Editor’s note: This is the first part of a three part series on homosexual students at NIU. In this installment a gay woman talks about becoming aware of her sexual orientation.

They are a silent but populous minority. They, like the majority of NIU students, have to get up in the morning and go to class, stand in financial aid lines and fret over grades. They are also lesbians.

No one can express their experiences better than they can themselves. Here is a glimpse into the mind of one of those women, in her own words.

Lisa

I had a friend who told me that if you find someone you love and care about them, how can that be wrong?

I think I was born gay. I don’t know if it’s genetic, but I just feel that you don’t have a choice: you either are or you aren’t. I don’t think it’s based on having a bad experience with the opposite sex or how you were brought up has anything to do with it. My father was never bad to me in a way to make me hate men. I just felt the other way.

I first realized I was gay in about my senior year of high school. But I felt different from the beginning. In sixth grade I always had crushes on female teachers. I was really concerned that I might be a lesbian and I was worried because it’s such a taboo.

When I was in eighth grade I was really worried that I might be gay and I read in a medical book that young people go through stages of liking members of the same sex and it doesn’t necessarily mean they are gay. I was really relieved at that point and thought there still was hope that I would get over it. I thought, ‘It’ll pass, it’ll pass.’

But in high school when I still had these feelings, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to them. I tried to follow along with the norm. I think you get so brainwashed with society’s way of thinking that you deny your own feelings, especially when you’re young.

I had a boyfriend briefly because it was the thing to do. All my friends talked about their boyfriends but I never felt the same way about mine. It just didn’t make my day to have guys ask me out. I was more interested in my art teacher and hanging around her.

I didn’t realize how wrong it was for me to be with a guy until I was with a woman. It clicked. I felt more comfortable, I didn’t feel like I was being forced to do anything. Not that I felt forced into anything with my boyfriend. I just didn’t feel comfortable, or natural. I was relieved when I finally decided that this was the way I really am.

I met a lot of (gay) people when I came to NIU. I was all alone in my hometown. I didn’t know anyone that was gay.

I would go to the library in my hometown but I didn’t know anybody personally, so I had the typical heterosexual stereotype in my head that this big diesel truck-woman who looked like a man was the norm.

But then a friend of mine introduced me to women who looked like average women, very attractive women. And it floored me because I didn’t know what to expect and I could relate to them because they were more like myself. It was an eye-opening experience.

Then I became involved with organizations and people I could identify with and not have to hide my feelings. Still, I’m not completely out of the closet, but I am peeking out a little bit at a time. I think this year I’ve made progress by leaps and bounds as far as telling people.

My sexuality has nothing to do with hating men. I like men. I think they are great. It’s just that I have no attraction to them. As far as a close relationship goes, I don’t feel that they could relate to me as well as a woman. When both people in a relationship are of the same sex, you don’t have problems of not understanding one another as much.

Sex isn’t really the issue at all. If I never had sex again, I still wouldn’t marry a man. It’s the emotional closeness that make same-sex relationships great.”