“Yale is the ‘gay ivy’ — but ’s not necsarily the ‘queer ivy.’”
Contents:
- WHY THEY LL YALE THE "GAY IVY"
- THE “GAY” IVY? : A QUEER REPUTATN
- FEATURE: GOD AND THE GAY IVY
- WHAT REARS SAID ABOUT THE “GAY IVY”
- IS YALE THE GAY IVY?
- GAY IVEY
WHY THEY LL YALE THE "GAY IVY"
Today, Yale's reputatn as the Gay Ivy is faiar to most stunts and younger alumni -- 's even clud Yale's entry on Wikipedia, that eful gui to the mon wisdom. Yale probably do, however, have a higher proportn of gay stunts than other Ivi; there are no statistics, but many gay Yale stunts thk 's te. Yale was one of the last Ivi to create an office of LGBTQ (lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer) rourc.
The current admistratn is gay-iendly, but Yale admistrators historilly have not sought to ph the envelope on the issu. Yale GALA (Gay and Lbian Alumni) jt held s first rnn, and the proment gay alumni who spoke clud Bce Cohen ’83, producer of Milk, and Larry Kramer ’57, thor of The Normal Heart. Margaret Marshall ’76JD, who wrote the Massachetts Supreme Court cisn legalizg gay marriage, is also an alum.
But Yale has many alumni who oppose pro-gay polici, such as Heather Mac Donald ’78, who cricized Yale the Weekly Standard for startg the LGBTQ rourc office; Maggie Gallagher ’82, print of the Natnal Organizatn for Marriage; and the Right Reverend John Guernsey ’75, who joed his flock wh the Anglin Church of Uganda after the U. In an say adapted om his keynote at the GALA rnn, Yale historian Gee Chncey ’77, ’89PhD, sketch that early history of alienatn and trac how s of effort by Yale's gay stunts drove a cultural shift.
THE “GAY” IVY? : A QUEER REPUTATN
The pot ronated wh several queer stunts terviewed for this article, who said the elevated visibily of cisgenr gay men — and, more specifilly, whe cisgenr gay men — at the expense of other LGBTQ groups at Yale. Alex Borsa ’16, print of the LGBT Co-op at Yale, put the matter ncisely: “Yale is the ‘gay ivy’ — but ’s not necsarily the ‘queer ivy.
The Whiffs prent “a very qutsential image … of the whe gay Yale man, ” Anjali Balakrishna ’14 said. Hilary O’Connell ’14, former print of the Co-op, observed, “I jt hear trope after trope about the a ppella gays.
They (O’Connell prefers the pronouns “they, ” “them” and “their”) nsir the “a ppella gay” an exclnary typest. Six LGBTQ stunts terviewed said the disproportnate visibily of gay men — and the nsequent visibily of other queer groups — stands the way of regnn. For those ls faiar wh termology ed by the movement, the distctn between “queer” and “gay” may seem fe, but ’s an important one to make: “queer” is at once more polil and all-enpassg than “gay, ” which scrib only same-sex, cisgenr tennci.
FEATURE: GOD AND THE GAY IVY
Javier Cienfuegos ’15, who was one of only two openly gay mal his high school, said Yale tght him to embrace the term “queer, ” even though he ed to be very unfortable wh . The static nature of what Dalton lls “unplited gayns, ” which do not oscillate between or go beyond bary sexual preferenc and genrs, allows for an ease of formal regnn unavailable to more fluid groups like genrqueers.
In other words, Yali may know how to rpond to a gay male iend who out to them, but for many of them gets more plited when to unrstandg those who, like O’Connell, reject genr signatns altogether.
“I don’t thk [Yali] are unfortable so much as unfaiar, ” Keh Washgton ’14, a black gay man, said of the ls fixed signatns. It may also stem part om a difference predictabily: If someone intifi as gay, he or she will always like hims or hers, rpectively.
WHAT REARS SAID ABOUT THE “GAY IVY”
Recently, the Yale College Council announced that is nsirg a proposal to alter the policy of exclively same-sex sophomore year hog. Along wh four other stunts terviewed, she c the lack of genr-ntral hog hman and sophomore year as a terrent for prospective transgenr and genrqueer applints.
“[LGBTQ] groups don’t really put on events that are foced on people like me — for stance, a group of gay Christians who don’t like gog to parti, ” Shefa said. They said a Christian group like this felt pecially necsary at the so-lled “Gay Ivy, ” a mp where more than a quarter of unrgraduat intify as LGBTQ per annual surveys nducted by the News.
IS YALE THE GAY IVY?
” For stance, Whe said that when one member me out to her relig lear, “he pared her inty as a gay person wh a pubcent fixatn on animate hoehold objects, sayg both were jt a phase. ” Ichthys helped her nfirm how absurd that parison was, affirmg her inty both Christ and as a gay person. ” She relled the cint early November on Yale’s mp when a street preacher shouted homophobic slurs and nmned passersby to hell unr the pretense of Christiany.
Christian Unn’s webse clearly stat s posn that homosexualy is a form of sexual immoraly, although lacks a statement on any ensug policy. “I n’t tell you how many nversatns I’ve had wh iends, acquatanc, people who are perplexed at the ia that I n be gay and Christian, ” Whe said.
GAY IVEY
Whe said he has felt fortable beg gay at Yale, enjoyg s “thrivg scene and sheer number of queer people. ” At the same time, he said, “There’s this weird distance between the general mp culture and queer cln and jok about the Gay Ivy, and an unrstandg of the diversy of Christian life at Yale, ” he said. Protts 2011 surroundg the Yale mp vis of Christopher Yuan, a non-affirmg gay mister, threatened the abily of Christians wh the non-affirmg stance — cludg queer Christians — to discs their theologil views.