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Gay students will protest -- without a word

UH students will use Day of Silence to call for anti-discrimination laws

by Matt Cooper
The Daily Cougar

The Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual Alliance at UH will protest discrimination against homosexuals next week by not saying anything.

GLOBAL will participate in the National Day of Silence, a 24-hour annual youth protest designed to fight discrimination and abuse against gays.

"It's to draw attention to gay and lesbian issues, especially affecting students and people our age," Crystal Newsome, president of GLOBAL, said.

The Day of Silence began in 1996 at the University of Virginia, according to the Day of Silence Web site. By 2002, it had grown to include students at more than 1,900 middle schools, high schools and universities.

The object of the Day of Silence is to utilize silence as a form of protest. Forcibly silenced homosexuals often have no other recourse, Newsome said.

"People hold rallies all the time," she said. "People get used to hearing so much, they tune it out. What people aren't used to is silence."

This year's protest will involve people at more than 600 universities across the United States, according to the UnitedStates Student Association. Many universities will offer voter registration and educational material geared not only toward homosexuals, but transgendered individuals as well.

Attending college can be an awkward experience for transgendered students, Newsome said.

"If you're a male transitioning to female or a female transitioning to male, then where do you live?" she asked. "What bathroom do you use?"

Many homosexual students face discrimination that makes learning impossible, Newsome said.

"You have gay people in this country who cannot come out of the closet because of what will happen," she said. "They get beat up; they get picked on. There's no way for you to go to class in that kind of environment."

Victims of homosexual discrimination are more likely to drop out of school or even commit suicide, Newsome said. She said that's only a problem because discrimination against homosexuals is socially accepted.

"It's not just rural schools, it's schools all over the place," Newsome said. "It's thought of as OK.

"Many times, the students themselves are marginalized and can't speak up for themselves. They have no choice but to be silent," she said.

GLOBAL will use the Day of Silence to promote legislation to prevent discrimination against homosexuals. Newsome said that while some organizations have anti-discrimination policies, such as the Houston Independent School District, such policies are not mandated by the state of Texas.

"For a lot of counties it's different," Newsome said. "It's still perfectly OK to fire a teacher for being gay. It's still perfectly OK to let a student get harassed."

For more information on the Day of Silence, visit www.dayofsilence.org.
 

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