The tragic death of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi following exposure of his intimacy with another man, moved Craig T. Caster to write this essay about his college experience.

Coming Out in a Redneck Dorm
by Craig T. Caster

I was a 19 year old boy when I admitted to myself that I was gay, had always been gay, and would always be the way God created me. It was April 8, 1982, my freshman year at University of Northern Iowa.

I found myself in a new and exhilarating world, and was VERY enthusiastic, feeling that I knew my rightful place in the Grand Scheme. I immediately joined UNI GLO, the LGBT group on campus with only a few more weeks left in the school year.

It was my sophomore year where I started becoming more active, volunteering for panel discussions for classes and other campus groups, openly discussing my own experiences and viewpoints within a staged, and thus fairly safe environment.

But my sophomore year also began with me still living in a dormitory on campus that had the reputation of being fairly blue-collar, “good-ol’ boy.” To top it off, my roommate probably said no more than five words to me on any given day. He was quiet, but repressed, as I look back.

In the interest of disclosure, I was honest with him from the first day about my sexuality. My own home base was the last place I wanted to be closeted. I think I just stunned him. We agreed to disagree, and I saw to it that my schedule afforded him a generous amount of privacy.

Later on in the semester, however, things in the “house” sort of came to a boiling point, as my activities around campus were bound to be noticed by some one. One weekend night, I had returned to my room late — I must have been out with friends at the gay bar in Waterloo.–.and I started settling in to sleep.

I could hear a gang of the boys a room or two down the hall. They had been drinking, so they were loose, and were complaining about the various things wrong in their environment, which included, “What are we going to do about the ‘house faggot?’”

I heard one of them ask for my roommate’s key, and a minute later heard it in the lock in my door. I prepared myself for at least a verbal assault. The punk seemed pretty wasted, but there had been little talk of physical violence, so at that point I wasn’t worried, though it was in the back of my mind, of course.

The interesting thing was that, although what he was saying to me was couched in hostile words, it was also in the form of questions. They weren’t very coherent questions, mostly things like,
“Why you gotta be like this?” and “Why do you gotta live here?” and “Why shouldn’t I just take a shotgun and blow your head off?”

The rest of the group was hanging around giggling drunkenly outside the door. Still, I was more annoyed than frightened. The tone of the group was still fairly clearly in safe chords.

I knew if I didn’t provoke them they’d just give up and go back to the other room and the next gripe, so, I managed to shepherd the intruder back out and get the door locked again. I hope I was right about his forgetting about me.

Five minutes later, I heard the key in the door again, and the same drunk punk came in, with the same questions, and the same chorus of giggles outside my door. So, I reasoned that even though the spokesman-drunk was still using derogatory and hostile words, he might actually be curious. Perhaps the rest of the group were all really hanging on what I would say.

So I reached for the light switch, and said, “Okay, instead of hanging around in the hallway, why don’t you all come in, and actually talk to me? I promise I will answer any question you put to me, and I’ll be completely honest and open with you all. I can tell you really want to know!”

And they did! They all came in, and found places to sit, and one at a time, they started asking me questions. At first they were still somewhat hostile, but they wanted to know the basics. They also wanted to know about their own privacy, since I had to live among them, shower communally, etc.

I pointed out to them that they rarely saw me in the showers, as I was always one of the first ones up and through the bathroom, and off to the dining hall for breakfast before they were stirring. This showed them I was already sensitive to the issue, that I was willing to accommodate them as much as reasonably possible.

Then something more curious shifted. They dropped the hostility, and started asking real and honest questions, like, “When did you first know you were queer? What do you do with another guy? What kinds of things do you look for in another guy? How can you tell if another guy’s gay?”

The whole thing probably lasted half an hour to an hour, and as we all started relaxing, it actually became fun. We were laughing together, instead of sniggling derisively.

After that night, there were still a few snide remarks in the halls as I passed, but generally the tone lightened up for everyone except my roommate. Unfortunately, even though he was at the session, he still remained as remote to me as ever, never saying anything more than was absolutely necessary.

Even though that night had been a break-through, after that, I decided that I’d had enough of the dorm life, and made arrangements to move off campus at the end of that semester. The day I moved out my sad, repressed, roommate let out all his frustration in a verbal burst of angry resentment. It was more words than he had said to me the entire semester.

I never kept in touch with any of them, let alone the roommate. To this day, I feel more sorry for him, than anything. I hope, though I doubt, that he may eventually have grown up a little. But the magic of that night, the culmination of all the panel discussions I had participated in, I will remember as probably the single biggest difference I have made in my life towards gay equality.

I spoke to larger crowds in the organized panels, but they were people who walked into the room, and mostly left the room with their own expectations. There also have been many individual encounters that were personal, but profound. Yet, that night I had a small group of young men who had not expected to open their minds, but I could tell that some did.

I hardly ever seek out to speak publicly on gay issues anymore, unless you count singing with the Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus. Not that I would refuse do it, if asked. I’ve recognized that my own strengths in changing someone’s ideas about homosexuality are in the personal touches, not the public ones.

But I do harbor the fantasy there might be another magic moment in my life yet, where circumstances meet like stars aligning, and another group of people who weren’t looking might have new insight through me.

Loren’s Comment: There is a rather tragic irony that sociologists tell us that the more a person is known to others, the less prejudice and discrimination there is toward the social group to which he belongs. And yet, the reality is that letting others know who we really are can at times put us at great risk.

These words were recorded by Harvey Milk, shortly before his assassination*.

This is Harvey Milk speaking from the camera store on the evening of Friday, November 18 [1978]. This is to be played only in the event of my death by assassination. I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes a target or the potential target for somebody who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed themselves.

If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country.

*From a tape recording (1977-11-18) to be played in the event of his assassination, quoted in Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982), pp. 372. Milk made three recordings for this purpose; these words come from the version given to Frank Robinson.