Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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.' - I m m '< M ^ m 4'"" /; 1 w 1 ' ' iifffp - | M it i ? | gH ? mm m she -r | . '. ' ' . " < ! JU igjg$3 . ^ I C Q Children accept most anyone into their circle of friends. If you are good at Legos or playing house, you are instantly one of the group. But at some point while growing up you realize that students, teachers and department store clerks have started to judge you by different rules. If you are liberal or conservative, listen to rap or country, worship Marx or Jesus, are gay or straight?people see the description before they see you. Imagine that you are gay. What would it mean to you if people avoided you, gave you knowing looks, called you "faggot" or "queer," made you feel unwanted, unloved, inhuman? What does it mean being hated for something you can't change, control or deny? It was not Pat Conroy who said, "There's so much silence here in the South, so much dead stuff floating around in the water." It was Quentin Johnson, who feels the oppressiveness of Southern conservatism as sharply as Conroy does. Speaking to me with a strident voice that carries throughout my dorm room, Quentin does not sound oppressed. He sounds angry, defiant, and hopeful all at once, with few apprehensions shading his words. He proudly shows me his new earring, which I inspect carefully and then voice my approval. He hugs me again. Quentin's frequent hugs are a part of him that took me a bit of getting used to. As casual as this scene may seem?the two of us lounging in my dorm room with the windows open and the naturally out-of-season balmy breezes flapping the pages of my notebook?there is a reason for our meeting today. Quentin, along with other gay and bisexual students at USC, has a story profoundly different than any that you or I could tell. Quentin, now a junior majoring in theater, grew up in a small South Carolina town. He chose USC for the anonymity of it?a large campus with a more diversified population than many smaller colleges offer. "I wanted to find other gays and also hide among them. I think that's why a lot of gays leave small towns. There's the desire to protect your family, as well. It's harder at a small college. Some kids don't go far from home, so it's the same environment as high school. In a big city, you can be yourself," he says. In high school, he hid his homosexuality, even to the point of publicly ignoring the guy he was dating. "You shun someone like you even when they're the one who can help you?it's self-preservation." I can tell that Quentin is thinking hard, choosing his J^B; B "I wanted to find other gays and also hi'd&fehong hem. I think that s why / lot if gays leate small owns; There s the desire o protect your family, is WELL. ITS WARDER At M SMALL COlLESEi SOME KIDS >ON'T 60 FAR fROM HOME, S0 IT'STHE SAKE ENVIRONMENT AS HIGH SCHOOL. IN A BIG ITY, YOU CAN BE VfflfRSEll.' UENTIN JOHNSOI words carefully but voicing his thoughts indiscriminately. He doesn't seem to care what I think of him, and I am tempt ed to believe that to be true. Quentin came out of the closet the spring of his freshman year: "I've been out to myself since thirteen or fourteen, though. I came out to my family last. They're the last whole unit. You're defined by your family, and you have to redefine yourself with people who've watched you grow up. My mother and grandmother kind of did a Jeckyl and Hyde, but in general, my family's been pretty supportive." He feels strongly that gays should work to dispel the negative stereotypes of them that abound. "They put a coat on things that I can't deny." As he tells me this, he shifts positions on my bed where we are sitting, and I imagine what it must be like to talk about being ignored, disliked, even hated. USC's Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Association (BGLA) was created to help students who were feeling alone and alienated in such a vast university. Yet Quentin's experience with BGLA has been a rather stormy one. In the spring of 1995, the organization's officers were ousted because they were perceived by the group's membership as being too vocal. "There's really no sense of community here at USC? from a non-heterosexual perspective?because of what happened with BGLA last year," says Quentin, who hopes that the organization can get back on its feet. "BGLA was established to encompass both a support role for students and an activist role to raise awareness, but they're too scared of being political. I want to be visible. It really frustrates me that that kind of visibility is seen as being wrong. Why should we be denied the right to be human, just because of whom we sleep with?" Julian MacPherson agrees. His short, cropped red hair ana miscnievous grin create a snarp contrast to tne goia cross perpetually hanging from his neck. Around his room are similar indications of a strong faith: a Jerusalem cross and an Alpha and Omega pendant, the emblem of his church, Salvador Dali's "The Sacrament of the Last Supper" suspended from the wall next to his bed, and a long row of hardbacks sitting on the shelf of his desk, all expositions on religious matters. The books are not dusty. A senior Religion major who is also gay, Julian was once told that he downplayed his homosexuality. He resists that idea. "I don't downplay being gay, I just downplay its significance in my life as a whole." He wants to go into the ministry, and he I II fftl I ., mm 1 1 ??v i U Si ;*?:?:?:?:?:?:?: ???:?:?:?:?:?: >:?:? :?:?:?:?:?:?:::?:?: p| ?:?:?:?:?:?:?^:? 1 HP M |jj|^ g| n II I * fs .3M i S * S ? :|||, Jg:g | s ;|i: giiillli ;; ; ? .?: . ;; V; . : . . . * .... H f; \ , >,. .. 0 , SB ' M '? .. x , ; feels that being gay is simply a small, separate part of his identity. "Being gay does not confine you to anything," he says, "I have friends in the military, the Marine Corps, the police force, even on football teams. There are people like me who love to go backpacking and canoeing, and who will usually not go out on Saturday night because they'll be in church on Sunday morning. Saying that you're gay is just like saying that you're American?it doesn't limit you to anything, and it doesn't mean you must act in a certain way." Julian, unlike Quentin, came out in the spring of his senior year in high school. "Almost instantly at USC, I let people know that I'm gay. I never would have in high school?I told only a select group of my friends. At USC, after I got to know people on my floor, once we became friends, I told them when I thought they should know." Toying with a yellow candle measurer, which he uses when he assists at church services, Julian looks relaxed. Stretched out on his bed in Preston, he speaks slowly, cognizant of my frenzied attempts to write down his every word. Julian fidgets as, he waits for me to finish writing, as if this were a dictation to a secretary, because he wants me to get it right. His roommate is not there, and this thought reminds me to ask of those matters. I shake my aching hand wildly in preparation, then pose my question. Julian has had tew problems with roommates. He says that nothing serious has ever happened. "In the Towers, we joked about it. We were sitting around one night and one of the guys got jealous that I could bring up my boyfriend but he couldn't bring up his girlfriend." After that year, Julian moved to the Horseshoe, which he misses now that he's in Preston. He recalls the freedom and privacy in particular. "There was one time last spring, "he says, "when my roommate, who was fairly fundamentalist, tried to convert me. I kicked him out for a while." Julian feels, overall, that he's had a good experience with roommates. "Knowing a lot of people in Housing, like Linda Newman arid Betty Frye, has helped. They've been excellent resources. Any time I had a problem, I went to them for help and guidance." His first semester at USC, Quentin Johnson was scared to tell his roommate that he was gay, though they had been best friends for seven years. "I didn't want to tell my other best friend either. You just worry that they're homophobic." Robert, his roommate, finally found out when Quentin used the wrong pronoun?he instead of she?in talking about a