LGBTQ students denounce Texas professor for homophobic tweet – The Dallas Morning News

Students at the University of Texas at Dallas want action taken against a faculty member who is defending his comments calling for “cure for homosexuality.”

Timothy Farage, a computer science professor, tweeted on Friday a story stating that the majority of monkeypox cases in New York are men.

“Can we at least try to find a cure for homosexuality, especially among men? Homosexual men have anal sex, which can lead to a variety of diseases,” Farage wrote on Twitter.

LGBT student organizations quickly denounced Farage’s comments as homophobic and dangerous to the campus community.

“Being LGBTQ+ is not a ‘medical disorder,’ and LGBTQ+ students do not need to be ‘cured,’” read a statement from the UT-Dallas Rainbow Coalition, which is composed of six campus groups. “Not holding a professor accountable for such statements is unacceptable. Merely disavowing Farage’s actions actively makes our campus less safe.”

Farage, who has taught at the school for more than 20 years, defended his comment, saying that he is not “hateful or bigoted or homophobic or racist” and that finding a cure for “homosexuals who’d rather be heterosexual” is “compassionate.”

“If somebody doesn’t want to be, why not try to find a way to help them do that?” said the 71-year-old. “My comment was to try to be helpful and compassionate … I never said a word against homosexuals or transgender individuals or anything.”

On Saturday, the university posted on social media  that school officials were aware of recent tweets by a faculty member and stressed that the person’s views don’t represent the campus. University officials noted that they are reviewing and investigating complaints about the statement.

“We know that LGBTQ+ students, staff and faculty already face challenges in their lives that can negatively impact their mental and physical well-being,” UT-Dallas officials wrote on Twitter.

The statement pointed to campus resources aimed at affirming and assisting the school’s LGBT community. “UT Dallas is committed to providing an educational, living and working environment that is welcoming, respectful and inclusive,” officials added.

School officials declined to comment beyond the posted statement. (UT-Dallas is a supporter of the Education Lab at The Dallas Morning News.)

PRIDE at UT-Dallas President Chase Mueller, a junior majoring in psychology, said he was horrified when he learned about the tweet.

“This misinformation leads to an unsafe environment for LGBTQ+ students on campus feeling as if they need to hide their identity,” Mueller, 20, said.

Members of several LGBT campus organizations are frustrated and disappointed, he added. Mueller worries that incoming students will feel that the school has an unwelcoming environment for members of such communities.

UT-Dallas’ student newspaper, The Mercury, first reported on Farage’s post.

Since then, in a letter signed by 13 university leaders, Stephanie G. Adams, dean of UT-Dallas’ Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, denounced the comment, adding that the school is a place where any student being their “most authentic self whether that is Black, white, gay, straight, Christian, Buddhist, fully able-bodied or not, should feel welcome and as if you belong.”

Some students reached out to the school expressing concerns for their safety or that of their classmates, so officials opened up additional sections of the fall classes taught by Farage to include at least one other professor and give students options, Adams noted.

Robert Lonergan, a junior majoring in information technology and systems, gathered with others on Monday to write chalk messages on the pavement in protest of Farage’s comments.

The bold, colorful text on the ground read “we cannot be erased by one person’s hate” and “my existence is not for debate.”

Lonergan, who identifies as pansexual and nonbinary, believes that people’s identity should not be something that is questioned.

“I really honestly hope that [Farage] can learn from this and move on and be a human being that contributes to the well being of LGBTQ folk,” he said. “I hope that he realizes how harmful this rhetoric is.”

UT-Dallas’ Galerstein Gender Center, a longtime campus resource dedicated to supporting “women, LGBTQ+ people and all communities facing oppression,” displayed a rock with the colors of the rainbow and a message that noted “Here to stay!”

The center is hosting a virtual event called “Embrace Space: Affirming & Supporting Our Diverse Community at UT-Dallas” on Wednesday to share campus resources.

Misconceptions about monkeypox have circulated recently as the virus is mainly spreading among gay and bisexual men in the latest outbreak, explained Sean Cahill, director of health policy research at The Fenway Institute, an LGBT health care, research and advocacy organization.

“That does not mean it’s a gay disease. It’s actually not a sexually transmitted disease,” Cahill, 59, said. “The professor’s mentioning of anal sex may have nothing to do with the spread of monkeypox.”

Officials have noted that the virus can be spread through skin-to-skin contact.

Generalizations should be avoided as outbreaks could be occurring in other communities, which is difficult to know since not enough testing is being done, Cahill added.

“The last thing that we need is more stigma and ignorance about gay people, and particularly about gay men,” he said. “Stigma causes people not to seek health care.”

Cahill also stressed that “there’s no such thing as a cure for homosexuality,” noting that conversion therapy only increases people’s rates of depressive symptoms, loneliness and suicidal ideations.

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that focuses on suicide prevention efforts among LGBT youth, has consistently found that such students who have access to LGBT-affirming schools — and trans students who have support from their teachers and peers — report lower rates of attempting suicide, said Nicholas Turton, a spokesperson for the organization.

More than about 1.8 million LGBT youth ages 13-24 are estimated to seriously consider suicide each year in the U.S. — and at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds, according to The Trevor Project.

Although he remains steadfast in his remarks, Farage took down his Twitter account because of the backlash he’s received online.

“Professors at public universities have free speech rights, so I have a right to say that,” he said.

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