“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.
THE “GAY” IVY? : A QUEER REPUTATN
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.
FEATURE: GOD AND THE GAY IVY
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 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.
WHAT REARS SAID ABOUT THE “GAY IVY”
They (O’Connell prefers the pronouns “they, ” “them” and “their”) nsir the “a ppella gay” an exclnary typest.
IS YALE THE GAY IVY?
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.
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.
GAY IVEY
It may also stem part om a difference predictabily: If someone intifi as gay, he or she will always like hims or hers, rpectively.
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.