It's Cold Out There

Source: The Harvard Crimson magazine

By CHARLIE J. WELLS

Three photographs are tacked to the outside foyer of the Lowell House Masters’ residence. The unobtrusively-placed and sepia-toned images, which call to mind memories of the College’s conservative past, capture a newly constructed Lowell House standing in perfect form, sidewalks smooth and bricks still tightly in place. Stamped in white lettering near the bottom of each reads the year 1930. That year, the House’s chief eponym, Abbott Lawrence Lowell—a notorious homophobe and organizer of a secretive court that once expelled eight Harvard students suspected of being gay—still reigned as University president. The proximity of these photos to the hearth of Diana Eck and Dorothy Austin, Harvard’s first openly gay House masters, might seem ironic.

Inside the residence, Eck meanders past the big bay windows lining her living room as she tells me how she and her wife “are really just normal people who lead normal lives.” She smiles as she lifts a picture of the two of them on their wedding day, recounting the fanfare that accompanied her Memorial Church ceremony a few years ago.

For many, the Lowell House masters are just one of a string of signs marking the decline of homophobia at Harvard. According to most members of the queer community, it’s easy to be out in Cambridge, the first American city to perform a legal gay marriage ceremony. Some of the College’s most powerful administrators are gay. The Harvard-Radcliffe Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) has become one of Harvard’s largest and most recognizable student groups. And every trendy girl seems to be searching for her very own “gay boyfriend” à la Sex and the City.

While inside the Masters’ residence, the warm, supporting atmosphere can make homosexuality feel as orthodox as the chiming of the Sunday bells, the campus as a whole can seem far colder. There still remains a population of closeted students at the College, who feel compelled to veil their sexual identities despite living in one of the country’s most liberal zip codes. This existence of this silent population belies the tolerance of the openly gay community, leading many to suggest that while it may be easy to be out at Harvard, it’s not easy to come out.

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