If there's a school in the south that woulda been supportive of an openly gay student, it's UT, but I never made it happen by choice. As socially conservative as campus can sometimes be, the city is the liberal capital of TX and huge flocks of gay residents roam around.
Our school has a large but unorganized gay student organization but it's occupied by large numbers of really open and imo obnoxious gay guys that made the group very uninviting for someone like me who would have preferred something smaller, quieter and not so flamboyant. So I never even bothered to involve myself .
In the organizations I did involve myself in, I have actually witness some slight but subtle homophobia and it was pretty unfortunate. In one of the club sports I was involved in, there was a guy who quit halfway through the semester because he could no longer tolerate the subtle but obvious mockery. To this day I wish i could have been there for him more and been more supportive but I didn't realize the magnitude of everything until afterwards when people discussed it. After he left, I never really heard from him again but we did send a few back and forth messages. I apologized on behalf of the group and said I wish he hadn't quit. He replied by saying it had to be done but not to worry cuz he's always thought I was really nice to him.
As far as my fraternity experience goes however, we're actually really tolerant and we're not really that big so maybe that's why. Theres 1 or 2 guys who are just...well pretty "gay" but I dont think they are and in any case, they're not out and are so damn funny/fun to be around, nobody gives them sh*t. The only gay insecurity I really had was during rush and my pledge semester. There was 1 openly gay guy who rushed with me but they didn't take him but it was only because he wouldn't really talk. One of the funniest moments that happened to me was during pledge initiation when they asked me who here I would hook up with. LOL I easily told the truth but masked it in humor.
I suppose I never made the choice to out myself to any single friend here because I've already become so accustomed to living a closeted life. it's one I'm used to, one I know what to expect from and it hasn't been bad at all if you disregard the occasional loneliness and non-existant dating life. Ok, well those two things sometimes made it real bad but all things considered, I was happy. I enjoyed chatting about girls and stuff but I suppose it would have been really nice too to opinionate on a hot guy or something like that. I've realized these past few days in GA chat the I have quite the loud opinions too LOL. The sneaking around behind everyone's back to have a quick shag with another guy was actually pretty thrilling, the FEW times I did that (honestly). But eventually I decided that it was too much to not have any sort of social outlet so I managed to make 1 or 2 acquaintances that knew of my preferences. Through them, I met the first guy I eventually ended up dating for over a year.
These days I'm beginning to open up more and am making new gay acquaintances. It's still uncomfortable because I'm really not used to being in the presence of someone who knows about me but I'm learning to relax. I'm even actively pursing a dating life which is exciting but at the same time disappointing because there are far more guys willing to just hook up than date and I'm not really into that anymore........well, maybe if he's frat or ummm Tim Tebow .......or Mr 3x3 (*wink* Auel and Merlin). Any of these 3 and I'm up for another kungpaoing LOL.
******I'm sorry for writing so much****