Tommy Self sat in his room putting a lining in his coat when his unknowing roommate asked him if he was a faggot.

Self, a junior in psychology from Joliet, remembers his experience with discrimination when he came out a month after he arrived to SIUC and how it affected him.

I was called a faggot I don’t know how many times, he said. I was also called queer, ac/dc, fence sitter, weirdo, freak, confused and on more than one occasion [I was told] I was going to hell.

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The SIUC Counseling Center aids those like Self by offering a Safe Zone program to all faculty, staff and graduate students who wish to declare their office bias free.

Rosemary Simmons introduced the Safe Zone program to a supportive SIUC campus in spring 1994, mimicking a program offered at Ball State University. She also created an additional mandatory two-hour training that would allow faculty, staff and graduate students to obtain pink triangle Safe Zone stickers for their office doors.

The required sensitivity training teaches participants in the program how to effectively interact with students who are struggling with their sexual identities, how to help students become comfortable with homosexuality and also provides sample case scenarios to prepare participants for various situations.

The pink triangle featured in the Safe Zone emblem dates back to World War II when an estimated 15,000 homosexuals were branded with pink triangles and exiled to concentration camps. When allied troops arrived to set those in persecution free, gays were relocated to prisons rather than rescued.

Simmons said the reason for bringing the Safe Zone program to campus was she believed that gays, lesbians and bisexuals continue to be an oppressed group with minimal support.

Usually you can see if people are supportive of ethnic oppression, she said, but you can’t tell just by looking at someone if they were supportive of gays, lesbians or bisexuals.

The triangle is a message to gay, lesbian and bisexual students and colleagues that anyone displaying the symbol on their office door is one who will be understanding, supportive and trustworthy and are willing to help or give advice.

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The number of gay, lesbian and bisexual SIUC students who would be assisted b the Safe Zone program is unknown, but in a pioneering study in 1948 by researcher Alfred Kinsey, statistics found that one in 10 people are homosexual. As a result of SIUC’s fall 1997 enrollment figure of 21,908, Safe Zones may offer a sense of acceptance and liberation to an estimated 2,191 SIUC students students like Self who have experienced forms of discrimination.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force surveyed more than 2,000 homosexual respondents and found 90 percent had experienced some form of victimization because of their sexual orientation.

The Safe Zone program, with 78 campus offices participating, provides protection from discrimination upon entering University doors adorned with pink triangles. The program even allows some incoming students to feel welcome.

Some students who were looking at the SIUC campus compared to other schools saw the pink triangle, Simmons said. They were persuaded to attend this university because they thought this was an affirmative campus.

Kendra Sweezey, co-chairwoman of the Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Friends, also supports Safe Zone but wishes more people were involved.

I kinda wish that wherever I go I could feel accepted, she said. But I realize that it’s not always possible because people because haven’t had the opportunity to understand gays and lesbians.

If more people went through the training, there would be more safe havens for people on the campus.

Factoid:Safe Zone training will be 8 to 10 p.m. March 2 at the SIUC Counseling Center. For more information, contact Rosemary Simmons at 453-5371 or [email protected].