The Daily Evergay, Part I
Despite the expansion of lesbian and gay history during the past decades there are many places where the history of lesbian and gay people remains unwritten. Following nights of rioting on Christopher Street in New York City in June of 1969, gays and lesbians across the United States spoke more openly, and organized more actively, than had their counterparts in the 1950s. The Stonewall Riots, as those nights were later remembered, did not reach all corners of the United States, but they did extend to Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. By exploring sources from the long-running, daily student-newspaper The Evergreen this post and its counter-part will shed light on the history of lesbian and gay student activism at WSU. Part I examines the formation of the student organization Gay Awareness and its uneven work in uniting minority groups on campus. Part II will follow the response to the organization as seen in the The Evergreen.
As I discuss below, the early 1970s, and particularly 1975 and 1976, were eventful times for the local queer community. The student newspaper at WSU is a surprisingly rich source for this topic—during those years The Evergreen ran so many articles concerning lesbian and gay people a critical letter to the editor suggested the paper change its title “from Evergreen to Evergay.”[1] This mostly-white, and very rural population of course does not represent all experiences of lesbian and gay people during the 1970s. Nevertheless, how students voiced their concerns to their classmates and community members lets us consider how some lesbian and gay people in rural areas made sense of, and fought for, their rights during a turbulent era; it also allows us to consider the legacies of the opposition to that struggle.
The first open push for a campus more inclusive to lesbian and gay people came not long after the Stonewall Riots. In December 1970, the WSU Association for Women Students (AWS) hosted a two-panelist discussion on the topic of the “Homosexual Dilemma.” Although AWS were unable to get all four speakers that they had advertised, the two panelists who did attend—Jim Broderickson and Lori Jaffe—spoke to a standing-room only crowd in the CUB Ballroom. Their talk was front page news the following day.[2]
Broderickson and Jaffe mostly discussed their struggles overcoming anti-gay stereotypes. The panelists argued that Hollywood movies falsely portrayed gays and lesbians as emotional basket-cases unable to hold a meaningful relationship. According to Broderickson, despite the stereotype that all gay men lived flamboyantly in cities, “only a small minority of gays” frequented the gay bars and clubs in gay-neighborhoods like Greenwich Village in New York City. Jaffe believed “if a movie were made about an everyday homosexual relationship, it would be a bomb.” The speakers did not condemn those gay people who chose to live in those areas or walked the many new avenues forged by sexual liberation. Instead, they argued, a cultural obsession with flamboyantly sexual gay people prevented a full understanding of the entire lesbian and gay community.[3]
According to an editorial that ran a few days later in the student newspaper, the talk was a hit. It also showed how far the university had come. The author Paula Wikstrom claimed that “The chance of such an event occuring [sic] four years ago is so slight as to be almost non-existent.” Picking up where the speakers had left off, Wikstrom argued that the stereotype of the over-sexualized gay man was not based in fact. Instead, it was, “[b]ecause of the heavy social pressures against gay marriages [that] most homosexual contacts are transient. Since the contacts are transient the homosexual is many times promiscuous, but if some research on them is to be believed this is not what the homosexual desires.” [4] While this kind of rhetoric may appear conservative to some modern-day readers it would be a mistake to think that this denial of open sexuality was a rejection of free sexuality or gay liberation. Wikstrom was trying to change ideas about homosexual stereotypes without condemning gay men who made the best of the situations in which they found themselves.
In April 1971, The Evergreen profiled a gay student at WSU with an article somewhat misleadingly titled “Gay But Unhappy.” WSU student “Samuel Lewis,” using a pseudonym, told the interviewer of his experiences as a gay person in Pullman. The article provides good insight into the contradictions and conflicts that could accompany gay life in a rural area. In some ways, Lewis highlighted the benefits of ruralness. Unlike his counterparts in Spokane and Seattle, Lewis did not have to worry about strict enforcement of the state’s sodomy law which criminalized sexual intercourse between same-sex couples as a felony conviction accompanied by prison. At least to Lewis, the smallness of the gay community shielded it from a possible vice squad investigation. But it was this same isolation that “made it even more difficult” to deal with micro-aggressions of everyday homophobia—from homophobic portrayals of gay men in movies to the gratuitous use of “fag” on campus. The smallness that shielded the community from police prosecution also made it difficult to find someone else who shared your experience.[5]
But Lewis also recognized that one need not move to the city to find more queer people. Seeking out a larger gay community, Lewis chose to spend one summer on a commune run by the organization Gay Liberation. It is not clear if this commune was urban or one of the many rural, back-to-the-land movements that fascinated large sections of the lesbian and gay communities in the 1970s, but commune life seems to challenge some modern stereotypes about gay people. That a gay person would choose to move to a commune hardly fits the stereotype of the urban, bar-going, gay man that Broderickson and Wikstrom had challenged. And perhaps Lewis’s conclusions about his experience were even more shocking. Although “still cautious” after his experience, Lewis claimed that his time at the commune allowed him to gain “a large measure of self-confidence.” Pullman certainly had its ups-and-downs for Lewis. But his self-confidence and identity as a gay person did not rely on finding an urban space to live in; instead it relied on finding himself in a rural one.
The Evergreen’s interview with Lewis also sheds some insight into the history of intersectionality in the gay community. During the 1970s, women’s and gay liberation were closely-linked, if sometimes conflicting, movements. When asked about the “situation of lesbians,” Lewis admitted that he did not have enough knowledge on the subject to speak fully, but recognized that patriarchy played a part in the issues facing lesbians. Lewis identified “a special problem of role-playing and adapting to a society that declares she should be subordinate to a man.” When Lori Jaffe spoke to the CUB in December 1970 she also pointed to similar concerns. Likewise, some of the first members of the Gay Awareness Committee discussed with The Evergreen whether these “special problems” divided men and women in the gay liberation movement or whether instead they were just two different ways to experience being queer. Gays and lesbians in Pullman had yet to figure out exactly how they would be able to work together—one activist called a “love-hate relationship”— but early on they recognized that they should not face the issues alone. Regardless of these divisions, both men and women came together to successfully argue for the organization to be recognized by the Associated Students of Washington State University—the student governing body—in 1971.[6]
A flurry of activity had followed the discussion on the “Homosexual Dilemma.” Sophomore Gary Rikansrud took advantage of the university’s “Free U” classes to teach a student-led course titled “The Homosexual in a Conservative Environment Like WSU.” Along with Mary and Terry (who both asked the interviewer to withhold their last names), Rikansrud formed the Gay Awareness Committee and applied to ASWSU for office and phone space in April 1971. They planned for their organization to “stick to social and informational functions in the near future” and to be a place where people “can bring up the subject of homosexuality on campus” and have their questions answered freely. For the next few years, these education campaigns would be a mainstay of the organization. Gay students encouraged The Evergreen to run stories about their struggles at WSU, conversations about coming out, and information about homosexuality generally. Titles like “Gays seek freedom in straight society,” and “Homosexual ‘Comes Out’” introduced straight students to topics with which they may be unfamiliar. WSU GA students also met with the Seattle Gay Alliance to forge connections across the state. Unfortunately, the intersectionality that brought together women and men to work on educating people at homosexuality was not reproduced with other communities and led to conflicts that slowed progress on these goals.[7]
During the 1970s the student groups Black Student Union(BSU) and Gay Awareness(GA) were often at odds, particularly when it came to questions of ASWSU funding. In 1973, supporters of Gay Awareness argued that if some minority organizations get funding—i.e. BSU—then all minority organizations should receive funding as well. In response, BSU supporters pointed out that they were “black people first and minority people second.” They argued that “Although much has been said about the similarities between minority groups, their differences are even more striking” particularly when considering the racial history of WSU. In a trend that would unfortunately be repeated years later, Gay Awareness and BSU were unable to form a coalition to support each other. Instead, as will be explored in more detail in Part II, both organizations focused on what divided them and could not construct an equality-discourse recognizing the particular struggle of black people and the detriments of oppressing any minority group. The rhetoric of identity politics at WSU in the 1970s could not bridge the gaps separating struggling peoples.[8]
During these early years the Gay Awareness Committee, also called the Gay People’s Alliance, usually put awareness and community first and traditional politics second. One activity that GA used in its first few years was holding a “leaderless discussion” on an important issue such as coming out.[9] Organizational activities like this continued throughout the 1970s, with nights set aside to “rap and socialize” or otherwise mingle with other gay people.[10] Before they began meeting in the Koinonia, House, or K-House on campus, GA held their meetings in an off-campus apartment on Wheatland Drive. They also ran an ad in the Evergreen with a phone number and office in the student union building that gay people could call if they faced issues. This attempt at community building went a long way towards establishing an organizational structure and membership that took more openly political and public stands in 1975.
[1] “The Daily Evergay,” Daily Evergreen, Dec. 11, 1975, 4.
[2] “Homosexuality to be discussed,” Daily Evergreen, Dec. 8, 1970, 3.
[3] “Homosexual Dilemma: Problem of Stereotype,” Daily Evergreen, Dec. 9, 1970, 1.
[4] “Homosexuals Need Acceptance.” Daily Evergreen, Dec. 11, 1970, 2. Much has been made of the split between homophile organizing of the 1950s and 1960s and the gay liberation activism of the 1970s. Here I am forging somewhat of a middle ground between the two extremes. There’s no doubt that the rhetoric of gay liberation was markedly different than that of the homophile movement, but “Samuel Lewis’” experience shows that the two could coexist peacefully for people in rural or conservative areas.
[5] “Gay But Unhappy,” Daily Evergreen, Feb. 18, 1971.
[6] “Residents Said Shocked Upon Meeting Homosexual,” Daily Evergreen, April 1, 1971, 1.
[7] Ibid. Daily Evergreen, Nov. 23, 1971, 8. “People, Places, Things,” Daily Evergreen, Feb. 7, 1973, 5.
[8] “A Can of Worms,” Daily Evergreen, Sept. 27, 1973, 4; “Black to Keep Loose Ties, Select Alliances with Groups,” Daily Evergreen, May 30, 1973, 1.
[9] “Happenings,” Daily Evergreen, Oct. 13, 1971, 2.
[10] “Happenings,” Daily Evergreen, Oct. 29, 1975, 7.
[11] “One more time,” Daily Evergreen, Nov. 11, 1971, 4.
[12] “People, Places, Things,” Daily Evergreen, October 29, 1974, 11.
[13] “Advertisements” Daily Evergreen, Mar. 3, 1975, 3.
[14] “Assembly: How Does it Work?” Daily Evergreen, March 31, 1976, 5.
[15] “Answering Straight Questions,” Daily Evergreen, Dec. 10, 1975, 4.
[16] “Assembly Checks Rally Spending,” Daily Evergreen, Nov. 20, 1975, 2.
As I discuss below, the early 1970s, and particularly 1975 and 1976, were eventful times for the local queer community. The student newspaper at WSU is a surprisingly rich source for this topic—during those years The Evergreen ran so many articles concerning lesbian and gay people a critical letter to the editor suggested the paper change its title “from Evergreen to Evergay.”[1] This mostly-white, and very rural population of course does not represent all experiences of lesbian and gay people during the 1970s. Nevertheless, how students voiced their concerns to their classmates and community members lets us consider how some lesbian and gay people in rural areas made sense of, and fought for, their rights during a turbulent era; it also allows us to consider the legacies of the opposition to that struggle.
 |
| An announcement for the first ever public discussion about homoseuxality at WSU. Click the image to read more. |
Broderickson and Jaffe mostly discussed their struggles overcoming anti-gay stereotypes. The panelists argued that Hollywood movies falsely portrayed gays and lesbians as emotional basket-cases unable to hold a meaningful relationship. According to Broderickson, despite the stereotype that all gay men lived flamboyantly in cities, “only a small minority of gays” frequented the gay bars and clubs in gay-neighborhoods like Greenwich Village in New York City. Jaffe believed “if a movie were made about an everyday homosexual relationship, it would be a bomb.” The speakers did not condemn those gay people who chose to live in those areas or walked the many new avenues forged by sexual liberation. Instead, they argued, a cultural obsession with flamboyantly sexual gay people prevented a full understanding of the entire lesbian and gay community.[3]
According to an editorial that ran a few days later in the student newspaper, the talk was a hit. It also showed how far the university had come. The author Paula Wikstrom claimed that “The chance of such an event occuring [sic] four years ago is so slight as to be almost non-existent.” Picking up where the speakers had left off, Wikstrom argued that the stereotype of the over-sexualized gay man was not based in fact. Instead, it was, “[b]ecause of the heavy social pressures against gay marriages [that] most homosexual contacts are transient. Since the contacts are transient the homosexual is many times promiscuous, but if some research on them is to be believed this is not what the homosexual desires.” [4] While this kind of rhetoric may appear conservative to some modern-day readers it would be a mistake to think that this denial of open sexuality was a rejection of free sexuality or gay liberation. Wikstrom was trying to change ideas about homosexual stereotypes without condemning gay men who made the best of the situations in which they found themselves.
In April 1971, The Evergreen profiled a gay student at WSU with an article somewhat misleadingly titled “Gay But Unhappy.” WSU student “Samuel Lewis,” using a pseudonym, told the interviewer of his experiences as a gay person in Pullman. The article provides good insight into the contradictions and conflicts that could accompany gay life in a rural area. In some ways, Lewis highlighted the benefits of ruralness. Unlike his counterparts in Spokane and Seattle, Lewis did not have to worry about strict enforcement of the state’s sodomy law which criminalized sexual intercourse between same-sex couples as a felony conviction accompanied by prison. At least to Lewis, the smallness of the gay community shielded it from a possible vice squad investigation. But it was this same isolation that “made it even more difficult” to deal with micro-aggressions of everyday homophobia—from homophobic portrayals of gay men in movies to the gratuitous use of “fag” on campus. The smallness that shielded the community from police prosecution also made it difficult to find someone else who shared your experience.[5]
But Lewis also recognized that one need not move to the city to find more queer people. Seeking out a larger gay community, Lewis chose to spend one summer on a commune run by the organization Gay Liberation. It is not clear if this commune was urban or one of the many rural, back-to-the-land movements that fascinated large sections of the lesbian and gay communities in the 1970s, but commune life seems to challenge some modern stereotypes about gay people. That a gay person would choose to move to a commune hardly fits the stereotype of the urban, bar-going, gay man that Broderickson and Wikstrom had challenged. And perhaps Lewis’s conclusions about his experience were even more shocking. Although “still cautious” after his experience, Lewis claimed that his time at the commune allowed him to gain “a large measure of self-confidence.” Pullman certainly had its ups-and-downs for Lewis. But his self-confidence and identity as a gay person did not rely on finding an urban space to live in; instead it relied on finding himself in a rural one.
The Evergreen’s interview with Lewis also sheds some insight into the history of intersectionality in the gay community. During the 1970s, women’s and gay liberation were closely-linked, if sometimes conflicting, movements. When asked about the “situation of lesbians,” Lewis admitted that he did not have enough knowledge on the subject to speak fully, but recognized that patriarchy played a part in the issues facing lesbians. Lewis identified “a special problem of role-playing and adapting to a society that declares she should be subordinate to a man.” When Lori Jaffe spoke to the CUB in December 1970 she also pointed to similar concerns. Likewise, some of the first members of the Gay Awareness Committee discussed with The Evergreen whether these “special problems” divided men and women in the gay liberation movement or whether instead they were just two different ways to experience being queer. Gays and lesbians in Pullman had yet to figure out exactly how they would be able to work together—one activist called a “love-hate relationship”— but early on they recognized that they should not face the issues alone. Regardless of these divisions, both men and women came together to successfully argue for the organization to be recognized by the Associated Students of Washington State University—the student governing body—in 1971.[6]
A flurry of activity had followed the discussion on the “Homosexual Dilemma.” Sophomore Gary Rikansrud took advantage of the university’s “Free U” classes to teach a student-led course titled “The Homosexual in a Conservative Environment Like WSU.” Along with Mary and Terry (who both asked the interviewer to withhold their last names), Rikansrud formed the Gay Awareness Committee and applied to ASWSU for office and phone space in April 1971. They planned for their organization to “stick to social and informational functions in the near future” and to be a place where people “can bring up the subject of homosexuality on campus” and have their questions answered freely. For the next few years, these education campaigns would be a mainstay of the organization. Gay students encouraged The Evergreen to run stories about their struggles at WSU, conversations about coming out, and information about homosexuality generally. Titles like “Gays seek freedom in straight society,” and “Homosexual ‘Comes Out’” introduced straight students to topics with which they may be unfamiliar. WSU GA students also met with the Seattle Gay Alliance to forge connections across the state. Unfortunately, the intersectionality that brought together women and men to work on educating people at homosexuality was not reproduced with other communities and led to conflicts that slowed progress on these goals.[7]
During the 1970s the student groups Black Student Union(BSU) and Gay Awareness(GA) were often at odds, particularly when it came to questions of ASWSU funding. In 1973, supporters of Gay Awareness argued that if some minority organizations get funding—i.e. BSU—then all minority organizations should receive funding as well. In response, BSU supporters pointed out that they were “black people first and minority people second.” They argued that “Although much has been said about the similarities between minority groups, their differences are even more striking” particularly when considering the racial history of WSU. In a trend that would unfortunately be repeated years later, Gay Awareness and BSU were unable to form a coalition to support each other. Instead, as will be explored in more detail in Part II, both organizations focused on what divided them and could not construct an equality-discourse recognizing the particular struggle of black people and the detriments of oppressing any minority group. The rhetoric of identity politics at WSU in the 1970s could not bridge the gaps separating struggling peoples.[8]
 |
| A cartoon published in The Evergreen commenting on the conflicts between different minority groups. Click the image to read more. |
During the early 1970s, Gay Awareness did not completely avoid political statements. In 1971 one letter to the editor who wished to have his name withheld blamed “Closed minded, religious, conservative, oppression” for preventing people from openly coming out.[11] By 1974, GA was firmly involved in national gay politics. That year they voted with their counterpart University of Idaho Gay Awareness organization in nearby Moscow to join the National Gay Task Force (now the National LGBT Task Force) to stay informed about gay issues.[12]
This new political openness seemed to show some quick results. Perhaps the most interesting community building exercise was loudly announced in the classified section in 1975: “KEGGAR SATURDAY MARCH 8 AT 9 P.M. FOR ALL GAY MEN.” By 1975 the awareness and education campaigns that Gay Awareness had taken up had allowed gay people to be more open on campus. Whereas in 1971 members of Gay Awareness were afraid to hold hands in public, in 1975 they were throwing their own kegger.[13]
And so, by the start of the 1975-1976 school year Gay Awareness had done much on the WSU campus to build community and organize politically. The next step was to form an ASWSU committee devoted to addressing their issues.
ASWSU committees existed “for the purpose of providing increased services to students”—such as education about the problems facing minority students.[14] In late 1975, GA requested that ASWSU begin funding the organization for office space and a telephone. The organization made its pitch in this way:
This new political openness seemed to show some quick results. Perhaps the most interesting community building exercise was loudly announced in the classified section in 1975: “KEGGAR SATURDAY MARCH 8 AT 9 P.M. FOR ALL GAY MEN.” By 1975 the awareness and education campaigns that Gay Awareness had taken up had allowed gay people to be more open on campus. Whereas in 1971 members of Gay Awareness were afraid to hold hands in public, in 1975 they were throwing their own kegger.[13]
And so, by the start of the 1975-1976 school year Gay Awareness had done much on the WSU campus to build community and organize politically. The next step was to form an ASWSU committee devoted to addressing their issues.
ASWSU committees existed “for the purpose of providing increased services to students”—such as education about the problems facing minority students.[14] In late 1975, GA requested that ASWSU begin funding the organization for office space and a telephone. The organization made its pitch in this way:
“The constitution of Gay People's Alliance establishes three goals: to increase public awareness, to provide a social outlet for gays on campus and to offer a coalescing force for possible political action.
We are in definite need of a telephone in order to offer an effective counseling and referral service. A stigma, created by society and especially this campus, produces fear in the individual of being seen even approaching our office. For the gay seeking help or the straight seeking information a telephone provides an easy and impersonal means of contact.
Office supplies are needed in order to promote our services. Without a means of advertising all services would be useless because of an inability to reach the public effectively and make them aware of the opportunities offered them.
For GPA to be more effective it is necessary to communicate with similar groups in the area. The value of such communication lies in strengthening ourselves as a political machine and in drawing from their experience to improve our services. All meetings and programs are open to the public; our main desire, as I've stated, is an education of the public, therefore our services extend beyond our minority to the majority.”[15]
Gay Awareness requested $160 for these endeavors. On November 19th, ASWSU voted 14-3 in favor of forming of a Gay Awareness Committee which would allow for official funding requests. The subsequent year of debates took up significant space in the school newspaper and a significant time of the ASWSU assembly. They also make up Part II of this story.[16]
About the author: Brian Stack is a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Peter Boag. His dissertation examines the history of bestiality in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century American West with particular emphasis on human-animal relationships, power, and sexual assault.
About the author: Brian Stack is a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Peter Boag. His dissertation examines the history of bestiality in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century American West with particular emphasis on human-animal relationships, power, and sexual assault.
[1] “The Daily Evergay,” Daily Evergreen, Dec. 11, 1975, 4.
[2] “Homosexuality to be discussed,” Daily Evergreen, Dec. 8, 1970, 3.
[3] “Homosexual Dilemma: Problem of Stereotype,” Daily Evergreen, Dec. 9, 1970, 1.
[4] “Homosexuals Need Acceptance.” Daily Evergreen, Dec. 11, 1970, 2. Much has been made of the split between homophile organizing of the 1950s and 1960s and the gay liberation activism of the 1970s. Here I am forging somewhat of a middle ground between the two extremes. There’s no doubt that the rhetoric of gay liberation was markedly different than that of the homophile movement, but “Samuel Lewis’” experience shows that the two could coexist peacefully for people in rural or conservative areas.
[5] “Gay But Unhappy,” Daily Evergreen, Feb. 18, 1971.
[6] “Residents Said Shocked Upon Meeting Homosexual,” Daily Evergreen, April 1, 1971, 1.
[7] Ibid. Daily Evergreen, Nov. 23, 1971, 8. “People, Places, Things,” Daily Evergreen, Feb. 7, 1973, 5.
[8] “A Can of Worms,” Daily Evergreen, Sept. 27, 1973, 4; “Black to Keep Loose Ties, Select Alliances with Groups,” Daily Evergreen, May 30, 1973, 1.
[9] “Happenings,” Daily Evergreen, Oct. 13, 1971, 2.
[10] “Happenings,” Daily Evergreen, Oct. 29, 1975, 7.
[11] “One more time,” Daily Evergreen, Nov. 11, 1971, 4.
[12] “People, Places, Things,” Daily Evergreen, October 29, 1974, 11.
[13] “Advertisements” Daily Evergreen, Mar. 3, 1975, 3.
[14] “Assembly: How Does it Work?” Daily Evergreen, March 31, 1976, 5.
[15] “Answering Straight Questions,” Daily Evergreen, Dec. 10, 1975, 4.
[16] “Assembly Checks Rally Spending,” Daily Evergreen, Nov. 20, 1975, 2.
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