Coming out of the closet

Ask Trey Bell about anything – his love for singing, dancing or even what he did that day. But there’s one question Bell doesn’t like to hear, “So when did you decide to be gay?”

An acquaintance lobbed that question at him on a recent Saturday while eating lunch in Umphrey Lee cafeteria.

His response. “When did you decide to be straight?”

The girl, almost choking on her sandwich, managed to shoot back, “I thought it was a choice?”

Bell informed her that being gay isn’t a choice, you’re born that way.

“I wouldn’t have chosen this lifestyle for the world,” he said. “It’s been hard. This is the hand I was dealt and I can’t change that.”

For Bell and many other gay and bisexual students, SMU recognizes their needs and offers various organizations to support them and educate others. These include Spectrum, Allies and the counseling center.

“I’ve been surprised of how supportive SMU is for gay and lesbian students,” said Courtney Aberle, director of the Women’s Center. “We are so fortunate to have a supportive chaplain and this models to a lot of people that we should be accepting of all students.”

Chaplain Will Finnin is a member of Allies, a group formed by faculty, staff and students to provide support for gay members of the SMU community. The organization, which has been in existence at SMU for five or six years, currently has 108 members. A straight ally is someone who is not gay, but personally advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equal rights and fair treatment. These allies are priceless, personally and politically and are increasingly important in the fight for GLBT equality. Many times others hear their voices while those of GLBT people are ignored, according to the Human Rights Campaign’s Web site.

Faculty, staff and students can become members of Allies by completing a two-and-a -half hour class. The class covers gay myths and assumptions and experimental exercises on how to deal with situations that may arise. After completing the class, students receive a rainbow-colored Allies placard that they can place on their office door.

“[The sign represents] a safe place where they can discuss issues or a place where they can be themselves without hiding who they really are,” Aberle said.

The next Allies training session is at 10 a.m. today at the Women’s Center.

“Everyone should get their Allies training,” Bell said. “It clears up a lot of misconceptions and stereotype s about the gay community.”

Spectrum, formerly the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Bisexual, Straight Organization, was founded at SMU in 1991. The organization changed its name this year.

“It’s much more of a people friendly name that doesn’t label anyone,” said Spectrum President , Randy Hubach.

Activism, education and support are the three principals that Spectrum was founded under. The organization offers peer support and education programs targeted at the community.

“It really gives students that are oppressed an opportunity to gain social support as well as improving the social climate for everyone, whether they are gay or straight,” Aberle said.

Currently 10 to 15 people actively attend Spectrum meetings but there are 150 students on the email list, said Aberle.

“We have people who drop into meetings if they need to,” Hubach said. “We respect peoples wishes and no names are released.”

Much of the group’s communication is done through Internet outreach. Hubach says that for many college students openly admitting they are gay could mean they will loose funding and support from their parents.

Bell is fortunate. His parents know he is gay and although they do not agree with his decision they still love and support him. Bell said that his parents have realized that they cannot change him. Many know that Bell is homosexual but he still considers coming out an everyday occurrence. He says that he meets at least one person a day who does not know that he is gay and that it is his decision whether he tells them.

“I believe that being openly gay is always a constant choice wherever you go,” Bell said. “Coming out for me is always a constant process or something you set aside. It’s everyday and it never stops.”

But coming out is never an easy thing. Although both Aberle and Hubach agree that SMU is surprisingly supportive to its gay community that does not mean there is not tension. Bell says that he is frustrated with groups, especially religious ones, on campus that try and change gay people. He wishes they would accept him and others as people just like everyone else.

“If they want to call themselves Christians and be Christ-like they shouldn’t condemn anyone,” Bell said. “I think it’s funny that these so-called Christian people try to distance themselves from the so-called alternative groups. Part of being a Christian is having community and they are doing their best to try and dissolve it rather than build it up.”

It is approximated that one in 10 people are gay but there is no definitive number that states exactly how many gay people there are in the world. Cathy Renna, media director for Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation writes in an online opinion column that numbers shouldn’t be the issue.

“‘How many gay people are there?’ is not the question at all,” she writes. “What we should be asking is ‘So, how many of us are enough to deserve equal treatment?’ It’s fairly obvious to the people around us (more to some than others, perhaps) that there are a lot of us. Maybe now people will realize that GLBT people – 5 percent, 10 percent, 25 percent, whatever – are worthy of equal treatment and civil rights protections.”

Chartering Allies and Spectrum is one step in supporting SMU’s homosexual community. Currently Spectrum is re-petitioning for membership into Delta Lambda Phi, a national social fraternity for gay, bisexual and progressive men, which was founded at SMU in 1995 but later lost its charter. The group is also petitioning for membership into Lambda Delta Lambda, a national social sorority. In April, Spectrum will sponsor a gay awareness week that will feature films, educational programming, a candlelight vigil and a charity dinner.

“People should just remember that [there are many homosexuals out there] and when they use words like ‘faggot’ or ‘dyke’ that they could be speaking about their own cousin or sister,” Bell said.