Morehouse celebrates gay Pride

A lot more than 60 people gathered at Morehouse College December 25 for a roundtable dialogue on “Sexuality as Power.” The function at Kilgore Hall’s Tiger Barbeque grill was area of the historically dark, all-male college’s first homosexual Progress, Restoration, Identification, Dignity and Empowerment (P.R.I.D.E.) Week.

Frank discuss sex, gender and gender identification ensued in a slow paced life that included teenagers taking part in the Soulforce Q Equality Trip, a bus tour of young LGBT people traveling to campuses across the country.

The discussion, sponsored by Morehouse’s gay-straight alliance Safe Space and the Division of Sociology, was just one activity during the week of events held Dec 22-27.

“There’s been a great influx in social change and attitude in the nation with our college as well, so we thought this is time for you to capitalize on that,” said Kevin Webb, 21, co-president of Safe Space.

“Morehouse has made me personally who I am. [W]e are a distinctive college because we are the only college in America that solely produces African-American men to be delivered in to the business and social world to make significant change,” added Webb, who's gay. “That is a great instant in the annals of our institution.”

William Bynum Jr., vice chief executive for college student services at Morehouse, said the administration completely supports the week as a way to educate students and faculty.

“We are really supportive of their activities. I’m one of the advisers for Safe Space and support their desire to further teach,” he said. “It’s used Safe Space a number of years before it felt comfortable to put up a week of activities and we want to make sure we continue steadily to educate ourselves.”

‘Transphobic’ dress code?
A specific concern for Soulforce Equality Riders to bring up in conversations with Morehouse administrators, who welcomed these to the campus, was the college’s dress code plan. Implemented last year, it includes that students cannot wear “clothing usually worn by women (dresses, tops, tunics, bags, pumps, etc.) on the Morehouse campus or at college-sponsored occasions.”

Soulforce visited the campus 2 yrs ago and thought we would visit again this season because of the new policy, said Nick Miller, 26, of Ohio, who was on his first Soulforce Equality Trip.

“We were welcomed here two years ago, however the policy changed between then and we feel it further inhibited on some students’ legal rights,” Miller said. “It’s somewhat more of a struggle for some individuals whose gender appearance is outside this policy.”

Mac Simon, 21, a transgender man also on his first Equality Ride, agreed.

“We find the plan limits gender appearance and is transphobic,” Simon said.

Morehouse junior Chanel Monroe, 20, said he's discovered as a man because he attends a man university, but he believes gender is liquid.

“I identify as me. I don’t conform to gender functions,” said Monroe, putting on scarlet lipstick.

And when the campus invited B. Scott, a dark gay online media celebrity, to speak during P.R.I.D.E. Week, nearly 500 people went to. But Monroe pointed out the contradiction of having B. Scott, who wears women’s clothing, speaking at the campus using its restrictive dress code.

“They say we can’t wear pumps, but we had B. Scott, who recognizes as male, wearing pumps on the stage. That just places hell on us to have this dress code,” Monroe said.

“But I do think the college is progressing.”

Daniel Edwards, 21, a junior sociology major and co-president of Safe Space, said the campus’ first homosexual P.R.I.D.E. Week came about after Spelman College, the women’s university next to Morehouse, held its first homosexual Pride week this past year.

Safe Space partnered with Spelman’s LGBT firm, Afrekete, for this event.

“That action was the turning point for us,” Edwards said. “They paved just how for us. In the nature of collaboration and empowerment - and the heart of competition - we had to do it, too.”

Edwards said there was not much backlash from other students. The backlash comes when some students confuse gender identification with intimate orientation, Edwards added.

“Whenever we have individuals … outdoors gender norms, they are called derogatory brands like ‘queer’ and ‘faggot,’” he said.

Webb, an English-Spanish increase major, said the week was empowering for him. And both men said seeing the looks on homosexual freshmen’s encounters, knowing these were walking into an inclusive environment, was satisfying.

“They had one positive time that was a reflection of these, a reflection of their humanity,” Edwards said. “That was something we didn’t have.”

“And it was something they didn’t know existed,” Webb added.