Allies Foster Ties with GLBTQ Community and Beyond

Author: Claire M. L. Bourne

Middlebury College's Ally Group has existed for 11 years. But when Commons Residential Advisor (CRA) Freeman White '03 tells people he does leadership work for the organization, most respond with blank stares. Tonight, more than a decade after its informal inception, the Ally Group will take a notable step toward heightened visibility - and official student organization status - by ratifying a constitution.

"The time is right for the Ally Group to evolve," says Matt Longman '91, dean of Wonnacott Commons.

The group was established in 1992 by a handful of faculty and staff members to provide support and advocacy for the College's gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, questioning (GLBTQ) community. Since then, it has expanded to include student allies.

Longman was instrumental in getting the ally program off the ground and is now working to ensure its survival. "The ebb and flow [of interest in the group] is not satisfactory," he says. "The group should be alive and well year after year." With 45 first-years expressing interest in the allies at the activities fair in September and 40 people attending the group's first "official" meeting during Coming Out Week, momentum is building.

The allies' mission, says Longman, is "to ensure that Middlebury is not a cold, silent climate" for members of the GLBTQ community. Despite recent strides toward greater visibility for gay and bisexual Middlebury students, the College on the Hill is still not immune to homophobia. "It is still a climate where it's typical when moqa hangs posters for the majority of them to be torn down," Longman says. "It's really not a good sign."

The Ally Group is out to change that by broadening the base of students aware of GLBTQ issues. With student organization status will come a budget from the College's Finance Committee - something the group has done without until now - to sponsor lectures, parties, films and other events on campus. Such events, says White, "will get discussion rolling."

The move to transform the Ally Group from a grassroots initiative into a formally recognized organization comes on the heels of several landmark achievements for the GLBTQ community at Middlebury this year. The Middlebury Open Queer Alliance (moqa) has seen a spike in attendance - a solid 20 people at each weekly meeting compared to less than 10 last year - and the symbolic closet constructed by moqa on McCullough Lawn in observance of Coming Out Week this October was not vandalized for the first time since 1997. In addition, the College currently boasts about a dozen "out" faculty members, a far cry from 1992, the year Middlebury hired its first openly gay applicant to a teaching position.

During that same year, then-CRA Longman accompanied faculty and staff members to a conference at the University of Vermont that focused "on assessing your campus' climate towards the gay, lesbian and bisexual community," he explains. With no funding and "a nice spectrum" of interested faculty and staff, the Ally Group quietly debuted.

Over the past decade, allies have provided "safe spaces" - traditionally demarcated by a pink triangle postcard - for community members to talk about sexuality. The group also contributed to the push for domestic partner benefits, advocated for a broader range of "voices" in the annual "Voices of the Class" presentation during first-year orientation and sponsored a number of well-attended panel discussions about homosexuality and sexuality in general.

White says the group has already brainstormed innovative ways to raise awareness of GLBTQ issues on campus. Among the suggestions is an adopt-a-poster program to help prevent GLBTQ-focused fliers from being torn down. "We want to identify genuine, meaningful steps," says Longman, to promote the group's guiding principles of "Support, Education, Advocacy."

"As soon as you add an active group of the majority to advocate for the minority, people listen, and the movement gains momentum," White explains. Straight allies, he says, help the cause by "widening the net of people who start thinking about the subject" to those who would not encounter GLBTQ issues on a regular basis. Nevertheless, White is adamant that the Ally Group does not want a "straight identity." Jillian Weiser '06, co-president of moqa, argues, "You don't have to be straight to be an ally." Being an ally, she continues, can serve as "a step towards coming out," at least in her experience. (She served as an ally in high school.) "You get involved, take a stand, meet people and become aware that there is space and support," she explains.

There is even debate among current members of the Ally Group about whether allies should declare their sexuality at all.

"I sometimes argue against disclosing," affirms Kevin Moss, professor of Russian. "Basically I always find it suspect when people have to come out as straight in the first sentence of a conversation. What, aside from homophobia, would make someone want to do that?"

Xan Williams '03.5, who along with Trilby Reeve '05 is helping White and Longman coordinate the allies' drive toward student organization status, defines an ally as "anyone who supports GLBTQ rights."

The Ally Group's objective, Williams says, is inclusion. "Our goal is to get as many people involved as possible, which means that everyone is welcome," she explains. "If a person needs to identify himself or herself as straight (or otherwise) to feel comfortable putting themselves out as an ally, then that is fine."

The group will complement moqa, Reeve explains. "The groundwork has been laid by moqa, GLEAM [Gay and Lesbian Employees at Middlebury] and the allies," White says. "When we all work together, I know the environment will start changing."

When the allies gather this evening to discuss and endorse their proposed constitution, they will also begin planning for "J-term and beyond," Longman says.

In five years, White predicts the Ally Group will be "a name on campus."

"People can say WRMC now, and everyone knows what they're talking about. I say I'm doing work for the Ally Group, and people ask, 'What's that?'" White says. "In five years, you'll say that, and people will know."

The Ally Group will meet at 7:30 p.m. tonight in Ross 3 to discuss its constitution.