Queer Peers Provides Counseling

Yale Daily News (New Haven, CT): First-year college life can present difficulties to any freshman on campus, but last year the leaders of Yale's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Cooperative saw an especially vexing problem: freshmen who were coming out for the first time did not know where to turn. "I just remember that there was nothing available to me when I came here freshman year," said one gay senior, who asked to remain anonymous. Ari Davalos '07 set out to solve that problem. With the help of her friends and with the support of Dean of Undergraduate Affairs Betty Trachtenberg, Davalos this fall established Queer Peers, a student-run peer-counseling group offered as an extension of the LGBT Co-op. The Queer Peers include eight Yale undergraduates who are trained to give guidance and support to any students questioning their sexual identity. With the program still in its nascent stages, Queer Peers members said they regularly speak with two to three students a night who are either in search of advice while coming out or are already out and searching for understanding listeners. Queer Peers offers counseling four days a week.