UHCL Pride Week and critical conversation affirms LGBTQ+ community on campus

The Office of Student Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (OSDEI) has created a Critical Conversation Series that focuses on different identities and how people come to know them. The series is intended to show all students that there are multiple aspects that go into each identity.

The latest installment, “A Critical Conversation: Coming Out” occurred Oct. 16 and focused on the coming out process for LGBTQ+ students. Iliana Melendez, associate dean of students, presided over the discussion.

The conversation started out with Melendez sharing that the student orgs room was now a “safe and inclusive space” for people to share their experiences. Melendez then proceeded to have students write the names of their childhood best friends, their favorite place, their current best friend’s name and their hopes and dreams on separate note cards. The participants then switched cards with their neighbor.

Melendez then read a scenario in which everyone lived in a predominant gay society, rather than a predominantly heterosexual society. In the scenario, heterosexuals are discriminated against because of their sexuality. Melendez would read aloud discriminatory statements such as, “your boss fires you because he finds out you are a breeder,” and then cue for one of the cards to be ripped up, with all of them eventually being torn to shreds.

“How did it feel to have your close and intimate experiences be ripped up by someone else,” Melendez asked the room.

The responses ranged from anger to confusion, but they all brought up the idea of reflection. Melendez then described the stages of the coming out process, mentioning that the stages are non-linear.

After this portion of the event, a panel of two staff members and two students shared their coming out experiences, bringing a personal aspect to the event.

Natalia Marfil, biology major, serves as the president for the LGBTQ+ Student Coalition at UHCL. Marfil said that events like the conversation on the coming out process shows students that the university supports them.

“[The conversation] gives students a safe space for LGBTQ+ students to see their identity,” Marfil said. “OSDEI sponsoring this event shows us that the university sees us and supports us as a community.”

Marfil elaborated on why this event can be helpful to allies as well.

“Students might look at LGBTQ+ events and say ‘oh I am not identifying, so that’s not for me,’” Marifil said. “However, I would say that gives them even more reason to attend these events, so that they can learn more about our community.”

Melendez furthered Marfil’s statement about allies being a key component of the LGBTQ+ community.

“There is a process of coming out as an ally which can be brave as well,” Melendez said. “Someone who plays the role of an ally lets people know they are there to support them in their journey, and not everyone will agree with that, which can make it scary.”

In a time where the population of LGBTQ+ identifying individuals has raised to 4.5 percent, where LGBTQ+ youth is three times as likely to commit suicide than heterosexual youth and where 13.4 percent of LGBT students don’t attend college after experiencing verbal harassment, events like the ones during Pride Week that show the LGBTQ+ identity being affirmed and supported on campus is crucial, Melendez said.

“[LGBTQ+ students] are coming into who [they] are as a person,” Melendez said. “And we live in a place and time where racism, homophobia and transphobia is no longer covert. For people who live in the margins and are othered, coming out is becoming even more of a brave act to help people see that it is okay to showcase who you are.”

The “coming out” conversation was deliberately scheduled to take place as a part of UHCL Pride week, something OSDEI started planning as early as the summertime when the office sponsored the first ever UHCL trip to the Houston Pride Parade.

“Since there isn’t a huge student presence on campus during the summer, OSDEI figured it would be awesome for LGBTQ folks to see their identity on campus,” Josh Quinn, coordinator of women, gender and sexuality programs said. “Its really cool that this is the first pride week at UHCL, and since the university participated at the Pride Parade in Houston, which we hope becomes an annual event, this is building on that program.”

OSDEI also hosted a number of other events for UHCL Pride Week including Queer Crafts from Oct.15-18, Queer Women Film & Discussion Oct. 17, Open Mic Night Oct. 18 and UHCL Pride Parade Oct. 19.

“Pride week is a positive and affirming message to LGBTQ students,” Quinn said. “[It shows] that it’s not just an identity on the non-discriminatory clause, but that we actually care about developing [LGBTQ+ students’] identities.”