Association Declares Gay Day; Supporters Will Wear Jeans

The Harvard-Radcliffe Gay Students Association, along with other Boston-area student homophile groups, has declared today "Gay Wednesday" in posters and flyers distributed around the Harvard campus this week.

The flyers say that all gay people should wear jeans today and that straight people should not. This will be a "subtle yet effective way for gay people to get to know each other," the association says.

Members of the Gay Students Association contacted yesterday, including the president, asked that they not be identified. "We want to identify ourselves to each other, but we can't let everyone know who we are because of people's attitudes," a freshman member said.

A graduate student, who called himself an "unofficial spokesperson" for the gay students' organization, said that the stated purpose of wearing blue jeans is "ridiculous." The real purpose of Gay Wednesday, he said, is to raise the consciousness of straight people by exposing their "irrational fear" of homosexuality. He said he expects a substantial drop in the number of straight people wearing blue jeans today.

He said that a second purpose is to "show the ways in which gay people are constrained everyday" by straight morality, such as an inability to show affection for one another in public. He said he expects straight people to resent not feeling able to wear jeans.

Robert Beusman '76, a gay student not affiliated with the association, said he will wear jeans today, and expressed support for the event. "But it'll take a lot more than jeans to open up a person's spirit and freedom," he said.

Another gay student, who asked that his name not be used, said he will not wear jeans. "It's the sort of thing only very uptight, very inexperienced college students would dream up. It demeans a person's sexuality to make it all seem like a club," he said.

Members of the association deplored what they called harassment by members of the Harvard community. One member called the removal of posters from approved bulletin boards a "flagrant abuse of civil freedom." He also cited the defacement of a "Gay Wednesday" sign on the Pusey Library fence with the words "Necrophiliac Thursday" and "Child Molester Friday."