Princeton LGBTQIA+
Oral History Project

On Friday, May 12, 1972, sophomore Arthur Eisenbach ‘74 placed a small advertisement in The Daily Princetonian reading “Closet Queens Unite! For information about organizations of gay men and women at Princeton call 452-2197.” Prior to Eisenbach’s rallying cry, gay people at Princeton had largely gone invisible. While queerness has always had a place in Princeton’s history, this history was written behind closed doors.

Eisenbach called for queer people at Princeton to become visible and organized. While most of the responses he received to his advertisement were obscene, he was not deterred. The following fall, Eisenbach and fellow activist Judith Schaeffer ‘74 held the first meeting of a new gay organization on campus (see below).

That fall, Arthur Eisenbach and Judith Schaeffer ’74 put up posters advertising the first meeting of Princeton’s gay organization. The meeting was held at the Women’s Center on September 14, 1972. Twenty-five students attended, twenty-two of them men (the University had started accepting women only three years before). They named themselves GAP: Gay Alliance of Princeton.

The newly formed GAP encountered difficulties in finding funding: A member of the undergraduate student government projects board fought the club’s funding request, as he told GAP members that he believed homosexuality to be a sinful sexual perversion. Eventually, GAP was given $328. The upset project board member began collecting signatures to hold a referendum on this funding decision. However, he withdrew the petition upon learning that a referendum would cost almost $100, and GAP received funding for the first time.

There are as many reasons for choosing to attend Princeton as there are Princeton students. Some queer alum cite Princeton’s beautiful spring weather and Gothic architecture as reasons they fell in love with campus. Other queer alum say that they chose to come to Princeton because of its reputation as a less affirming Ivy League school. They believed that Princeton’s climate would encourage them to remain closeted, whereas a more affirming campus might allow them to feel comfortable coming out.

On the other hand, there have also been students who came to Princeton because it was less restrictive than the households they grew up in. These individuals describe Princeton as a place where they felt safe to explore their identities and come out of the closet.

GAP held its first dance on May 19, 1973 on the top floor of New South, then an undergraduate cafeteria. Over 300 people attended, including non-Princeton students from neighboring universities. The Gay Dance was covered by CBS and The New York Times, but not by The Daily Princetonian. This was the first of a series of monthly GAP dances, which eventually moved from New South to Terrace in 1981.

“Cruising spots” are established locations where people can go to look for anonymous, casual sex. Despite its often invisible queerness, Princeton has had several well-documented gay cruising spots throughout its history.

The Firestone Library C Floor restroom, which had a locking door, was one such place: phone numbers and locations were written on stalls for anonymous hookups. The woods behind the old Dinky station, previously located in the courtyard beneath Blair arch, was another. Over time, the Dinky Station earned a reputation as a site for gay men, creating suspicion for students who would frequently visit. The earliest mention of cruising in these locations in our archive dates back to 1957, and they continue to be brought up by interviewees through the 80s and into the 90s. At these spots, queer people – usually gay men – could find sexual partners within Princeton’s often repressive climate.

Campus reaction to GAP was mixed and sometimes hostile: flyers for dances were torn down, and students involved received threats. In 1976, GAP called on the university to include sexual discrimination in its non-discrimination policy, but Provost Albert Rees rejected the idea, suggesting that it would be unpopular with Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP). CAP, a conservative alumni organization founded in 1972, was primarily against the admission of women, but members weighed in against gay students’ efforts as well: one member stated, “I know of very few people who would want to send their children to an institution where the stated policy of non-discrimination towards homosexuals was stated in their admissions literature.”

Douglas Brown ‘79 and roommate Michael Mintz ‘79, some of the most active student voices on the policy change, faced attacks. After Brown and Mintz hung a GAP banner in their window, students threw rocks, oranges, and eggs at them and chucked smoke bombs into their 1903 Hall dorm room. Other banners appeared around campus in opposition to GAP, some bearing homophobic slurs.

In February of 1976, the Undergraduate Student Government voted 16-2 urging the U-Council to include sexual orientation in the non-discrimination policy. The day after the USG vote, eight students broke into Brown and Mintz’s dorm, trashing the room and stealing their banner. The Daily Princetonian received the banner in the mail a week later, torn into strips, with a note reading “hetero is bettero.” In March, the U-Council issued a statement saying it “strongly censures and abhors all forms of personal violence,” but voted against amending the policy. A decade later, in 1985, after urging from Provost Neil Rudenstein, the U-Council reexamined its decision and agreed unanimously to add sexual orientation to the non-discrimination policy, where it remains today.

From 1973-1984, when the legal drinking age in New Jersey was 18, the basement under Chancellor Green housed a student pub. On February 28th, 1979 (two months after New Jersey repealed its “sodomy law”), a group of gay students were harassed by another group of students at Chancellor Green pub. The gay students asked a proctor – an employee who worked with campus security – to intervene.

Instead, the proctor joined the group antagonizing the gay students. They threw wood chips, and Mark Blasius ‘90, a graduate student, was punched in the eye. After the attack, GAP called on the administration to release a statement condemning homophobic violence. President William Bowen’s response was to close the pub, blaming the incident on alcohol. This caused further backlash from the Princeton community against gay students, with many blaming them for the pub closing. Students wore pins reading “Beers not Queers,” and “Open Tap, Close GAP.” Blasius’ name became publicly tied to the incident as a victim of harassment. As a result of his publicized “homosexuality,” one of his dissertation advisors withdrew their support. The pub reopened shortly after, but closed when the drinking age went back to 21. Today, Chancellor Green is a popular student study spot, and the basement space below has since become Chancellor Green Cafe.

Through the decades, Terrace eating club has been thought of as a haven for queer students on Princeton’s campus. In 1981, following the closing of New South’s dining facilities, GAP began to hold its dances at Terrace. It was thought that moving the dances off-campus would help closeted students feel more comfortable attending. That’s not to say that Terrace was a safe space for queer students without fail – in 1982, a group of athletes broke a window to enter a GAP dance, where they verbally harassed attendees before being removed from the premises. In 1983, to the outrage of many Terrace members, club leadership canceled a GAP dance out of fear that Terrace’s low membership was a result of its recent reputation as “a gay club.”

Nevertheless, Terrace continued to be a positive space for queer students. A number of interviewees discuss their experiences and associations with the club, where they found community and queer possibility models. In 1993, Terrace held its first Drag Ball – a Pride Alliance tradition with a long, celebrated history. The Terrace Drag Ball continues to be held annually today.

GAP may have been the first queer organization founded on Princeton’s campus, but it certainly was not the last. Throughout the decades that followed its creation, the group took on new iterations and names to become more inclusive to the increasingly visible and diverse on-campus queer community. These groups included – non-exhaustively – Gays and Lesbians at Princeton (GALAP), the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Alliance (LGBA), and the queer student group still operating today, the Princeton Pride Alliance. In 2006, the Princeton Aces was founded, officially including Aromantic and Asexual students in the ranks represented through queer organizations on campus.

Many interviewees cite these groups as influential to their Princeton experience. Those who went to meetings frequently could find community with their fellow attendees; those who didn’t often cite the impact that seeing out and proud queer people on Princeton’s campus had on their understanding of their own identities.

Women did not always feel represented by groups like GAP. Alternative organizations and spaces were sometimes established to voice the needs of women who felt overlooked within other spaces, which, like most of Princeton, were often predominantly male. In 1982, GAP held its first women-only meeting. The number of women who typically attended GAP meetings doubled for this special meet-up, which led to the founding of Lesbians of Princeton. The following year, Lesbians of Princeton changed its name to Gay Women of Princeton (GWOP). Barbara Clanton ‘84 said that the split was due in part to the women’s desire to offer more support to the growing feminist movement on campus.

In 1987, GWOP and GAP merged into Gays and Lesbians at Princeton (GALAP). However, still feeling underrepresented in the space, some women decided to continue meeting separately as the “Lesbian Task Force.”In 1989, GWOP, now a branch of GALAP, changed its name to the Lesbian and Bisexual Task Force to be more inclusive to its bisexual members. Just one year later, The Lesbian and Bisexual Task Force changed its name to Women Oriented Women (WoW) – the Task Force remained as the political wing of the organization, and Princeton’s Eagerly Awaited Radical Lesbians (PEARL – also rumored to be the name of a secret women’s organization at Princeton pre-GAP) became WoW’s social wing.

Throughout all of these transitions, the Women’s Center, founded in 1971, remained an important resource for queer women, hosting some of the first lesbian meet-ups on campus and staunchly supporting feminist activism at Princeton.

The Carl. A. Fields Center, previously known as the Third World Center, was founded in 1971 to support students of color who were arriving on Princeton’s campus in increasingly high numbers. The center was cited by queer students, of color and otherwise, as a space where they were able to find support and community. The center has a long history of hosting intersectional programming for marginalized students on campus. From early accounts of parties, art installations, and cultural theatrical productions through to today, the Carl A. Fields Center has had a decades-long commitment to fostering a sense of belonging for students on campus who often struggle to find space for themselves elsewhere. Today, the center remains a popular meeting place for affinity groups on campus and frequently serves as a venue for Gender and Sexuality Resource Center keynote addresses and other events.

Although Princeton’s insular campus was isolated in many ways from the AIDS crisis, its proximity to New York meant that its effects were felt within the orange bubble. The first reported case of HIV/AIDS in New Jersey was in 1981, a year after “the gay cancer” started appearing in San Francisco. The acronym “AIDS” first appeared in The Daily Princetonian in 1983, in an editorial by Frederick C. Foote on the “anti-social and unhealthy” nature of “homosexual practices.”

By 1985, University organizations had begun to address AIDS in public forums: the University Chapel held a lunch discussion asking what public policy should be “towards the carriers of the AIDS virus and towards its victims,” the Woodrow Wilson School hosted a forum in Dodd Auditorium on “AIDS: Rights and Realities,” and Heather Stephenson ‘90 and Greg Christianson ‘98 organized the “Lean on Me” AIDS benefit to raise money and campus awareness. McCosh Health Services and SECH made an effort to educate the community on the disease, distributing safer sex pamphlets and urging carriers of AIDS to come to McCosh Health Center. The statement was ambiguous about possible consequences for identifying oneself as carrying AIDS, and some students believed the information provided in the pamphlet was incomplete and not responsive to student concerns, leading them to create their own “Princeton Students’ Safer Sex Guide.”

In 1992, the Princeton Alumni Weekly published an article on opera singer Will Parker ‘65 and his battle with AIDS, drawing a mix of sympathetic and disparaging responses. In 1993, Sarah Goltz ’96 created the Princeton AIDS quilt, inspired by the national AIDS Memorial Quilt, honoring Princeton students and alumni killed by the virus.

Student activism has consistently moved the university forward, making it a freer and more equal place and pushing it to better live up to its ideals of serving the nation and humanity. Many Princeton institutions important to queer community members would not exist today without student activism, including the LGBT Center and the protection of sexuality under the non-discrimination policy. Queer students also have a long history of involvement with other activist causes, as they recognized that these struggles are closely interrelated.

Multiple alum interviewed for the Oral History Project discussed the importance of their involvement in feminist groups at Princeton that campaigned for inclusion (such as Sally Frank’s case to allow women in eating clubs), safety (the Take Back the Night campaign against sexual assault on college campuses), and reproductive rights. Students have demonstrated against war and injustice, including the Vietnam War and South African apartheid, and demanded university divestment from fossil fuel companies harming the world’s climate. In the 90s, sit-ins held in Nassau Hall called for racial justice in Princeton’s curricula, including the creation of the Asian American and Latino Studies programs. In 2015, activism from the Black Justice League – including another Nassau Hall sit-in – resulted in the creation of new student affinity spaces on campus and the removal of Woodrow Wilson’s name from campus buildings.

The first gay-themed course was offered at Princeton in Spring 1988: an undergraduate English seminar, “Sexuality and Textuality: Speaking the Unspeakable,” taught by then- assistant professor Michael Cadden. The course explored the development of gay literature, and included readings from the Bible, Shakespeare, Herman Melville, and Virginia Woolf. Cadden would go on to become Director of the Princeton Theatre Program and Acting Chair of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts. Diana Fuss and a few other faculty were also instrumental in offering LGBT and queer courses, generating scholarship, and supporting students’ academic pursuits.

The Program in Women’s Studies changed its name to the Program in the Study of Women and Gender in 1999, and then to the Program in Gender and Sexuality in 2011, to reflect the program’s shift to include more LGBT+ scholarship.

In 2005, the university instituted the Cotsen LGBT Post Doctoral Fellowship, sponsored by the Fund for Reunion, the LGBT Alumni Association of Princeton University, and the Society of Fellows. The first search for an LGBT Post Doctoral Fellow yielded two new academics: Gayle Salamon and Margot Canaday, who were hired to the English and History departments respectively at the end of their fellowships in 2008. In the same year, Amin Ghaziani and Ricardo Montez were chosen as the next LGBT Fellows, and couple Jill Dolan and Stacy Wolf, both major contributors to the field of queer theater and performance, were also hired to the faculty. In three years, Princeton went from having very few LGBT+ courses to having six new scholars who would teach and research about queer issues.

According to Daniel Mendelsohn ‘94, Gay Jeans Day was described by members of Princeton’s faculty as “the most volatile event that had taken place on campus since the Vietnam protests.” In October 1989, Mendelsohn, a GALAP member and Princeton graduate student, suggested that Princeton hold a “Gay Jeans Day.” On the 11th, people who supported gay rights would wear jeans to show their solidarity with the queer community.The purpose of the day was to force people to confront their feelings about homosexuality. Just like queer people are forced to think about if they will present as openly queer every day, straight people would be forced to consider how their choice of clothing impacted others’ view of them. To advertise the event, GALAP took out a full page ad in The Daily Princetonian and put up posters, many of which were torn down. Many queer students, closeted and out alike, had mixed feelings about the day. It marked a moment of hyper-visibility that many felt unready for, and gave students who were closeted what felt like an ultimatum.Though the number of people who wore jeans that day is unknown, the event succeeded in raising awareness for the gay community and calling attention to the struggles faced by queer people who are made to feel hyper-aware of their choice of presentation every day. GALAP held several more Gay Jeans Days throughout its history, always accompanied by discussion and controversy.

In the late 20th century, queer activists on campus planned a number of events to increase their community’s visibility on campus.

In the spring of 1991, WoW held a lesbian visibility campaign. Members plastered the campus in bright stickers that read “A Lesbian Was Here,” and published an article about the lesbian community on campus in The Daily Princetonian. The Sentinel, a conservative publication on campus, criticized the stickers as an illegitimate and harmful way to raise visibility – in response, they found their office door plastered in “A Lesbian Was Here” stickers.

In October 1991, GALAP coordinated Princeton’s first Pride Week, complete with programming and its own Gay Jeans Day. Members of GALAP chalked parts of the campus to raise awareness for their cause. This, like the lesbian stickering campaign, was criticized for “tarnishing the beauty” of Princeton’s campus. GALAP continued to hold Pride Weeks in coming years. Today, the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC) continues this tradition with pride programming throughout the month of April, including Princeton’s annual PrideFest.

Many interviewees speak to the importance of reading in discovering and understanding their identity, citing queer literature and nonfiction informational books as an important part of their self-education. Being at Princeton and away from home for the first time provides students with the opportunity to explore, both academically and personally. Particularly in the days before the internet, information about other queer people was often hard to come by — many students found community and possibility in the stacks of their hometown libraries, and later, in Firestone.

The queer history of Princeton would not be complete without a mention of those who have worked through the decades to document Princeton’s queer history, long before the founding of the Oral History Project. From the time of its founding, GAP collected donations to curate a lending library for its members. The Seeley G. Mudd archives are home to a large collection of LGBTQIA+ ephemera, including many of the pieces digitized and displayed in this exhibit.

In 1986, Margaret Miller ‘87, President of GWOP, and Shawn Cowls ‘87 worked with Rocky and Mathey college to bring students education about queer issues. In spring of 1992, Jennifer Kates and Susan Packer created the Peer Educator Program, an institutionalized version of Miller and Cowls’ smaller, opt-in education program. The first peer education training session was held on April 2, 1992. The training attracted 15 people, eager to do educational outreach in residential colleges and within Residential College Advisor (RCA) groups. In spring of 1993, this training was expanded, and by fall of 1994, peer educators were able to reach out to 80% of RCA groups.

After its founding, the LGBT center contributed to the growth of the Peer Educator Program, which continues to operate today through the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC).

On April 26, 1997, Jason Rudy '97 and Michael Beer *95 were married in the first same-sex ceremony in the history of the Princeton University Chapel, officiated by Reverend Sue Ann Steffey Morrow, Associate Dean of Religious Life and of the Chapel. It was not legal, as gay marriage was not yet permitted in the US, but the ceremony was attended by approximately 100 family and friends and recorded in the Chapel book; the headings “bride” and “groom” on the form were covered with white-out.

The wedding was covered in the news and drew a mixture of celebration and criticism, with one alumnus writing an angry letter to President Harold Shapiro at the idea that a gay marriage was recorded in the same book that his wedding had been recorded. The university maintained that Rudy and Beer had the same right to university spaces that other couples did under the non-discrimination policy; however, it ceded to some demands, removing their record from the book and creating a second, separate book for unofficial ceremonies. This remained in place until gay marriage was legalized.

In 2006, New Jersey granted same-sex partners the full state benefits available to married couples. It had allowed domestic partnerships since 2004, the fifth state to do so. According to The Daily Princetonian, “[l]ess than 10 minutes after the court released its decision at 3 p.m., LGBT Center director Debbie Bazarsky sent a celebratory email to the Pride-Net mailing list. ‘We Won!’ the subject line read. ‘Free Wedding Cake at the LGBT Center NOW.’” She bought the cake before knowing the outcome of the ruling, and reports sitting with it in her office all morning worrying that it would go uneaten. In fact, students descended on the LGBT Center to celebrate, and the entire cake was gone before 4pm.New Jersey saw full marriage equality in October of 2013, when Garden State Equality v. Dow ruled that limiting New Jersey couples to civil partnerships, which were not recognized as outside the state, was unequal treatment under the law. The Princeton Chapel has since held several fully legal, equally recognized same-sex weddings.

In 1995, Ronni Sanlo instituted the first Lavender Graduation at the University of Michigan after she was turned away from her children’s graduations because of her sexual orientation. Today, these ceremonies are held at over 200 universities to create a supportive space for LGBT+ graduating students and honor their accomplishments. Princeton has been holding Lavender Graduations since 2002; President Shirley Tilghman in particular made a point of celebrating them, attending and speaking at every year’s ceremony in her administration. Lavender Graduation continues to be celebrated through the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC).

Students and staff have long advocated for the creation of a dedicated LGBT+ space on campus. In 2005 – as a result of the tireless work of many – Princeton’s LGBT Center was founded. In the spring of 2002, students, including Gabriel Barrett ‘02, the president of the Pride Alliance from 2000-2001, began writing and drafting proposals for the creation of an LGBT Center on campus. In 2003, members of the Princeton LGBT Task Force including co-chairs Jan Runkle and Vigi Sklar ‘03 continued to draft this proposal. That spring, the proposal was presented to Janet Dickerson, who was at the time the Vice President of Campus Life. The following fall, Kris Kersey, Jan Runkle, Jon Hsu ‘04, Blue Guldal, and Elise Wright ‘83 presented the proposal to President Shirley Tilghman. Tilghman, who recognized the need for increased support and resources for Princeton’s queer community, was a strong supporter of the center from the start.

In the summer of 2005, Debbie Bazarsky, who had been Princeton’s LGBT Student Services Coordinator since 2001, became the new LGBT Center’s Director. Construction on the center began in October 2005, and the center opened its doors in the spring of 2006. The center continued to house GAP’s lending library, a decades-old collection of queer books, expanded and curated through donations since GAP’s founding.The LGBT Center quickly became a bastion of queer resources on campus. While not every queer student got involved with center activities, many cite the role that the center and its programming played in their Princeton experience.

In the fall of 2021, the LGBT Center and Women’s Center merged to form the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC). The GSRC offers expansive programming that acknowledges the intersections between gender and sexual identity, and works to provide support and community for LGBTQIA+ students on campus.

While Princeton has made strides in its treatment of queer people, many of these developments have come with backlash from the campus community. Students, staff, and faculty report facing harassment and discrimination in their time here. Hear them speak about their experiences.

The Alumni Association hosted the first Every Voice conference in April of 2013. LGBT+ and allied alumni return to campus for three days to attend panels, lectures, and social events. Many interviewees, particularly older alumni who were not out in their time at Princeton or who faced hostility for their identity, cite it as a moving experience to return and find community and recognition.

Even as they faced obstacles, queer Princetonians have found joy as well. Hear them speak about friendship, romance, and community.

The history of queer Princeton has often gone untold in official records. Many interviewees expressed gratitude to the project for preserving their stories and making them accessible to the broader public. As future classes enter Princeton, making their own paths through the university and creating stories of their own, we hope that this resource will help them feel that they are not alone.