Elizabeth Dorm Outreach Notes

Oral History Quotes

[On Dorm Outreach] That was actually a pretty cool program. The two folks who developed it- I'm not sure if I'm making this up, but I feel like they may have connected with Toby Simon, who was the sex educator at the time, to kind of think through how to do this program. They basically created a program where some of us were trained to go into whatever setting- we would be requested by a dorm or a hall or fraternity sometimes to come in. And we'd be paired, so it was always a man and a woman together, then we'd go off with a small group, you know, be divided up with whoever the audience was. And as I recall, it was a set of questions that we had a discussion with as a small group. And then at the end of that, we'd come together and open it up for questions of any sort. And  they wrote down their questions, so that nobody had to raise their hand. It was a chance to get in front of a lot of people at Brown for whom this just hadn't even been something they'd ever thought about. And we did a lot of these sessions, and in a lot of settings. Sometimes it was really nerve wracking. Like, ”I don't think these people like us.”  But it was really aimed at giving people a chance to see “The Real Live Gay People,” you know? (...) And that program put us in front of a lot of Brown students. And I feel like they were always at nine o'clock at night or something. It would be eleven o'clock at night when we finished, then we'd go hang out at the gate and have pizza and decompress for hours because we were always like, “Gah!” You know? It was very intense, but it was actually really fun too because you'd always come out of it feeling like, “I think we reached some people! Did you see that one kid? He was really listening to what we had to say!” Or, “Did you see how she really, you know, seemed to change her mind as we were talking?” So it felt really valuable. 

-Annette Huddle speaking about the visibility towards LGBTQ students brought by Dorm Outreach 

[Speaking about the Dorm Outreach questions] They range from things. Again, these were usually written on paper. So sometimes some were really obnoxious, and we just ignored them. Sometimes we’d take them and be like, “You know, probably whoever wrote this is trying to upset us, but we're gonna give you an answer.” You know? You know, it was everything from, “What can two women actually do in bed?” To, “How long have you known you were gay. To, how would I know if I was gay? I mean we'd see that a few weeks after one of these, somebody we had seen in the Dorm Outreach would show up at the meeting, which was really gratifying. So we knew that we were reaching people. We especially liked going into freshman halls, which was what we did a lot, to get to the new students and be like, “Hey, we exist! We do this, we're pretty fun, pretty normal people.” You know, you could imagine being one of us. So I think it was a really, really valuable program that demystified and created some exposure. And helped people realize that they weren't alone. 

-Annette Huddle speaking about the questions asked by freshman students during Dorm Outreach

The biggest thing I was involved with was helping to organize the Dorm Outreach program where we went to all different dorms, and did a little program where we talked about issues and had people anonymously write down what they were thinking about, so that we could kind of try to, in a softball kind of way, get them to feel better about those issues.

The Dorm Outreach program, we were always very careful to be balanced male and female. So we'd go to a dorm, and there'd be units. The counselors would have invited us there, and we had an organized set up, where we would come, we'd introduce ourselves, and then we had this process of people asking questions and writing down opinions about LGBTQ stuff, but not having to own what their opinions were. They were anonymous. Then we'd read them aloud, we’d talk about them. And then we give our own backgrounds, and talk about what our lives have been like to try and just open up the issue to make it something that wasn't threatening. And, to make it clear that just existed in the world, you know what I mean? So that first year I was at Brown, we decided that might be a good way to help educate people, and help them feel less threatened by the issue.

-Martha Gardner speaking about the beginnings of Dorm Outreach

I think a huge purpose of those events was just, “We’re normal students here at Brown with you.” Ask us whatever you want, we'll tell you. We'll answer your questions to the best of our ability, and just, like, normalize it, demystify it. 

-Elizabeth Hargrave speaking about the purpose of Dorm Outreach

[Speaking about the impact of dorm outreach on the visibility of LGBTQ students at Brown] Dorm outreach probably is one of the things that changed the tenor, or the tone at Brown, the most dramatically. So, I always say as many times as I can, say all props to Martha Gardner. Martha Gardner, Martha Gardner, Martha Gardner. Because she's the person who started that. So, that had actually been an active program even before I arrived. And, I think it was one of the things that made the hugest difference at  Brown. Was, you know, queer people going into freshman units and meetings and just talking about who they were, and their experiences and their lives and their coming out stories. And by the time I started doing it - I can’t remember if I first started doing it the following year, my sophomore year? Definitely by my junior year, I know I was doing it. Probably my sophomore year. And we actually got to know each other's coming out stories, which was kind of funny as well.

-Derek Livingston remembering his experience in Dorm Outreach