“We Are The Campus”: Victoria Kirby Elliott York on the Profound Queer Legacy at Howard University
Activist Victoria Kirby York . Photo Credit: Victoria Kirby York Facebook page.
By Jaimee A. Swift
A two-time alumnus of Howard University, Victoria Kirby York (she/her/they/them) is adamant about HBCUs claiming, acknowledging, and honoring the power of queer student-activism, leadership, and legacy on their campuses.
Victoria Kirby York’s interview is a part of ‘Voices in Movement’ February 2020 theme, ‘#MakingBlackQueerHistory: Black LGBTQ+ Women and Non-Binary Student Activism at HBCUs.’ To read the descriptor, please click here.
Victoria Kirby York is a powerhouse. As the Deputy Director for the Advocacy & Action Department at the National LGBTQ Task Force, she manages and organizations at the intersections of policy, spirituality, racial, economic, and gender justice. Organizing for over 16 years at the federal, state, and local levels, she was previously the Florida Director for Organizing for Action (OFA), a non-profit formed to re-elect then President Barack Obama. Kirby York has also served as a member of the Human Rights Campaign’s National Diversity and Inclusion Council and the National Black Justice Coalition’s (NBJC) Leadership Advisory Council and was honored by NBJC as a National Top 100 Emerging LGBT leader.
As a two-time alumnus of Howard University, it was at “The Mecca”––which is what students affectionately call Howard––where Kirby York started her advocacy and activism. Using her positions as a graduate assistant to the Office of the President, a student government member, and as a member of BLAGOSAH (the Bisexual, Lesbian, Allied, and Gay Organization of Students at Howard University, which was started by Sean McMillan and Sterling Washington in October 2000 and is now CASCADE, the Coalition of Activist Students Celebrating the Acceptance of Diversity and Equality, which was previously the Lambda Student Alliance), she fought and continues to fight for LGBTQ+ student, faculty, staff, and alumni representation and rights and for HBCUs to recognize, uplift, and honor Black queer legacies and lives on their campuses.
At Howard, Kirby York wrote and published her student-thesis titled the Lavender Report, a report that documented LGBTQ+ history and examined campus inclusion needs at HBCUs––which she published as the first openly LGBTQ+ person elected to Howard University’s Board of Trustee. The Lavender Report would later be published by Harvard University and is viewed as a blueprint for higher education professionals who are seeking to establish LGBTQ+ resource centers at HBCUs. Moreover, Howard’s Lavender Fund, a charity that “provides support and a culture of inclusion to LGBTQ students on campus” was co-founded by Christopher Cross, a former Graduate Trustee at Howard. According to Cross, the Lavender Fund is named in homage to Kirby York’s Lavender Report and her pioneering activism and leadership.
Kirby York shared with me what her experiences were like as a queer student at Howard; her activism and advocacy on campus; what HBCUs can do to be more inclusive of its queer, transgender, and gender non-conforming student-body; and how proud she is of members of CASCADE for continuing the work of LGBTQ+ activism at Howard.
At Howard University, what was your experience like as a gay or queer student at a historically Black university? What was LGBTQ+ community and representation at Howard like at that time?
Victoria Kirby York (VKY): “I came to Howard during an interesting season. My freshman class was dramatically ‘more out’ than previous classes that came before us. Looking back at history, I don’t know if it was because Massachusetts became the first state with marriage equality when were in high school but I don’t know what it was about 2005 that made everything so different. It might have been because of all the anti-LGBTQ+ ballot initiatives across the country the year before but our class was a lot more free. It wasn’t like that for everybody though. I was clear about that then in terms of people’s experiences and I am clearer now. I have watched some of my colleagues who were in the closet during undergraduate come out since. I learned how broad that spectrum really was. I came out in high school and when we came to CASCADE––which at that time was known as the Bisexual, Lesbian, Allied, and Gay Organization of Students at Howard University (BLAGOSAH)––our class rolled deep” [Laughs].
“My senior thesis in undergrad was about being Black and LGBTQ+ on an HBCU campus. I then realized how disparate the experiences were for everybody.”
“I remember the first meeting and everyone went around and said their name and year. I swear two-thirds of the room were freshmen. Many of us were out in high school, so when we came to Howard, in our minds it wasn’t a big deal. The classes above us, for sure, had different experiences. They didn’t come out––BLAGOSAH was the space for some of them to be out and to be who they were. So when BLAGOSAH had a party, that was the turn up––that was the one place people could go and feel fully free––both for those of us who were out and those of us who couldn’t be. For me, and it could be femme privilege, I came out in high school during homecoming, so me being out at Howard didn’t feel like a big deal to me. I didn’t hide who I was. I ran for student government and became the first openly gay person to serve on Howard’s Board of Trustees. It never occurred to me people wouldn’t vote for me because I was gay. It just was never a thought.”
“The one thing I will say was tough was navigating sororities and fraternities, which at Howard is a very huge thing because half of them were founded there. It was very clear what organizations were open to you if you were an openly gay person, which ones weren’t, and which ones you could be open after you made it. There was a very clear line in the sand while I was there. I know that has shifted since then but that was a big thing.”
“My sense of the Howard student body was that we were further along than that. I never felt like I was ostracized, treated differently, or less than because I talked about my girlfriend or held my girlfriend’s hand on the yard. My senior thesis in undergrad was about being Black and LGBTQ+ on an HBCU campus. I then realized how disparate the experiences were for everybody. I did a focus group and talked with students at the undergraduate and graduate levels about their experiences at Howard and what would have helped them to feel more safe. I did research looking at different LGBTQ+ resource centers at campuses in D.C., to compare what resources White kids were getting that we were not getting. I found some of my peers’ experiences were much different from mine. Many of them had homophobic parents. I had friends who stripped during college because when their parents found out they were gay, they said they would not pay for them to go to college to be with girls. They stripped throughout school to get money to fund their education and in many cases, they ended up having to drop out. It was just too much of a burden. Others ended up having to transfer to other schools. I think it was a mixed bag depending on your family or whether you had the ability to stay in D.C. during the summer. I didn’t go home during the summers because I had an internship. I didn’t have to deal with any microaggressions at home or what my parents’ thought because I had a full scholarship. I wasn’t worried because my college education was all on me to begin with. Even with church, my pastor never talked about homosexuality one way or the other. I never had that narrative in my mind, which I think in many ways allowed me to be freer at Howard.”
“I didn’t have any of those fears, so I wasn’t doing anything to avoid discrimination in that way, which is what people have to do as a survival tactic. The one thing I will say was tough was navigating sororities and fraternities, which at Howard is a very huge thing because half of them were founded there. It was very clear what organizations were open to you if you were an openly gay person, which ones weren’t, and which ones you could be open after you made it. There was a very clear line in the sand while I was there. I know that has shifted since then but that was a big thing.”
Can you discuss your activism as a student at Howard? What activities were you involved in with BLAGOSAH that shaped representation, rights, and recognition of LGBTQ+ students on campus?
VKY: “I think it really was a mixed bag of people’s religious experiences, their experiences back home, their own journey of learning who they are, self-confidence––I think there were a whole bunch of factors that determined how people experienced the campus. I was privileged in a lot of ways and at the time I didn’t realize I was privileged and because of that, I was able to navigate the campus differently. I was elected to the Board of Trustees. I was the chair of the legislative student body which was called General Assembly back then and now, I think it is the Student Senate. I served as a graduate assistant to the President of the University and I helped to create the social media platforms the university still uses. My student-thesis ended up getting published at Harvard and it is now considered to be a Bible for higher education professionals who are trying to start LGBTQ+ resource centers at HBCU campuses. I did not intend for that to be the outcome. I had no idea it was going to become what it was going to become.”
“In regards to BLAGOSAH, we had a few things that were really important. There was the social impact, which was about creating safe space for queer and transgender students on campus. BLAGOSAH members were really about creating community. It is funny––everyone came to BLAGOSAH’s parties! [Laughs] BLAGOSAH created those spaces like the parties so everyone could get loose and not have to worry about straight people. We also had a focus on wanting to do solid events. Before I came, BLAGOSAH had been honored with student organization of the year at the Bison Ball awards and that was a big deal––to have a LGBTQ+ group be honored with that. There was a lot of activism in the earlier years of BLAGOSAH because there were hate crimes that happened on campus. There was a person in the band, who was beaten up pretty badly because he was gay. There was also an incident with homophobic emails as well. I think that was a real rallying point and that was initially when BLAGOSAH started doing more stuff on campus.”
“There has been an LGBTQ+ organization at Howard University since 1979. We’ve had ebbs and flows of people at Howard trying to make the campus change. However, when there has not been succession planning from one different student generation to another, some of those changes haven’t continued but the framework has been there.”
“There was a training for all campus police officers on LGBTQ+ cultural competency [and] there safe spaces across campus. Professors and folks were trained on how to be allies and were given safe space stickers and that kind of thing. Those activities started to dry up––I mean, the stickers were still there and the police officers still had the training but there wasn’t a constant thing anymore by the time I got there. As I gained more influence on campus with administrators and other students, I was able to work with BLAGOSAH and try to change some things. When I was a graduate assistant to the President of [Howard] University, we pulled together a committee of people in leadership across campus––from the president of HUSA [Howard University Student Association Senate]; to the dean of the chapel, head of resident life, head of student activities, the provost office, police chief––we brought all these people together to discuss what were the changes needed to be made to more inclusive of LGBTQ+ students. We did the campus pride climate index survey. After we did that, we saw Howard was at a ‘C’, based on what we already had. Howard had already given domestic partner benefits to its staff, in part because we are based in D.C. and we follow D.C. laws. We had some things already baked in to be at a ‘C’ and not be a ‘F’ the first time around but we knew we had some more to go to be an ‘A’, and so that is what we were focusing on in those meetings. Those were some of the things that BLAGOSAH was able to do and CASCADE has been continuing the legacy. There has been an LGBTQ+ organization at Howard University since 1979. We’ve had ebbs and flows of people at Howard trying to make the campus change. However, when there has not been succession planning from one different student generation to another, some of those changes haven’t continued but the framework has been there.”
Looking back at your activism and your work and how you paved the way for contemporary LGBTQ+ student leadership at Howard, how does it feel to see students of CASCADE doing the work?
VKY: “I feel super proud! Whenever I am invited to come on campus, it is the highlight of my year. Seeing what I call my queer and trans ‘gaybies’ doing the work and seeing how bold they are––I love their whole ‘as queer as it is Black’ framework. I love it. It sums it up so well what we are talking about which is: we need something that looks both at our Blackness and our queerness and transness in ways that don’t currently exist. That is really at the heart of the research that I published which was: what are the ways resources need to look and be different for the LGBTQ+ student body at HBCUs? The students today have taken that and ran with it even further and I am so proud. Hearing what the students have been doing and what they have been up to, it makes me feel proud as an alum and it makes me feel proud as a contributor to the legacy of queer and trans folks at Howard, which is deep.”
“That is one of my biggest things––I want Howard to celebrate us because our footprints and fingerprints are all over that campus! Howard would not be what it is today in terms of its history and legacy without its queer and trans graduates. Period.”
“That is one of my biggest things––I want Howard to celebrate us because our footprints and fingerprints are all over that campus! Howard would not be what it is today in terms of its history and legacy without its queer and trans graduates. Period. The College of Arts and Science building is named after an openly gay man who lived in the 1900s––Alain Locke was a flaming fucking gay dude and was named one of the big six! That is a part of our history, too. Homophobia is not natural to the Black community––it came from white supremacy. Lucy Diggs Slowe––I don’t know if Howard has the dorm named after her still––but she was the first president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. So when ‘Greeks’ are like, ‘Well, I don’t know about gay people’ I am like, ‘The first president of a Black sorority was a gay woman!’
For more information about Victoria Kirby York, please visit here.