Student organization brings awareness, support to LGBT community
Lady Gaga blasted through the speakers and a rainbow flag back-dropped Gamecock-signed posters of students’ solidarity and support, as USC’s BGLSA, the organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning students on campus, celebrated National Coming Out Day Tuesday.
The event was designed for educating as well as showcasing a support system for both gay and straight students on campus.
“It’s not just wearing garnet and black, it’s recognizing the diversity and wearing the rainbow that represents Gamecock nation,” said Drew Newton, the LGBT programs graduate assistant.
That internationally-celebrated day, which aims to raise awareness surrounding the LGBT community, was organized on campus through a few BGLSA-led events throughout the day, including a Russell House celebration and resource zone, “coming out” story session and a “Latino Pride” film showing and conversation.
“National Coming Out Day has two main functions — its primary function is for the LGBT community to come out and share their identity and be proud of who they are,” Newton said. “But it’s also to educate. It’s also to remind the campus that there are people here.”
And along with giving the straight community a “face to the movement,” BGLSA President Tyler Murphy said the day gives struggling students a safe haven and place within USC.
“We want to encourage students on campus who haven’t come out that there is a community here,” Murphy said. “We’re not pushing anyone to come out, because it’s something you have to do on your own — it’s a very personal experience. But, when you’re ready, we’re here.”
The main event of the day, the Russell House celebration and resource zone, depicted the LGBT community with display boards of famous South Carolinians and national personalities, including everyone from comedian Wanda Sykes to Fox Report host and news anchor Shepard Smith. Students also had the opportunity to sign cards with messages of support for the LGBT community, and in one of the more central projects of the movement, students could sign up to record their very own “It Gets Better” video.
The “It Gets Better Project,” which was started in 2010 in response to gay teen suicides, has gained support from Hollywood celebrities, President Obama and tens of thousands of others on the internet. But in USC’s own take on the project, students will be able to offer their own stories and words of encouragement to those in their community.
“It’s great for our students to see these celebrities — Neil Patrick Harris, Tim Gunn, Kim Kardashian — but these aren’t people in South Carolina or people on campus,” Murphy said. “This gives faces to our campus — students will know they have support.”
Two-minute video clips for the project will be recorded in early November, and with hopeful messages from USC faculty and staff as well as other Columbia leaders, all the clips will be merged into one USC “It Gets Better” video.
BGLSA also hosted a “Latino Pride” discussion Tuesday, where students had the opportunity to watch the movie “De Colores” and extend the conversation to the coming out process as a whole.
“(The film) talks about the family in Hispanic communities and how the coming out process can be a bit more difficult,” Newton said.
The pride conversation also lent itself to a bigger BGLSA movement to embrace multicultural communities within their own group.
“It’s a very new venture, but it’s a very exciting venture,” Newton said. “We can’t assume everyone LGBT is male, white, or speaks English as their first language,” Newton said. “We have to remember we’re a community within a community, and we want to educate.”
And, in the same stride, BGLSA made an effort to also tailor the movement and the coming out process to those living in and from South Carolina. At their weekly meeting, which is held at 9 p.m. Tuesdays in Currell College 107, they showed the newly-released indie film “You Should Meet My Son!” which tells the story of a conservative Southern mother and her gay son.
At USC, there are 500 gay and straight allies who have completed the school’s SafeZone training. The university also recently completed interviews for the new coordinator for LGBT programs, who will focus on LGBT student retention rates, peer mentoring programs and more gay-friendly policies and procedures.
“Five hundred is a terrific number, but on a campus of 30,000, I want to see 5,000 allies,” Newton said. “As Lady Gaga would say, ‘no matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian or transgender’ — we’re all Gamecocks. We need allies.”
The next Safe Zone ally, a web of people in the community committed to fighting LGBT prejudice and offering support to LGBT students, training is Oct. 17 from 5 to 7 p.m. in Humanities 304. For more information on Safe Zone presentations, visit www.sa.sc.edu/omsa.
The day and the movement all boil down to one thing for Murphy: “I just want to show the USC campus that it’s OK to be gay.”