Online conversations for closeted students

Most gay students would probably agree that coming out is hard.

But at Penn, LGBT officials hope to make it a bit easier.

This evening, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center will kick off Qspace, an online chat room open twice a week to the entire Penn community.

Open and free to the public, the chat room is geared toward Penn students, faculty and staff who are closeted or questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Participants will be encouraged, though not required, to maintain their anonymity through user names.

Gay graduate students using such anonymous user names will monitor the chat room and provide chat room participants with the support and information they may be looking for.

"The least-served [LGBT] population at Penn are the closeted and the questioning students," said Penn alumna Kathy Totoki, who is a researcher at the School of Medicine and who will work as one of the moderators of the chat room.

"This is one of the ways we thought we could serve them," she said.

Jennifer Kaminski, an intern at the LGBT center, is the coordinator for the site, which is funded both by the center and by a grant from the David Bohnett Foundation, a California-based organization dedicated to promoting social activism.

Kaminski said that Qspace is meant to let "students know that someone has had a similar experience" and to support them in the coming-out process.

College junior Cynthia Wright, the co-chairwoman of the Queer Student Alliance, celebrated the program's potential to do just that.

She said that when she went through the coming-out process, it was difficult for her because the LGBT community at Penn was not visible.

"If Qspace had existed and I had known about it, it would have been great for me," she said. "It would have made me so much more comfortable coming out."

She added that Qspace will help in-the-closet students view the LGBT community as respected and active at Penn.

The chat room can be accessed by registering with an e-mail address and creating a user ID.

For the purpose of anonymity, the e-mail address does not have to be a Penn e-mail address, and the user ID can be a false name.

Qspace initially developed out of a similar social network that was formerly used once a semester by Penn's LGBT community to support its members, said Totoki.

"I am glad that it is finally something that will be done on a regular basis," she said.

College junior and chairman of the Lambda Alliance Kevin Rurak echoed these praises.

"It is necessary and important for students to have an anonymous space to discuss their sexuality," said Rurak, who also came out of the closet while at Penn.

"When I was a freshman, I didn't have anyone to talk to who had gone through it before. I didn't have people to tell me it was normal. So it took me a lot longer to come out," he said.

Qspace will be live on Mondays from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. and Wednesdays from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

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