Uncovering the Past, Present, and Future of W&M’s LGBTQ+ Community
By Dana Armstrong
Originally published in Dog Street Journal's May 2019 issue.
For a Virginia college dating back to the late 1600s, traditions and old-world ideas run deep.
Racism, sexism, and homophobia are just a few of the problems that have plagued America for centuries, and, as a southern state, Virginia is no stranger to perpetuating these problems. But even through the tumultuous times of Massive Resistance, black face, and homophobia, there is a rumor that rocks Virginia to its very core. Were the namesakes of Virginia’s oldest school, William & Mary, gay? The rumor about King William III of England’s sexuality is a source of hope and wonder for the many LGBTQ+ students on William & Mary’s campus. When the history of W&M’s LGBTQ+ community is relatively sparse, students will cling onto a historical source of representation anywhere they can.
One of the co-presidents of the Lambda Alliance, Anna Bi Ledwin ’21, says “the only real LGBT history [at the College she knows of] is that Lambda formed in 1978. [She knows] of no past
professors or student activists and no movements our campus has made with respect to the LGBT community.” Clearly, it’s high time to share the lesser known stories of our LGBTQ+ community at William & Mary.
During the past two years, celebrating the inclusion of historically marginalized groups has been on the fore-front of William & Mary’s agenda. The College celebrated the 50th anniversary of African Americans on campus last year and the 100th anniversary of women on campus this year. But what happens to those whose ‘differences’ aren’t as easily seen from the outside?
The Center for Student Diversity claims that people who identify as LGBTQ+ make up around 20% of our student population. To put this number into perspective, that is more than twice the amount of African American students currently on campus (around 7.1%) and a little less than half the number of female students on campus (around 58%). As the LGBTQ+ community is such a big part of our campus, shouldn’t we also be celebrating them and their history as much as we have celebrated the first African Americans and women?
Reese Willis ’21 says, “I would love to see LGBTQ+ people being celebrated for being themselves. I feel a little bit weird with [the current anniversaries] because it seems like the
university is celebrating itself for learning how to be accepting. I don’t know if a campus-wide event sponsored by all of the staff is the kind of thing that I would really feel accepted by or appreciated by, but I wouldn’t turn it down. I appreciate what the university is trying to do. That being said, I think it would be really hard to find out when the first LGBTQ+ students were on campus. It would be near impossible to trace them.”
For Willis as well as the other LGBTQ+ identifying students I spoke with, although they
may not be specifically interested in an established anniversary, they are interested in learning more about the history of the LGBTQ+ community on campus.
THE PAST
Despite the 326 years of our school’s existence, less than a century of that time has
included any kind of history about the LGBTQ+ community. It’s very possible that homosexual
relationships could have existed between the unmarried professors and male students in the
College’s initial years. Additionally, it’s even more possible that more LGBTQ+ students and staff came as the College steadily expanded. However, with the concept of sexuality being very limited and the acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals virtually non-existent before the 20th century, there’s no way of knowing for sure.
“The history of LGBTQ+ people here is that, up until very recently, they were either closeted or didn’t know what to do in terms of coming out,” says Andrew Uhrig ’20. “It’s interesting to see how people view the history of LGBTQ+ people here at the College because people who aren’t what we consider heterosexual or cisgender have existed for millennia. It’s really important to recognize that it’s not that they haven’t been here, it’s just that they haven’t been out or haven’t had the modes of expressing how they feel in any sort of recorded fashion.”
"During the 1960's, admitting to being homosexual could lead to expulsion"
For a while, hiding their identities was the only way for LGBTQ+ students to attend the
College. During the 1960s, admitting to being homosexual could lead to expulsion. According to the article Pride and Prejudice, a 2014 feature story in W&M’s alumni magazine, even those who were brought to the school on chemistry scholarships weren’t immune to expulsion. “Bill Boushka was removed around Thanksgiving [in 1961] after admitting his latent homosexuality to the Dean... and Tom Baker ’66 spent some time in the College’s infirmary for being gay.”
“There was no awareness of the LGBTQ+ community when I was there [in the sixties],”
recalls Tom Baker, a former William & Mary English major and current author of homosexual
fiction such as The Sound of One Horse Dancing and Green. His books feature a loosely
autobiographical character named Tim Halladay who works through coming to terms with his
sexuality before, during, and after his time studying at William & Mary.
“Although there were the more creative, Bohemian undercurrents in William and Mary’s theater department—which I was a part of—no one was openly gay,” says Baker. “We all had to play a straight role. I dated girls and I went to frat parties, but I was also wrestling with my sexual identity.”
“During my freshman year, I was invited to a party by my English professor at his apartment on
Chandler Court. I was the only undergraduate there. We were all drinking beer and having fun. Gradually, the other students left until I was the only one there. After everyone had gone, my professor seduced me. I remember leaving his apartment late at night and walking down
Jamestown Road in a daze. By some coincidence, my theater professor happened to be driving down that road. He saw me looking distressed and took me to the infirmary [in Taliaferro Hall]. I’m so grateful that he found me. It’s hard to imagine what might have happened if he hadn’t.”
“That scandal was my coming out story. It’s kind of funny looking back on it now, but at the time it was Hell. The Dean of Men called my parents about the steamy affair with my professor, and I was kept in Taliaferro Hall for about a week. Back then, they thought you could cure homosexuality. I remember my friends sneaking me beer through the windows. After that, although I was not openly gay, my homosexuality was very well-known among my fellow students. I had a boyfriend on campus during my sophomore year and we roomed together. There were no organizations on campus that dealt with the gay community then, so I was fortunate that the theater department could act as my [safe] environment.”
In 1978, the oldest LGBTQ+ group on campus, the Lambda Alliance, formed as a student-
led “safe space, activist space, and social space for queer people and their allies.” A few years later in 1983, George Greenia, a Hispanic studies professor at the College, organized a support group for gay students. The anonymous meetings took place weekly in the basement of St. Bede Catholic Church (currently the site of the Catholic Campus Ministries Chapel). There, LGBTQ+ students could receive advice on topics such as AIDS prevention and how to come out to their parents. The support group ran in relative secrecy for 23 years, finally ending in 2006 when it was decided that there were enough organizations on campus to
support LGBTQ+ students.
In 1986, William & Mary alumni formed their own group to serve the needs of LGBTQ+ students. GALA, or the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, emerged during the height of the AIDS crisis, so their initial goals were to provide programming on safe sex and distribute condoms among LGBTQ+ students. As their membership expanded, so did their impact on improving the conditions of current LGBTQ+ students and promoting the history of LGBTQ+ individuals on campus. In 1990, the group successfully advocated for sexual identification to be added to the College’s non-discrimination clause. A year later, they won a landmark lawsuit against Virginia’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, making it legal for alcohol to be sold to homosexuals. GALA was also responsible for supplying a multitude of LGBTQ+ books to Swem Library through the Richard Cornish Endowment Fund and recording the oral histories of former and current LGBTQ+ students and staff through the Stephens Project. As of November 2017, the project has collected over 54 oral histories.
THE PRESENT
Comparing the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community from the 1960s to today is night and
day. Not only can LGBTQ+ students be more comfortably open with their sexualities on campus, they can also participate in a range of activities and educational events relating specifically to them.
The Lambda Alliance, now under the umbrella of the Rainbow Coalition, is still in effect
today and regularly provides LGBTQ+ students with the opportunities to socialize with other
members of the campus community and participate in philanthropic and activist events. Most recently, Lambda hosted its annual queer Prom, but it also put on events such as the Drag
Ball, Coming Out Week, and Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Ledwin says, “In Lambda, we’ve been making the effort to make our meetings and other events as inclusive as possible, especially with the new [more racially and sexually diverse] executive board as of November 2018. I hope to think that the reason people keep coming back is because of [our welcoming environment].”
William & Mary’s Wellness Center has also been a new source for the LGBTQ+ community. For transgender students, the Wellness Center has recently started a support group that meets every other week. The program was originally suggested by students through email, and the counseling center worked quickly to make the group a reality. Additionally, students find that Eric Garrison, the person behind the weekly “All Health Breaks Loose” newsletter, is very accommodating to supporting any LGBTQ+ member in need of a good chat. But LGBTQ+ students can also feel accepted and comfortable outside of specifically LGBTQ+ groups.
When I met with Reese Willis in Swem, she was wearing workout clothes as she just came from a dance practice for the Japanese Cultural Association (JCA). She says, “The main club I
participate in, JCA, has been my home space. This is not only just because a bunch of people I know there identify as bisexual. More identify as just queer in general. It’s also a space where our being queer is not essential to us being there. We’re all there for another reason as well, and we can all bond over other shared interests. It’s more meaningful to be something and also queer than to just be known or appreciated for something that I can’t control.”
THE FUTURE
As far as the LGBTQ+ community has come on our campus, there is still hope that more can be done to continue to welcome and assist LGBTQ+ students. Part of that inclusive future is found in the promise of William & Mary’s second Lavender Graduation Ceremony this coming Spring. Lavender Graduations are an opportunity to honor the contributions of LGBTQ+ graduating seniors to their universities and celebrate the LGBTQ+ culture. William & Mary held its first Lavender Ceremony just last year where 27 LGBTQ+ graduates donned rainbow stoles and heard the remarks of LGBTQ+ alumni and their peers.
“Lavender Graduation is so special because it is a specific celebration of those in our LGBTQ+ community who are graduating....it feels like a reconciliation of sorts, which is so beautiful.”
For Hannah Caffacus ’19, successfully registering for the Lavender Graduation and receiving her mom’s supportive texts was exciting enough to share to the William and Mary Good Vibes Facebook page.
Caffacus says, “Lavender Graduation is so special because it is a specific celebration of those
in our LGBTQ+ community who are graduating. These community-specific ceremonies are popping up more and more, and it is such an amazing thing and so needed. It recognizes the disproportionate advantage that cisgender and heterosexual students have, and it’s a special honor and recognition of what some queer students go through. Beyond that, bringing my family to Lavender Graduation is special because it includes them in a part of myself that I hid for a very long time. It feels like a reconciliation of sorts, which is so beautiful.”
However, there is more LGBTQ+ students would like to see to continue to better the community. For one, they would like to see more representation of people of color in the LBGTQ+ community on campus. They would also like to have someone in the Student Diversity Center whose soul job is to serve the needs of LGBTQ+ students. Since the center is meant to serve all of the ‘diverse’ student groups on campus, only a fraction of their attention can be directed towards the LGBTQ+ community. But, most notably, the community wants an established safe haven.
While waiting for our film to dry after hours in the classroom of our photography class, I spoke
to Andrew Uhrig, who expresses the need for such a place.
“I feel safe in any of my friends’ rooms, but there’s no constant place I can go back to and feel
safe [on campus],” Uhrig says. “That shows we need something like an LGBTQ+ center. Having that constant there for anyone who needs it is really important. Some people don’t feel as social and don’t feel like hanging out with friends, and they end up sitting alone in their room or going somewhere without any kind of support. Having a staffed center where students could come and go as they wish would really help.”
“I know that in recent history, like before I started coming here in 2016, the administration
was very averse to having anything like an LGBTQ+ center. It had been brought up to them
before, and each time they shot it down. But more recently, I’ve heard that President Katherine Rowe and Vice President Ginger Ambler are people who are very supportive of having an LGBTQ+ center.”
Even though the history of the LGBTQ+ community at William & Mary can be difficult to find at times, through the hard work of alumni, students, and staff their history is becoming
increasingly visible every passing day. Swem Library’s recent acquisition of two LGBTQ+
databases, “GenderWatch” and the “Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity: LGBTQ History
and Culture Since 1940,” ensures access to a wealth of information for those who want to research more about the LGBTQ+ community at large. Additionally, the Mattachine Project and LGBTIQ Research Project, directed by American studies and history professor Leisa Meyer is working to continue to uncover more of Virginia’s LGBTQ+ past.
It’s true that we may never know who the first LGBTQ+ person who graced our campus was.
However, in the long run, the first pales in comparison to the numerous others who followed.
The first three African Americans and the first 24 (white) women would be just a blip in the timeline if it weren’t for the increasingly diverse and talented others who followed. Besides, just think of all the exciting anniversaries we could hold for the LGBTQ+ community, even without knowing their first.’ Perhaps the 100th anniversary of Lambda or W&M’s Lavender Ceremony is in store for the future LGBTQ+ students of our college.
Now, back to our original question: were William and Mary gay? Unfortunately, the jury is
still out. Besides the suggestions that King William spent considerable amounts of time alone with his male friends after Queen Mary died and he never took a mistress (which is apparently telling for the time), we may never know. Here’s what the uk.answers.yahoo.com page on ‘Was William of Orange a homosexual’ claims:
“During the 1690s, satiric pamphlets pinned by William III's Jacobite detractors fueled rumors that William of Orange was homosexual. Admittedly, he rewarded two courtiers who had come with him from the Netherlands with earldoms--Hans Willem Bentinck, the Earl of Portland, and Arnold Joostian van Keppel, the Earl of Albermarle. Moreover, he kept only one mistress, which left him susceptible to this accusation. Nevertheless, historians doubt that his friendship with Bentinck was homosexual, although keeping van Keppel as a favorite was suspicious since this "strikingly handsome" courtier was 20 years younger than William III.”
Whatever the truth may be, it’s certain that the LGBTQ+ community doesn’t need a figure head such as King William to tell its stories. Alums such as Tom Baker, educators such as Professor Greenia, and current LGBTQ+ students at the College of William & Mary paint a picture of adversity, acceptance, and perseverance richer than any painter of the royal courts. It’s what the future LGBTQ+ community does with its paintbrushes that will help shape William & Mary’s LGBTQ+ legacy.
