Amherst, Mass. -- Jenny Horton spends much of her time on a dormitory floor that she calls a"gay fantasy world.”
The 33 students who reside on the floor here at the University of Massachusetts might all be gay, lesbian, or bisexual. The floor, where she lived for two years, sponsors an annual"drag ball” and holds sessions on such topics as how beauty standards affect gay people.
If Ms. Horton wants $1 off on"gay night” at a local dance club, she can pluck a coupon from a hallway bulletin board. On a walk down the hall, the junior would know that the doors featuring sultry photographs of Sharon Stone and Madonna had been decorated by women, and that the door with 20 pictures of shirtless male models belongs to a man.
She would see some biting humor pasted on room doors, too. “Don’t feed or eat the straight people.""Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.”
Every student who lives here must be interviewed by the resident assistant or the hall director. Students who aren’t gay or bisexual must pledge to support gay rights.
The"2 in 20" floor, on the fourth level of the Mary Lyon dormitory, is one of the country’s largest campus-housing areas organized around a gay theme. The floor has run out of rooms for women -- who outnumber men 20 to 13 -- and it might expand to the third floor this fall.
The floor is designed to provide a supportive environment for gay students still coming to terms with their sexuality. Students who live here say they can"come out of the closet” without worrying about how a straight roommate might respond. They also say they can concentrate better on academics since they’re not viewed as curiosities, as might be the case on mostly straight floors.
“If you don’t want to,” Ms. Horton says of life on the floor, “you don’t have to deal with anyone else.”
That proximity can be a problem, too. This month she moved to Mary Lyon’s third floor, after breaking up with her girlfriend, who had been her roommate.
Indeed, one criticism of the"2 in 20" floor from campus conservatives is that it permits, even encourages, gay couples to live together -- something heterosexuals can’t do in campus housing.
But residents of the floor say the issue has been overblown. Ms. Horton says she knows of only one couple living together, now that her own relationship is over.
“It’s almost incestuous to have a relationship on the floor.” says Donnie Roberts, a senior and the floor’s resident assistant.
Conservatives also say the university is hypocritical for allowing gay students to shut the rest of the campus out."If they’re concerned about diversity on this campus, what’s the point of isolating the people whose views are out of the mainstream?” asks Paul Ferro, the treasurer and a former president of the university’s Republican Club."It’s my feeling that you learn through contact, not through isolation.”
Gay students say they’re tired of repeatedly answering the same questions from straight students."A lot of people think we should be spread out and educating people,” says Chris Savastano, a junior."You know what? That’s not my job. I’m not getting paid for that. When I come home and close my door, I want to be left alone.”
The university, which also offers separate housing for several minority-student groups, approved the 2 in 20 floor in 1992 after more than 40 students signed letters and petitions asking for it. The university put the students in Mary Lyon, an attractive red-brick building in the northeast section of the campus, because the students who live here tend to be older and liberal. The monolithic dormitories in the southwest quadrant of campus hold a lot of students who are"rowdy and frat-boyish,” says one gay man.
The name"2 in 20" was chosen by the students. It alludes to the statistic, popularized by the sex researcher Alfred C. Kinsey, that one in 10 people is gay."One in 10 sounds lonely,” explains Mr. Roberts.
The floor opened with only five gay students. Many who had pushed for it decided not to live on it, fearing violence and harassment. The floor was rounded out with freshman women, whom the gay students viewed as"more supportive” than men. The feared violence never happened, and by the end of the year, about 25 gay students had joined the floor.
Mr. Roberts assumes that all the current residents are gay or bisexual, since none have identified themselves as heterosexual.
At other colleges, gay students have been less successful in their push for separate housing. In 1993, Cornell University rejected a student group’s request for dormitory space dedicated to gay culture, even though the university had -- and still has -- special floors or dormitories on three ethnic themes.
The University of Maine approved a dorm floor for gay students last spring, despite opposition from campus conservatives. The plan was shelved at the last minute in the fall, however, when only two students signed up.
After seeking advice from 2 in 20 residents, the University of California at Berkeley tentatively plans to start a gay “residence-hall group” in the fall. The Berkeley plan has a twist: Students who want to live in the special area will be required to minor in gay and lesbian studies.
The closest match to 2 in 20 might be at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where 70 students live in an apartment-block named after the gay-rights activist Harvey Milk. But only about 20 per cent of the students are gay, according to a campus spokesman.
Not all gay students here at Massachusetts praise the 2 in 20 floor. Jamie Sinsheimer, an editor in charge of gay issues at The Massachusetts Daily Collegian, the student newspaper, says she enjoys living around straight people.
“Maybe they’re not strong enough to live somewhere else,” she says of the floor’s residents.
Some admit they’re here because they need the support. Stacey Burdick, a freshman who is bisexual, initially signed up for a regular dorm room, not wanting to"make a career” out of her sexuality. Ms. Burdick says heterosexuals on the campus have told her she’s going through a phase; some gay students tell her she’s really lesbian but not ready to face it.
After a month, she moved into 2 in 20, to observe whether the handful of bisexual students on the floor are able to have successful relationships."I’m not stable enough to be able to deal with criticism from strangers right now,” she says.
Often, a move to the floor is precipitated by a clash with a straight roommate. Gary Cobbett, also a freshman, says he got into fistfights with his roommate last fall after Mr. Cobbett revealed his homosexuality."He seemed upset that he got stuck with me,” Mr. Cobbett says.
He made it through until the end of the semester, enduring put-downs and gay-bashing jokes. Then he switched into 2 in 20. Like many others here, he now refers to his floor mates as kin."It’s nice to be with family,” he says.
The theme of Mary Lyon’s fourth floor is well known around the campus, so most students who live here are"out.” Many students haven’t told their parents, however. Mr. Cobbett’s father, for example, does not know that his son is gay.
For that reason, residents remove gay-related material from the hallways during the first few days of each semester, when parents are dropping their children off. When parents visit in the middle of the semester, students have to scramble.
Mr. Savastano, who is now openly gay, remembers when his mother made her first visit to the floor a few years ago."I ran around the hallways and ripped stuff off of everyone’s doors” he says, laughing at the memory.
Some aren’t completely"out” with their classmates, either. When straight students ask them where they live, they lie.
Some of those students were outraged this fall, when a 2 in 20 resident responded to a column in the Collegian that poked fun at some members of the floor by trying to"out” its author. The 2 in 20 resident sent a letter to the editor exposing the closeted column writer. The Collegian didn’t run the letter.
Yet several residents of the floor feared the letter writer might eventually try to"out” them, too. They wanted him kicked off the floor. They also wanted an addition to the 2 in 20 charter that would ban"outing.”
The letter writer ultimately promised never to betray anyone on the floor. But the group didn’t ban outing, says Mr. Roberts, the resident assistant, because"there are so many different views about whether outing is okay.”
Such debates can stretch on for weeks, and they tax the patience of the people who counsel the floor’s residents.
Julie Robbins, the hall director for Mary Lyon and two other dorms, is a lesbian who chose to work here last fall because of the 2 in 20 floor. She’s responsible for 11 other floors, too, but spends as much as half of each week with students who live on the fourth floor of Mary Lyon.
“The students on the floor are very demanding,” says Ms. Robbins."They’re in the beginning stages of the coming-out process, and they’re looking for mentors.”
As the floor prepares for its fifth anniversary next fall, it has a look of stability that it lacked in the beginning. In 1992, students drew up lists of all the bad things that could happen -- bomb threats, arson, rocks through windows -- and how students should respond.
Students now can easily distinguish gay-bashing from harmless mischief.
At the end of last semester, Mary Lyon was pelted during a huge snowball fight that involved students from other dorms. Ms. Horton, the junior, doesn’t think anyone was trying to single out the gay students."They weren’t yelling ‘Hey faggots,’” she says."If they were targeting us, they would have been yelling things.”
As she speaks, Ms. Horton sits on a couch in the floor’s sparsely furnished lounge. Randy Shilts’s Conduct Unbecoming: Gays & Lesbians in the U.S. Military lies on a wood table, with"2 in 20" scrawled on its pages. On the wall above Ms. Horton’s head is a flyer that reads:"Come out! Come in! Because a closet is a lonely place.”
There are several other gay-related posters and flyers, too. It’s enough to make one wonder if she ever tires of it all.
She doesn’t.
“I live in a straight world,” she says."When I go to the movies, or to the store to get a Hallmark card, there’s no gay stuff there. The only thing I have that’s completely gay is this floor.”
