Protecting the bubble

This piece is only one of several opinion pieces on the subject of homophobia appearing in this paper today. Today is only one of the many days chock-full of events dedicated to queer causes, conversations, and celebrations as part of Queer Awareness Month. Queer Awareness Month is only one of seven undergraduate groups for queer students and their allies. And queer students and their allies seem to be in as great a number here as just about anywhere else.

So when I say we live in a bubble, I say it with the fondness and pride that so many of us feel for our vibrant campus life. It’s so wonderfully easy to get wrapped up in that feeling—that a safe space has been carved out in the middle of a fast-paced city for our academic and social growth. Though we complain that we sometimes get stuck in the bubble, we nonetheless cherish that feeling of safety and community that it is meant to provide.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been shocked and saddened by several tragic reminders of the toll homophobia can take on those without the comfort of a bubble. Our hearts are heavy at the loss of several young men to suicides triggered by harassment and a string of disturbing hate crimes. And, of course, those are just the ones making the headlines.

It can be comforting to distance our community from such devastating events. And yet, we must remember that these heartbreaking events are not just happening in rural towns. They are happening on college campuses. They are happening in New York City.

Bubbles are fragile. As we search for ways to move forward, the first thing to do is to make sure we are creating and maintaining safe spaces on our own campus.

Our bubble has not been without incidents of homophobic bias, as minor as they may seem in comparison to these recent tragedies. From slur words left on students’ doors to bullying and name-calling to the vandalism of last year’s Queer Awareness Month balloon arch, it is a sad fact that not all spaces on campus can be assumed to be safe ones for queer students. No one claims that these instances should define how we view the Columbia community. But they demonstrate the importance of the explicit establishment of places that embrace queer students and their allies.

Everyone Allied Against Homophobia recently launched our annual Safe Space Campaign, distributing pink “safe space” fliers to every Barnard and Columbia dorm room. The fliers, which are meant for display in dorm windows, say, “My room is a safe space for LGBTQ students and their allies.”

Though we encourage all students to consider posting a flier in their rooms, by no means do we suggest that a pink piece of paper automatically makes a room safe, nor do we imply that a room cannot be safe without one. Rather, we are seeking to provide students with a way to actively demonstrate their commitment to the support of Columbia’s queer community. We hope the conversation generated by the fliers will inspire students to think about additional ways to create safe spaces—ones that embrace all expressions of sexual and gender identity, use inclusive language, work to combat heteronormativity, and do not tolerate harassment, discrimination, or aggression.

Most of all, though, we hope that students—and let us not forget that not all students are at a point of comfort with their sexuality or gender identities—will see scores of pink windows when they walk around campus and feel assured that Columbians are doing their parts to make our bubble stronger.

The six young people whose lives have been lost in the past few weeks were killed by unkindness, by intolerance—by words. We hope that even one Columbia student is able to see pink in the window of a peer and take comfort in different words: My room is a safe space.

We cannot take our bubble for granted, and we must do everything we can to make it as inclusive and supportive as it can be. For some, it is literally a lifesaver.

The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in film studies. He is the president of Everyone Allied Against Homophobia and is on the planning committee for Queer Awareness Month.