Harvard Provides Haven on National Coming Out Day

Exactly one year ago, Sophy T. Lee ’12 changed her Facebook status to “Yep, I’m gay.”

On last year’s “National Coming Out Day,” Lee’s new Facebook status update generated 25 comments and 40 “likes.”

“I got a lot of congrats, which was strange,” she says. “I didn’t know what I was being congratulated for.”

Lee says that the first few conversations, in which she came out to her peers, were awkward.

“There were a lot of ‘ums,’” she says.

Despite her initial discomfort and fear of discrimination, she says that everyone she told at Harvard supported her.

Though the BGLTQ community at large continues to struggle with homophobia and bullying, Lee says Harvard offered her an environment where she felt safe coming out and being open about her sexuality.

Other queer students echo Lee’s sentiments about the BGLTQ-friendly Harvard community, although a few add that occasional incidents of homophobia still occur on campus and perhaps contribute to the lingering fears of closeted students.

“VERY VERY GAY”

Jessica, a member of the Class of 2015 who identifies as lesbian and asked that her last name not be used, also saw Facebook as a tool to help her come out to her peers.

Jessica says she did not explicitly reveal her sexuality, but instead casually mentioned her girlfriend in a Facebook message to her roommates.

“I knew they were cool with it because one of my roommates would post really pro-homosexual things on her Facebook,” she says.

Jessica also found that peers in her entryway accepted her as well.

“Its interesting because it’s created a lot of conversations about sexuality,” she says.

Jessica’s experiences are similar to those of other BGLTQ-identified students at Harvard.

“Everyone jokes that Harvard is very very gay,” says Philip de Sa e Silva ’13. “And definitely, compared to my high school, it is.”

De Sa e Silva says that in high school, he did not feel as though coming out was beneficial to him, so he waited until his first year at Harvard to come out.

“[At Harvard] there are a lot of people who are out and older. And that helps,” he says.

Jessica, who is from Massachusetts—a place in which she says it is easy to be gay—was surprised that her peers at Harvard accepted her as quickly as they did, since they came from a variety of communities and represented families with a range of religious and political convictions.

“I had my own prejudices,” she says.

Jessica says she was surprised that students who said they were devout did not discriminate against her for being lesbian.

“I have a friend who is Catholic and he came up to me and said, ‘You know Catholic people, we’re cool with the gays,’” she recalls.

HARVARD DOES QUEER

Head Teaching Fellow for English 154: “Literature and Sexuality” and a non-resident tutor in Lowell House, Robert Joseph “R.J.” Jenkins says that while Harvard offers a positive environment for queer students, homophobia still exists on campus.

“I think the danger we’re in is the danger of thinking that because we’re at Harvard, because we’re in a liberal environment, because we’re in the northeast, everyone is accepting,” says Jenkins, who is openly gay.

De Sa e Silva recalls a night when he was returning to his dorm room in DeWolfe from a party in the Quad. As he rode the shuttle, he says he remembers hearing a boy behind him yell homophobic slurs at one of his friends—something de Sa e Silva had not heard since high school.

“He was calling someone a fag or something like that,” he says. “I just felt so tense.”

Some people, like Katherine M. Baus ’15, say Harvard is still a heteronormative environment.

Baus, who identifies as bisexual, says she does not think events during freshman orientation address the needs of queer students.

“The comedy shows—the stand up—are exclusively, exclusively heterosexual and it would be nice to see some sort of representation there,” she says.

She adds that while there is an additional “Sex Signals” performance for BGLTQ-identified students, she thinks the programming is inadequate.

“[The BGLTQ followup] sort of sucks because you have to be out if you want to go to it,” she says.

Jenkins—who has been at Harvard for seven years—says the administration has been taking measures to create a supportive environment for queer students.

“I’ve been pretty encouraged by what seems to be to be a reinvigorated conversation about how we support this community,” Jenkins says.

But, he stipulates that it is important for Harvard to create a safe environment for people who have not yet come out. He also warns about the danger of homophobic language and discriminatory practices.

“While [homophobic] words are unacceptable to begin with, you may be committing a type of violence against someone you care about,” he says.

A SKEWED VIEW

De Sa e Silva says that he does not think being gay at Harvard accurately represents the broader public’s perspective on the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community—meaning students must face different perceptions when they return home.

“I think Harvard gives me a skewed view of how accepting people are, maybe because the queer community here is so visible and I think fairly accepted,” he says.

Hannah, a member of the Class of 2015 who identifies as bisexual, says she is not active in BGLTQ groups on campus because she does not want her sexuality to define her.

Hannah, whose name has been changed to protect her identity because of the sensitive nature of the topic, says she fears that people will discriminate against her if she is too open about being bisexual. She says that despite the existence of queer-straight alliances, there is still a lot of discrimination against the BGLTQ community outside of Harvard, especially in places like Texas—where Hannah is from.

“Depending on what kind of job I have, I probably will not fully come out,” she says. “It could cause some strangeness.”

For students such as Hannah, coming out to their families might be more difficult than coming out on campus.

Aside from telling her brother she is bisexual, Hannah has not come out to her family, which she describes as conservative and Hispanic.

“People in Texas are generally more conservative, and especially Hispanic parents can be pretty conservative, so I think that really influences their decision making and their thoughts on gayness,” she says.

Hannah adds that before arriving at Harvard, she felt ashamed of her sexuality due to the religious teachings of her grandparents and other family members.

In elementary school, Hannah had crushes on other girls, but didn’t talk about it with others because she knew it conflicted with her grandparents’ teachings.

“I became quite religious and I felt awkward within myself,” Hannah says.

Lee says her parents are the only people who reacted negatively when she came out to them. Describing the moment when she told her parents she was a lesbian, Lee remembers that her hands were shaking because she feared their reaction.

“My dad was in denial,” she says.

Lee remembers that her parents would tell her several times, “We don’t believe you’re gay.”

Despite how they act, though, Lee says her family remains important to her.

“I love them more than anything else in the world and I know I always will,” she says.

IT’S PERSONAL

Both Lee and de Sa e Silva say the biggest advantage of coming out at Harvard was the boost in self-confidence.

De Sa e Silva says that coming out allowed him to be less self-conscious than he had been when he was closeted.

“It wasn’t like first I was Philip and then I was gay Philip after that,” he says. “I was just part of me before, and then I came out and I was able to be all of me after.”

Lee says that before coming out, she conformed to gendered ideals. She says social norms dictated what she chose to talk about with her friends, who she chose to dance with at parties, and even the classes in which she chose to enroll.

“I acted the way people wanted me to act,” she says.

After she came out, Lee says she became a more confident person.

“I saw myself more clearly,” she says. “And I took classes I actually liked.”

—Staff writer Eliza M. Nguyen can be reached at enguyen@college.harvard.edu.