Coming from a fairly conservative upbringing in a fairly conservative town with a fairly conservative high school, college seemed like paradise. More freedom from the parental units, more choice in which classes I wanted to take and at what times, and most importantly a completely new social pool in which to meet people. Along with all of that came the feeling of unfamiliarity and the not so unexpected question leftover from my high school days: Will these people care that I'm gay?

This apprehension was understandable. I was leaving my relatively comfortable zone of high school and with it my circle of friends and had no idea what to really expect from the new people at this college and the social atmosphere there. I had always heard that the social scene in college was more liberal and diverse, but how true that was in reality was my concern.

It's surprising how little many people know about LGBT issues and people in general

I'm now in my third semester at American River College here in California, and I'm happy to say that 95% of the time, my being out in college hasn't been an issue at all. Most of the time, it's really a non-issue completely. People generally don't ask if they don't really know me, and I don't force it on them. In the relatively few times it has come up (such as sitting on the gay panel in my human sexuality class or delivering a speech decrying the gay marriage ban amendment in my public speaking class), the reaction has almost always been positive.

The very few negative reactions have mostly consisted of people who didn't want to hear what I had to say in the aforementioned classes or shot dirty looks at me in the cafeteria for talking about my boyfriend within earshot. Gasp! How dare I talk about my boyfriend in the presence of that couple at the other table who seems to be having dry sex in their seats! That would just be offensive!

On a side note, most colleges have the opportunity to sit on "panels" such as the one I mentioned above. These are often informal interviews of a group of LGBT identifying students by a class looking at related issues. I highly recommend taking this opportunity if you ever have it, as you tend to learn a lot about yourself and have the opportunity to educate others as well. It's surprising how little many people know about LGBT issues and people in general, and even more important the misconceptions they tend to have. These panels are an awesome chance to get more people informed, and more often than not the people in the class are much more open-minded and friendly after the experience.

But I digress. Outside of my personal college experience, those that I have talked to about this seem to have the same general consensus. Granted, it can differ from college to college (i.e. religious colleges can be less accepting while colleges in very gay-friendly areas may be moreso), but it tends to be rather similar across the board.

All in all, the college experience tends to lend itself very well to being out in the community. The more liberal and diverse social atmosphere seems to get those that would usually be more vocally disagreeable to at the very least shut their mouths for the time being, if not get a little more open minded.

The third and final part of this series on "Being Out" is titled "Being Out in the Workplace" by Charles Winters.