For those of you who don’t know, and I’m sure there are many, this week is Coming Out Week for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. The GLBT Center’s program Everyone Welcome Here seeks to promote acceptance and understanding between the gay and straight populations on campus. Coming Out Week is no exception, and is a specific way for not only individuals who identify themselves as GLBT to come out, but also for their straight allies to step up and express their support for the community.

I know that some people dismiss the conflicts and trials of the gay community as self-inflicted because they feel it is a choice to be gay. The argument here, however, is not whether choice or biology is involved, but it is about treating your fellow human beings with respect regardless of how they conduct their lives. For example, I don’t agree with people who dye their hair unnatural colors, but I do not stare at them in public, whisper degrading names as they pass or protest in their hair color section of the supermarket. I let them live in peace with their bionic blue locks, and I continue to be blonde. This, my dear readers, is called live and let live. 

I felt compelled to write this column for the simple fact that no one else is talking about it. For a campus that was recently lauded as one of the Top Diversity Institutions in the country by the nonprofit organization Minority Access, I find it a bit ironic that other than the GLBT Center’s own advertising, to my knowledge no other campus news source has picked up the story. A note to the University here might read, diversity doesn’t just apply to race.

Although N.C. State does have a small network of very supportive faculty and staff who mentor GLBT students through Project SAFE, there are many more silent, straight allies who make an impression by standing up against discrimination and hate. In acknowledgment of that, today is Blue Jeans Day on the Coming Out Week calendar, which asks those who identify and acknowledge the GLBT community to wear blue jeans on campus as a subtle, visual show of support through anonymity. Now, were it me, I would have chosen something a little less universal, considering jeans are a rather popular clothing item. If you had Blue Jeans day in August, I think the true advocates would be a little more obvious, but I get the idea.

I am well aware of the controversy the GLBT Center’s appearance on campus caused. I’m not going to beat that dead horse with a stick any longer because another slanderous debate is not what I am looking for. What I am looking for is for those people who had a gay friend in high school, a family member come out or simply those who sympathize with being different to become allies or at the very least, vocally tolerant of a fledgling community on campus that adds to the diversity, quality and amount of acceptance on campus.

Tell Catie how you support diversity at letters@technicianonline.com.