Unhinging the Closet Doors: The Evolution of Mount Holyoke College’s LGBT Movement

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dc.contributorLemly, John
dc.contributorSavoy, Lauret
dc.contributor.advisorManegold, Catherine
dc.contributor.authorSpivack, Caroline
dc.date.accessioned2015-06-30T20:25:16Z
dc.date.available2015-06-30T20:25:16Z
dc.date.gradyear2015en_US
dc.date.issued2015-06-30
dc.description.abstractThis thesis began with the hope of chronicling Mount Holyoke’s hidden transgender history in the twentieth century. But as I combed through the College’s archives, I found myself engrossed in the evolution of the college’s LGBT (lesbian gay bisexual transgender) movement. It’s no secret that lesbian and bisexual women were and are a part of Mount Holyoke’s campus, but when did students have the courage to push for campus dialogue? For open discussion and advocacy of lesbian, bisexual, and eventually transgender rights on campus? To me, that is when change truly occurred on Mount Holyoke’s campus. When students refused to suffer in silence, and their anger, fear, and pain surfaced to challenge a deep-seated homophobia. The primary objective of this thesis is to explore the evolution of Mount Holyoke students’ advocacy for LGBT issues and begins with one student’s anonymous letter published in the student newspaper in 1975. This letter initiated the formation of the College’s first LGBT group and created the space for all subsequent ones. After the gay liberation movement breached Mount Holyoke’s gates, students and administrators alike urged a culture of acceptance that ultimately would extend far beyond lesbians.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipEnglishen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10166/3672
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.rights.restrictedrestricteden_US
dc.subjectLGBTen_US
dc.subjectTransgenderen_US
dc.subjectLesbianen_US
dc.subjectElectroshock Therapyen_US
dc.subjectHomosexuality in Pop Cultureen_US
dc.subjectLesbian Feminismen_US
dc.subjectTransgender Historyen_US
dc.subjectSodomy Lawen_US
dc.subjectCultural Shiften_US
dc.subject1970sen_US
dc.subjectGender Nonconformityen_US
dc.subjectButch and Femme Cultureen_US
dc.titleUnhinging the Closet Doors: The Evolution of Mount Holyoke College’s LGBT Movementen_US
dc.typeThesis
mhc.degreeUndergraduateen_US
mhc.institutionMount Holyoke College

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