Every Voice at Princeton: The Path toward Authenticity

This past weekend, I had the honor of attending the Every Voice Conference, a vibrant celebration of Princeton’s LGBTQIA+ alumni. I was invited to participate in a queer author reading and book fair, which I accepted with cautious optimism. As I prepared to return, I couldn’t help but recall how this place once felt like a gauntlet—a series of trials from which I emerged, scathed.

One of the first places I revisited was the dorm I used to sneak into during a beautiful yet cataclysmic three-year relationship. I looked up at the third-story Gothic window I used to pee from at night because I couldn’t risk leaving my then boyfriend’s room while his straight dorm mates were awake—let alone use the common restroom. We weren’t out yet, and the risk of being seen felt too high.

Those memories are uncomfortable to revisit, and for a long time, I regarded the university with a complicated mix of gratitude and resentment. It was place where it felt safer operating in the shadows, under as many radars as possible—a place where I was never fully myself.

At Princeton, I encountered people who were warm and progressive, but also others who, well, weren’t. When I arrived at campus in 2003, it wasn’t immediately clear if there were any openly gay students. At the time, the university was led by President Shirley Tilghman, who spoke of wanting Princeton to attract more students with “green hair.” When pressed on that, she clarified that she wanted students to live with people “utterly unlike yourself.”

To me, that sounded like coded language for “gay”—an assumption that felt affirmed when I saw Shirley T judging a drag show in the spring of my senior year. (#ShirleyTrocks)

Back in 2003, I could see Princeton was making some efforts toward inclusivity. I remember the first openly gay student I saw during freshman week—a senior named Kris (with red hair) who spoke to the entire class about being gay. His story made me feel exposed but also curious. I wasn’t entirely sure of my own identity, and I knew I wanted to explore it, despite the repercussions I’d inevitably face. Kris seemed like a needle in a very thick hetero haystack, and I wondered if there were any openly gay people in my own class.

Later, at an eating club party, a senior in a cocktail dress asked how my first week was going. I told her I liked what Kris had said and asked if she knew him.

Her response?

“Why would you want to speak to him?”

The way she spat out “him” —with what sounded more like a serpentine hiss than human speech—made me realize that people like Kris, and by extension me, weren’t going to be welcomed by everyone. It echoed the disdain I had encountered my whole life: a homophobic disgust for difference, a rigid centering of heteronormativity.

I didn’t completely hide my gayness at Princeton. My walls were plastered with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the musical) and Britney Spears posters—an attempt at self-expression…or perhaps a cry for help? I even made the deliberate choice to explore queerness in my coursework. In my freshman writing course, Dracula, Sexuality, and Power, our first assignment was to analyze a vampire story and develop a unique thesis. Inspired by Willow and Tara’s relationship in Buffy, I wrote about Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla as an allegory for forbidden lesbian sexuality. What I thought was a straightforward analysis caused a stir—one student openly expressed her disgust with the idea, rejecting the link between vampirism and homosexuality. (Looking back, I wonder if that reaction reflected her own internal struggle.) Fortunately, the professor liked my paper and encouraged me to keep exploring these themes. It was a sign that maybe, just maybe, Princeton could be a safe place for people like me, at least in the academic realm.

I met my first boyfriend near the end of freshman year at a recruitment party for a Jewish fraternity. I was neither Jewish nor interested in joining, but they had free beer. The experience was mind-numbing, and it quickly became clear that the straight white guys were far more interested in the female friends I arrived with than in my joining. So, I headed to the kitchen to numb myself further with their booze.

That’s where he was—numbing himself, too.

Our relationship began with false starts, mostly due to my own inhibitions. Much of it was hidden, since we had straight roommates and didn’t feel we could risk being seen. We claimed public spaces—fountains, arches, alleys, gardens, and theater balconies. I could only stay at his when we knew no one else was around. As I fell in love, I wondered what it would be like to sleep next to him without fear, and to simply use the bathroom instead of peeing out the window. Whenever I did stay at his, I’d wake up at 5 am and take the pre-dawn “walk of shame” back to my dorm.

There was a certain allure to keeping everything in the shadows, and that relationship made me happier than I’d ever been. But it also held me back from exploring the newly established LGBTQIA+ center (inaugurated by the amazing Debbie Bazarsky). I longed to go there, to connect, to engage in activism, but making myself visible meant risking the exposure of our relationship.

A cruel choice existed in that arrangement—becoming myself at the expense of losing the person I loved. I felt like a butterfly, halfway emerged, trying to retreat back into its chrysalis.

By senior year, I began the ritual of coming out to friends and was ready to come out to family. My boyfriend wasn’t. The more I became myself, the more he retreated. His main fear was that coming out would compromise his crystal clear professional goals—a fear that was regrettably valid.

The closet seemed safer for many reasons, including job prospects after graduation. In a country that lacked federal legislation prohibiting workplace discrimination of LGBTQ+ people, coming out and living authentically posed real risks. These were also the years of the disastrous Clinton-era policy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which banned openly LGBTQ+ individuals from serving in the military, creating a precedent for workplace discrimination. The institutionalized homophobia we experienced on campus was an expression of something larger and much more dire. Though states were chipping away at structural inequalities (NJ legalized civil unions in 2007), there was still a long road ahead before true legal equality could be achieved.

Needless to say, my relationship didn’t survive Princeton. For a long time, I wondered if it would have, had Princeton been more open, more nurturing. A butterfly sanctuary as opposed to a cemetery of discarded pupal shells.

One of my regrets from college was not getting involved in queer activism. That’s why I felt such a strong drive to march in Pride in 2008, while living in a very homophobic Seoul, and why I joined the Movement for Sexual Minorities while in Chile as a Princeton in Latin America fellow. In Korea, I met queer people who were disowned by their families and friend groups. In Chile, I met trans and bi people who didn’t feel fully part of the “community.” Also in Korea, I saw firsthand how American soldiers risked their careers under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by simply going out to gay clubs in Itaewon. Foreigners living with HIV were expelled from the country under restrictive policies, adding another layer of fear and suppression. These experiences, and others, reinforced my understanding of the global fight for queer rights.

At Every Voice, I was struck by the stories of past Princeton activists and writers. People like Helen Zia, who protested against the Vietnam War but faced backlash for being a feminist lesbian, and Daniel Mendelsohn, who co-initiated Gay Jeans Day in 1989 as an act of defiance and visibility, sparking fierce debates on campus. Listening to their experiences reminded me how far we’ve come—and how far we still have to go.

Returning to Princeton now, I experience the campus in a new light. I walk the same paths with a deeper sense of self and belonging, even when I glance up at that third-story Gothic window and recall the discomfort of not knowing what to do with a bladder on the verge of bursting. For the first time, I feel like I can fully be myself on campus. And judging by the energy at Every Voice, I know I’m not alone in that feeling.

The book I was invited to present—Deficient—was born out of the pain, alienation, and othering I experienced during my younger years. It’s often described as an allegory for the queer experience. But at Every Voice, there was no othering—only support. I signed more books than I could have imagined and felt the warmth of my fellow queer tigers—people I now proudly call my community. That includes my now out and married ex.

The conference showed me that Princeton has evolved into a place where queer people are welcomed and embraced. For the first time, it felt as though the university had finally shed its pupal casing, emerging into the inclusive space that generations of queer tigers have yearned and fought for. It has become a more authentic version of itself—something we always knew it could be.