Student groups, centers support GLBT minorities

When senior Ashley Rhodes decided to come out the summer before her junior year in high school, she found the experience to be easier than expected.

“I had a lot of support from my friends,” Rhodes said. “It wasn’t as tough as I thought it would be.”

But Rhodes, a secretary at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Student Support Services Office, said other students are not as lucky — particularly if they are both GLBT and of a minority.

“Coming out is always a difficult thing to do, no matter what the race,” Rhodes said. “But if you’re LGBT and a minority, it’s like having two strikes. We’ve had students come in here whose parents have cut them off and turned their backs on them.”

Carol Fischer, who has been an office manager at the GLBTSSS for nearly 15 years, said finding ways to help these students can be a complex problem.

“The University has to figure out a way to reach out to them, but still protect them,” Fischer said. “It’s their life we’re talking about. Not all students needing help may even be ready to come out. You have to find a way to connect with them, but also honor their degree of being out.”

Fischer said being a minority can directly affect the coming-out process, particularly for international students, because many places may not be as accepting as Bloomington.

“A student coming out here may have to go back in the closet when they return home,” she said. “In some countries, being gay is still punishable by death. It’s a very complicated issue.”

One way the University does offer support for these students, Fischer said, is through the various culture centers on campus, which include the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, La Casa Latino Cultural Center and the Asian Culture Center.

June Evans, a graduate assistant for the Neal-Marshall, said the center is currently making an effort to reach out to GLBT minorities. At the Office of Women’s Affairs open house this past September, the Neal-Marshall and the GLBTSSS even shared a table and discussed the possibility of joint programs.

“Being able to help more students starts with having more open communication between the different groups,” Evans said. “It helps people realize that we’re all more alike than we are different.”

Fischer said while the culture centers are already GLBT friendly, she admitted that some students may still feel apprehensive about reaching out, based on the assumption that the majority of people working at the centers are straight.

“There is support on this campus, but there is not enough of an effort made to reach out to these specific groups,” Fischer said. “Right now there is only one group on campus specifically for GLBT minorities.”

That group, called BlaqueOUT, is a reconstitution of an older, now-defunct student organization called Blacks Like Us, Rhodes said, who was the driving force behind the new group’s creation.

While Blacks Like Us focused on black members of the GLBT community, BlaqueOUT is more inclusive, offering support for all GLBT minorities and even allies.

“We’re creating a place where people can feel connected,” Rhodes said. “We want to lend an open ear and shoulder for whoever needs it.”

Rhodes said groups such as BlaqueOUT are a step in the right direction for improving the University’s potential of helping GLBT minority students.

“IU is a very accepting campus, and they do offer a lot of support and allies,” Rhodes said. “But there needs to be more reaching out to students rather than IU waiting to be reached out to.”

Fischer said she agreed and that fixing the problem is “at the very least a two-fold process.”

“IU and the students need to work together to make an effort of reaching out to each other,” Fischer said. “We need to give students the support they need and the support they deserve.”