In 2013, I went on a date.

With a woman.

In Charlottesville.

It wasn’t my first date with a woman, but it was the first one that close to EMU. I spent the entire evening watching the door, looking around the restaurant, worried that someone from EMU might show up, discover that I was gay, and I would lose my job. Some might say my fear was unfounded, but I knew enough of EMU’s history that my concern was completely legit. If you want to know more about that history, thanks to Simone Horst and Conner Suddick, we now have an LGBTQ+ archive section in the EMU library where you can read all about it. It hasn’t been pretty. For most of EMU’s history, LGBTQ+ students, staff, and faculty have been treated with disdain, damnation, and dismissal (and a whole lot of other things that don’t begin with the letter “d”). But there have always been people who have pushed against the injustices, homophobia, and exclusion. And slowly, EMU has shifted. Really slowly.

Nevertheless, a lot has transpired since that night in 2013. In 2014, President Loren Swartzendruber and the EMU Board of Trustees announced a listening process to consider changing our hiring policy and after a year and a half of excruciating dialogue, EMU adopted a new non-discrimination policy that reads:

EMU does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, or gender identity in administration of its employment and educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, athletic or other school-administered programs.

This policy meant that EMU could hire openly LGBTQ+ faculty and staff (which meant that I didn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder – yay!), but the movement toward inclusion and belonging seemed to stall with that policy. Until recently.

Thanks to the relentless efforts of students, staff, and faculty who have advocated for change, we currently have an inclusive housing option for LGBTQ+ students and allies (the Pride Pod!); our admissions forms include options for non-binary gender identities; we observed LGBTQ+ History Month in the fall, inviting Dr. G. Samantha Rosenthal to talk about Queer Public History; we have an accessible LGBTQ+ archive as part of our EMU library, and in May, we will host the first ever Lavender Graduation as a way to honor our LGBTQ+ graduates.

Lavender Graduation is a significant event because it makes visible the presence of LGBTQ+ students at EMU – students who have navigated the EMU experience and are ready to impact their world, students who have thrived despite the challenges of being at an institution that isn’t always safe or inclusive, students who have not only thrived, but who have been campus leaders and deserve to be celebrated. Lavender Graduation is significant for me personally because it represents a new stance toward LGBTQ+ inclusion at EMU. This is a celebration. It’s not simply tolerance; it moves beyond acceptance; it even transcends belonging; it’s a celebration of the identities of people who for years at EMU were told to leave, to repent, or at the very least, to be quiet. But this – this is a celebration.

There is still more work to do, for sure. There are still too many messages asking LGBTQ+ folks to be quiet and invisible; there are still too many spaces where homophobia and transphobia lurk; too many LGBTQ+ students are still fearful of being out or outed; I’m still the only out Queer faculty member; we don’t yet have a Queer studies minor; there isn’t an office where Safe Space can store its supplies (although ironically, there is a tub in someone else’s closet); there aren’t gender neutral bathrooms in every building on campus. Yes, we have work to do. 

But first, we celebrate. For the first time ever, there’s an event that invites LGBTQ+ visibility – a public celebration of queerness at EMU, supported and sponsored by EMU, where we celebrate our 2022 LGBTQ+ graduates. 

Additionally, we celebrate all of those graduates who have come before who didn’t have the opportunity to be seen and celebrated. 

We celebrate courage, hard work and progress. 

And then we get back to work.