Gay students form group for U. 'queers'

A new homosexual students organization calling itself QUIP -- Queers Invading Penn -- formed this year to try to "promote queer visibility on campus." "We want to show that there are a lot of queers around and we're not afraid to show it and celebrate it," said second year graduate student and QUIP member John Young. Young said the kiss-in that QUIP staged by the peace symbol on College Green last week is an indication of the kind of actions the group will stage in the future. "Sometimes you feel like you're the only one out there and you're not," said Women's Center employee and QUIP member Gabrielle Clay. Young said the group wants to challenge the University on issues that other minority groups would be hesitant to address because of their funding. According to a statement from the group, QUIP fulfills a need for "direct confrontational action," which other sexual minority groups are not able to do because "they directly or indirectly receive University funds." QUIP's stated aims include liberating queers from all forms of oppression, fighting for domestic partner's benefits -- such as tuition benefits and health insurance -- addressing the lack of active curricular support for queer studies and battling "the continuing de facto discrimination on Locust Walk as long as it remains an enclave of mostly straight, mostly white fraternities," the statement reads. The statement ends with the line "We're here. We're queer. We're fabulous. Get used to it." Before QUIP formed this semester, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Alliance, an undergraduate group, and Lambda Grads, a graduate student group, were the main organizations for homosexual students. Both groups have similar political goals as QUIP, but act in different ways. Specifically, QUIP is different from the mainstream groups in that it uses the term "queer" to refer to homosexuals. By using what has been considered a derogatory term, homosexuals are empowering themselves and "taking the bang out of it," said Young. "I like the term queer because it unites homosexuals much more than the term 'gay,' " Young added.