Since I'm nearing the end of my time at MS&T, I've decided to write at least three pieces on my experiences here in Rolla. The first, if you couldn't guess from the title, is about my experiences with the LGBT communities here. Now, there'll be some people I'll mention whose names I won't, but if you happen to know who they are, please don't name them.
My first experiences with the LGBT community began freshman year of college. I had just publicly come out three months earlier, and I wasn't certain how to go about finding a community to interact with. Also, when I tried to find the local GSA online, all I found was the local chapter of DLP. I eventually found the local GSA, called The DaVinci Society, about my third week in. My first experience was interesting, as DaVinci has an introduction thing at the beginning of meetings where we say what our name is, our major and optionally our year, and we answer some ice breaker question. I forgot what the question was that night, but everyone seemed to do everything they could to make their answers as stereotypically gay as possible. We talked about business a while, talking about upcoming events that DaVinci was planning on participating in. We also, occasionally brought up news items and discussed those. Then, the meeting usually ended, and I would go back to my dorm. This happened the same way for the next threeish weeks, before one night I decided to participate in an informal get-together that many members of DaVinci went to at the local Applebees. While it was unofficial, these get-togethers would become the most important and influential part of DaVinci for me. The first night was ok, until this one girl decided to pipe up and say something along the lines of "I don't wanna be the fat kid at the table whose the only one ordering desert." And this was right after I'd ordered desert myself. This was the first inkling I had of the kind of community that existed here at Rolla. The same happened for that entire year (without the anti-fat comments), and I began to notice that certain members of DaVinci seemed to be more influential than others, and some were more supportive of activism than others. It was the later group that I found I enjoyed more, and it was that latter group that I was sad to see go.
My sophomore year was a little different. Many of the people who were so good with the activism projects we had going left, either transferring or graduating. That left behind only a few people who focused on activism, while it left many more people who cared more about being social as the more influential members of DaVinci. We quickly saw the decline of the organization, with many people leaving and not returning to the group. It was also that year that I decided to try rushing for the local chapter of Delta Lambda Phi. It was the suggestion of a friend of mine who was also rushing, and as had happened in high school when a friend suggested I try speech and debate, it didn't turn out well. I began noticing things about the people in DLP, specifically that none of them cared if I was around. Some even seemed to be more annoyed at my presence than indifferent. Additionally, none of them (other than my big) made much of an attempt to make me feel welcome in the group: instead, I was just there, and they couldn't care less. I eventually realized DLP was not for me, and I depledged two weeks before initiation. Unfortunately, I would soon realize that this exclusion tendency extended far beyond just me.
Junior year I moved into a house, along with three gay guys and a straight guy. Two of the gay guys were in DLP, and were rather influential members of DLP. Also, the house I moved into was called "Haus Ghey", because it had been the home of many members of both DLP and DaVinci over the past several years. As such, most DLP events were hosted at this house, and I had seen it a few times when I was a pledge. Soon, though, I began noticing things about DaVinci that I hadn't seen before, mainly because I wasn't aware of it. There were many inside jokes going around DaVinci between certain people, but it wasn't until this moment that I realized it was only between DLP people, and consisted of references to events that only a member of DLP would know about. I also noticed there was absolutely no attempt to interact with anyone outside of their small circle. It destroyed any possibility of maintaining a gay community, and eventually meetings went down to nothing but the board members, members of DLP, and myself. I eventually realized there were three main people causing the problems that led to this destruction of the local LGBT community. The first was a guy who was very judgemental of everyone around him, and tended toward isolation. The second was a guy who seemed genuinely interested in activism, but he was overly obsessed with DLP, to the point where he even had the letters DLP after his name on his Scruff account. The third was a very flamboyant man who often made jokes about his "inner black woman" but also had an alarming tendency to bitch about everyone behind their backs. Also, all three of these men were very influential within DLP. Their influence and these personality aspects combined to turn DLP into a very pretentious and isolated organization that almost destroyed DaVinci. I also wasn't the only one to notice this collapse, as the president of DaVinci shared my concerns, but it seemed we were the only ones who had them. After she spoke out once at a meeting about it and after I overheard the bitching in DLP about it, I spoke out myself on Facebook, going into more detail about the problems I had noticed. Suffice it to say, anyone who might have acted like a friend stopped. Either way, the local community was almost destroyed. It was this collapse of the community that led me to try to create a local bear community, but that didn't work out very well. Nearly no one wanted to meet and not many people were part of the community, so it kind of collapsed.
Senior year was a breath of fresh air, as many new freshman joined the group and one of the trifecta went away on a co-op. It seemed there was the possibility of turning the organization around and reviving the local community. But slowly, I noticed there was still the isolationist activity on the part of DLP, and I noticed they were trying to rope in every male in the organization. We didn't do nearly as much activism events as we had done freshman year, as the spirit of helping the local community pretty much died after that, but there seemed to be a real community forming. We had a good set of presidents for the organization, and we had some good ideas and good programs going. Then, the second semester hit. The president of DaVinci at the time decided to pledge for DLP, and while the other two members of the trifecta graduated, the third came back. And after a while, I noticed the judgemental and isolationist one came back too. It was at this point that I decided to leave DaVinci for good, knowing that it would probably revert back to what DLP had turned it into and would never do any good again.
I know it seems that I'm mainly bitching, but this is what I experienced here at Rolla from the LGBT community. I'm hoping that I can find a better one at UMKC. I've heard their bear scene is amazing, and there are probably many more communities in Kansas City since it's larger. I just hope I'm not getting my hopes up for nothing.
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