Molly Tumanic

When Steve Trepte, a 2001 graduate of UW-Eau Claire, became open with his homosexuality to his family two years ago, his dad told him to go back “in the closet” and didn’t talk to him for two months. Even after two months, his father didn’t want to touch on the subject of sexuality again.

It wasn’t until just more than a month ago that Trepte was finally able to have an accepting conversation with his father about his lifestyle.

“It is very intimidating to come out, especially to your parents, but parents are parents and they love their children,” Trepte said on the campus mall Friday night at the university’s third annual Coming Out Rally.

Students, faculty and staff used the open mic format to share coming out stories, joke and discuss what Eau Claire’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Student Association has to offer.

Bob Nowlan, an openly gay English professor, opened the rally saying he believes there is a lot that needs to be done before people will treat LGBTs the same as heterosexuals.

He read comments by Arizona clinical psychologist Dorothy Riddle, who developed a homophobia scale. People who look at LGBTs with repulsion, pity, tolerance and acceptance are all homophobic at different levels, according to Riddle’s theory.

The first two views are easy to understand as homophobia. If heterosexuals look at LGBTs with repulsion or pity, the heterosexuals are feeling superior, Nowlan explained.

Nowlan encounters those reactions from students and others on campus on a regular basis, he said.

The next level of homophobia, tolerance, is saying a person can put up with a LGBT person, but cannot regard them as an equal, Nowlan said.

He has had students write on their first-day-of-class-information-cards that it is good that he is proud of his homosexuality, but that they don’t want to hear about it in the classroom.

That is an example of tolerance, Nowlan said.

The final stage of homophobia, according to Riddle, is acceptance. Although it doesn’t sound like homophobia, Nowlan said it is because it implies that there is something that needs to be accepted.

Nowlan would like to see UW-Eau Claire students, faculty and staff reach the point where they are excited and interested in learning about LGBTs.