Students gathered on March 19 for an informative lecture regarding LGBTQIAP issues in Evans Hall 202 at 7 p.m. The event, titled “Born This Way: Pansexual to Asexual and everything in between,” was hosted by Counseling and Psychological Services.

“I love bringing knowledge, education and information to the student body,” said Megan McElligott, who is both a psychology professor and a student therapist at CAPS. “I think it’s really helpful to give people resources.”

During the presentation, McElligott said one of the key ideas to remember about is diversity. “Within the LGBTQIAP community, there are more differences than similarities.”

The lengthy acronym stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual/Androgynous and Pansexual, all of which were explained in the lecture. “Sexuality and gender exist on a fluid spectrum, which is why all of these labels and more exist,” said McElligott.

“The variety of gender and sexual identities discussed was really interesting,” said Desmond Mangal, a junior. Mangal said that he thought the event was very informative, and is glad that CAPS is encouraging students to do their own thing, since gender and sex are very personal issues.

“This environment is a safe zone,” said Karly Branch at the outset of the lecture. Branch also works at CAPS as a student therapist. “Questions are welcomed, but no racism, sexism, or any other -isms will be allowed here.”

About 60 students attended the event, a much larger number than usual, said Branch, joking that they even had to bring in extra chairs. “The amount of questions that happened throughout the presentations was unusual,” she said. “There was a lot of interest, apparently.”

Sophomore Elin Svennson attended the event for extra credit in her psychology class. “At first I asked a question about what LGBT is, like I didn’t really know the whole meaning of it. I just came here to get a better knowledge.”

Svennson said she was glad to learn more details about sexual minorities from the lecture. “It’s really helpful, and this is such a relaxed environment,” she said. “You always know about heterosexual, homosexual, but you don’t hear about more than the common ones. It’s good to hear more details.”

Both McElligott and Branch are in their fourth year of Florida Tech’s clinical psychology doctoral program. “That’s why we work at CAPS; it’s one of the available practicums we can choose to go to in our program,” said Branch.

McElligott and Branch also showed a short video by human rights activist iO Tillett Wright. Titled “A boy, a girl, a gender revolutionary,” the video pointed out several social disconnects that prevent people from understanding their gender and sexuality.

A main idea stressed by McElligott was the fact that gender and sex are not necessarily tied to one another. A person’s sex, she said, is biological, while gender is psychological.

“Our biology is not totally independent of how we feel psychologically, but our sex does not necessarily govern our gender,” McElligott said.

CAPS provides counseling and psychological services to registered Florida Tech students, and is located in building 246 at the intersection of West University Boulevard and Country Club Road.