Dear St. Thomas,

My name is Mia Laube. I’m a Dean’s List Student, a former member of your women’s basketball team and the director of your student news organization.

I’m also gay.

I know that, despite being a Catholic institution, you are welcoming of me, for the most part. But you are not affirming. You do not celebrate the queer community.

I didn’t expect to be celebrated here, but I also didn’t expect to wake up one day and realize I was attracted to other women. Coming out to you, St. Thomas, is like coming out to my family. You are my family, and I love it here. I love the people. That’s why I want to make this place better.

I never thought I would come out to my college basketball teammates, but I had a teammate who was openly gay when I arrived in fall 2018. That was encouraging to me, but it was not smooth sailing from there.

Some days, I had to shrug off hurtful words and brave situations where I felt I didn’t belong. I hid my body in the locker room and tried my best to respect personal boundaries in a contact sport, even if nobody else had to think about that. Close friends would let me know that so-and-so had spoken behind my back.

Other days, I felt love I never expected. When I had a breakup right before practice, head coach Ruth Sinn acknowledged my strength and supported me in full that day. Teammates saw my emotional state during warmups, a time during which I was generally cheerful, and voiced their support for me across the gym. I came out nonchalantly before a bus ride to assistant coach Brian Silk, and he didn’t bat an eye.

I want you to know that queer student-athletes experience college very differently from others, and that most will never tell you that. I talked with Senior Associate Athletic Director Megan Jacobson about queer athletes at St. Thomas, and she shared her experience with me:

“A student athlete has not knocked on my door and said, hey, let’s talk about (queer issues). That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, either.”

I was pleased to hear that the athletics department and NCAA Division III conduct trainings specific to the queer experience, and have programs such as St. Thomas’ Athletics Alliance 4 Change and NCAA Division III’s One Team, and I hope those efforts expand and intensify.

More can be done for the student-athlete who will never speak out because they are afraid.

I never imagined myself as director of TommieMedia until I received encouragement from my favorite professor. That was encouraging to me, but it was not smooth sailing from there.

I was thrilled to be the primary editor on an LGBTQ+ piece last semester, but I didn’t prepare for the hate that came back. Unkind messages outweighed the kind, as they often do, and I had to read proof-texted Bible verses and mean-spirited comments that ultimately did nothing except put down well-intentioned, 20-year-old student journalists.

I spoke with KARE 11 reporter and anchor Jana Shortal about being a queer person in the news industry.

“I will never be a main anchor on a TV station looking like the way I do,” Shortal told me. “For as much notoriety as Great Big Story and the Today Show and that stuff came, I think it was an industry patting itself on the back for a first, which is great, but also really f—— sad. I think I’ve probably reached my limit, in my opinion.”

Children grow up with no limits in mind. I came to St. Thomas with no limits in mind. Glass ceilings are invisible.

More can be done for the journalism major who will never speak out because they are afraid of the barriers to doing what they are passionate about.

I never imagined myself excelling in theology classes at a Catholic university, something I was nervous about when deciding to come here. I come from a majority Lutheran family, and I have had some negative experiences with the Catholic church in the past. I didn’t want to hold those who practiced the Catholic faith to others’ mistakes, so I came in with an open mind.

Then, I felt the need to speak for the entire queer community, which I’m not capable of doing, when I was in a theology class and a privileged individual insisted that there are only two genders, and another said that queer voices in theology are too over-the-top.

Then, I shook with rage when my roommate came home one day and handed me a pamphlet that stated, “In Kelly Wilson we have someone who is supposed to be teaching the Catholic faith. Instead she contradicts Catholicism by proudly flaunting before her students and the public her lesbian way of life.”

I asked professor Wilson about this incident, and she said, “It was a reminder that people like this are attempting to make life really horrible for people like us, and that not everybody is surrounded by people that love them. I could have had a parent that would be like him. I could have had to come out to an uncle or a grandpa that thinks like him.”

Wilson said she has been impressed with St. Thomas leadership, but added that the university could set its sights even higher.

“I’d love it if St Thomas was a cutting edge Catholic university that is being pointed to by other Catholic universities in the United States in its support for the queer community,” Wilson said. “I don’t think it’s something that we can’t attain… not just an accepting place, but a queer-affirming Catholic university where people aren’t just safe and not getting fired, but are actually celebrated.”

I know that those who go out of their way to harm others within the Catholic sphere are the minority, but as long as they exist and as long as St. Thomas embodies Catholic social teaching, speaking out on a case-by-case basis is not enough. The Vatican, which rules on Catholic social teaching for churches worldwide, recently delivered a disappointing blow by declaring that the Catholic Church won’t bless same-sex civil unions since God “cannot bless sin.” The Vatican’s statements continue to use harmful language such as “intrinsically disordered.”

More can be done for the student who embodies St. Thomas’ positive values but will never speak out because they are afraid.

I am extremely proud of my academic success in spite of the challenges of young adulthood and the COVID-19 pandemic. I know not every student has been able to get over those barriers, especially when it comes to gender and sexuality.

I spoke with Counseling and Psychological Services psychologist GiGi Giordano and professor Laura Zebuhr, who both saw the need for more queer representation on campus.

“Some of the things that I’ve heard is, when incidents like (Wilson’s) happen, is that support is nice and that many students and faculty and staff wish for a more robust, direct response, and a faster response,” Giordano said.

Both Giordano and Zebuhr talked about the need for queer visibility in things like a center specifically for queer members of the St. Thomas community or an administrative role to represent queer students, faculty and staff. University curriculum could elevate more queer voices, offerings could include more queer-focused courses, spaces and groups and people on campus could be more welcoming to gender non-conforming individuals.

CAPS, Student Diversity and Inclusion Services and the university as a whole have made strides in the right direction. Fast strides, too. However, I will keep saying it over and over until my voice runs out: More can be done. More should be done.

Giordano wants St. Thomas to help queer students not only survive, but thrive.

“We’re not looking for tolerance,” Giordano said, “we are looking for folks to really celebrate what our LGBTQ+ student population gives to our campus, and what would be missing if we didn’t have this population, if we didn’t have these students.”

More can be done for the student who loves St. Thomas but will never speak out because they are afraid.

To my fellow queer students, faculty and staff, have hope. Zebuhr and Shortal shared wisdom with me when I talked to them, and I would like to share it with you.

To students:

“I’m not sure if a college-age me would have been able to hear this advice,” Zebuhr said. “You’re always imagining the worst case scenarios, and those are not going to happen. It’s not that nothing bad is going to happen, but the things you’re imagining are not going to happen. It’s going to be far better than you thought it would be.”

To the community:

“Unless we come out as we are,” Shortal said, “we have to show them that they’re your daughters, and sons, and neighbors, and we go to your church… we have to come out over and over and over… and there’s nothing wrong with us.”

I write this letter to you, St. Thomas, the place I love, asking that you do better for me. I am using my platform in TommieMedia, my white privilege, my straight-passing privilege, my cisgender privilege and the confidence my parents instilled in me to ask that you do better for other queer people, for queer people of color, for queer Tommies.

I don’t want an apology for the things I’ve been through. I want change.

Don’t just tolerate, don’t just affirm.

Celebrate students like me.

Sincerely,
Mia Laube

Mia Laube can be reached at mia.laube@stthomas.edu.