As the number of requests boom from seven last fall to 20 this past quarter, the SpeakOUT! panels continue to put a face to the trials of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Mickey Hart, director of Ohio University’s LGBT Center, said he attributes the increase to a core group of professors who regularly request the program and to positive word of mouth throughout the year.
The panels began in the late 1980s when Open Doors began the Speaker’s Bureaus Program, Hart said, adding that the LGBT Center later took over the program. Various groups — including learning communities, classes, residence halls and Greek houses — request the panels.
“(SpeakOUT!) is someplace where people can just go in and have the information presented to them without having to go through specific hoops and jumps to get it,” said Adam Russell, the program’s student coordinator.
Panel members share their coming-out stories and then open the discussion to questions that could range from “legal issues to dating and sex,” said Kate Steven, a graduate student in OU’s College Student Personnel Program and a frequent panelist.
“You get to hear what it is like for LGBT people and what their individual experiences have been like,” Hart said. “You also see it’s not the same for each person, that each person’s coming-out process is different. You also get the sense that it is really a lifelong process: You don’t just come out once and everyone knows this about you.”
Harvey Ballard, a plant biology professor and panelist, brings lifelong experience to the panel. Ballard has been in a 26-year relationship with his partner and is both a foster dad and grandfather.
“I enjoy sharing my past and what has changed since ‘discovering myself’ and embracing who and what I am,” Ballard said. “As an educator, I also think it’s important that students have their boundaries and comfort zone expanded.”
Catherine Cutcher, a women’s and gender studies professor, said this was the result when she requested the SpeakOUT! panel for her Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies class.
“I think the SpeakOUT! panels are a vital part of outreach for the LGBT Center and community in Athens,” Cutcher said. “I found that my students’ minds were opened up by this experience, and their questions were answered honestly and candidly by the panelists.”
Steven said the program fills an educational void, spreading information to those who “have never met, or (don’t) know that they’ve met, an LGBT person before.”
“In general, I don’t feel like there is enough formal education on diversity in high school or in university settings, be it people of different socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender identity or other types,” Steven said. “I think the SpeakOUT! program is a wonderful asset to have at OU, but I wish more people were able to experience it.”
Russell said he hopes that SpeakOUT! will become a commonplace program at the university. Although he does not foresee the numbers continuing to grow at the same pace they did for fall quarter, Hart said he hopes the other quarters’ numbers increase similarly.
eb104010@ohiou.edu
