Gay Professionals Speak At Queer Harvard Month

As part of Queer Harvard Month, students last night listened to nine professionals discuss how their homosexuality has affected their careers. They gave advice on writing resumes, choosing firms and personal coming out experiences.

About 30 students attended the event, which was held in the Adams House Lower Common Room and sponsored by the Harvard Bisexual Gay Lesbian Transgendered and Supporters' Alliance Resource Center.

Panelists gave mixed advice on writing resumes that might indicate sexual orientation.

Sam VanAlstyne, a manager for IBM-Lotus, said that IBM tries to recruit a diverse staff and that he likes to see clues in a resume that indicate an applicant is homosexual.

However, architect Camille Victor had a different experience.

"I had a very out resume...and I was getting no phone calls," Victor said. Later, a more neutral resume turned the tide around.

While other panelists argued for out resumes, stories such as Victor's made some students decide that revealing their sexual orientation on a job application would not be a good idea.

"I'm not planning on being out on my resume," said Alex-Handrah R.E. Aime '98, who is bisexual. "But I was interested in understanding whether it is safe to be out or not once you enter a firm."

Richard L. Cherkerzian Jr., a branch officer of the Wainwright Bank, said that his bank "does a tremendous amount of work with the gay and lesbian community."

According to Cherkerzian, finance may be shedding its conservative image by being more open about these issues today, something that surprised many students.

"I plan on going into finance or something along those lines, and I'd always thought of it as a very conservative field, so I was surprised when he said that he hadn't had any problems," said Kathleen M. Douglas '99, who is a lesbian. "From what he said, they are a lot more accepting than I expecte.d."

Panelists discussed ways in which homosexuality can be advantageous in a professional environment, helping to battle various forms of discrimination.

Although many homosexuals fear that they will face severe repercussions if they reveal their sexual orientation to their employers, the coming out stories of the panelists provided a measure of reassurance.

When VanAlstyne told his coordinator that he was gay, the coordinator immediately enlisted VanAlstyne's help for a campaign inside IBM to obtain health care benefits for homosexual employees' partners.

Panelist Bob Parlin said that he too refuses to hide his lifestyle and comes out each year to his students at Newton South High School.

"None of my fears of having kids running across my room screaming, 'faggot,' or having my tires slashed in the parking lot...occurred," he said. "A lot of [my students] are willing to come up and talk to me about risky things."

However, the panelists were not as optimistic about the responses that minorities who are homosexual might receive by coming out in the work place.

Being a "double minority" makes life harder for individuals such as Latino homosexuals, said Arturo Torres '91, an employment counselor.