Word: glsa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...buttress the political gains made on campus in past years. Unfortunately, the editorial does not take into account the vital connection between "stabilizing and ...enriching the gay community" and maintaining a strongly visible presence on campus. Our concern with the strength of the gay community does not mean the GLSA is somehow going underground this year...
...fact, after a year of relative political dormancy, the reorganized GLSA already shows signs of new life. As Ms. Schwartz points out, we have more women and freshmen participating than ever before (though we are far from being "almost evenly gay and lesbian"). The GLSA is providing a strong and supportive center for this growing community. It is thereby educating the larger and generally homophobic college community. Unless the lesbians and gay men here are comfortable with themselves and proud of who they are, constructive visibility (in terms of educating the non-gay and closeted-gay community) is not possible...
...GLSA co-president Robert Mealy '85 says the group has to some extent "turned inward," stabilizing and concentrating more attention than before on enriching the life of the gay community. Efforts so far have been paying off; membership in the now almost evenly gay and lesbian group is up, and more gay freshmen and off-campus students know of its existence. "It's a regathering of strength; we're feeling our way," Mealy says, adding, "There was a real need felt last year for more community...
Such a period of regeneration is healthy for any group, and the present, with the substantive gains in gays' position at Harvard clearly evident, may be the ideal time for it. But for a group facing the GLSA's particular challenges, it also poses a special danger. For anyone who was at Harvard while leaders like Benjamin Schatz '81 and his cohorts were sparking what some called the fastest-growing student movement on campus, it remains impossible to retain the blind and stereotypical views most people bring to college. With gay rights a burning issue, only the most insulated could...
That institutional stubbornness means, of course, that the GLSA must now take full advantage of the representation within the system that Colantuono's election affords. But it also means that, in this community where 1600 uneducated and often homophobic freshmen arrive each fall, gays must not only formalize those gains swiftly but continue to maintain the visibility level that made them possible in the first place...