Gay Life · Library Holdgs · Shakpeare and Company Project

Contents:

• GAY LIFE AT PRCETON?
• PRCETON BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, GAY AND LBIAN ALUMNI
• LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR CENTER
• LGBTQ+ SUPPORT GROUPS PRCETON, NJ
• LGBTQ+ AFFIRMG THERAPISTS PRCETON, NJ
• “WEAR ’EM”: PRCETON UNIVERSY’S FIRST GAY JEANS DAY
• GAY LIFE
• WANDA GAY REECE OBUARY

GAY LIFE AT PRCETON?

Formerly the LGBT Center, the Genr + Sexualy Rource Center (GSRC), supports and empowers lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, queer, qutng, tersex, and asexual stunts and employe by providg muny-buildg, tn, events, and iativ. gay life at prceton? Prceton Bisexual, Transgenr, Gay and Lbian Alumni.

Through activi both on and off mp, The Fund for Rnn/Prceton BTGALA Inc., is voted to improvg the qualy of life for lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr (LGBT) people at Prceton Universy and to strengtheng their ti as alumni wh each other and wh the Universy.

Further exploratns led me to New York, where, of urse, a large gay unrground flourished. I also knew some gay guys my class and on the swim team.

PRCETON BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, GAY AND LBIAN ALUMNI

The history of the perd between the end of World War II and Stonewall has been wrten; I hope the long-promised history of gay life at Prceton now will emerge. I wrote to Jonathan Ned Katz the ’80s about the slowns of Prceton’s adjtment to activism for gay rights.

LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR CENTER

Midway through his sophomore year, Peter Gray ’60 got lucky his choice of iends. Gray was one of 16 LGBT alumni om the class of the 1950s and ’60s — 15 gay men and one transgenr woman — who agreed to speak to me over the past few months about their experienc at Prceton.

In advance of Prceton’s first LGBT alumni nference, April 11–13, I wanted to talk to gay alumni who me of age before the begng of the morn gay-rights movement — and whose generatnal history often is overlooked as that movement march forward. If you went to Prceton durg their era and you’re not gay, there’s a good chance that the gay liv of your classmat would have been visible to you durg your llege years. And if you’ve dwelled on the subject the s sce graduatn, you may have found yourself thkg that their sexual orientatns mt have been so circumscribed, so reprsed, that beg gay uld not possibly have played much of a role their Prceton experience.

LGBTQ+ SUPPORT GROUPS PRCETON, NJ

The ner and outer gay liv of Prcetonians durg the 1950s and ’60s were ed circumscribed. FOR THE ALUMNI I INTERVIEWED, the tought challenge durg our nversatns often me tryg to expla what had meant to be gay at a time when they had no language to scribe such a thg. Durg the 1950s and ’60s, the existence of gay people at Prceton wasn’t only visible and nceivable to many straight people.

It was also visible and nceivable to many gay stunts themselv. At Prceton, “there wasn’t any such ncept as gay, ” rells Dick Limog ’60. I had no sense of what really meant to be gay, the way that people unrstand that today.

” Says Daniel Massad ’69: “I had no unrstandg of myself as beg gay when I entered Prceton. Many gay Prcetonians simply didn’t know any other gay people — or at least they thought they didn’t.

LGBTQ+ AFFIRMG THERAPISTS PRCETON, NJ

“Gayns at the time, at least my experience, was viewed as what some strange people Greenwich Village did. “I viewed myself as homosexual. I would not walk across mp once whout wonrg whether someone thought the way I was walkg was gay.

“WEAR ’EM”: PRCETON UNIVERSY’S FIRST GAY JEANS DAY

And bee she is attracted to women, she did not experience some of the challeng faced by the gay alumni I terviewed. Some alumni rell homophobia as a pervasive part of Prceton’s culture, though none spoke of vlence or threats.

‘Oh, you artists and artistic people mt be gay. AMID THIS CULTURE of qutng, verg, and fear, one might thk that gay life found no outlets at all. Some gay stunts searched for pannship off mp.

Several alums told me that there was at least one bathroom Firtone Library that was known as a gay cisg spot — although no one I talked to found to be of much e meetg partners. ” “I never actually saw anyone dog anythg, ” he add, “but everyone knew that there was this place where, at the least, gay longgs were acknowledged — though the sordidns and the blunt sexual tone weren’t very vg.

GAY LIFE

Awarens of gay life crept to the surface other ways as well. ’” To Massad, was a “fairly sry image”: a sister and unappealg glimpse at what his life would be like if he chose to act on beg gay.

Some klgs of gay life me om graduate stunts or — not always appropriately — profsors. Years after graduatn, Saslow found out that one profsor (“a soft-spoken Southern-gentleman ‘bachelor, ’ who liked to pat me on the head and stroke my hair” and who lived “wh a ‘roommate, ’ another unmarried man”) ed to host “gay parti” wh mostly grad stunts at his hoe — “not i, jt openly socializg as gay people, which they uldn’t do elsewhere on mp. The ’67 alum rells a few cints, cludg one that took place his senr year, when a stunt who was dg wh him at his eatg club whispered to his ear, jt before ssert: “Would you like to go and have a homosexual experience?

” They went back to his room, and did, ed, have a homosexual experience.

WANDA GAY REECE OBUARY

MANY OF THE MEN I SPOKE WITH gradually realized the years after llege jt how many other gay people there had been at Prceton. Nsbm rells beg a gay bar the Midwt a year after he graduated and seeg a fellow member of his eatg club. ” Bellzoni also learned years later that a classmate he’d had a csh on was gay.

) Fifteen years after graduatn, Saslow and Massad — who had been iends but were not out to each other as unrgrads — rennected when Massad read a piece by Saslow the gay newspaper The Advote. By that time, AIDS was begng to ravage the gay muny, and, partly rponse, the gay-rights movement was beg more assertive.

In the mid-1980s, Limog, who timat that he eventually lost 85 acquatanc — cludg some close iends — to AIDS, cid to start a group for gay alumni. The fact that he was gay, he says, was a non-issue for his classmat. Of the 400 people who ntributed entri about themselv, approximately a dozen acknowledged beg gay.