Over the past few weeks, I have taken numerous trips over to Conrad with Chris and Margeaux in order to gather information regarding the history of LGBT events and organizations at MSU. We have organized our findings into a time line which we feel accurately describes major events within the LGBT community here at MSU. In the beginning, I found the amount of information that was available on this subject slightly overwhelming. However, after spending some time sifting through folders filled with articles and newspapers, I began to get a sense of MSU’s history regarding the LGBT community. There were a few events in particular that stuck out to me as being the most influential. The first occurred in 1980, one of the years that Greek Week and Gay Pride week coincided on campus. Tensions between the two groups ran high throughout the week, coming to a head when, in order to mock the frat boys, all of the members of the gay community were told to wear “alligator shirts” and to dress as a stereotypical frat boy. The second noteworthy occasion occurred in 1982 when a member of the fraternity Delta Sigma Pi was removed from the fraternity after coming out as a gay. The president of the university stood behind the fraternity’s decision, claiming frats were not a part of the university and therefore not held to the same anti-discrimination policies as those of the university. After reading many stories similar to the ones outlined above, I am amazed at how far the university has come in response to the LGBT community in the past 30 or so years. The development and current existence of the LGBT resource center along with the evidence of changing attitudes throughout all of the Greek Community shows great promise for the reputation of our university in the future. I am so grateful for all of the changes that are contributing to MSU becoming a more accepting community for its students to be involved in.
Sarah
Sarah
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