I had no friends and I wasn’t about to make enemies of guys I was seeing weekly at tournaments by being out. I wanted to be great at tennis and I wanted to win. That year was not productive to me developing as a person.”
The following year he returned to Bowdoin, in rural Brunswick, Maine, as the head tennis coach; At the school where he had come out at as a player he was now closeted as a coach. In his first year, 2006-07, he coached both the men’s and women’s teams. The men had a strong season while the women posted their best season in school history. He was winning, but it wasn’t enough. He struggled with whether to come out to his team. He didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, he didn’t want to disrupt the team’s mojo, and he wondered whether it was even appropriate to tell them.
As the successful coach at a small Division 3 school, Joyner was spending a lot of time in close quarters with his team. Traveling to matches in small vans, he spent hours with them on the road. During an annual two-week team trip to California, with the entire team packed into a two-bedroom house, the setting is intimate. Joyner didn’t feel comfortable keeping the secret from these men he was so close to.
“And I ultimately got really dissatisfied,” Joyner said. “My team was good and that was great, but I basically had to lie by omission. My friends in Portland knew I’m gay, but I was closeted again. I had to have a second coming out professionally.”
During the team meeting in which Joyner came out, like virtually every other coming-out story we have heard in the last decade, his fears were immediately put to rest. It’s never been an issue with his team, and he’s never had a single negative incident with his team because he’s openly gay.
“The team’s never going to be its best unless it’s an enviroment where people can be honest about who they are and trust each other that way,” Joyner said. “I feel like players are more comfortable around the issue now. We can talk honestly. I think they trust me more, they know I’m being real with them. I think I’m a much better coach for it.”
We have heard of out coaches before. Eric Anderson coached at the community college level: He was the head cross-country coach Saddleback College in the 1990s. Sean Burns coached men’s tennis at Santa Clara University from 1993-2002, but he did not do so publicy. With this article, as far as we at Outsports are aware, Joyner becomes the first NCAA varsity men’s head coach to come out of the closet publicly in the media while still coaching.
Lacrosse player comes out at Bowdoin
Bowdoin lacrosse player Ben Chadwick started his coming-out process in high school in Needham, Mass. Like Joyner, he took a step back in the closet when he accepted an invitation to come to Bowdoin. But New England lacrosse is a small, tight-knit community; It didn’t take long for his freshman roommate to hear from friends at other schools, “You know Ben Chadwick’s gay?”
For those who didn’t find out through the rumor mill, Chadwick called a team meeting after an autumn practice his sophomore year.
“While I was pretty nervous about their reaction at first, it was immediately clear they were very supportive,” Chadwick said. “There’s been absolutely no issue. They’re very open about talking about it with me, joking about it with me. They’ve been great.”
They’ve been so great that his team elected him captain before this season, Chadwick’s last at Bowdoin.
“Not only do they not care that I’m gay, they still look up to me as a leader on the team. It’s great,” Chadwick said.
Chadwick assumes everyone in the New England Small College Athletic Conference knows he’s gay. Still, he’s only had one negative experience in over two years of being an openly gay college athlete. That came in a conference game when a player on the other team said, “Don’t let us bring up what we know about you, 24.”
Chadwick’s team won that game.
Anything But Straight in Athletics takes shape
When Joyner heard about Chadwick, he harkened back to his time as the only openly gay male athlete on campus. It was a lonely time for Joyner in many respects, and he didn’t want Chadwick to be the only one anymore.
In December 2009, just a month after the State of Maine eradicated same-sex marriage, Joyner created Anything But Straight in Athletics with Kate Stern, Director of the school’s Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity. The group’s aim is to help closeted athletes come out by dismantling homophobia in Bowdoin athletics.
The group, consisting mostly of out and closeted athletes, meets monthly to talk about issues they face on their teams.
“As soon as we got that group going the conversation very quickly became about team culture and how big of an influence it is on whether people will come out,” Joyner said. “Why won’t more people come out? Either people have left the sport because they feel the culture won’t be accepting, or they’re going to stay closeted until they leave college and then they’ll come out. I know many people from Bowdoin who did just that.”
Hoping to open the closet door for athletes, the group’s main event is an outreach initiative aimed at starting a dialog with athletes and coaches of all the school’s athletic teams.
Athletes attend a dinner hosted by ABSA. At this year’s dinner, held in early April, athletes heard the true anonymous story of an athlete at Bowdoin who quit his team because he didn’t feel he could be gay there. They also heard an anonymous letter from a female athlete who is not out on her team and doesn’t feel coming out is worth the potential trouble from the team.
“Teams function as if they’re straight,” Joyner said. “There is homophobic behavior happening that prevents people from coming out. But once someone comes out, the team decides it can’t do those things anymore. The fundamental disconnect is the idea that because no one is out, they don’t have a gay perosn on the team, so they can make homophobic jokes.
“Most of the athletes think, ‘I can understand having to talk about this if we had a gay athlete on our team, but we don’t.’ That’s what we challenge them when we say, ‘You probably do. You probably have a closeted athlete on your team. And I know some of you do.’”
This year the athletes also heard a talk by Toronto Maple Leafs general Manager Brian Burke. Chadwick, who this year serves with Joyner as co-chair of ABSA, contacted Bowdoin student and Brian’s daughter, Molly Burke. Molly connected Chadwick with her father and Brian was happy to lend his voice.
“The most successful part of it is seeing so many straight athletes talk about it for the first time in their lives,” Chadwick said. “I don’t think any of them are truly homophobic, they’re just uneducated about the issue. After going to Mr. Burke’s speech or attending the Anything But Straight in Athletics dinner, and having just thought about it for an hour, I think it makes them rethink what they say and they’re more conscientious about homphobia in athletics.”
Molly said it was the first time her father spoke publicly about the death of his son, Brendan, without breaking down.
Molly said the atmosphere for gay people at Bowdoin is improving, largely because of the efforts of ABSA. She added that since her father spoke on campus two weeks ago she has had many-student athletes tell her how cool it was to hear him speak and that it made them rethink the issue.
“It’s become way more talked about, accepting and recognizing that there are gay people here,” Molly said. “Having someone like Ben Chadwick, who’s so prominent on campus, I’m really impressed with how Bowdoin and the student body have handled it. I just don’t think people realize how many people on campus are gay.”
After the first ABSA event in 2010, many athletes had a positive response but wondered if their coaches were hearing the message. This year ABSA also reached out to coaches at Bowdoin with a coach’s lunch. Joyner said that, with the strong encouragement of Bowdoin’s athletic director, almost every head coach at Bowdoin attended this year’s event.
At one point during the coach’s lunch, the true story of a gay athlete and the showers came up. This out Bowdoin athlete routinely showers before his team does so he doesn’t make any of them feel uncomfortable. This isn’t at the prodding of anyone on his team: It’s simply something he’s decided to do.
At first the general sentiment voiced was that it’s a good thing the gay athlete showers by himself: That is being a good team player. But soon another perspective dominated the room. Joyner said coaches realized that not only was it bad for the athlete to ostracism himself from team activities, but that also ultimately undermined the entire team. Joyner said it was a powerful change of tune:
“They started asking other questions. ‘Are they really participating in the team fully? What can we do as coaches? We’re not in the locker rooms, we’re not at the dinner table. We’ve got to think about other issues.’ But I thought it was great that discussion started, and it showed as coaches we need to think about these issues more.”
While much of Joyner’s focus is men’s teams, he said the women’s teams have problems as well. He said some women’s teams want to be known as straight teams, acting hyper-heterosexual. According to Joyner there are some women’s teams with several out players, and there are other teams with no out players. He said that dynamic points to a disparity in team cultures.
Building a legacy
As Chadwick approaches graduation, he is looking for opportunities to continue the work he’s done in athletics at Bowdoin. While he won’t play competitive lacrosse after the graduates, he wants to continue the work he started at Bowdoin toppling the barriers between gay and straight athletes.
“People would have said coming out on a lacrosse team would be a big problem,” Chadwick said. “As soon as someone comes out, and as soon as a team steps back and realizes a teammate is gay, they see they’re still friends with him and he’s still the same person. If there’s some way I could keep the ball rolling with that and encourage other schools around the country, that would be really rewarding.”
While Joyner remains focused on his work at Bowdoin, he also expressed a great hope that more schools will build programs like his ABSA. He said homophobia he encounters from others in his coaching fraternity has opened his eyes to the necessity of organizations like his.
“I’ve received very little help from coaches who know I’m gay going to bat for me when other coaches are throwing around homophobic language,” Joyner said. “When I experience coaches from other colleges, particularly at camps, it’s a really sexist enviroment, with some racism and homphobia.”
Joyner has started speaking up for himself when he hears homophobic language from his peers. He hopes those confrontations help lead to those coaches thinking twice before building an anti-gay atmosphere on those teams; As Joyner’s learned, many of them have gay athletes on their teams whether they think they do or not.
Both Ben Chadwick and Colin Joyner can be reached via email.
4) St. John’s University Students Fight for Gay-Straight Alliance
April 20, 2011
A group of students protested St. John's University's refusal to allow a gay-straight alliance club on campus on Friday. A Facebook invite for the sit-in, called Colors of Acceptance, described it as a "peaceful demonstration in support of the Gay Community at St. John's University," and urged students to sign apetition asking the university to acknowledge a gay-straight alliance organization. A statement on the sponsoring group's Facebook page notes that students have been advocating for a gay-straight alliance at St. John's for close to 25 years. Students participating in the protest told the Daily News that the absence of an alliance on campus points to inconsistencies in the institution's dedication to diversity. Citing the existence of a number of minority groups on campus, the protesting students said that LGBT students and their allies deserve the same opportunity for school recognition and funding.
St. John's spokesman Dominic Scianna explains that this type of group goes against the school'smission. "At this current time, we would not approve a gay-straight alliance because of who we are," he said. "The university does not expect its students to compromise their identities and values. And St. John's students should not expect that the university compromise its own institutional identities and values." He added that he remains open to ideas and further discussion on the subject. In 2009, the university started an initiative called Safe Zone, designed to provide a resource for struggling LGBT students by offering training for staff, administrators and faculty who identify as allies. But students are dissatisfied with the university's efforts. Senior John Wilson described feeling "moral outrage" towards the university and called Safe Zone a "smokescreen without meaning" in a letter to the editor published in the St. John's Torch in November 2010. Do you think that St. John's should allow a gay-straight alliance club on campus? Let us know in the comments section.
5) Roommate charged with hate crime in NJ webcam case
April 21st 2011
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A former Rutgers University freshman who prosecutors said used a webcam to spy on his roommate's same-sex encounter was charged Wednesday with a hate crime and accused of deleting tweets and texts to cover up his tracks.
Dharun Ravi, 19, was indicted in Middlesex County on 15 counts including bias intimidation and invasion of privacy in events that predated the suicide of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, who in death started a national conversation on the perils of bullying.
Ravi had already faced invasion of privacy charges along with another Rutgers student, Molly Wei. It took prosecutors months to present their case to a grand jury alleging that Ravi targeted Clementi because of his sexual orientation and tried to broadcast the encounter online to intimidate his roommate.
The cascade of events started the day Ravi "learned the name of his roommate," Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said in a statement, not elaborating. The charges do not link the alleged spying to Clementi's suicide.
"The grand jury indictment spells out cold and calculated acts against our son, Tyler, by his former college roommate," Clementi's parents, Jane and Joe Clementi, said in a statement. "If these facts are true, as they appear to be, then it is important for our criminal justice system to establish clear accountability under the law."
The indictment is an important step in a heartbreaking case, state Attorney General Paula Dow said.
The state's hate crime law "recognizes the terrible harm caused by acts of bigotry and hatred and imposes harsher punishment on those who commit such crimes," Dow said.
If convicted of the most serious bias charge, Ravi could face five to 10 years in prison.
Kaplan said charges against Wei weren't presented to the grand jury. It was unclear Wednesday whether a case against Wei would go before a grand jury or whether she helped prosecutors in the case against Ravi.
An attorney for Ravi did not return a call seeking comment, and Wei's attorney declined to comment.
Prosecutors have said that Ravi used Wei's computer in her dorm room to activate a webcam on a computer in his room to view and stream Clementi's encounter. Prosecutors said Ravi tried the same thing during a second encounter Sept. 21, the day before Clementi's suicide.
Ravi posted a message on his now-closed Twitter account on Sept. 19 that read: "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."
Two days later, he wrote on Twitter: "Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again."
Lawyers for Ravi and Wei later said that the webcam stream was viewed on only a single computer and did not show the men having sex.
The indictment said the sexual encounter was seen and accuses Ravi of targeting Clementi and invading his privacy, knowing that his roommate would be intimidated because of his sexual orientation.
The indictment also suggests that Ravi tried to cover up his actions, by deleting a Twitter post letting others know how they could view the second encounter, and replacing it with a false tweet. It said that Ravi also deleted text messages sent and received by witnesses and gave false information to police — all with the intent of misleading investigators.
A poster in a gay-themed chat room who appears to have been Clementi said he unplugged Ravi's computer and searched for hidden cameras before the second liaison.
Clementi had apparently complained to the university about his roommate, and Rutgers officials have said they did all they could.
The young man left a note on his Facebook page on Sept. 22 that read: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry."
Clementi was a promising violinist — and out to his parents, an attorney told The Associated Press on Wednesday — in his first weeks at college when he took his life.
His death came amid a string of high-profile suicides nationwide of young people who were gay or perceived to be gay.
Partly because of the way he killed himself — jumping off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River — his suicide became the tipping point and led to a national conversation about bullying.
President Barack Obama, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and sex columnist Dan Savage talked publicly about his death, even videotaping statements, saying that young gays and lesbians need to know that life gets better after the torment of teen years.
New Jersey toughened its anti-bullying law in the months after Clementi's suicide.
On Wednesday, gay rights activists cheered the indictment as an act of justice and a warning to would-be bullies.
"Without question, the indictment is in the best interests of justice and in the best interests of students across New Jersey, for their potential bullies will now think harder before demolishing another student's life," said Steven Goldstein of Garden State Equality.
Gov. Chris Christie in January signed a law requiring the codes of conduct at public colleges to address bullying.
Clementi's parents have filed notice preserving their right to sue Rutgers, saying the university failed to put in place or enforce policies to deter such acts.
Their attorney, Paul Mainardi, said Wednesday that they are "in negotiations" with Rutgers.
6) An open letter to Texas A&M Student Senate, signed “An Aggie No More”
April 22nd 2011
Dear Senators:
I once thought that I was an Aggie. Next year will be my 5th year of study. I am a Presidential Endowed Scholar. I attended Fish Camp. I went to football games and yelled until my voice was dead and my ass was red. I joined a FLO. I started two organizations. I received the prestigious Buck Weirus Spirit Award for my contributions to this student body. I have made hundreds of friends, touched hundreds of Aggies’ lives and been touched by thousands more. Yes, I once thought that I was an Aggie.
On April 20th, 2011 the Student Senate made it clear that, in their eyes, I am an Aggie no more.
That day, the student senate told me that I was not worth as much as other Aggies. You told me that breaking the Aggie Honor Code and lying to my fellow students was preferable to you deciding to respect me for who I am. On that night, S.B. 63-106, otherwise known as the “Sexual Education Equality in Funding Bill” in support of Representative Wayne Christian’s amendment to HB 1 passed. And with its passage, the Student Senate made its position clear: that because I am gay, I am not truly an Aggie.
Now you may be saying to yourself that I’m being overly dramatic, that that was not your intention in passing that bill, or something else along those lines. Some of you may have stopped reading this letter as soon as you saw the words “I am gay”. I would expect nothing less from the 17th least friendly campus for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) students in the country (according to the Princeton review). If you’re still reading, then allow me to explain why I don’t at all feel like I am being melodramatic and state my reasons for concluding that the Student Senate no longer views me as an Aggie:
1. Harming the Texas A&M GLBT Resource Center was the purpose of this bill, not, as the authors claim, the creating of centers for the purpose of so-called “traditional values education.” This is made clear in the second operative clause, where the opposition of increased student fees to cover this new “traditional values education” is set forth. The authors of the bill are not fooling anyone, since the drastic budget cuts make it clear that no additional government funding is at all likely for this new “traditional values” education, leaving one clear option: cut the GLBT Resource Center’s budget in half. This barely concealed attempt to attack the funding of the biggest support system for GLBT students and their allies on this campus is not just an attack on some perceived “immoral lifestyle choice” or whatever phrase people might choose to use. It is a direct attack on Aggies like myself, a clear “shot over the bow”, warning us that we are not welcome on this campus.
2. The purpose of this bill was not to promote equality of funding for support for all students. If that were indeed the goal, then allow me to point you to several areas where there is a severe problem. First of all, why is there a Women’s Resource Center on campus but no Men’s Resource Center? Applying the same logic that has been applied in the passage of S.B. 63-106, it is clearly unfair that my student fees, as a male, go toward funding the Women’s Resource Center, especially if I disagree that women need any special attention. I should demand equality of funding towards a center that supports me and my needs as a male. Likewise for the Department of Multicultural Services, because I as a Caucasian Amercian have no need of their services. Where is my Department of White American Services? Clearly, the student body does not have a problem offering support to the communities of women and multicultural students within the Aggie family. Thus, singling out support for GLBT students like me sends a crystal clear message: “you and people like you are not worthy of our support. Women, multicultural people, those groups deserve support. You do not.“
3. The assertion that there is not already “traditional values” education related to sex on this campus is laughable. Anyone who has taken a KINE 198 class can tell you that only heterosexual examples are given when discussing romantic or sexual interactions and the health guidelines related to them. And a mandatory class is far more pervasive in educating the students of Texas A&M than a resource center buried in Cain Hall that never requires people to pass through its doors. The programming that the center offers is optional for those who wish to attend. There is no requirement that straight Aggies listen to a discussion of sexual safety for gay men or lesbian women, but clearly the same is not true for GLBT Aggies. We are treated to a discussion of straight sexual safety and relationship guidelines whether we want to be or not. Thus, the assertion that “alternative sexual education” is being funded more than “traditional values” sexual education on this campus is not only patently false, but demeaning to those of us who are consistently maligned for being attracted to (a) different gender(s) of people than the Student Senate apparently feels we should be.
Senators, let me reiterate what I said at the beginning of this letter. Next year will be my 5th year of study. I am a Presidential Endowed Scholar. I attended Fish Camp. I went to football games and yelled until my voice was dead and my ass was red. I joined a FLO. I started two organizations. I received the prestigious Buck Weirus Spirit Award for my contributions to this student body. I happen to be gay. I am also a strong Christian, attend a local church, and have a wonderful relationship with my father.
A year ago, all of that almost vanished. I almost became a name read out at Silver Taps Senators, because I was so tired of living the lie, feeling controlled by fear. And the voices that were in my head were delivering the same message that the Student Senate is delivering to the GLBTQ students of this university: you aren’t worth as much as everyone else. I’m not accusing the Student Senate of causing suicides, but the passage of this bill simply reinforces a message that many GLBT people have been hearing their whole lives. Will it take a Tyler Clementi here at Texas A&M before this becomes apparent?
You may think it’s a sin, that I chose to be gay, and that I’m having wild, promiscuous, unprotected sex every chance I get. You may think of me as a faggot, a queer, a poof, a fairy, or a dirty homo. You may think that I will certainly die of AIDS…some of you may even think that I should die because of it. I know people on this campus and in this community who think that I deserve the death penalty for being gay. That is the reality of being gay on this campus, Senators. Even if a GLBT man or woman never once experiences outright discrimination, the knowledge that if it weren’t for Texas politeness they almost certainly would stays with them. It is fear, a constant awareness that we have to have when we’re on a date or walking across campus, an undercurrent of uncertainty about how people will react to us holding hands, wearing a GLBTAggies t-shirt, or standing in front of an Aggie Allies table by the Academic Building.
That is why the GLBT Resource Center is essential. It was part of what kept me alive a year ago, having a community where I knew I could find support, be able to talk to people who knew what I was going through and had the funding and resources to help get me (and every other person who visits the center, gay or straight) the information and support that they need to make it through a day, a week, a year, a lifetime.
Because guess what Senators? Somehow, most of us still love Texas A&M. Despite everything, we still bleed maroon. That’s why we are still here, why we haven’t just up and left, packed our bags, and hit the road for California or New York. The people who work at the GLBT resource center could have just given up years ago; it would have been easier. GLBT Aggies and their allies are still bettering this campus through our involvement in the student body. But we will continue to fight to be recognized fully as Aggies, despite the Student Senate’s clear position that we are not.
In closing, you will notice that my name is not attached to this letter. You may accuse me of cowardice, of choosing to hide behind the cloak of anonymity as I take potshots at you. Then again, you may not. But let me be clear: I have chosen to withhold my name not out of fear, but because you, as a senate body, have lost my trust. Choosing to come out to someone, which is what I would be doing if I included my name, requires trust. However, I do not trust you with my name any more than you as a senate trust that the GLBT students of this campus honestly need the support and resources that the GLBT Resource Center offers. You clearly no longer represent me, so you are no longer entitled to my name.
Maybe when you are willing to repair the damage that you have done to the Aggie Family I might be willing to trust you again.
Sincerely,
An Aggie No More
7) Equal Time for ‘Traditional Values’
Scott Jaschik; April 25th
The Texas House of Representatives has passed a budget bill that would require any public college with a student center on "alternative" sexuality to provide equal funding to create new centers to promote "traditional values."
While the Senate has yet to adopt a version of the budget bill, the inclusion of the measure in the overall budget bill and the dominance of social conservatives in Texas politics means that the measure could well be enacted. The House vote in favor of the amendment on the campus sexuality centers was 110-24.
Many Texas public colleges -- as is the case at many colleges elsewhere -- have centers within student affairs departments that serve gay and lesbian students. These centers sponsor programming, refer students who need counseling or support groups, and serve as advocates for gay and lesbian students on their campuses.
Representative Wayne Christian, a Republican, proposed the amendment, which would apply to any public colleges with a center "for students focused on gay, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, transsexual, transgender, gender questioning, or other gender identity issues." According to The Dallas Morning News, lawmakers "cracked jokes and guffawed" during debate, with one representative asking Christian what "pansexual" means. Christian urged the lawmaker to visit the centers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University to find out. Lawmakers supporting the bill have said that they favor only equal time for all kinds of sexuality.
But the Young Conservatives of Texas, a group that worked with Christian on the legislation, did so with the hope that public colleges would respond to a law, if the bill passes, by ending support for existing centers. Tony McDonald, senior vice chairman of the group and a law student at UT Austin, said in an interview that "we could try to get these groups defunded" in a law, but that the equal funding approach was viewed as more likely to pass (perhaps with the same impact).
McDonald said that he doesn't believe universities should be funding centers on any sexuality or values -- traditional or otherwise. He said that students "who want to promote a homosexual lifestyle" can do so "on their own time and with their own money."
Requiring the creation of traditional values centers would "give the left a taste of its own medicine," he said. He charged that these centers "are encouraging folks who consider themselves homosexuals to go on considering themselves as such. That's the point of the centers, and that's not something Texas taxpayers should spend their money on."
While supporters of the centers have said that they are needed to provide support for students who are in a minority on campus, McDonald said that it is actually traditional students who lack power. "If I were to walk through UT law school with a shirt on that said, 'Homosexuality is immoral,' if I were to do that, there would be an uproar. People would be upset, and it would be considered out of place and not acceptable to do that. I'd probably get a talking to. But if you go through campus to promote homosexuality, that is the norm."
While McDonald said he hoped that, if the bill is enacted, public colleges eliminate existing sexuality centers, he said that there are good programs that could be sponsored by a traditional values center. He said that they might offer programs to encourage chastity or marriage between male and female students, for example.
The budget measure is prompting derision from Texas liberals. A column in The Texas Observer began this way: "Imagine the plight of the heterosexual student stepping on to a college campus for the first time. How will he fit in? Should he tell his new roommate about his alternative hetero lifestyle? Will he be bullied, just like he was in high school, where he was mercilessly teased for being a sexual deviant? Where does a straight person turn?" While centers in Texas await the outcome of the budget bill, the debate has already accelerated at Texas A&M University, where the leadership of the Student Senate is pushing the university to go on record by saying that it would not increase student fees to create traditional values centers, but would cut the existing Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center in half to finance a new center. In debate over the issue, advocates for traditional values centers said that straight students who may be questioning their sexuality need a center just as much as gay students do. Students said it was important to create "an equal playing field" for those who may disagree with the gay center. (The discussion may be viewed here, starting about 1 hour and 45 minutes into the meeting.) Lowell Kane, program coordinator for the gay center at Texas A&M, said that he could not comment on the state legislation. But he said it was hard for him to accept the idea that gay students somehow have it better than their straight counterparts because of the center at Texas A&M or elsewhere. He noted that in various surveys of gay students about how welcoming the university is, Texas A&M does not do well.
"I'm sure there are instances where an individual heterosexual person might feel oppressed," he said, and that's wrong. But it's also not the norm, he added. "What we are talking about is the difference between an individual instance and societal homophobia."
"If you walk into any campus classroom or student health services, most of what you find is geared toward a heterosexual population and not a GLBT population," Kane said. Noting the suicide last year of Tyler Clementi, a student at Rutgers University, Kane said, "I have never heard of any student who took their life because their college roommate outed them as being a heterosexual student."
And turning to comments from students at Texas A&M, he added, "I have never had a student come up and complain that someone comes up and out of the blue calls them a 'hetero' and slapped them, but that happens to my students, who are called 'dyke' and 'fag.' "
7) Gay Linebackers
April 26, 2011 Allie Grasgreen
One gay student deliberately destroyed his legs to escape the physical assaults of his teammates.
Another was forever known as “the faggot” after he refused to partake in misogynistic locker room banter.
And another never felt right about being a gay football player in a “masculine brotherhood.” “It just feels wrong,” he said. “It’s kind of like a peanut butter and jelly with cheese.”
These are the lived experiences of gay former football players, most of whom played on elite Bowl Championship Series teams sometime in the past 15 or so years. None came out to his teammates for fear of being subjected to the rampant homophobia and bullying that plagued those who weren’t so successful in keeping their sexual orientation a secret, such as the first two players noted above.
Those and other recollections are documented in a preliminary study by Lawrence J. Mrozek, a recent Ohio State University doctoral graduate, and Elizabeth Burns, an academic adviser at Sinclair Community College in Ohio. They interviewed seven former linebackers – six of whom played football at BCS universities across the country – who, sometime after graduation, started self-identifying as non-straight. Five of the interviewees identified as white, one as Latino and one as white and Latino. Mrozek and Burns presented their findings last month at the annual American College Personnel Association convention.
While some experts say that the climate for gay athletes has improved significantly since these players were on the field, it’s clear that at the very least, traces of such hardships still exist.
Although the former players no longer purport to be straight, they all insisted on anonymity for the study because they didn’t want their teams to find out they’d been gay. Those interviews, along with the fair amount of past research Mrozek analyzed for this study, make clear that not only have non-straight football players faced disturbing discrimination from teammates and even coaches because of the hypermasculine nature of the sport, they’ve also feared that coming out would alienate fans and others on the team, and jeopardize their shot at being drafted at the professional level.
But when players were found out, they could become targets. One former student who witnessed a couple of people being outed said that when his team found out a player was gay, “they became like a pariah; they had to be gotten rid of.” In an interview with Mrozek, he described how this drove one player to self-destruction. “Other members of the team found out, and what they basically did, they just started beating the crap out of him whenever they could catch him alone,” he said. “He was so upset about it he ended up – he was actually found somewhere outside of town – because he didn’t want to play football and he didn’t want to tell his parents and, I know it was deliberate…. He mangled up his legs so that he couldn’t play.”
According to a 2005 Sports Illustrated national survey of the general public, which Mrozek cited in his study, 21 percent of people said they would enjoy a sport less if they knew a player was gay, and 22 disagreed that it is “O.K.” for gay athletes to participate in sports, “even if they are open about their sexuality.” Sixty-two percent said America is “not ready to accept gay athletes.” According to one ESPN The Magazine survey, 50 percent of college football players know a gay teammate. Asked whether public opinion had changed since the Sports Illustratedsurvey, Mrozek sighed. “Not for football, at least,” he said.
But Eric Anderson, a professor in sport sciences at the University of Winchester, in Britain, who has researched and written about gay athletes in sports for years, disagrees (and calls the Sports Illustratedsurvey “incredibly outdated”). His research has found that opinion is improving, among both fans and teams. “Things are changing at a rapid rate,” he said. “There’s a huge change in the reception of openly gay athletes. Huge changes in a very small period of time.”
In a study of football (soccer) fans in the United Kingdom – who are “notoriously homophobic,” Anderson said – 90 percent said they would support a gay athlete. And in recent research at American universities, mostly in the South, support was polarized but still strong; about half of black student athletes and almost all white ones said they support gay teammates and coaches. At a university in the more-liberal UK, Anderson said, 97 percent of students on 217 sports teams showed support.
Things inside the locker room are different too, Anderson says. In one recent study that is particularly useful in the context of Mrozek's research, Anderson compared the experiences of openly gay college and high school athletes who came out between 2000 and 2002, which he had gathered for a previous study in 2002, to the experiences of those who came out between 2008 and 2010. (The athletes, who were all male, played in a variety of sports, including football, hockey and wrestling.) He found that the latter group was much more well-received than the former; none of the 26 athletes he interviewed most recently had "any substantial difficulties on their teams" after coming out as gay, Anderson wrote. "Much of the turmoil and anxiety that I found with the 2002 athletes is absent from the 2010 men's narratives," he wrote. "Athletes in the 2010 group came out without the same struggle over whether they thought it would be appropriate or advantageous to them." (Those athletes also reported that the locker room culture for them was vastly different than what Mrozek described in his study. They told Anderson that, unlike in 2002 when homophobia dominated and gay athletes kept quiet, in 2010 teammates discuss their sexuality openly.) "In my 2002 research," Anderson continued, "most (but not all) of the athletes I interviewed feared violence, bullying, discrimination and/or harassment from their teammates. Some of this is because they had heard their teammates discussing homosexuality negatively. With the 2010 group, however, none expected bullying, harassment, discrimination or violence. This, they suggested, was because their peers were not overtly homophobic, both inside and outside of sports' boundaries."
Anderson noted that this new openness is a product of younger generations, and does not so much exist among coaches and athletic directors. What’s more, he said, the National Collegiate Athletic Association took far too long to even address sexual orientation in its diversity policies. “For years, they just dragged their heels, saying, 'This is up to the university,' and the university said, 'This is up to the NCAA,' ” he said. “What has been effective is the changing generations’ culture.”
The number of athletes who are coming out of the closet is “growing exponentially,” Anderson said, as evidenced by stories onoutsports.com and the increasing ease with which Anderson can locate research subjects. "There is a total shortage of D-1 openly gay athletes, yes," he acknowledged. "But you can't really claim that there's a shortage, because you can't really count. And, what would a shortage be? Gay men are about 2.5 or 3 percent of the population, many are attracted to other activities, so what percent play football? And what percent are in the closet? You just have to be careful not to set up a straw man argument." But while it may be true that people are becoming more accepting of gay athletes, the most significant factor in whether an athlete will feel comfortable is, of course, how he himself perceives the environment. And it appears that not all athletes feel as welcome as those interviewed by Anderson. Carl Sorgen, a research assistant at Penn State University’s Center for the Study of Higher Education, has found that gay athletes experience more harassment and are less satisfied with the climate than their straight peers. Sorgen is in charge of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Queer portion of the NCAA-supported Study on Climate for Student Athletes.
Survey responses varied by sport and level. For instance, of 115 Division-1 football players, none identified as gay, but in many other sports, at least one man did. Sorgen also found that in all sports, 14 percent of gay men experience hostile or intimidating conduct interfering with athletics or academics – double the number of heterosexual men who report such treatment – and 72 percent of those players said the harassment related to their sexual orientation. So while Sorgen’s research shows that most of the gay athletes who are out feel comfortable, the potential for discrimination still exists.
Only three professional football players have come out publicly – after they stopped playing. The latest, Esera Tuaolo, did so after ending his NFL career in 1999. At the collegiate level, at least one Division-1, one Division-2 and one Division-3 athlete have come out to varying degrees while playing. “The problem is that football, in part, is kind of the last bastion for people who still feel this importance of this hypermasculine environment, and that hegemonic masculinity is still important,” Mrozek said.
But, if the nation does continue to become more progressive, current and future football players may have better things in store for them than Mrozek’s study subjects did. Some student athletes and recent graduates are taking charge of the issue on their own terms. “This is a new generation; this is a new attitude,” Anderson said. “This is a trend.”
