By Rachel Kossman

Gabe Marquez is your average 21-year-old. Dressed in jeans and a zip-up, the fourth-year mechanical engineering major talks easily in the library about his co-op experiences and the group project he spent almost all day working on. So what sets Gabe apart from many Northeastern students? He’s openly gay.

Though some may see this as a huge distinction, Marquez does not.

“It doesn’t define me, it’s just a part of me,” said Marquez, who was raised in asmall New Jersey town by a Puerto Rican family. “I don’t wear it on my sleeve. I’m not scared to say who I am, but it’s not something I go around and let everyone know. It’s just a part of me.”

Regardless, a majority of the world may see him differently.

The “Campus Climate for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender People: A National Perspective Survey,” conducted by the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, was conducted on 14 college campuses and they received 1,700 survey responses. It found that 51 percent of the gay and lesbian students who responded had at one time concealed their sexual orientation to avoid intimidation on campus.

Northeastern’s campus is no exception. Though students, faculty and staff like Marquez, Mark Douglass and Tasha Henderson would say that as an urban, liberal campus Northeastern is fairly open and tolerant, they also agree that it has a long way to go.

“I expected more,” said Henderson, adviser for Northeastern University’s Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay Alliance (NUBiLAGA), assistant director of student activities and afterHOURS manager. “Northeastern is behind the times and I think that’s sad.

Peter Karpathakis, a co-chair on NUBiLAGA’s executive board, agrees.

“Northeastern’s a pretty liberal school, but at the same time things could be done to make it easier,” he said.

Some faculty members echo similar sentiments.

“There are quite a few students who are out and comfortable but I think that that’s a relatively small subset of students,” said Douglass, a pharmacy professor who heads the student/faculty mentoring program for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning Bouve College of Health Sciences students.

He said he knows Northeastern’s campus is not 100 percent tolerant.

“It was my impression that it is essentially open and tolerated and that people can be themselves, but I find that’s not the case,” Douglass said.

The survey also found that 35 percent of undergraduates identified themselves as closeted.

Henderson said she thinks coming out on campus to anyone is a scary thing, especially when it is to a roommate.

“In high school, certainly people aren’t as accepting, but it’s interesting because when you come to college suddenly you’re in a living situation, suddenly the ramifications are so much higher,” she said. “I do know that Northeastern takes their safety and discrimination very seriously.”

Karpathakis said he thinks NUBiLAGA is a positive resource for Northeastern students, and in talking about his own coming-out experience, it’s clear that the group helped him become confident with his own sexuality.

“When I took the position I didn’t realize how out I needed to be. At first it was a little of a shock that each person I was talking to, whether it was for NUBiLAGA or not, knew that I was gay. That was a little hard to deal with at first,” he said. “Now that I’ve been co-chair for so long, it’s become second nature. It’s nice because in high school there were two parts of me, the part I was in public and the part I was in private. Being an e-board member has forced those two together.”

Marquez said he feels the group is, more than anything, a place of comfort.

“It’s good to know that you’re not alone. To me, that’s one of the bigger things,” he said.

Another side of the story

While standing at the stove cooking, Emily Hollett recalled a story. As she and another girl walked down Huntington Avenue holding hands, a drunk girl began yelling obscenities at them.

“I mean, when you do hold hands in public there’s going to be people who yell mean things at you,” she said.

Though it bothered her, she said “it’s definitely better here than it would be other places.”

Hollett, a freshman psychology major, sees herself as openly out. But just because she feels comfortable holding hands with another girl doesn’t mean everyone else is OK with it.

In a national survey of 496 gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning students under the age of 19 conducted by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), 42 percent did not feel safe in their school because they are GLBTQ. Of those who did feel safe, 87 percent still reported sometimes hearing homophobic remarks.

Though this survey may not reflect sentiments of gay and lesbian students at Northeastern, the numbers are high.

As a freshman, Hollett admits that choosing a college where she could be comfortable with her sexuality was crucial.

“That was definitely something I thought about. When I visited [Northeastern], it just felt like somewhere that was open and accepting and I liked the atmosphere,” said Hollet, who is from a Long Island suburb.

Marquez, on the other hand, did not.

“When I came here something just clicked, but it was very academic, an inner feeling,” he said. “It just so happens I’m in the midst of gay rights. That’s not something I had planned on. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it like that.”

Marquez has several friends who transferred schools, but said he would never think of transferring because of homophobia.

“I’m established, I’m living on my own. I am all grown up, I don’t know if I would have grown up anywhere else,” he said. “I grew up and I grew to understand myself.”