We latch onto the omnipresent, facetimey antics of the flamboyant men in Collis after 12s. We reference the giant pride flag hanging above the cider-soaked basement in Sigma Delt. We think of singular images and outspoken individuals. The most visible manifestations of the gay population at Dartmouth may not be its most accurate descriptors. When applied to the gays on campus, the term "community" just doesn't evoke the same uniformity of experience or cohesion as, say, a varsity sports team.
Vanessa '12, an openly gay student, said a united gay female community doesn't exist on campus. Instead, she offered that the more obvious group bonding happens among gay men.
"But I feel like that's just me stereotyping the gay men who I see hanging out, [those with] a much more prominent voice on campus," she said. "I don't actually know if there is one [gay male community]."
Eileen Vogl '12 affirmed Vanessa's theory.
"I can't think of a group of people that would sit in a circle and represent any said gay community," Vogl said.
In reality, the gay "community" at Dartmouth could be classified as anything but a culture, maybe, or a scattered presence. If there were a commonality among the gay population on campus, it would seem that students' shared sexual orientation isn't the driving force in drawing these people together.
"I think if you have friendship based on the grounds of you each being gay, that oftentimes is a very limiting friendship," Vogl said.
This isn't to say that sexual orientation can't play a major role in self-identification.
"It's a pretty big part of my identity, certainly because of the experiences I had growing up," Van Melikian '14 said of his sexual orientation. "I identify more as queer than as Armenian. It's not like I get discriminated against for being Armenian."
For Melikian, the repercussions of his sexual orientation have placed that part of him at the forefront of his self-definition. The challenge of growing up gay built his character and continues to deeply influence his concerns and interests, he said. He worries that because of his sexuality, he won't be able to marry and will have to deal with associated "tax issues" and fight to have children.
Needless to say, there are other demonstrated reasons for prioritizing sexual orientation in one's self-identity.
"It's not like I could really hide being a lesbian, so why not embrace it?" Vanessa said. "It's a pretty big part of my identity."
While identifying herself in this way has been a satisfying experience, she said she sees value in exploring her other interests as defining characteristics.
"I want [my sexual orientation] to just be a thing I don't want it to be the thing," she said.
Not everyone feels that sexual orientation is one of their foremost defining qualities. Duncan Hall '13 is conscious of his sexuality in his identity, but doesn't feel it overrides any other interest or attribute.
"It defines me just as much as any other part of me," he said.
But personal identity plays only a partial role in the creation of a community historically, communities have formed in solidarity against a common enemy, so why isn't that be the case here?
Maybe because the discrimination that creates said common enemy is more often hearsay than lived experience. The openly gay students interviewed by The Mirror acknowledged the existence of discrimination against gays at Dartmouth but did not admit having experienced such discrimination themselves.
"Sometimes I hear about it," Vanessa said. "I'm just very oblivious to people who will believe stigmas or be stereotypical."
While Vanessa admitted that this could be attributed to self selection, or perhaps her unconscious habit of limiting herself to open environments or inclusive circles on campus, other LGBTQ students are members of implicitly straight Greek organizations on campus, the supposed bane of gay students' existence.
"I've never really seen [my sexual orientation] as something that separates me from my fraternity," Hall said. "People respect my sexuality. I love my fraternity the camaraderie, the brotherhood and all the stupid fun we have."
While Vogl described her sorority as a group that "overarchingly is much more heterosexual," she affirmed its status as a "non-sexed environment," one that she enjoys outside of the lenses of sexuality and sexual orientation.
There are organizations on campus that function through these lenses, but they don't seem to attract much participation. Recalling a recent, sizable on-campus meeting of the LGBTQ population in the Upper Valley community, Vanessa noted that less than half of the participants were students and even fewer were women, reflecting a composition she considered "normal" among gay students on campus.
Vogl faced a similar experience after signing up for the LGBTQ peer-mentoring program, only to find that there were not enough mentees, she said.
"It takes time, or people aren't interested, or somehow we didn't get enough people who wanted [to be mentored]," she said of the experience. "That's a real active stance to have taken in something like sexuality to have a mentor for navigating a space through the lens of your sexuality."
She explained that underclassmen may not be immediately comfortable with the openness inherent to such a mentorship based on shared sexual orientation.
"It's a lot for a really sexual identity-conscious person [to take in], and a younger, underclassman person might not be thinking that way," Vogl said.
Vogl also said that students may not immediately gravitate toward events targeting sexual orientation, especially with the myriad opportunities available upon arriving on campus.
"You're a lot more than a gay person," she said.
In the end, despite the rumors floating around about "xx parties" and "cocktails," it would seem that the LGBTQ contingent at Dartmouth is less of a "community" than a simple subset of campus a population of individuals with entirely diverse experiences, who all just happen to be gay.
