Out at Harvard, But Not At Home

When Matt returns home to a small town near the Mexican border, he leaves behind more than just his textbooks and blockmates. He leaves behind his identity.

Back home, Matt is no longer a staunch liberal, an advocate for immigrant rights, or a leader in the Latino community.

But mostly, he is no longer gay.

To be “out” in his close-knit, religious community, Matt says, is a choice that could have potentially dangerous consequences.

Matt—whose name, like that of each student featured in this story, has been changed to protect his privacy—is only one of many LGBTQ students at Harvard who remain predominantly in the closet at home, even though they are fully out at school.

Though some of these students say they have experienced anxiety and depression as a result of their decision, they also say that they have found a welcoming and supportive environment while at Harvard and hope to some day reconcile their sexual identity and their home life.

THE HOME FRONT

For these students, a number of potential conflicts, ranging from personal religious beliefs to family dynamics, have complicated the process of sharing their sexual orientations with their communities at home.

Matt says people who have come out in his community are often bullied, ostracized, and unwittingly become the “talk the town.” Though a few members of his extended family are gay, Matt says they’re often considered “low functioning” or “deadbeats.”

“It makes me think that if I were to come out, that it would challenge the notions of that, but I’d still rather not at this time,” he adds.

Deeply religious, Matt says that growing up he felt that God hated him. He struggled to reconcile his sexuality with his religious beliefs and the negative perceptions of gay people in his family and community during high school. He kept his relationships with other men a secret, dated people exclusively from other towns, and only confided in a few close friends.

As a result of the secrecy and suppression during his high school years, Matt says going to Harvard was very liberating.

“Here I can say whatever I want about race, sexuality, and gender, and the worst I’m going to get labeled is that one crazy kid with all those opinions,” Matt says. “If I talk about these things at home, I get labeled things like faggot.”

Like Matt, Erica had trouble reconciling her devotion to Christianity and her sexuality until her sophomore year at Harvard. Though she comes from New York City, Erica says her struggle to accept her sexuality was made even more challenging by the contradiction it creates with her religious convictions.

As a senior, however, she says she has come to terms with her identity.

“I think, retrospectively, I am extremely grateful I am gay because otherwise I wouldn’t have had that kind of focal point to really grapple with my faith,” she adds.

Erica says she started realizing she liked women in high school, but was too busy academically to pursue relationships. When she started college, she identified as bisexual and explored relationships with both men and women.

“I’m not sure if I ever made that active switch, like ‘No I’m not bisexual anymore; I’m a lesbian,’” Erica says. “But it came to the point where I was just not interested in guys anymore.”

Though her parents are not religious, Erica says she is still not comfortable discussing her sexuality with them yet. She and her mom are very close, but Erica says she is unable to talk to her mom about her relationships or the way she has struggled to reconcile her sexuality and her religion.

She adds that she was unsure of how to even broach the subject with her parents.

Conversations, as a result, are limited mostly to school and work.

“I feel like I’ve been so honest with my mom about so many different things, but this is that one hole that she doesn’t really know about,” Erica says.

HOME SWEET HARVARD?

For many students, Harvard fosters a more welcoming environment for them to come out as LGBTQ.

Upon arriving at Harvard freshman year, Erica says she immediately befriended the queer community. Since many of her friends came out, Erica says she never felt discriminated against.

“It could be that I’m oblivious, but Harvard is so accepting,” Erica said.

David says he has encountered a similar dynamic while at Harvard.

He arrived at Harvard still unsure of his sexuality. Once he realized he was gay, a diverse student body and open-minded friends presented a comfortable space for him to come out.

“Had I been at another school, I don’t know if I would be in the same boat right now,” David says. “I still think I’d be just trucking along and suppressing that part of my life.”

A variety of established resources exist at Harvard intended to help students navigate the process of coming out, both at school and at home. For example, CONTACT Peer Counseling’s November event “Out for the Holidays” attracted 60 students, according to the co-directors of the group.

Still, most students agree that the experience of coming out during college is universal and not one specific to Harvard. Though students have found their peers to be accepting and supportive, many have found the resources for students struggling with their identity to be lackluster.

Allison, a current junior, says she sought out advice from CONTACT Peer Counseling, but found their emphasis on feelings rather than solutions unsatisfying.

Similarly, Matt visited Mental Health Services in hopes of finding a clinician who could help him resolve his identity issues. Instead, he says he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and his feelings of depression persisted.

While he adds that there are a few clinicians who specialize in LGBTQ issues, they were often high in demand and appointments were difficult to schedule.

Moreover, some students say that the queer community isn’t always a refuge for those coming out at college.

One of the reasons Matt says he chose to come out was because he realized there was a lack of resources at Harvard for the Latino, LGBTQ community. For Matt, the College was a very “white gay” place.

Realizing this dearth in student life, Matt says he became a more vocal and public figure for LGBTQ issues within the Latino community.

Likewise, both Allison and David did not find solace within the queer organizations. As athletes at Harvard, the two agree that LGBTQ student groups did not necessarily cater to that section of the student body.

Though both are now openly out, they also say that they do not want their sexuality to be a defining characteristic for them or determine the type of groups they participate in on campus.

“I want to be the guy who is gay, not the gay guy,” David says.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

From a small town in the South, Allison says it is unlikely she will ever return to live in her hometown or tell her friends at home that she is gay.

However, she has confided in her parents. While both her mom and dad are liberal, “being accepting of homosexuality in general versus having it happen to your own child is very different,” Allison says.

She says her mother especially had a difficult time processing the news, but has come around since Allison first came out and the two can now discuss Allison’s relationships at school.

“Me being gay and me being a successful Harvard graduate was not compatible in their eyes,” Allison says. “But I think I’ve done a lot to convince them otherwise.”

David also says that it is unlikely that he will ever move back to his hometown. But he still struggles with if, and when, he should tell his Asian immigrant parents, with whom he is very close.

David says he fears disappointing or embarrassing them.

“I grew up hearing things about my wife and kids,” David says. “They’re very traditional in the sense of the stereotypical family values.”

Though going home is a similar source of anxiety for Matt, he says it’s one he feels like he has to confront. While he has always wanted to return home after graduation to fix some of his hometown’s social problems, he says he is not ready to necessarily become a social pariah.

“Home is the place I love and grew up in, but it’s also the place that I hate,” Matt says.

Even at Harvard, Erica says she still fears that her parents will somehow find out about her sexuality. Because Erica comes from a tight-knit immigrant community, she says she has consciously decided to not maintain many friendships with members of her own ethnicity.

“People talk a lot, and for whatever reason parents find out what their kids are doing in college,” she says.

Nevertheless, during this past year Erica says she has been “feeling an itch” to come out to her parents, and may even tell them during the time between when she graduates next month and when she starts medical school in a year. “Maybe this year is the year.”

—Staff writer Melanie A. Guzman can be reached at melanieguzman@college.harvard.edu.