Forecasting UCLA: A look at campus climate-Taylor Bazley
Taylor Bazley, a first-year business economics student and member of the Queer Alliance, has tried to interact with different student groups to leave his comfort zone.
Read the rest of the stories about campus climate from Forecasting UCLA
By Kylie Reynolds
April 6, 2011 12:41 a.m.
Rushing for a fraternity this week, Taylor Bazley decided not to mention that he is gay.
The first-year business economics student said he is not acting any differently than he normally would at rush events. He simply would prefer the fraternities get to know him before he is labeled gay, with any stigmas that the label could entail.
“I act straight; I look straight. I don’t act (stereotypically) gay, and that hasn’t come up,” Bazley said. “I get along with a lot of the guys, but I can see the flip-side (about them) when some hate on gay people.”
At times he has felt uncomfortable during the rush process because he said he feels there can be animosity towards gay people in some fraternities, but Bazley said he thinks everybody has felt uncomfortable on campus at one point or another.
Rather than resulting from a lack of diversity, he said the problem comes from a lack of integration between students.
“The university seems to think diversity equals tolerance,” he said. “The campus might look diverse, but if students never interact, it is actually segregated.”
At the Afrikan Student Union admittance weekend, Bazley said he stuck out as the only white student in a group of nearly 200. He said he did not want his race to prevent him from experiencing the weekend.
By attending the weekend, he feels he met a group of students he may never have known if he had not left his comfort zone.
Bazley attributes intolerance of homosexuality to people having never interacted with gay students. He said he rarely sees students who are heterosexual at Queer Alliance events, although attending these events would increase contact between diverse groups.
Although he recognizes students may not always want to experience the unfamiliar, he said it is harder for people to demonize a group if they like someone in it.
“If every gay person just came out, the campus would be more tolerant,” he said. “If the guy in the frat, or the guy on the intramural team, or the guy down the hall came out, people would think “˜I was cool with him before, and he is still the same person now.'”
