(Maggie Stout/TommieMedia)
Representatives of LGBTQ groups in the St. Thomas community say they continue to struggle to advocate openly for queer identities despite increasingly tolerant university policies.
While St. Thomas policy does not block events and organizations because they have an LGBTQ lens, advocates say politics, religious barriers and longstanding university trends still pose challenges.
Andy Scott, co-chair of the St. Thomas LGBTQIA+ faculty, staff, and employee resource group, which is sponsored by the Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, said the university has improved its previous level of interaction with the LGBTQ community.
“We see more verbal support as opposed to, like, radio silence,” Scott said.
Although, Scott said, “They could afford to be louder about it.”
St. Thomas Student Diversity and Inclusion Services assistant Mads Clark said it is the responsibility of religious universities to explicitly voice their support of the LGBTQ community.
“I really believe that every religious institution has a voice when it comes to talking about queer identity,” Clark said. “It’s really important that individuals are represented.”
Pope Francis expressed support for same-sex civil unions in a documentary that premiered in October, which was seen as a landmark victory for LGBTQ members. St. Thomas LGBTQIA+ faculty, staff, and employee resource group secretary Hugh Smeltekop sees this as a call for more acceptance.
“We need to understand and deeply listen to each other and create community and be united in our desire for all humans to thrive,” Smeltekop said.
Clark said she’s glad to host events with LGBTQ themes, such as a panel she held in October, but added that it’s not always easy to do so.
“When we want to have a queer program, whether it’s from an intersectional angle or directly queer, oftentimes we do have to work in collaboration with many different offices to ensure that it will be a safe and welcoming space,” Clark said.
Jake Reilly, co-advisor for the St. Thomas Queer-Straight Alliance, said he also has struggled with constraints in the past because organizations that support LGBTQ health resources “exist in a political world” and are therefore difficult to bring into the university for events.
Reilly was part of a group called Allies when he attended St. Thomas as an undergraduate student from 2009-2013. According to Reilly, students in Allies used to have to hold debate-style events due to a university policy requiring representations from both sides when an event is political in nature.
“When it’s not being done by an academic department, there isn’t academic freedom all the time to host the kind of educational event that you want to host,” Reilly said.
It was challenging for Reilly and his peers to moderate questions when one side was opposed to marriage equality.
“Especially as undergraduate students, it wasn’t exactly something that felt affirming,” Reilly said.
LGBTQ students have “unique stressors” during the COVID-19 pandemic, said GiGi Giordano, a psychologist with St. Thomas Counseling and Psychological Services.. Stressors such as unsupportive housing and lack of adequate healthcare were discussed during the October LGBTQ panel.
Giordano said making more resources available for members of the LBGTQ community, such as a center for LGBTQ students, could help alleviate some of the challenges that this community faces.
“Connection and support are always ways that we all grow as a community,” Giordano said.
Reilly said staff members are often unclear about what is allowed when hosting events that have a LGBTQ lens because of an institutional memory of how difficult it used to be to hold LGBTQ events.
“There isn’t necessarily that barrier,” Reilly said, “except for people in positions, and they’ve been in these positions for a long time, believing that those barriers still exist.”
Smeltekop said he’s hopeful that the university is moving in the right direction.
“I think the university has done a lot in the last year to make queer faculty, staff and students welcome,” Smeltekop said.
Clark agreed, saying her ability to hold events with an LGBTQ scope at St. Thomas signifies progress.
“I only have more hope for what’s to come in terms of representation and programs in the future,” Clark said.
Angeline Terry can be reached at terr2351@stthomas.edu.
All should be welcome at UST and I believe that all are welcome. However, it is a Catholic school, and whoever choose to teach, otherwise work, or attend classes here knew that this was the case before they came. Choices have consequences. It’s a good lesson anyway, because the world as a whole WILL NOT bend to your every whim. You need to deal with it, make better choices for yourself and learn to not need the approval of every last person in your sphere of influence. The obligations of the university are much like the obligations held under the law. If you want to hold meetings for LGBT individuals, have at it. The university shouldn’t stop you from doing so, as I am understanding they aren’t. But they are under no obligation to co-sign or further what is done with that group. It’s actually incredibly narcissistic to think that the school of 125 years of tradition and the church of over two thousand years of tradition should throw away everything it knows of theology, morality, biology, philosophy, ethics and human nature to make a few people in 2020 (who chose to attend or work at a Catholic university knowing it would clash with their own sense of the aforementioned subjects) feel better. To do so would not only be insane but actually cruel to those the school would be humoring. In fact, the second UST does that should be the last time that anyone serious about a Catholic education should consider going here or donating money here.
“For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man… For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they that consent to them that do them.” Romans 1:22-32
Is this school ashamed of Christ’s teaching?
“For he that shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation: the Son of man also will be ashamed of him, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Mk 8:38
For the record, although this newspaper has published a different comment of mine made at a later time on a different article, this newspaper, belonging to a “Catholic” school, refuses to publish my comment, which merely quoted St. Paul, writing in divinely inspired scripture. Romans 1:22-32.
“For he that shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation: the Son of man also will be ashamed of him, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Mk 8:38