Annual Safe Colleges event educates students on LGBT issues

Hundreds of students gathered at the Aidekman auditorium on Saturday for the sixth annual Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) sponsored Safe Colleges Conference.

The conference attracted students from across New England for a day of education, socializing, and exposure to the many issues currently facing the LGBT community. Students were both educated and urged to take action in their own communities.

"The purpose of the conference is to expose students to the number of people just like them that exist in colleges throughout the New England area," said Associate Dean Jeanne Dillon, the conference's director. "We want to provide a safe and encouraging setting to learn about relevant issues facing our community."

The conference began with an opening address from Mary Bonauto, an attorney for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) who is currently working to legalize same sex marriages in the state of Massachusetts.

Bonauto stressed the rights of gays and lesbians as human beings through three major points: the right to love, to work, and to have a family -- all of which are violated in today's American culture, she said.

By stressing the importance of leadership, Bonauto urged attendees to involve themselves with issues facing the gay community across New England, as well as on college campuses.

"This conference is a good example of how we are ending isolation," she said.

After the opening address, students could attend workshops that addressed some of the most prevalent issues facing the gay community. Workshops focused on topics such as Domestic Violence in LGBT Communities and Perspectives of Queer Life in University Housing.

Following the workshops, David Eng, an English professor at Columbia University, addressed the issue of race and sexuality. He emphasized the importance of recognizing interracial and same-sex families as identical to the "traditional" American family.

The night activities included a screening of a film about a transgendered youth called Just Call Me Kade, a poetry reading at Brown & Brew, and GLITTER, a dance and drag show at the Hotung Caf?©.

Students from all over New England attend the conference. Rudy Blanco, a student at Wheaton College in Norton, MA, came with six friends.

"Our campus, like most university campuses, is dealing with a lot of issues involving homophobia," he said. "I came today to learn ways in which I can work with or against my school's administration to mobilize and stop these hate issues."

Much of the interest for the conference resulted from a need for discussion of issues that attendees felt were ignored on college campuses.

According to organizers of the Safe Colleges event, college campuses -- traditionally the most politically active environment in the country -- seem to be completely apathetic to LGBT issues such as the currently pending Supreme Court decision that challenges Texas' anti-sodomy law. Students attending the conference hope to increase awareness of and involvement in these issues.

And this is the exact purpose of the conference. "We want the students to go home with role models, new friends, and an awakened awareness of current LGBT issues," said Dillon. "This conference gives LGBT youth the sense of empowerment that is necessary to raise general awareness of these issues, and to eventually make a difference in society."

The conference provided a setting where LGBT youth could meet and network with each other. It ended isolation through a day that served both social and organizational purposes, giving students tools to bring back to their individual communities, organizers said.