<p>Hi, I'm wondering how LGBT-friendly the Berkeley campus is? Like are there any obvious instances of social exclusion for a gay student? How much homophobia exists on campus? I'm obviously aware that Berkeley is right outside San Francisco, but I'm wondering how much of San Fran's acceptance spills over into Berkeley and the campus. Finally, if a student were to attend Berkeley, would it be in his best interest of arriving at campus as "out"? So as not to lead anybody on or give false impressions? Or would it be better to first establish friendships and then come out at a later date? Sorry if this post reads as useless to some of you guys, but I'm in a terrible situation as far as LGBT-friendly surroundings go and I want to make sure that I don't have to live like this in college.</p>
<p>Apologies if this topic is inappropriate for these forums, I'm not exactly a new user but I haven't been around very long. Also, I haven't seen any thread similar to this in the ~3 weeks that I've been here.</p>
<p>Berkeley is <em>extremely</em> LGBT friendly. I am a second year student and I cannot recall even one incident of homophobia here. The homophobes are the ones who get persecuted, so don’t worry at all.</p>
<p>Berkeley goes out of their way to be LGBT-friendly. I was a residence hall health worker in Foothill-La Loma Building 2 (there was some LGBT theme housing there at the time) and they all seemed quite happy with the situation. I found that people became more comfortable being “out” as upperclassmen. I’m not sure if that was because they were personally more comfortable with their sexual orientation or if it was a function of their peers becoming more comfortable as they acclimated to Berkeley. For what’s it worth, my freshman RA was flamboyantly gay (he made frequent sexual jokes and such) and he was probably the most popular RA in my hall.</p>
<p>Let’s just put it this way, the Obama mania on Telegraph on Election night 2008 would not have occurred had the Prop H8 results been out by then.</p>