A good starting place for me is the AMA's position on this issue. (from their website)
"The AMA has instituted a policy to advocate equality for GLBT physicians and patients. Related policy supports the rights of GLBT medical students and residents to form groups and meet on campus, supports legislative and other efforts to allow same- or opposite sex-partner co-adoption, and encourages physician practices, hospitals, medical schools and clinics to broaden all nondiscrimination statements to include sexual orientation, sex or gender identity."
The AMA's message is clear. But it gets lost b/c so many people have been indoctrinated on this issue. They can't see how discriminatory their attitudes are. They can't even see that denying gay and lesbians their rights, like access to health care, the right to adopt a child, etc. is the moral equivalent of denying those rights to Persons of Color or Jews or Irish people or any other minority. Those people have been told that being gay is "different" being a member of another minority. It's not the same, it's a choice, it's a lifestyle, it's a sin, it's a political agenda.
I don't have an agenda. I don't have a lifestyle. I'm just another med student, and I don't want to be told on my own campus that I'm not welcome. I was born this way, just like every other GLBT person. The scientific research shows this. But people don't read it. Science has proven again and again that being gay is a biological process, but science can only go so far.
Some people will never believe the research, but then again, some people think evolution is a theory that has no hard evidence to verify its validity.
I'm sorry if I pissed people off. But
it's just not okay to say that a certain minority makes you nauseous. It actually really hurts, makes me feel like crap, and I'm sick of hearing it. I grew up in Alabama, in a Christian household. When I came out at age 21, it was really hard for my parents to accept me, they thought being gay was a horrible sin. But eventually, they realized that it wasn't. They saw that I may be different, but different is okay. That I just fell in love with a man, and not a woman.
A lot of people still don't get that. They feel like its perfectly fine to hold onto their beliefs that gay people are messed up, or sinners or somehow not as good. Sometimes, I'm weary of dealing with this attitude, but I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep talking to people, trying to educate them - I know that a lot of people have never had a gay friend or a transgender friend. So how would they even know?
They fact is that gay people are everywhere - in your church, in the military, in your school, in your family -Republicans and Democrats, Jews and Muslims and Christians. You have to understand, a lot of gays don't say anything b/c when we do - we get told to go away, we get told to stop being so gay, or loud. We get told "that's sick" or "it makes me nauseous", or that "you have an agenda." Just look at this thread. So a lot of people just never tell anyone, even if they are married, even if they have kids. The judgment and harassment are so intense that they just keep their mouths shut.
But that's changing. I hope.
As I said in the OP, thanks to everyone on SDN who helped make Touro the gay-welcoming, diversity embracing school that it is. Does your med school need a make-over next?
