The GSA as a Social Alternative

As Dartmouth’s fraternities were fighting to exist in an environment that had become hostile to them, so was the newly formed Gay Student Support Group. Soon after the group formed, The Dartmouth printed a series of articles and letters from a deluge of opinionated students debating whether being gay was a sin, which began with Stuart Lewan’s article “Helping Gays Adjust to Dartmouth”¹ and ended with a terse editorial that shut down the debate: “The College community should support this group.”² Highlights of the middle of the debate included: “There have always been homosexuals but never before have they become so popular,”³ “The only logical choice for homosexuals…is to accept Christ as their personal savior and then to repent of their sins,”⁴ “It has been reported that 14 per cent of femal [sic] seagulls are homosexual,”⁵ and “If [gay sex] is a sense pleasure it can be no more unacceptable than emotionless sex or playing basketball.”⁶

Despite the sudden homophobic clamor, the GSSG wasted no time in having events. An SSA newsletter announced that on February 2, 1978, David Kopay, who had recently written a book about his experiences as a gay man playing in the NFL,⁷ came to speak at the College.⁸ At the same time, the GSSG was holding regular Monday night meetings, including a social hour with refreshments.⁹ Born from a “social alternative” group, the GSSG had not entirely let go of its social nature. And as the GSSG became the Gay Students Association, its members still did not abandon their enthusiasm for event-planning. When Anthony DeRosa ’82 was part of the GSA, he recalls that the group invited another author, one of the co-authors of The Gay Report, to speak on campus.¹⁰ He also remembers showing a gay romance movie in Collis.¹¹

The GSA often focused on reaching outside of their already-established group. This could include straight students, but also other gay students who were closeted or not associated with the GSA yet; for example, they ran a support and information hotline.¹² They also held discussions, like one on the “role of gays in [the] College environment today.”¹³ Approximately 50 people came to the discussion, which began with discussing a GSA poster that had been defaced with the words: “Don’t you think it’s about time to stop this homo bulls—! Kill the gays.”¹⁴ During the discussion, GSA members who were out as gay expressed their hurt and anger over the vandalism and brought up other threats of violence they had experienced.¹⁵ This event had a dual influence. Aside from giving GSA members the opportunity to support each other, the fact that it was an open event allowed for anyone to come and be educated about gay issues, and the D’s report on it spread the GSA’s messages across campus, even to those who had not attended.

It was not always obvious that the Gay Students Association functioned as a social alternative to Greek life, but one story illustrates that effect well. In 1986,¹⁶ the GSA was doing a “gay road show…to go out and offer services to explain homosexuality and things like that to people.”¹⁷ According to the minimum standards for Greek houses, each house needed to have a “cultural or educational event” each term, and the sorority Delta Delta Delta (Tri-Delt) scheduled the GSA for theirs. Lee Merkle-Raymond ’86, who was a member of Tri-Delt, recalls,

I just kind of looked around at my sorority group, and I looked at the folks with the GSA, and I’m, like, I belong with them more than I belong with the rest of these sorority folks. So I—like, I left with them.¹⁸

She walked back across the Green to Robinson Hall with the GSA members, including Charles Edwards ’86, with whom she’s “been basically friends ever since.”¹⁹ Edwards recalls of that day,

We couldn’t figure out where she—you know, why she was going to walk us back to the gay student meeting. Halfway across the Green, she goes, “Well, I figured out that I’m gay, so I need to be there, in the meetings, and join you.” And we were both—Jim and I were stunned. Like, “What? What? You’re gay? Did we just recruit you?”…Like, “Yeah, I just figured—you know, I’ve been thinking about these things anyway, but I figured I might as well, you know,—I need to get involved and help out too.”²⁰

So in the earlier years of the GSA, what appeared to be educational was also social, and vice versa. As Edwards put it, “as the only entity on campus, it had to be everything.”²¹

Next: College-Created Common Ground

Notes