Week of visibility a success

Author: Katie Flagg

Brandishing pink-frosted cookies and rainbow ribbons, the Middlebury Open Queer Alliance (MOQA) kicked off a week of activities promoting visibility for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons on campus last week. Visibility Week - cosponsored by the Department of Women and Genders Studies, Chellis House, Institutional Diversity and Wonnacott Commons, along with MOQA - continued a tradition of recognizing and celebrating alternative lifestyles on campus in April.

"Visibility in general is really important for any diversity issue," said Dean of Institutional Diversity Roman Graf. Furthermore, according to Graf, achieving visibility can be difficult on an individual level. "You feel uncomfortable, threatened," he said. "It's a lot more challenging to do it on your own."

Recognizing the power of numbers and institutional backing, MOQA spearheaded the organization of the week, shaping the week around formative goals for increasing both visibility and support on campus.

"Visibility Week isn't about saying, 'We are here, we are queer, get used to it,'" said Marshall Traverse, Commons Residential Advisor (CRA) for Wonnacott Commons. "The week was designed by MOQA and its allies to educate all of the Middlebury community and to strengthen its already impressive base of supporters."

Volunteers kicked off Visibility Week on April 11 by distributing cookies and gay-pride ribbons in the Ross and Atwater dining halls. For the most part, the experience was positive.

"Most students are always very nice when it comes to the cookies, ribbons and schedules tables," said MOQA Treasurer Sean Ramsdell '05, "though some are still very 'no-thank-you,' to put it politely. It hurts sometimes to still see people who either ignore you, come up with lame yet entertaining excuses, or worse, look at you, hear you and then walk past you."

Despite the occasional rebuff, however, MOQA distributed over 200 cookies and several hundred ribbons and schedules outlining the week's event.

On Wednesday, student participants across campus participated in the National Day of Silence. "The purpose of the day is to raise awareness of the voices we don't hear every day of those individuals who are silenced due to lack of legal protection, homophobia, fear or thousands of other reasons," said MOQA Co-Convener Katie Harrold '06. Participants wore black shirts to signal their contribution and supporters were encouraged to wear white.

According to Graf, the Day of Silence activities sparked interesting debates in the Office of Institutional Diversity - making the event one of the more engaging for Graf.

"The Day of Silence was interesting because it spawned controversy," he said. "We had discussions in Carr Hall ... isn't silencing people yet again instead of pointing towards silence? It was a good discussion. It got people thinking."

On Thursday, MOQA hosted a "fishbowl discussion" called "The Lavender Curtain: The Portrayal of Gays and Lesbians in Film and Television." The panel, consisting of both professors and students, examined television shows such as "Will & Grace," "Queer as Folk" and "Philadelphia." The discussion was then opened up to audience questions and comments.

The highlight of the week, however, was the Drag Ball hosted in Coltrane Lounge on Saturday night. According to one member, MOQA tries to do at least one drag event every year, mainly because the "fun event" tends to draw large crowds. More importantly, the event fosters understanding and dialogue.

"Getting people to dress in drag hopefully tries to make people more comfortable with talking about and acknowledging queer issues," said Tamara Vatnick '07, who, along with Traverse, coordinated the Drag Ball.

According to Vatnick, the ball - which was one of the last parties going on Saturday night on campus - was a "rockin' party with a lot of very sexy drag kings and queens."

For Ramsdell, one of the most remarkable moments of the week followed the Saturday Drag Ball. "I ended up in a CRA's room, in drag," he said, "hanging out with a bunch of straight freshmen and sophomore guys - it was a very memorable experience, especially since it took some of them a while to notice I was wearing make-up and a dress."

The success of Saturday night's ball capped off a week of activities deemed an overall success in the eyes of MOQA members and Visibility Week organizers.

"I feel like the week was definitely a success," said Vatnick. "The point is to make a queer presence felt and I think we accomplished that to some extent."

According to Vatnick, Visibility Week's success could have been amplified with more publicity. "I would have liked to see more people participating in the Day of Silence," she said. "A lot of people who saw me that day said they didn't even know about it until that morning. It would be really powerful if a large portion of the campus was silent for one day."

Traverse also applauded the week's events, but noted that Visibilty Week shed light on the challenges of increasing acceptance and understanding on campus.

"I think we did a great job of trying to reach our goals," he said, "but in doing so we realized that our goals cannot be met in just one week of events. Educating the Middlebury community about queer issues will forever be an ongoing challenge for MOQA and its allies, but a challenge we will never give up on."

Still, the well-attended events were tempered, for some, by less-than-ideal experiences. While Ramsdell's week was largely positive, the week held its fair share of difficulties, amplifying problems of tolerance that some students experience every day.

Ramsdell declared, "I just want to put it out there that not everyone on this campus is as accepting, or even as tolerant, of issues that deal with homosexuality as I think Middlebury students should be."