Thursday, October 11, 2001

Building a community of support and tolerance
By John Walls
Skiff staff

At first glance, the gathering of students looks like any regular club. There is a purpose to the meeting, but the serious mode is occasionally broken up by the laughter among some members in between sentences. An observer would think the meeting could be the House of Student Representatives, until a voice shouts across the room, “Stop being such a lesbian,” reminds you that this is not an ordinary meeting.

David Dunai/Senior Photographer Members of eQ Alliance discuss upcoming events in the Honors Lounge in Sadler Hall. The group meets at 8 p.m. Mondays.

The eQ Alliance, a support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students on campus, meets at 8 p.m. every Monday in the Honors Lounge in Sadler Hall.

Although eQ Alliance is now meeting freely and without constant conflict surrounding them, there was a time when students and faculty shook their heads at the idea of a gay organization on campus.

Humble beginnings

The first attempt to start a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender organization occurred when three TCU Daily Skiff staff members, Alan Dettlaff, Jeannie Schroder and Matt Schmidt, formed an unofficial support organization off-campus for those students. Soon, the three pioneers found a faculty sponsor and requested that TCU acknowledge them as an official campus organization.

In 1993, after much heated debate, the TCU Triangle was established to provide a safe environment for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students to come and talk with other students who were going through similar situations.

Todd Camp, a TCU alumnus, was one of the original members of the TCU Triangle. The initial meetings of the groups were almost secret, Camp said.

“You had to call a number and leave a message, and then you would get called back with the time and the place of the meeting. It was almost like you needed a password at the door to get in,” Camp said.

Camp, now editor of the Fort Worth Star -Telegram’s Friday entertainment section Startime, said that along with the secrecy of each meeting came intimidation from the students outside the organization.

“It was tough (because) there were a lot of folks at TCU that thought that the idea of a gay anything was frightening,” Camp said. “Whenever the Skiff would write an article having to do with the Triangle there would be an immediate string of letter writings against the organization.”

Students were unfamiliar with, and at times unaccepting of gay students. However, faculty, staff, University Ministries as well as other organizations soon came to the aid of the TCU Triangle and defended their mission, Camp said.

An alliance is formed

Soon after the development of TCU Triangle, a group called the Allies, comprised of students and faculty, was established to educate the student body about acceptance and tolerance of the gay community. The Allies had an even ratio of gay members to heterosexual members and aimed at preventing discrimination against the gay community among the student body.

In 2000, the TCU Triangle and the Allies, came together to discuss a possible merger between the two organizations.

“Both groups had the same mission; it made sense to join the two groups,” said David Jenkins, co-advisor of eQAlliance.

Soon after the two groups combined, Marcy Paul, also the program coordinator of the Women’s Resource Center, took the reins as the organization’s new advisor. After changing the group’s name to eQ Alliance, the “eQ” standing for equal and the “Q” standing for queer, Paul met with the executive board and began to plan their events for the upcoming year.

However, before the organization started planning events and programs they had to take into account that the campus knew nothing about eQ Alliance.

“The biggest goal is educating the TCU student body of the existence of a gay community on campus,” said Rob Darnell, president of eQ Alliance.

Bernardo Vallarino, vice president of eQ Alliance, said that along with educating the student body, another one of the organization’s goals is for people to find support with other students who are going through the same circumstances.

“One of the goals of eQ Alliance is for students to meet other students who are going through the same thing and for them to be in a group (where they) have someone to fall back on,” said Vallarino, a sophomore radio-TV-film major.

Gilbert Jones, a neuroscience and art history major and a member of eQ Alliance, said the group has often met with opposition against the purpose of its organization, because some people are uncomfortable with the organization’s outreach on campus.

“Three years ago a group picketed National Coming Out Day with signs saying that we were immoral and that we were going to hell,” Jones said. “I feel sorry for them because they are making fools of themselves and a lot of times they don’t get to know us and they just protest the idea.”

Along with the protests of some groups, both advisors and some board members of eQ Alliance have received phone calls and hate e-mails, some quoting Biblical scriptures, Jenkins said.

“After the Star-Telegram printed the story about TCU hosting (guest speaker) Betty DeGeneres I received a couple phone calls from people saying how can we host such an event when we are a Christian school,” Paul said.

Past, present and future

One of the first events that TCU Triangle established, was the idea of a monthly movie discussion night. Once a month the group would get together in Moudy Building North and watch a gay-themed movie and hold a discussion afterwards.

Two years later in 1997, the Triangle joined with the Tarrant County Gay and Lesbian Alliance and held the first annual gay-themed film festival, called Qcinema, held at the Sundance AMC Theatre in downtown Fort Worth. The film festival lasted for eight days and each day featured a different independent or mainstream gay-themed movie.

“It is nice to see that the people of Fort Worth have not only an interest in independent films but gay films,” Camp said.

As eQ Alliance, the unified group organized the first Pride Prom in April 2001. The Pride Prom was created mainly for gays, lesbians and bisexuals to attend a social function with their significant other without fear of discrimination, but students, faculty and community members, regardless of sexual orientation, also attended.

Darnell, a senior Spanish major, said about 80 people showed up last year and he expects the number of participants to increase this year.

Numerous outreach activities have been planned in observance of National Coming Out Day, including a student panel and a table monitored by eQ Alliance members to inform students about the organization.

The highlight for the day will be at 8 p.m. in the PepsiCo Recital Hall when guest speaker Betty DeGeneres, national spokesperson for National Coming Out Day, will speak about human rights. Betty DeGeneres is the mother of actress Ellen DeGeneres who is known for coming out on her television sitcom as well as in real life.
Coming up in the next few months, eQ Alliance plans to host a display of AIDS Quilt panels. The AIDS Quilt was created to commemorate and remember all those who have lost their lives in the battle against AIDS. The quilt is 792,000 square feet which consists of 44,000 individual panels. Each panel measuring three by six feet. The eQ Alliance will host 35 of these panels which will be displayed in the Student Center Ballroom during the first two days of December.

Darnell said eQ Alliance wants for the group’s mission to be accepted and understood.

“Through hosting events and reaching out to the student body, eQ Alliance hopes to build a tolerance for gay students on campus,” Darnell said.

John Walls
j.c.walls@student.tcu.edu