opinion & features

For some students, moving on to university can seem like the light at the front of a very deep, very dark closet.  It can be a different story once students reach university.  Setting foot on campus allows many students the chance for a more comfortable step out.

“It is a completely different environment from high school,” says Brett Jones-Melbourne, a second-year student at the University of Winnipeg.  Jones-Melbourne, 19, is still in the process of coming out, as most LGBT* university students are. He told his mother he was gay at 16, but his father won’t know until mid-university “because he’s paying for half of it,” Jones-Melbourne explains. 

“I never spoke a word about being gay in high school, mostly because I just didn’t want to be labelled as ‘that gay kid’,” he says. “I didn’t want it to define myself, because I’m more than just gay. And in high school, that’s all I would have been.”

Lia Zarrillo, a theatre major at the university, resisted being classified solely by her sexuality. She started the “long process” of coming out in the ninth grade, a period she describes as lasting until the end of Grade 11. “It was hard, and it sucked for a long time,” Zarrillo says. “I went to a school in North Kildonan, where there were no gay people. It was literally just straight people. Awesome people,  super-cool people, but very, very heteronormative.”

Like Jones-Melbourne, she didn’t want her sexuality to take away from the full high-school experience. Involved in everything from the theatre to sports to student council, being gay “never really held me back from any of that,” says Zarrillo, now 20. Coming to an open-minded campus like the University of Winnipeg let her continue to be open about her sexuality without being defined by it. 

“I’ve always been very proud of who I am, and I’m proud to be gay and I’m proud to be out and open with my sexuality and everything, but it’s never been the most interesting thing about me no matter where I go,” she says. “That’s what’s cool about this campus … I’ve never felt that’s what defines me in the eyes of the people who are around me.”

Ryan Friesen, another theatre student, agrees. “It’s not the first thing I want people to know about me,” he says. He likens understanding his sexuality as a facet of his personality to understanding how to act a character. Just like performing a character with only one trait is ineffective, relying on one aspect of a person to define them doesn’t work well either. “It’s made me accepting of others, and helps me to understand yes, I’m gay, but that’s not all I have to offer or that I bring.”

For some students, university is the first place they’ve been able to connect with a supportive LGBT* community, particularly of their own generation. The University of Winnipeg is home to an LGBT* centre that provides a support system for students coming out. 

“It’s kind of like a constant process of coming out,” 19-year-old Katherine Ballard, a member of the University of Winnipeg’s Centre, says of the struggle for identity people face every day. She first came out to her family in the summer after Grade 11, before going back for Grade 12 where a ‘high school’ kind of mindset left people gossiping about her sexuality. “Nobody talked bad to my face or anything, but I knew people were talking about me because people who I hadn’t talked to knew.”

Ballard sees that the improvement from high school to university has more to do with the people she’s connected with in this new environment. “My strongest friends are around here in the centre,” she says, “so I can kind of choose who I associate with. In high school you’re all just kind of lumped in together.”

Jennifer Barbosa, who at 17 is a student at the University of Winnipeg Collegiate, was reluctant to join the LGBT* Centre. She struggled initially with being open about her sexuality with a group of people she didn’t know, but has since become much more involved with the community. “I haven’t told anyone else aside from my friends, my two sisters and my mom. I’m still working on that,” she says about her sexuality. “My mom, she’s understanding and she’s supportive, but she doesn’t fully get what it means to be gay.”

Barbosa turned to the LGBT* centre to make sure resources were available for incoming students to the Collegiate “who were put in the same shoes” as her – nervous and openly gay. “I feel like coming to this school made it easier for me. I want that to be available to newcoming students,” says Barbosa, who now runs the collegiate’s gay-straight alliance.

For 19-year-old Kevin Tan, coming out to his family seemed like an uphill battle, especially combating his mother’s belief that all gay Filipino males are makeup wearing cross-dressers. Connecting to the gay community and being honest about his sexuality made an enormous difference in his life. “All of my friends were like, ‘Everything’s changed with you. You’re so much happier, you’re not into yourself anymore, you’re just out there’.” 

Tan and his friends coined the term “living a rainbow kind of life,” partially in reference to the LGBT* rainbow flag, to represent an open life where “everything is good and happy. I’m going to get that tattooed on my body,” he says.

While everyone’s coming out stories are different, the process is something every queer individual will go through – and continue to go through for the rest of their life. Does it get easier after that first step out of the closet? Yes, say most youth, and being part of an environment open to the LGBT* community helps. Coming out and being out at the University of Winnipeg gives youth a chance be honest about a part of their personality. Taking that first step out, no matter how intimidating, is all you can do, says Zarrillo.

“When I did come out, I just took a coat from the closet. It was a little chilly out there … I needed to bundle up a little bit, but friends were awesome, family was awesome, everyone was really cool, and it was fine.”