The Last Word: Queer Eye for the Alumni

Erik Wade ’09

I am a queer alumnus (Class of ’09!) who now teaches in the Department of English and Creative Writing. While many of my stories of my undergrad involve the wonderful blizzards of Oz or the famous sunsets, some of my core memories center on the queer and trans community at Oswego. My vision for Oswego is to recover LGBTQ+ history on campus.

I returned to campus in 2022 as an assistant professor in the English department, teaching Shakespeare and medieval literature. I quickly became a member of the campus-wide LGBTQIA+ Working Group, a task force formed at the direction of the president to address student concerns about LGBTQ+ life on campus. We investigated the situation on campus and put together a set of proposals for the president, which we are now in the process of instituting.

During this investigation, I became fascinated by the situation of the archives of queer and trans history on campus. In Penfield Library’s archives, University Archivist Zachary Vickery showed me the archived papers of the Gay and Lesbian Association (GALA, now known as Pride Alliance) from 1988-1993. These papers are a chance survival, donated by an unknown faculty member to the archives. They present a beautiful history of queer and trans life at Oz, from AIDS organizing to social events. Letters from students — often anonymous — express their gratitude for GALA’s visibility. Many of these documents are painful reminders that queer and trans students experienced (and still experience) homophobia and transphobia at the university. Yet the archives also show that, despite it all, queer and trans people organized and celebrated their lives, made spaces for joy and changed the university for the better.

However, almost nothing remains of the organization from before or after this period, and no other set of archives really documents LGBT life at Oz. As an alumnus from 2007-2009, I remember purple “Out and Proud” shirts for Coming Out Day, regular Rainbow Alliance meetings and all sorts of sponsored events. Yet, there’s almost no trace of this in the university archives, and the Pride Alliance does not have records of their own.

I sifted through the archives of The Oswegonian, Student Association records and other records of student life. I’ve found traces going back to the early 1970s. In 1972, three years after queer and trans people fought back against police brutality at Stonewall, the Syracuse Gay Liberation group gave a talk at Oswego to 40 or so people. Shortly thereafter, there was a gathering of gay people at Oswego, with the intention of forming a similar organization. From then on, various organizations appear in The Oswegonian events calendar from time to time: Homophile Friends, Gay Brothers and Sisters of Oswego, Gay Alliance of Oswego, GALA, Transgender Splendor, Men’s Gay Support Group, Gays for Human Liberation, Oswego Gay People Discussion Group and others. Yet little record of their impact remains.

Professor Maureen Curtin and I will be running an LGBTQ+ Oral History workshop this summer that will overlap with Reunion Weekend June 6-9. We will train students and community members to interview LGBTQ+ alumni, emeritus faculty and community members. These interviews will live in the campus archives and be available online for those interested in LGBTQ+ campus history. We hope that alumni coming for Reunion Weekend will agree to be interviewed. Right now, LGBTQ+ history is under attack throughout the country, so it’s worth documenting how queer and trans people have always been here and have been a part of Oswego for decades.

Erik Wade ’09, who double majored in history and English with a minor in medieval and renaissance studies, is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at SUNY Oswego. He received support from the Shineman Endowed Fund to build an archive of LGBTQ+ experiences across SUNY Oswego’s history, using recorded interviews of alumni and their firsthand accounts.

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