<p>cdover - I am so sorry that you are going through this situation. Just so you know there are groups around called PFLAG (it stands for parents & friends of lesbians & gays - we include bi & T it is just not reflected in the name). We have many LGBQT people that come to our meetings for support and to help find ways to tell their parents. Some people never tell their parents & sometimes it is for the best I am afraid to say. However, you would be welcomed and it might really help to talk to other parents.</p>
<p>emerald - OMG, when my son was visiting his college before he accepted (he had some friends from HS going there & they wanted him to meet some gay kids) there was actually a student whose parents thought that sending him to BYU would fix him. They told him that it was BYU or they were cutting him off. How completely utterly sad.</p>
<p>My heart goes out to all of those who have been hurt because of anti-gay bias. My D goes to a public HS and they have a chapter of the Gay Straight Alliance which she belongs to which encourages kindness to all. Does anyone else have this? If not, please suggest to your HS administration.</p>
<p>Sometimes that moves the problem to the high school level where kids are more often confused and not set in their sexuality. I know parents who outright forbid their kids to go near such clubs and don’t want them around kids who are in them.</p>
<p>CPT, the GSA does not encourage any sexual activity by underage persons, it encourages respect and kindness to all regardless of gender prefernce or apparent gender preference. Do I suspect that many members are confused, or unsure? Yes. The point is there should not be anyone making fun of anyone, let alone harassing. And the point is that is open to all, including heterosexuals, and many do belong, to support their friends or to do the right thing.</p>
<p>“I know parents who outright forbid their kids to go near such clubs and don’t want them around kids who are in them.”
And would those parents send their kids to an ivy or top ten university?</p>
<p>kayf: Agreed! These clubs are great, especially as they don’t necessarily “out” students who choose to be involved.</p>
<p>I understand what the GSA does. Many parents and people do not. The same ones who would likely have a drastic reaction to finding out their kids are gay would be the ones having an issue. In this area there are a number of such clubs at the public an independent high schools. Not so at the Catholic, Christian or other religiously affilatated ones. But where I lived in the midwest, there were public furors about such clubs. It was a stigma to have a kid in them whether he was gay or not. That is, if a school could even get such a club rolling. It was one more layer of troubles that could occur. </p>
<p>A neighbor of ours had a shy, awkward kid who joined the club. He was teased and bullied even before he joined. His membership caused even more issues and his parents were not supportive in the least. This was not an atypical reaction. To be honest with you, I would not want this additional issue either at that time. If any of my children are gay, that would not be a big family problem in our home. But if he joined such a club in such an area, it could cause problems that I really don’t want to add to the list of issues that we are already facing. I understand that we can’t pick our problems many times, and that such clubs can help with some issues, but I am pointing out that they can also bring up problems that may be better addressed later.</p>
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[QUOTE=mom2ofOH]
cdover - I am so sorry that you are going through this situation. Just so you know there are groups around called PFLAG (it stands for parents & friends of lesbians & gays - we include bi & T it is just not reflected in the name). We have many LGBQT people that come to our meetings for support and to help find ways to tell their parents. Some people never tell their parents & sometimes it is for the best I am afraid to say. However, you would be welcomed and it might really help to talk to other parents.
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<p>Thanks, mom2ofOH :). I’m trying to take it all in my stride, and not to let it hinder my future. It’s comforting to know that there are my friends, and wonderful people like you, who will help me.</p>
<p>So, are PFLAG groups available to people who aren’t with their parents? I think I need a number of years to figure out what how to tell my parents and what to do if reactions don’t go quite so well, and a PFLAG-type group would be an invaluable resource.</p>
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<p>Sort of, but it goes beyond that. Swarthmore has the gender-neutral housing the poster is using as a criteria. Has for several years and increased the amount again this year. What I’m saying is that’s all well and good, but that’s not what makes Swarthmore an especially gay-friendly campus. Just focusing on that one tiny little sliver would miss all the important reasons that Swarthmore is a comfortable place where gay and lesbian students flourish and get elected president of the senior class because nobody cares who is gay or not gay. It would miss the fact that the student art gallery is named in honor of the school’s first trans-gender professor. It would miss the school being among the first to provide same-sex benefits to employees (back in 1992). Or, sponsor the longest running academic symposium on LGBT issues, the annual Sager Symposium that celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. </p>
<p>I’m saying that looking for an especially gay-friendly campus should start with the big picture, not whether or not there is a specific corner of dorm rooms tucked away where LGBT students could avoid harrassment that they would get elsewhere on campus. I mean, it seems to me that the definition of a gay-friendly campus is one where students feel comfortable in all the dorms.</p>
<p>It’s not just about housing. It’s also about the extent to which LGBT students, faculty, and administrators are an open, strong, vibrant part of the every facet of the college.</p>
<p>I also think that, even at the most progressive schools, there has been a sea-change in attitudes over the last ten years. It’s important to not get spooked by stories of events that happened a decade ago.</p>
<p>And, it’s not just super-selective schools. There are notably gay-friendly schools up and down the selectivity ladder. Just off the top of my head in liberal arts colleges: Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Vassar, Pomona, Pitzer, Earlham and dozens more.</p>
<p>My D, who I beleive to be hetero (but who can know for sure) joined. She was also head chearleader and co-captian of gymnastics team and outgoing. The organization has grown and grown and now it is basically a group of kids that just want to be nice and not really hook up with anyone and have functions without alchohol. </p>
<p>But I hear you, it wont work at every HS.</p>
<p>cdover - no, you do not have to bring your parents. There are all kinds of people there, parents, aunts & uncles, friends, gays & lesbians, etc. It is a group to support everyone. You can be anon too!</p>
<p>“Just off the top of my head in liberal arts colleges: Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Vassar, Pomona, Pitzer, Earlham and dozens more.”</p>
<p>I agree with you that Swarthmore is pretty much paradise on earth. The others are wonderful too, but all private (aren’t they?) and not all, I suspect, need blind.</p>
<p>You seem so … liberal, interesteddad 
(just joshin’ ya)</p>
<p>“My D, who I beleive to be hetero (but who can know for sure) joined. She was also head chearleader and co-captian of gymnastics team and outgoing. The organization has grown and grown and now it is basically a group of kids that just want to be nice and not really hook up with anyone and have functions without alchohol.”</p>
<p>Our hetero (has a steady BF) DD1 was president of her HS GSA, and her GS Gold project was about gay issues (try that in the Boy Scouts!). But then we’re from one of the most liberal areas of the country.</p>
<p>We are clearly making progress, but still have a long way to go until people lose the fear.</p>
<p>I am liberal.</p>
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<p>That’s what I know. I’m sure that others can chime in on schools in different categories. What I would be doing, rather than focussing on housing and bathrooms for trans-gendered students would be looking at the big picture.</p>
<p>a) Contact and talk to representatives of appropriate LGBT groups on each campus. What do students, say? </p>
<p>b) Search the archives the school newspaper for appropriate terms to get a sense of how LGBT issues make news on campus. What are the issues that are being raised?</p>
<p>c) Research the Dean’s office and student support functions in the administration. To what extent are LGBT role models incorporated?</p>
<p>Some schools (Swarthmore is an example) have a “gay-friendly” check box on their housing forms.</p>
<p>Idad, just fyi, it’s “transgendered” or “transgender” – no hyphen!</p>
<p>Pugmadkate, I completely support you in doing whatever is necessary to make sure your son will be in a safe environment. That was obviously of prime importance for my son, and for me, when he was in your son’s position. And I know you well enough to be sure you’re considering all the other factors Idad mentions, not simply the existence of gender-neutral housing. As someone mentioned, there are some schools where there are <em>so</em> many gay and lesbian students, and they’re <em>so</em> visible, that you couldn’t come close to fitting all of them in one “LGBT-friendly” dorm, and all the dorms are LGBT-friendly anyway. I’m sure many of you have heard the saying that gay kids at Yale like to repeat – “one in four, maybe more!” Perhaps an exaggeration, but not much of one. </p>
<p>Really, talking to current students about LGBT life is probably the most important thing one can do. Before my son made his final decision, he met and talked to some L & G University of Chicago students on Facebook. They actually have a mentorship system there, pairing LGBT students with LGBT faculty advisors, which I think is a great idea even though my son hasn’t taken advantage of it. </p>
<p>I have to say I’m really surprised, and quite perturbed, about what you mentioned about kids withdrawing from the U. of Chicago because they encountered homophobia from other students in a particular major. I’ll ask my son if he’s heard of anything like that; I know it isn’t a problem in any of the fields he’s considering majoring in, like history and art history.</p>
<p>He’s told me there’s at least one trans grad student he’s encountered, but few if any undergraduates. </p>
<p>My somewhat educated guess, from talking to people and reading about the subject, would be that for every 100 “out” gay and lesbian college students, even at LGBT-friendly institutions, there’s <em>maybe</em> one out trans-identified undergraduate student. And the vast majority of such students are on the “trans-masculine” spectrum, that is, born and raised female but identifying as male to a greater or lesser extent. Society is still much more tolerant and forgiving of gender-variant or gender-fluid behavior among girls than it is among boys; it’s infinitely easier in most cases for a girl to do that than a boy, and it’s infinitely easier in most cases for a boy to come out as gay than to come out as trans. </p>
<p>I guess I never worried much about my son encountering any significant issues in college, at any of the places he applied to (U. of Chicago, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Sarah Lawrence, and Macalester – which I know was rated the #1 gay-friendly school on one list I saw). I worried more when he was in high school, where he actually started coming out to people in 8th grade, and for a few years was the only “out” gay kid in the entire school, a small suburban high school in Northern New Jersey with only about 100 kids in each class. But he had known almost everyone since third grade, and a good many as far back as kindergarten. They all grew up together, and nobody ever gave him a real problem. If they had, at least verbally, he would have more than held his own – by the time he was a sophomore or junior, he used to approach younger kids in the halls whom he heard using language like “that’s so gay,” and lambaste them to the extent that they would be embarrassed in front of their friends and slink away. (Remember, my son is a little guy, just over five feet tall, and skinny. That never stopped him.) </p>
<p>And by the time he was a senior, there were probably 5 or 10 gay kids in the school, some of whom told him that he had given them the courage to come out. I think every gay boy in the school was together with my son in the drama club, actually!</p>
<p>The main problem he had was that for years, straight boys wouldn’t be friends with him – fear of guilt by association. All his friends were girls. Which was great, but I know he felt sad about the situation sometimes. He did end up making friends with a few straight guys in the drama club, though.</p>
<p>So I knew that if he was able to thrive in that environment, which I guess you’d call gay-neutral, he’d be fine in any gay-friendly college or university. I honestly never gave any thought to the dorm situation, other than his desire and need for a single – and, yes, he was a little worried about ending up with a homophobic roommate if he didn’t get a single, as I mentioned in my post above. </p>
<p>He has made a number of straight male friends at Chicago this year. I really think that by the time they get to college, a lot of people are less worried about people making stupid assumptions if they happen to be friends with a gay kid.</p>
<p>Anyway, pug, I"m sure that your son will end up someplace that’s great for him.</p>
<p>Donna</p>
<p>For what it is worth, one of my wife’s good friend’s son is gay. He went to the University of Chicago and found it to be “a very non-supportive environment” (a direct quote).</p>
<p>Now it is only one kid and there may have been transplant shock going from Northern California to Chicago, but that is at least one gay kid who was unhappy at the University of Chicago. </p>
<p>He went to a local JC for a year and is now happily enrolled at UCLA.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to hear about that, too. Remember, though, that things do progress sometimes, and change for the better as the years go by. From what I hear from my son, there are a <em>lot</em> of gay and lesbian kids at Chicago who are in their first and second years. If that’s a trend, it’s certainly a positive one.</p>
<p>PS: Things certainly changed for the better at my son’s high school over the years. 20 years ago, it was best known as the school where a group of athletes sexually assaulted a mentally handicapped girl in one of their basements, using a miniature baseball bat. It was known as a school where bullying was tolerated, alcohol was widely and freely consumed, athletics were worshipped, and not many kids cared about academics. After that whole crisis, and all the associated bad publicity (including a book and a TV movie), they instituted a zero tolerance policy for bullying and harassment, de-emphasized athletics, and emphasized academics. Now, it’s been consistently rated among the top 10 schools in New Jersey for some years. And nobody ever tried to stuff my son into a garbage can, or anything of the kind. (If they had, of course, I would have personally disemboweled them.)</p>
<p>I’m sure many of you could identify the school, but I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention its name here. Thanks.</p>
<p>Pug, campus visits - while school is in session - are going to be very important to you and your son. Have you done any yet? You can tell so much by just being on campus.</p>