This article is the first installment in the Wheel's LGBT Series, in celebration of LGBT History Month in October. Read part 2 on transgender issues at Emory and part 3 on Emory students' coming-out stories.


“I have a problem about homosexuality,” reads a letter from “a concerned moral citizen” written to the Emory Gay and Lesbian Organization in 1986. “It exists.”

Though the adversity today is less severe, Emory’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community continues to face adversity nearly two decades after the inception of the Office of LGBT Life.

Just last year, a sign from McTyeire Hall was defaced to read “McQueer,” and graffiti continues to deface fliers that promote LGBT events.

“You can’t really legislate opinions and how people behave towards one another,” said Saralyn Chesnut, the first director and founder of the Office of LGBT Life at Emory.

But in the past 18 years, administrators and students have worked to establish policy changes and increased visibility to establish a decidedly more accepting campus environment.

“Emory has committed itself to a certain course and is moving along that course so that things will get better and better,” Chesnut said.

October is LGBT History Month and “Creating Your Own History” art is displayed in the Dobbs University Center (DUC). In these visual presentations, students describe what it means for them to be out at Emory. Director of the Office of LGBT Life Michael Shutt said that the Office is working today to establish a tradition of LGBT History Month on campus.

While Emory currently has several LGBT advocacy groups, the Office of LGBT Life can be viewed as a hub of resources and a common ground for the groups on campus, Emory Pride Co-President Olivia Wise said.

The Office of LGBT Life began operations in the fall of 1991 as the Office of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) student life, with two graduate students each working part-time. In the fall of 1998, the office was renamed LGBT, as it remains today.

Chesnut said that in the ’80s and early ’90s, the LGBT presence on campus was minimal and that the office focused exclusively on student concerns.

“When I started here as a grad student, there wasn’t any LGBT life, there wasn’t any gay presence, there weren’t any organizations that I was aware of as a student,” Chesnut said.

However, in December 1991 an incident occurred that helped propel the development of the presence of an LGBT community at Emory: Undergraduate students Alfred Hildebrand and Michael Norris kissed in Thomas Hall and were consequently harassed by other students because of their homosexuality.

“[The other students] said things like, ‘Die f-----s’ and ‘You’ll burn in hell,’” Hildebrand recounted in a 1991 issue of Southern Voice, Atlanta’s LGBT newspaper that launched in 1988.

The two students filed a complaint under Emory’s Discriminatory Harassment Policy, but many found the administration’s response weak.

“The Office of Equal Opportunity Programs wants to give the impression that [the actions] were formulated in response to the incident in question,” Norris said in the Southern Voice article. “But only one [an education program in Thomas Hall] is the direct outcome of our complaints.”

The Emory Gay and Lesbian Organization (EGLO) consequently organized a march across the campus in protest, which took place on March 2, 1992. Southern Voice reported that at least 150 students participated in the protest, marching from the Administration Building to the Residence Life office, where they staged a 20-minute sit-in before returning to the administration building to confront then-University President James T. Laney.

Chesnut said the 1992 demonstration was the first time she became aware of an LGBT community at Emory.

“I went to the demonstration and then I saw the job position and the rest is history,” Chesnut said.

Chesnut said that a full-time position for in the Office of LGB Life was created after Laney appointed a task force to investigate the climate of lesbian, gay and bisexual life on Emory’s campus in the aftermath of the demonstration.

“[Emory] decided to hire a full-time administrator to expand the office and to deal with not only student concerns, but with staff and faculty as well,” Chesnut said.

The Emory Pride Banquet, which began in 1993, is held on or around March 2 every year to commemorate the protest in 1992, Chesnut said.

“A lot came from that original activism,” Chesnut said.

Chesnut assumed her post as the first director of the LGB Office in January 1993 and began working to change University policy to ensure that all people felt protected and safe.

In the state of Georgia, employees can be hired or fired based on sexual orientation. In order to protect the rights of Emory’s employees, Chesnut worked to amend Emory’s equal-opportunity policy to include protection based on sexual orientation and identity, which went into effect in 1994.

In January 1996, Emory passed an amendment to extend benefits to employees with same-sex partners under then-University president William M. Chace.

“Emory was one of the first in the Atlanta area [to institute domestic partners benefits], so that really paved the way for employers in the Atlanta area to do the same thing,” Chesnut said.

Then in 1997, an incident that gained national notoriety was sparked at Emory’s Oxford College when two members of the Oxford staff were denied a commitment ceremony in the campus chapel.

In a June 18, 1997 article, the New York Times described the situation as one that pitted “university policies that guarantee gay community members equal access to university services against church policies that do not recognize same-sex unions.”

Chesnut said that Susan Crowe, the chaplain at the time, worked with the Board of Trustees to create a policy. Same-sex commitment ceremonies are now permitted on the condition that the ceremony is presided over by someone affiliated with Emory and that the faith recognizes and allows the commitment.

Karen Salisbury, chief of staff to the vice president of Campus Services and former director of student activities, said in a previous interview with the Wheel that Chesnut’s “steadfast leadership during that effort to keep everybody working together” led to a positive solution.

Chesnut said that she attributes the positive resolution to the “strong gay presence” on campus.

“[The 1997 Oxford incident] was probably the biggest test ... of how firm Emory’s commitment to non-discrimination was going to be on the basis of religion and sexual orientation,” Chesnut said.

More recently, in April 2007, Emory implemented a change to the equal opportunity policy to protect gender identity and gender expression with the goal of making the campus “safe and welcoming for gender variant people,” Chesnut said.

In addition to University policy changes, Chesnut helped to implement programs to create a more receptive and welcoming environment for those who identify as LGBT.

The “Safe Space” program, created in 1993, was modeled after a similar program used at telephone service provider AT&T in order to educate the community about LGBT concerns, identity development and support resources.

Those who complete the 3.5-hour program are given a “Safe Space” sticker to post in their workspace to indicate an openness to LGBT concerns and an engagement in creating an equal community.

“It made a big difference to students to see that sticker on the door and know that nothing bad was going to happen if they were to come out,” Chesnut said.

During Chesnut’s time at Emory, the LGBT community began to become a more visible campus force by participating in activities such as National Coming Out Day. She said that during Emory’s first participation in National Coming Out Day in 1992, some administrators were under the impression that National Coming Out Day was encouraging heterosexuals to become gay, as though the event were a type of recruitment.

“We had to do some education,” Chesnut said, as National Coming Out day has since become integrated into Emory tradition.

Dean of Students Bridget Guernsey Riordan said that she has seen a change in the campus climate as well.

“The Coming Out Week celebration is now a regular part of every October here on campus, whereas 15 years ago, it was a little more low-key because people weren’t able to accept that as an activity,” Riordan said in a previous interview with the Wheel. “Now it’s part of Wonderful Wednesdays and something that people expect to see every October.”

Wise said that Emory Pride has helped to foster a more visible LGBT community by creating the same-sex hand-holding campaign and by hosting the coming out celebration in Asbury Circle.

Chesnut said that she admires the “kinds of traditions that have been established and the willingness of the whole community to participate.”

The Office of LGBT Life currently staffs two full-time members, as the office works in conjunction with student groups such as Emory School of Law’s Emory OutLaw, Emory Pride and Emory Gay and Lesbian Alumni (GALA).

Shutt joined Emory after Chesnut retired from her 15-year tenure as director in the Office of LGBT Life in August 2008. Shutt said he was drawn to Emory’s progressivism and to the groundwork laid by Chesnut, including policy changes, procedure and “environment improvement.”

“Knowing Emory’s history and the capacity it had to do this work was really impressive to me,’’ Shutt said. “[Emory] has one of the oldest offices in the country, the support of the president and student groups.”

Shutt said that in the past year he has focused on assessing the needs of the community and bringing different groups together to collaborate and share resources. With the groundwork established for LGBT development, Shutt said he is committed to “expanding programs and services that could lead the country.”

The Office of LGBT Life will soon launch a five-year strategic plan to further the goals of LGBT life at Emory.

“It’s not just about acceptance,” Shutt said. “It’s about creating a space that celebrates everyone and sees the gifts that everyone is bringing to the table.”

Shutt said the office is working to accommodate the needs of all individuals and to foster discussions about race, transgender, queer and religion.

Wise said that education is not only for the Emory community, but also for Emory’s LGBT individuals on the issues that affect the LGBT community. She added that there is a move toward the discussion of how race, gender, religion and other components interact and intersect.

The LGBT Office recently received a grant from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators which will be used to assess campus needs to help guide the future LGBT life at Emory.

“We continue to figure out what these changing needs are,” Shutt said. “We are continuing to learn every single day.”

Shutt said that the visual support of University President James W. Wagner and the Division of Campus Life have helped to foster dialog and the progress of LGBT concerns, in part through the support of the President’s Commission on Sexuality, Gender Diversity and Queer Equality.

Chesnut said that Emory has progressed in parallel with the national attitude towards LGBT issues and that young people are more accepting now than in the past.

“When I came out, it was in college, and now people who identify as gay are visible in middle school,” Chesnut said.

Chesnut said that Emory’s Office of LGBT Life has changed dramatically from the time she was a graduate student in the ’80s.

“There’s always more you can do, but as long as Emory is committed to this course of action and is putting resources there, I trust that’s going to keep happening,” Chesnut said.

Shutt said that although major strides have been made through the development of University policy and LGBT programs, there is still work to be done.

“Because we’ve moved so far ahead, it could potentially produce complacency,” Shutt said. “I see a lot of motivation and momentum, but we have to poke and prod sometimes to say, ‘We need to keep moving.’ There’s still a lot of work to do.”

— Contact Kate Borger.