This August, Campus Pride awarded Dartmouth a Five-star rating on its LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index. The College can be proud of some of its efforts to foster understanding between the gay and straight communities given the stigma that still surrounds homosexuality, some advocacy and support groups are important. However, Dartmouth's nationally pioneering efforts to attract gay students and its planned LGBT affinity house may constitute unnecessary favoritism and encourage students to needlessly define themselves by their sexual orientation. As nice as it sounds to make efforts to accommodate gay students, it is important to put things in perspective before supporting costly initiatives.
Many at Dartmouth insist that much more work remains to be done to be welcoming of LGBT students. "Putting resources where we know we need to keep this work moving forward is going to be pretty important in this next year especially," LGBT student advisor Pam Misener said ("College receives 5-star LGBT rating," Sept. 23). For some, the lack of LGBT social spaces is especially glaring. An LGBT affinity house, however, would only encourage sexual minorities to isolate themselves from the campus at large.
Dartmouth's Greek system contributes to the belief that there is a need for venues such as an LGBT affinity house. One of many issues is the difficulty that transgender students face trying to navigate a system that consists largely of single-sex houses. However, our concerns about transgender students may be blown out of proportion. The reality is that transsexuality is extremely rare. Indeed, the American Psychiatric Association has estimated that only about 1 in 100,000 adult women and 1 in 30,000 adult men seek sex-reassignment surgery. If some LGBT activists had their way, there would be major upheavals in our gender-based social structures on account of only some people who don't identify with their biological sex. It may be impossible to make gay and transgender students feel perfectly comfortable in mainstream campus culture, and the College should be selective about the LGBT initiatives it supports.
Although Dartmouth already has an unusually strong LGBT community, the College practices extensive admissions outreach efforts by relying on gay students to recruit gay applicants and striving to attract admitted students who indicate interest in the LGBT community. While it is natural to want to make applicants aware of resources available through the LGBT community, the College does not need to go out of its way to seek more gay students. In 2006, The Boston Globe estimated that at least 200 of the roughly 4,100 undergraduates at Dartmouth were gay or lesbian. This proportion, which totals approximately 4.8 percent of the undergraduate population, appears to be greater than that of the nation at large. Indeed, a study this April by UCLA's Williams Institute a same-sex advocacy think tank found that just 1.7 percent of American adults identify as gay or lesbian.
Many people would argue that the College's admissions outreach efforts to LGBT students are appropriate given the discrimination that the gay community routinely faces. However, while sexual identity can be important in the development of a person's character, we should not be making immediate judgments based on whether people are gay, straight or transgender. College President Jim Yong Kim told the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine in 2009, "The way we deal with diversity on American campuses is so superficial that it is dangerous." Instead of being complicit in the superficiality that Kim derided, the College should look beyond innate traits such as skin color and sexual orientation.
Guilt about past and present discrimination also should not play a role in any decisions about new initiatives and programming for the LGBT community. Such guilt is often manifested in attempts to preempt suspicions of homophobia with comments such as, "Many of my friends are gay." Discomfort often prevents people from voicing legitimate concerns about the necessity of initiatives on behalf of gay students. However, questioning whether it is valid or useful to promote LGBT programming should not automatically be equated with homophobia.
Ultimately, we should be trying to combat the notion that homosexuals are essentially different from straight people. We should not be making an unnecessarily big deal out of people's sexualities. Unfortunately, an LGBT affinity house would do just that. Let us embrace our diversity by learning to live together, not by dividing ourselves.
