CHICAGO – DePaul University’s LGBTQA Student Services office is piloting a new initiative called “Queer Peers,” according to The DePaulia, in which “newly out students” are connected with current students. The student application for the program offers students the option to indicate gender-neutral pronouns and gives them the option to express interest in activism.

Queer Peers “aims to foster a mentee/mentor relationship for the duration of the academic year.” Incoming students can request a “mentor” student with whom they will have monthly meetings. Mentors will also “attend campus events [with mentees] and provide social support.”

Students can apply for a Queer Peers mentor through an online application. The application requires students to identify both their gender and preferred gender pronouns (including he, she, they, and ze).

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Regarding personal identity, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that man and woman are willed by God “in their respective beings as man and woman.” The passage reads:

Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. “Being man” or “being woman” is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator. Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity “in the image of God”. In their “being-man” and “being-woman”, they reflect the Creator’s wisdom and goodness.

On the application, students are also given the option to indicate whether they are interested in “on and off campus activism.”

DePaul’s LGBTQA Student Services also offers educational workshops, support, consultation, and networking space. Matt Lamb from The College Fix reported on this issue and noted that “it’s unclear what new benefit Queer Peers will provide,” given the variety of similar programs already in place.

LGBTQA Student Services Coordinator, Katy Weseman, did not respond to The Cardinal Newman Society’s request for comment on how Queer Peers or similar programs plan to integrate Catholic teaching into their outreach to students.

The DePaulia noted that “DePaul is a Catholic institution, which may create discomfort for some LGBTQ individuals.” Queer Peers and similar programs are reportedly efforts “to make gay, lesbian, and transgender students feel more included on campus” while “serv[ing] as another resource that LGBTQ students can take advantage of at DePaul.”

Earlier this year, The Cardinal Newman Society reported on a DePaul student group’s involvement in Chicago’s 45th Pride Parade, an event which included several advocates of same-sex marriage.

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Authored by Kimberly Scharfenberger
Originally published here by Catholic Education Daily, and online publication of The Cardinal Newman Society

Published with permission