Campus Places and Queer Spaces: Gay and Lesbian Visibility at Colgate University, 1965–85

Histories of twentieth-century collegiate gay and lesbian activism often begin with the formation of student groups—Gay Student Alliances, Gay Liberation Fronts, Student Homophile Leagues, or another kind of campus-based club or organization. This narrative, however, often neglects a wide array of non-traditional spaces queer students occupied prior to the inception of these highly visible organizations, leaving a crucial aspect of queer history relocated to the margins. So, what were the spaces gay and lesbian individuals inhabited before visible gay student groups emerged? How did these spaces evolve? How are these spaces unique? What kinds of visibility did they provide?

To study queer spaces, I have focused on the history of my own institution, Colgate University, a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, an hour's drive from Syracuse, and four hours north of NYC. Colgate University’s history of queer visibility disrupts common narratives about queer organizing dominantly occurring in urban spaces, as what scholarship currently suggests. These acts reveal a new way of discussing the spaces gay and lesbian individuals inhabit, and are seen in four types, all of which contribute to an ever-growing understanding of queer history. These spaces are (1) campus places, or, spaces not built for long-term networking or community-building for queer individuals, but occasionally provide visibility and recognition; (2) emerging spaces, comprised of pre-established organizations or groups on campus that support queer individuals and provide small, yet long-term opportunities for queer individuals to form networks and communities; (3) outgrowing closets, where, through previously-established networks or communities, queer individuals are able to form public-facing, visible student groups or advocacy efforts; (4) newspapers, a dynamic stage which exists as a campus space, an emerging space, and outgrowing closets because of its ability to accommodate for a multitude of types of visibility and advocacy efforts.

Drawing on six months’ work in the collections of Colgate University’s Special Collections and University Archives, as well as research in student newspapers and yearbooks, and a growing oral history archive organized by the University’s LGBTQ Studies program, my research reveals a stark need for reconsideration of the way historical scholarship represents gay and lesbian histories on college campuses. My poster uses texts and images from two student newspapers, The Colgate Maroon and The Colgate News, to convey the wide variety of spaces queer students found and created welcoming and visible spaces as a form of community-building and advocacy.

With my poster, I argue that we must take the time to look for gay and lesbian history outside of “expected” places, as other less “traditional” spaces of organizing and gathering are just as historically transformative. Moreover, we must acknowledge and work in consideration of the unique circumstances in location, institutional type, student and administrative culture, and organizational infrastructure to ensure non-traditional queer histories are not neglected because of overarching assumptions about what “queer space” should look like. By using Colgate University as a case study, I suggest new approaches to campus history research, queer history storytelling, and LGBTQ+ archives-building projects.