A L.I.F.E with P.R.I.D.E
Christie Fox would love to see LIFE, one of the organizations for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students at USU, dissolved.
But Fox, director of the honors program, isn’t homophobic or even slightly anti-gay. As one of the advisers for LIFE (Love Is For Everyone), she said she would like to see a future in which a club to support the gay community is unnecessary. However, that day is not today.
“In any conservative culture, [gays] will face challenges,” she said. “Many haven’t come out to their families yet, only in the community here. I think it’s important that there be a safe space.”
LIFE and Pride! Alliance, the two GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered) student organizations on campus, have more than 50 members between them, several of whom attend meetings for both clubs.
Matthew Hollen, president of LIFE, said the main difference between the two clubs is that Pride! is more of a social group, while LIFE is focused on advocacy and education. Pride! has been on and off since the mid-’80s, while LIFE was begun last spring.
“I’ve talked to the other group and we don’t want to be competing,” Hollen said. “We send representatives to each others’ meetings and let each other know what we’re doing.”
Some of the activities and projects LIFE has been promoting on campus include the “That’s So Gay” campaign, in which posters telling about famous gays were displayed around campus. They also held an open mic event on the Taggart Student Center Patio for National Coming Out Day earlier in the semester, and plan on participating in the National Day of Silence, a day in which people refrain from speaking in order to emphasize the difficulty of remaining quiet about being gay.
Pride! also has educational and outreach activities, including panel discussions which are held at the request of campus groups. They also hold activities such as Pride Day and Freedom to Marry Day and sometimes have “Gender Blender” parties.
Rusty Rigby, a member of LIFE, said the most important thing the clubs do is give a face to the GLBT community, showing that gays are students and people, too. Within the GLBT community, Rigby said the clubs allow a social network that helps gay students meet people they can relate to.
“Here the GLBT community is pretty closeted,” he said. “It’s us against an army, it seems like. It seems like we’re always fighting. We’re gaining a little, then people leave and we lose ground again.”
Individually, some students try to create an environment more open to gays. Moudi, a student from the Middle East who asked not to be fully identified, said he and his boyfriend participated in the most recent True Aggie night.
“We thought we would like to see the crowd’s reaction,” he said. “Some people cheered and some booed. After we jumped down from the ‘A’ a girl came up to us and said, ‘That was so disgusting.'”
Moudi said after True Aggie night some people he knew stopped saying hello to him, but he said he doesn’t mind.
“I am happy with my orientation very much,” he said.
Moudi said clubs like LIFE and Pride! are important for gay students, especially in Utah, because they give access to the gay community much more and allow students to network and date. Fox said not only are the clubs important for the individuals who are part of them, they are important for advancing the issues of gay rights.
“I think issues regarding gays and lesbians are one of the most pressing civil rights issues of our time,” she said.
Rigby said a lot of students hesitate to “come out” to their families, but identify themselves with the gay community at school.
“It comes down to fear – fear of rejection, fear of being discriminated against, fear of family and friends not accepting you, fear of having hate crimes committed against you,” he said.
Besides the uphill battle and fear of backlash for coming out, Rigby said gay students face several limiting stereotypes at USU. Hollen said one assumption made about gays most often is that they are promiscuous or are attracted to every person of the same sex they see. Often people will assume that because a person is gay or a lesbian, he or she will automatically try to hit on them.
“One of the things I tell people is just because I’m talking to you doesn’t mean I’m hitting on you,” Hollen said.
Hollen, who has a steady boyfriend, said he tries to emphasize that gays are not sex-obsessed. Rigby said he doesn’t even like to use the terms “heterosexual” and “homosexual” because they have the suffix, “-sexual,” and he worries that may give people the wrong idea.
Another stereotype Rigby said gays face is the idea that all gay men are into the arts, music and acting and all lesbians are “butch.”
“Not all gay men are like that,” he said. “Some are into sports or cars. There’s as much diversity within the gay community as there is in the whole world.”
Hollen said yet another assumption made about gays, especially in Utah, is that gays are immoral. He said there are people who will shield their children from him and his boyfriend as though they were pedophiles.
“Gay people do not lack morals,” Rigby said. “People here associate being gay with something bad, but we’re not immoral.”
Students get involved with LIFE and Pride! for various reasons. Matthew Blackham, a junior majoring in sociology, said that for him, it’s a matter of political activity and social networking. It’s important to get the word out there about the GLBT community, he said.
“People often expect you to adhere to their religious standards in order to be friends with them,” Blackham said. “There are people who will tear down the signs we put up. But there is a thriving portion of people at USU who are sensitive to those issues.”
-ella@cc.usu.edu