The Campus Closet | Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

What was it like to be gay at Haverford in the early 1950s?

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by Ed Steele '54

First, a few words about my pre-college life, which I would guess was similar to the lives of other youngsters growing up in Havertown, a community about two miles from Haverford, where my older brother and I both sang in the boy's choir of St. George's Episcopal Church and went through Boy Scouting together. I was an Eagle Scout and received the Bower Award from my troop for distinguished service to the troop. At Haverford Township Senior High School I went out for track and wrestling, and took third and fourth year Latin in the same class as Helen Steere, the older daughter of philosophy professor Douglas V. Steere.

	Ed near his Bayside, Queens home.

While I was going through junior and senior High School, I became aware of the sexual attractions that were blossoming between the boys and girls in my class. I had no sexual feelings of my own that I was aware of and felt worried for several years because of their absence. However, within a month of entering Haverford, I felt a powerful homosexual infatuation for a classmate. These feelings gave me a lot of grief because everything people thought about homosexuality in those days was unflattering and disturbing. It was commonly believed that homosexuals (a) had a mental illness; (b) were criminals; or (c) were an abomination to God. Of the three choices, I felt that the first made the most sense.

At the end of my freshman year, I became a member of an Institutional Services Unit sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee. Our group, made up of students from Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore and Cheney State Teacher's College, lived on the Haverford campus and traveled in a college bus to Norristown State Mental Hospital, where we worked as attendants throughout the summer of 1951. There we had the chance to learn about the care of the mentally ill while we provided help to overworked full-time attendants. While at the hospital I spoke with a psychiatrist about my sexual feelings and was referred to a clinic at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Over a period of several years I received talk therapy from three therapists over four intervals, each interval lasting a year or more. This therapy had no effect on my sexual orientation.

There have no doubt always been homosexuals on campus among both the students and faculty, but in the 50s everyone was in the closet, leaving me with a feeling of great isolation. However on one occasion, a member of the class to graduate a year before me invited me to his house in Philadelphia to "study German together." After arriving, he expressed a desire to have physical closeness in a subtle manner that I found no way offensive. No wanting to reject him, I pretended not to understand him, and went home after a short while. I was not ready to explore my sexual feelings at that time. As things worked out, I didn't have my first sexual experience until I was 26.

On another occasion, I came upon the same individual after dark while he and another day student were in a parked car along the lane that runs past the astronomy observatory. It seemed to me that they were flustered by my fairly abrupt appearance. Were they up to something? Who knows. If there was any homosexual activity taking place on campus in the early 50s, it was certainly being done very discreetly and cautiously. To be identified as a homosexual would have probably resulted in complete isolation (or worse) from the heterosexuals who were, of course, by far the larger part of the campus community. In the 50s, there was simply very little said about homosexuality.

While at Haverford my homosexual feelings were a constant worry and distraction to me. However, I survived the emotional turmoil, which may have been no greater than what many other students, both heterosexual and homosexual, were experiencing. While attending Alumni Weekend this past May, I talked with a gay alumnus from the class of '55 who I knew while at Haverford but did not know was gay. He told me that while at Haverford, his family was disintegrating as a result of his mother's descent into the tortures of mental illness. My reaction to his story? Whew! And I thought I had problems!

After 25 years editing high school science texts for Prentice-Hall and Cebco Standard Publishing, Ed is currently responsible for purchasing, storing, and maintaining science equipment for the New York City Lab School in Manhattan. He and his partner of 30 years live in northeastern Queens.

Being "Different" at Haverford in the 50s

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by Jim McMasters '56

Ed Note: Jim McMasters passed away on March 15, 1999. Israel Burshatin recalls that Jim "was a wonderful raconteur, devoted Haverfordian, and, in recent years, member of the Haverford Lambda association and energetic organizer of his fortieth class reunion, which he attended in 1996...Our frienship was based not only on our common Cuban background, but also on his love for the College...What better words than James's own to remember him by?"

Why "different"? Because in the early 1950s the word "gay" was not widely disseminated; it was just beginning to be used. The terms most commonly in use were pansy, fruit, fairy, fag (or faggot), queer and dyke -- all derogatory. Now, of course, the term "gay" is widespread. After checking around and comparing notes with classmates of mine whom I later found out were gay, I discovered that I was not alone in my feelings, reactions or doubts.

When I applied to Haverford, I did so for several reasons. I wanted an excellent school (if I could get in) and an all-male college; I had gone to a bi-lingual, bi-national, co-educational school in Cuba from first grade through high school and wanted to try something different. I was already gay by then, although I kept it a personal secret. I also wanted an experience in a Society of Friends ambiance, as I had come from a long line of Quaker ancestors and had no knowledge or contact with them, there being no Friends' Meeting in Cuba. Taking these factors into consideration made up my mind for me very quickly and easily, eliminating Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams and Dartmouth. And I was not mistaken, because my four years at Haverford are among the best memories of my life.

Arriving at the college as a freshman was somewhat of a shock for me. The medical exam and the swimming test with all that male nudity around surprised me, for at my high school we had not had a gymnasium nor was there much emphasis on sports. What a temptation! I guess, despite my sexual preference, I was somewhat of a prude. I soon got over this when I moved into the "Casa" (Spanish House), which was the closest thing to fraternity living at Haverford. I was thrown in not only with a few other freshman, but upperclassmen as well. There was a lot of camaraderie, no modesty and much masculine bragging and boasting about sexual prowess and conquests.

But I had to keep my desires hidden and maintain myself faithful to the Protestant ethic I believed was expected of me, not only by my peers, but also by my family. I was supposed to date girls, eventually marry and procreate, and generally maintain the "front." So I dated, lost my virginity to a woman (which I found was just not my cup of tea, although I had long before lost it to a man), and tried to keep up appearances. I thought I was the only one different in all of Haverford. As it turns out, this was not the case, although while I was there I made no contact with any other gays. We were all in the closet at the time. However, I controlled my desires and had no gay experiences at the college until the night before my graduation when I had a marvelous sexual encounter with a guy I had long had a crush on in the class behind me. We later continued our very satisfactory relationship for a year of graduate school where we both happened to be.

Having been born and raised in Cuba I circulated in two separate cultures; I lived a double existence. I had secret sex with Cubans, kept my hands off my fellow American schoolmates and maintained the life expected of me in the American colony, dating girls, going to church, pretending to be what deep down inside me I knew I was not. After college, the Army and grad school, I came to Brazil where I met a wonderful Brazilian with whom I have had a lasting relationship of 36 years. He it was who helped me overcome my hangups and accept myself as I am so that today I am not afraid to come out of the closet and admit that I am gay. I am just sorry that in my day at Haverford there was no Lambda for us to turn to for guidance, support and understanding. We would not all have been such lost souls seeking to sublimate our special desires or thinking we were the sole "different" ones on campus. We would have been known to each other and able to share our anxieties, hopes, frustrations and crushes. It is very satisfying to know that Haverford is still in the liberal forefront and leading the way to recognition of gays on campuses. The Lambda Alumni are to be congratulated for paving the way to make this possible.