10 things (LGBTQA style)

[Note: Reply and add your own ideas to the list!]

Wow, so freshman orientation starts in less than 2 weeks! I remember that crazy-hot week like it was yesterday. If you're an incoming student, and you are anything like me, you're really excited, super nervous and generally unsure of what college is "really" like.

So, I don't even pretend to have college figured out (just ask my Physics 54L professor), but I wanted to come up with a short list of the things that I wish I would have known as an incoming student and lesbian woman. (I'm not sure I would have even listened to this at the time, but it would have helped.)

10 things I wish I would have known coming to Duke as a freshwoman (LGBTQA style):

10. Being out on campus from the very beginning might have been a lot easier (than coming out two years later).

9. Going to the LGBT Center does not automatically define or label you one way or the other. Going to the LGBT Center means you are going to the LGBT Center.

8. People in college are generally more liberal and accepting than the people back home.

7. Taking a LGBTQ-studies class won’t help you find a date (well, it didn’t help this author at any rate), but it can help you feel more comfortable about talking about sexuality in general. The same would go for a Women's Studies or Sexuality course. (The class is Psych 143S: "Clincal Issues in LGBTQ" taught in the spring, in case you're interested!)

6. Going to CAPS to talk about being LGBT might just be one of the best decisions you make.

5. The North Carolina LGBT Pride march happens off of Duke's East campus September 25th.

4. Straight allies can be just as active in the LGBT Center as those who identify as queer (sometimes more active!).

3. The world doesn't explode when you walk through the Center doors, and black holes don't suddenly appear. Also (this refers to me, maybe not the reader), you're really not that interesting, so crowds of people aren't watching you enter either.

2. Get to know Janie Long and Peg Helminski.

1. Coming out on Facebook is a great decision if you’re up for it. Just block your Aunt/Uncle/Cousin/Grandmother/other family-you’re-not-out-to-yet, and tell them college got “too hard” to keep up with Facebook. (College life and home life intersect in a weird way on the internet sometimes.)

And... the one thing I wouldn't have bothered to tell myself, because I know I had to learn this on my own, and in my own way:

0. No one here (who is anybody) really cares.
About, well, you know.