JStone
01-25-2009, 12:50 PM
I watched “Equality U” a couple weeks ago and thought it was very well done. I think these individuals are extremely brave in what they are setting out to do.
Before I watched this documentary I was talking with someone about my experience going to Nyack College. Shortly before graduating I had confided in a friend about how I was gay. She went behind my back and outed me which resulted in my last semester having to go to counseling once a week, have a spiritual mentor, and attend a meeting with a counselor and a woman who left the homosexual lifestyle. It was a really tough time. I lost almost all of my friends at school because I was forced to come out. I hated having to go through all these mandatory sessions. On top of it all, before I graduated, I had to write like a 10 page paper about homosexuality. It was ridiculous. I went to the dean, not even mentioning the reason why I and to go to counseling, and told him that I didn’t feel as though my situation was handled properly and that I would not write the paper. I got out of it and that was the last I saw of Nyack College.
Now, a few years later, I look back on my experience and am almost grateful. I look at the circumstances that some of the individuals featured in “Equality U” have had to face at their schools and realize that it could have been worse. At the time I felt like I was maybe one of a few people that were gay on campus. I recently learned that there were so many more than I could have imagined, many of which ended up dropping out and never returning to school. It saddens me that we pay to be at a college which we think is the best for us, that gives us every opportunity under the sun, yet it strips it away as we discriminated against and made to feel as though we are dirty and unworthy.
Thank you for this documentary and for all the individuals who push to have this dialogue with these colleges and universities. It’s so important. It rehashed these memories at being at Nyack and how this situation, among some others that followed, really messed my path up. Now I’ve made peace and am ready to move forward.
I’m ready to finally begin my life.
Before I watched this documentary I was talking with someone about my experience going to Nyack College. Shortly before graduating I had confided in a friend about how I was gay. She went behind my back and outed me which resulted in my last semester having to go to counseling once a week, have a spiritual mentor, and attend a meeting with a counselor and a woman who left the homosexual lifestyle. It was a really tough time. I lost almost all of my friends at school because I was forced to come out. I hated having to go through all these mandatory sessions. On top of it all, before I graduated, I had to write like a 10 page paper about homosexuality. It was ridiculous. I went to the dean, not even mentioning the reason why I and to go to counseling, and told him that I didn’t feel as though my situation was handled properly and that I would not write the paper. I got out of it and that was the last I saw of Nyack College.
Now, a few years later, I look back on my experience and am almost grateful. I look at the circumstances that some of the individuals featured in “Equality U” have had to face at their schools and realize that it could have been worse. At the time I felt like I was maybe one of a few people that were gay on campus. I recently learned that there were so many more than I could have imagined, many of which ended up dropping out and never returning to school. It saddens me that we pay to be at a college which we think is the best for us, that gives us every opportunity under the sun, yet it strips it away as we discriminated against and made to feel as though we are dirty and unworthy.
Thank you for this documentary and for all the individuals who push to have this dialogue with these colleges and universities. It’s so important. It rehashed these memories at being at Nyack and how this situation, among some others that followed, really messed my path up. Now I’ve made peace and am ready to move forward.
I’m ready to finally begin my life.