Gay Student Convention Draws 130, Plus Picketers, to Fresno

Vandals burned down the information booth of the gay student organization at Cal State Fresno last year and no one was ever arrested. This holiday weekend, homosexual students here exacted a revenge of sorts by playing host to an annual conference of gays from colleges all over the West.

About 130 students from 15 schools attended and discussed such issues as civil rights and safe sex. Some uninvited visitors--a small group of people in Ku Klux Klan-style robes--circled the campus for awhile Saturday in trucks bearing such signs as “Queers Go Home.”

The 15 or so Klansmen never got very close to the eighth annual convention of Western States Lesbian Gay and Bisexual Students United. But they provided a shocking lesson to students from Los Angeles and San Francisco, where homosexuality has met with growing tolerance in recent years: Outside big cities, gay life can still be tough.

“People who come to this university are mainly from rural areas and small towns. So some are homophobic because they are ignorant of gay and lesbian issues,” said Ivan Vincent, a Fresno student who helped organize the conference. “And it takes them a while to realize we are not just a bunch of fags and dykes who want to take over the world.”

A USC student, who requested anonymity, agreed. “It’s easier to hide at a big place like USC and UCLA in a city like Los Angeles,” he said. “It’s also easier to come out” of the closet at a big-city university.

Most of the young women and men at the three-day meeting said they experienced some hostility after their sexuality became known at school. That is heightened by fear of AIDS and by the conservatism they say prevails on many campuses.

The students acknowledged, however, that being openly gay is easier for them that it was for any previous generation of students. Some of the conference leaders were not even born in 1969, when the gay liberation movement began in New York with a street riot after a police raid on a bar.

Yet, in contrast with older gays, they have never known what it is like to live without the specter of AIDS.

“The generation growing up now takes it for granted we have a lot more freedom. But still there is work to be done,” said Rick Hernandez, chairman of a gay student group at UC Santa Barbara.

The work, he said, includes helping to make a movie for freshman orientation at UC Santa Barbara about what it is like to be a gay student--along with films about blacks and Latinos. At other schools, such as Cal State Fresno, gay activists have focused their efforts on getting an anti-discrimination rule passed by student governments and, as part of a safe-sex campaign, helped get condom vending machines installed in campus bathrooms.

The activists said they will continue to lobby to allow gay couples to live together in housing usually reserved for married graduate students. UC Berkeley recently killed such a proposal.

Gay students who hold positions in the mainstream student governments encouraged others to emulate them. Leigh Kirmsse said she received threats focusing on her homosexuality when she ran for election last year at San Jose State. “That was over quickly and now people want to talk to me about student fees,” said Kirmsse, who represents her school at Cal State trustee meetings.

Despite such optimism, word about the Klan-robed visitors sent a chill through the conference and campus security was increased. Organizers said such a show of hostility was not unexpected--and not entirely unwelcome. After all, one reason for choosing Cal State Fresno as the site of the convention was to highlight what organizers said was prejudice against them.

They cited the booth burning and an unsuccessful attempt last year by the then-president of student government to cut off funding to the small gay student group on campus for “moral reasons.” After the local newspaper published organizers’ telephone numbers in a recent story about the meeting, they received several obscene and threatening calls.

University officials also heard angry complaints.

“We’ve certainly received a number of phone calls from people in the community who have not been very pleased with the prospect of the conference occurring at the university or, for that matter, anywhere in Fresno,” said William Corcoran, Cal State Fresno dean of student affairs. He said he told the callers that the gay group is one of 150 student organizations and is entitled to use campus space.

“It kind of bothers me that many people in the general public lose complete sight of the fact that this university is a community of adults,” Corcoran said. “Out of about 19,000 students, only about 50 are under the age of 18.”

Corcoran also contended that any image of the campus as intolerant is exaggerated. Most students, he said, are pleased to meet different kinds of people.

Scott Vick, the current student body president, said most students are keeping “arm’s distance away from (the conference). They are just unsure what this is all about because we don’t see this kind of thing all that much.”

Many straight students, he said, were laughing at the prospect of a drag show, which was presented in a school auditorium Saturday night to a standing-room crowd of people from the Central Valley area. The extravagant, campy musical by performers from a Fresno nightclub poked ribald fun at the conservatism of this raisin-producing area and raised money for the care of AIDS patients.

Among the speakers at the conference was Robert Gentry, assistant dean of students at UC Irvine and mayor of Laguna Beach. Gentry, who is gay, talked about how difficult his college days were 30 years ago.

Gentry recalled how he tried to talk with a campus psychologist about his homosexuality. “He told me ‘How dare I even broach the subject,’ ” Gentry said.

Other speakers included Matt Coles, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who helped the gay student group at Cal State Fresno fight the funding cutoff; Cleve Jones, director of the Names Project, which created the enormous quilt commemorating those who died of AIDS, and Geni Cowan, an official of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Cowan warned students that life after graduation may be harder because all employers do not tolerate uncloseted gays.

“You may have a tough choice: What’s more important, my civil rights or my career?” Cowan said. However, she said she could not tell any young person how to make that decision.