Are city college campuses homophobic?

Are city college campuses homophobic? It does seem the case, with at least half a dozen gay students from degree colleges in the city reportedly being shown the door during the last academic year (2010-11), allegedly because the educational institutions were uncomfortable with their student's alternate sexuality.

In a recent case, a gay student was asked to leave a prestigious engineering college in January 2011, after his fellow students outed him through a social networking site. The student alleged he was beaten up by classmates and the university failed to provide him protection. He is currently scouting for colleges in Bangalore to continue his studies. "I lost two years of my B Tech degree and I will now have to take a fresh admission in another college," said the student, who had performed well in his first and second year examination, scoring over 75 per cent marks.

Students who were shown the door, said that the bigger the brand name of the college, the greater the efforts to suppress the `queer' sexuality. Srinivas (name changed), a student of an engineering college located in Gandipet, dropped out of his course, after he was excluded from all student projects as other students expressed their unease to the management. "My classmates used to tease me and the faculty members were never supportive. I was not able to handle the insult where they socially ostracised me," said the student who has now joined a part-time MBA course.

Those who were forced to leave the institutions, said that it is a crime even to have effeminate personality. "I was outed by a friend as I was effeminate. The college management told me to appear for examinations directly, without attending classes. I moved out," said a student from a private institute, located in Gachibowli. Homosexual students face problems in residential campuses, where they are denied hostel accommodation, said a female student from an engineering college affiliated to Osmania University (OU), who was asked to leave the course in December 2010.

These are not one off cases, as gay rights activists alleged that the city has always been violent towards homosexuals. "During the past five years there were several cases where students were forced to leave their campuses. While some instances were reported, most were hushed up by college managements," said Krishna, director, Suraksha, an organisation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) communities.

An LGBT student group in the city said that while more number of students seems to be coming out of the closet, there is always a risk of being attacked or of even losing out on future options. "There is always a risk of losing your career options, once you declare yourselves gay. You can always sense this partisanship on a campus. This bias can kill your options for higher studies," said Andy Silveira of Prathibimb.

The college managements, however, stated that they do not discriminate on the basis of gender.