“We want to be equalized. We want to be treated like everybody else…We want to be able to live our lives without discrimination,” Jack Valinski calmly explained to a student who asked, “What exactly do gays want?”

Southwest Psi Kappa Psychology Club hosted Jack Valinski, the director of operations for the Houston Equal Rights Alliance, at their Eighth Annual Valentine’s Week Speaker event, Wednesday, Feb. 11 at the Stafford campus.

“I hope that you at least respect us and we respect you,” Valinski added.

“The LGBT community is a lot different from all other communities,” Valinski said, “people come from all over, they feel ostracized, they’re orphans,” but the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community he added, “is their community of choice.”

“In Texas and Houston, you can get fired for being gay,” Valinski claimed, referring to the fact that Texas, along with twenty-eight other states, currently does not have statewide laws specifically prohibiting all employers from engaging in discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

“We’re not where we want to be, they’re still after us in so many ways,” Valinski said about the movement. However, he still seemed optimistic, “The fact that thirty-seven states have legalized marriage is incredible…we’ve gained so many things,” adding, “A lot of these things just happen because you do the right things and you persist.”

Valinski discussed on how Houston’s current Mayor Annise Parker did not run on an “I’m a lesbian” platform, as he described it. She ran on her community experience and on issues. “That’s really, really important is that people are out,” Valinski said, “That they tell their neighbors who they are.”

Besides being the current director of operations for the Houston Equal Rights Alliance, in Valinski’s three decades of activism, he has also been on the board of the Houston Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Political Caucus and is a past executive director of Pride Houston Inc., which organizes the Pride Parade and Festival.

He spoke about what it takes to run an organization. “You’ve got to be engaged,” he said. “If you’re going to run an organization—an activist organization—you have to be open,” Valinski added, “Any possible way you can work with people—and they’re not disruptive—do that.”

Cris Fornesa, Psi Kappa president, was glad that Valinski talked about members of the LGBT community coming out. “A lot of people are still struggling with society in general, for example, or like, the people themselves.”

Psi Kappa is a psychology club open to all HCC students. Visit PsiKappa.BlogSpot.com and Facebook.com/PsiKappa