The Center for Sex and Gender Research organized a meeting Friday to notify faculty, staff and students about the plans and goals considered for the queer community.

Josh Einhorn, grant officer in the College of Humanities, lead the meeting and informed the audience about the queer minor CSUN is offering for the first time this semester.

Einhorn said that the Center for Sex and Gender Research main goal is to be a resource for the queer community. The help will be extended by queer staff, faculty and students. ‘CSUN’s goal is to be regionally focused,’ said Einhorn, who has been working on drafting a proposal with other colleagues to raise money and be able to establish goals for the queer minor. ‘Its purpose is not only to serve the campus, but the entire community.’

Einhorn is working in a committee that is visiting sites to look more into depth the different queer centers, ‘so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel, and we can see what the best practices are,’ he said. The committee is also going out into the community to promote CSUN as a ‘gay friendly campus.’

One of the main concerns for transferred students who are homosexual is whether they will be welcomed by their environment, and this is one of the things the university is seeking to establish, according to Einhorn. He added that another point of interest in the project is to reach out to high schools that are gay-straight-allies.

‘We want to go there and act as mentors, advisors, even tutoring to some of the gay students,’ said Einhorn. ‘You can then see functioning out, happy successful college students.’

The founder of the Asian Pacific Islander PFLAG (parents, families and friends of Lesbians and Gays), Harold Kameya, said that young students in CSUN are having difficult times coming out because ‘most students have come from a minority populations.’

‘The religious families find it very hard to accept their kids, especially the parents,’ Kameya added.

The director of the Center for Sex and Gender Research, Jacob Hale, said he was thrilled to have this project take off the way it did.

‘I am so pleased that Josh (Einhorn) is stepping a foot in this,’ said Hale. ‘Without him, this wouldn’t have happened.’

The total cost of the project is $2 million and the group is working on gathering donations from private companies, as well as doing fundraising.