Pride in the Archives
Since Pride Month falls during most students’ summer breaks, we don’t always get to celebrate with our larger Chatham community. While we hope everyone has had a safe and joyful month, we couldn’t let Pride go by without cheering on the stories of our LGBTQIA+ students, both present and past.
Chatham’s LGBTQIA+ history is hard to pen before the 1970s and not always overtly mentioned after, but that doesn’t mean it was nonexistent. Available online as part of Chatham’s Archives & Special Collections, issues of the student newspaper now known as the Communiqué help piece together Chatham’s LGBTQIA+ student legacy from previous decades. Student capstone projects, movie reviews, and academic lectures offer less overt – but valuable - insight. Molly Tighe, Chatham’s archivist, calls it an “ongoing discovery.” The gaps remind us that there’s so much more to be discovered.
For now, here are a few LGBTQIA+ items from Chatham’s student newspaper over the years:
1970s
Front cover of the October 1957 issue of The Ladder, the first lesbian serial in the U.S. It was published through the Daughters of Bilitis organization. The symbol of “masking” and “unmasking” signified coming out.
● Rosalind Magill, one of the last presidents of the Daughters of Bilitis - the first lesbian civil and political organization in the U.S - speaks on campus about same-sex marriage, the fight for civil rights, normalization of same-sex love, and support systems as part of a lecture series on sex and sexuality.
● By the mid ‘70s, the student newspaper, then called The Matrix, includes Pittsburgh happenings like Gay Alternatives Pittsburgh (GAP) meetings. Pittsburgh’s first Pride event took place in 1973 and GAP played a central role in maintaining visibility throughout the city.
Meeting announcement for Gay Alternatives Pittsburgh in a 1973 issue of The Matrix, the predecessor of the Communiqué student newspaper. Credit: Chatham University Archives & Special Collections
1980s
● AIDS wellness lectures are organized.
● 50 students and staff members attend the 1989 D.C. March for Women’s Equality, joined by gay rights activists.
Picture from the 1995 Chatham Yearbook.
1990s
● The Lesbian and Bisexual Alliance forms.
● A student journalist writes against the Defense of Marriage Act, which legally defined marriage between one man and one woman, and was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996.
A student volunteer on World AIDS Day in December 1994.
● In 1994, students pay tribute to the lives lost during the AIDS epidemic during World AIDS day. About 200 visitors come to see a panel of the AIDS quilt in the Woodland Art Gallery, created by Minerva’s Graces, a campus art organization, in memory of Allegheny County residents who died from AIDS. The quilt, including the panel displayed at Chatham, would span over 15 acres in its entirety and would later be displayed in the National Mall in Washington D.C. As part of the campus event, Pittsburgh’s AIDS Taskforce opens up discussion about the virus. For seven hours, student volunteers read the names of those whose lives have been cut short by AIDS.
● In the late nineties, students begin organizing activities for National Coming Out Week.
An Anonymous Student’s Coming Out Letter in 1975
An excerpt from a poem submitted to The Matrix (the student newspaper) by Purplepeopleeater. The anonymous student would include humorous quips, reflections, and literary references in her “penning” about campus lesbian culture.
If you look through the student newspaper issues from the mid-1970s, chances are that you’ll stumble on the short musings of an anonymous contributor called “Purplepeopleeater.”
The student would write about the increasing visibility of lesbian relationships on campus, sometimes including poems by Sappho. With humorous observation, she wrote about hand holding and dancing, and suggested, in a tongue-in-cheek way, that a lesbian directory might be needed. She asked, “How does one meet lesbians who don’t dance?”
In 1975, Purplepeopleeater - still unnamed- “came out,” but heartbreakingly. It’s a sobering reminder that we’ve come so far, and a call to action to ensure no one ever feels this unsafe in our communities.
In the coming-out letter, she begins:
“To the Editor:
I am the mystery senior. You don’t know me because I’ve been in hiding at Chatham College for the last four years (not to mention two years of hiding from myself).
I came to Chatham saying it was “in spite of” its being a women’s college. I hid in the 3d room of a suite in Woodland while secretly falling in love with this incredibly intelligent woman in the 1st room. That’s still a secret to that woman too, who transferred in her sophomore year.”
She concludes:
“I’m scared to death. I just finished my tutorial, I’ll graduate, I have a job and an apartment waiting; but, I’m scared to death. This year the lesbians were not only beautiful but open and honest and claiming that most of the campus is gay and just waiting to be asked. In two weeks I’ll be in a job with men and straight women and a sense of guilt and fear you wouldn’t believe. Here are 500 women who won’t laugh in your face or try to get you arrested if you tell them you love them. In two weeks I’ll be in my apartment wishing I was at Chatham. And hiding.”
As we delve back further into past decades, it becomes increasingly difficult to find complete stories and overt mentions of LGBTQIA+ issues. Discourse on sexuality is purely academic, at least in the student newspaper.
“There have been times when the only history preserved was the history of the victors. There has been maybe in the last 50 years or so much more interest in making sure that a broader representation, and a more accurate representation, is preserved,” Molly Tighe says.
“One of the ways we’re trying to do that in the Archives is by preserving student voices and providing opportunities for individuals to contribute their own stories,” she continues.
Lavender Graduation stoles laid out for a ceremony that honors and celebrates LGBTQIA+ students.
She invites all students to share their stories, so that they can be preserved digitally. For more information, you can make a research appointment with Molly Tighe at mtighe1@chatham.edu or learn more about submitting to the COVID-19 Collection Project here. Students can access LGBTQIA+ primary sources and archival material specific to Pittsburgh and the history of Pittsburgh’s Pride on JKM library’s resource page.
For LGBTQIA+ support, students can follow Chatham’s QSA (Queer Straight Alliance) on Instagram @chatham_qsa, or email the Counseling Center at Counselingcenter@chatham.edu. The Counseling Center provides virtual and in-person sessions, and can provide external referrals.
A list of Pittsburgh-based LGBTQIA+ organizations, call centers, and support groups can be found through Proud Haven.