Words by: Jordan Pilllsbury
Graphic by: Nash Peña
To say these TikToks went viral would be an understatement – the public was obsessed. These videos called into question the reality and current state of these institutions. How could people be so obsessed with a system with such a loaded, complex history? A system that promotes and romanticizes this idea of sameness?
Greek life is an institution that continues to uphold the elitist, racist, heteronormative, and gendered ideologies it was founded upon. While there have been massive strides to make Greek life more inclusive, it has yet to actively include and accurately reflect the multitudes of identities that exist on college campuses. There’s an assumption that everyone who operates within this system is an affluent, straight, cisgendered individual, unless they come out as otherwise.
For many LGBTQ+ students, college was always the light at the end of the tunnel; the Promised Land where one is finally free to be themselves. Laced with desperation and the desire for belonging, freshman year of college is inherently isolating. Here lies the natural appeal to Greek life – a built-in community, a guaranteed friend group, and a sense of connection in the overwhelming sea that is the college social scene. Recruiters paint a beautiful picture, and like many others, I fell for it.
The decision to rush as an LGBTQ+ person is no trivial dilemma. Despite how unimportant our sexuality is in the markers that define us, we know that it carries weight. For many out individuals, our physical presentation, style, and personality are all boiled down to this one identity; and it’s up to the house to decide if they want to take on an “outcast”. Greek life has a history of rewarding those who blend in. Individuality is tolerated as long as it exists within the acceptable boundaries; if you’re going to be different, you must be palatable. This, coupled with the genuine fear of blatant and potentially violent homophobia, steers many prospective LGBTQ+ members away. To closeted members, there is an additional fear of being rejected if you were to come out. You feel like a traitor within their trusted ranks. They accepted a specific version of you, so they may no longer want you if you no longer reflect that image.
In my personal rush experience, I was in an environment where I felt safe outwardly expressing my identity, a luxury not many cannot afford. It’s important to note my privilege within the Greek system; I’m a white, cisgendered, conventionally attractive woman. If I didn’t go out of my way to state that I was a lesbian, I could have passed as straight. I entered recruitment knowing that not every house was going to want the authentic me, and I was okay with that. I swapped the cocktail dress for a suit, and tried my best to bring up my sexuality in conversation. If they didn’t accept me at my queerest and loudest, I didn’t want them. I detested the idea of wearing a mask for the next four years. I didn’t want to hide parts of myself in order to fit in, yet I still craved the warmth of a community.
An important thing to note about the recruiters you speak to is that they’re essentially used car salesmen.They can paint a house to be as inclusive and accepting as they want, but it’s still part of the Greek life system, and it still upholds the same ideologies.
Like everyone else, I yearned to find my place, and convinced myself that I had found it. While I was determined to stay true to myself, I slowly watched myself change to fit into a picture that was not made for me. While I was open and proud of my sexuality, I realized it was starting to define me. I felt myself shifting; I watched through the mirror as I slowly began to present more feminine. I’d hide my sexuality when a man hit on me, since stating that I had a girlfriend was just a further opportunity to be sexualized. I began to bury my true identity to be palatable to men.
I became accustomed to the drunk bathroom sob, listening to rants about “how much easier I have it,” and how she “wishes she was a lesbian,” or her confession to kissing a girl once to get a boy’s attention, but that she “secretly liked it.” I became a queer confessional booth, a place for people to unload their traumas and curiosities, despite my never asking for this information.
For many women, I became their first encounter with a lesbian. It was new to befriend someone who didn’t have their shared common interest: men. I was rewriting their preconceived idea of what a lesbian was, what we looked like, and how my identity could relate to theirs. When I was in the room, women had to think twice about what they were saying; they had to reflect on their language, the language of their friends and boyfriends, and slowly but surely, this became a permanent change in awareness. No house is perfect, but by simply being in the room, I felt like I was enacting change.
Greek life is a complex and long standing historical institution– both nationwide and at my own university. In many ways, it represents elitism, the gender binary, racism, heteronormativity, and a plethora of other inequities. While of course, Greek life and the individual can co-exist independent of identity, in my experience, they were strongly intertwined. By being an out and proud queer woman, it became what defined me. To my friends who were quieter about their identities, it became overlooked. And to those who remained in the closet, who witnessed how others like them have been treated, they ultimately decided that being their true selves was not worth the potential ramifications to their social standing.
Everyone’s experience and relationship to the Greek system is their own. My experience will not be everyones, nor will theirs be mine. Consciously or not, one eventually succumbs to the image of Greek life on some level. Fitting in might not be so physically, mentally, or emotionally obvious, but the desire will always be there, even in the darkest corners. There’s an inherent mob mentality; a desire to be part of the herd, to join in and partake in the comradery of sameness. All everyone wants is to fit in, to feel that sense of belonging. It is only when you break free from the grasp of this conformity– when you realize that you shouldn’t bend to the world, but that it should bend to you– that you are truly free.
Despite murmurs across the nation, Greek life doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. But if it wants to last, it must acknowledge and truly understand the harm it has created and perpetuated against marginalized students throughout its history. It is only after making this acknowledgement (and not just an Instagram story) that Greek life can begin to make amends, enact change, and can offer the potential to work toward being a safer and genuinely inclusive place on college campuses.