Given the propensity of youth to explore their sexuality and identity—and the freedom colleges often provide to escape the restrictions of families and hometowns—institutions of higher learning have long offered a natural opportunity for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people to gather with others like themselves.

The earliest campus gay groups emerged in the late 1960s and were closely associated with the burgeoning gay liberation movement. The first such organization, the Student Homophile League (SHL) at Columbia University, was founded by bisexual sophomore Stephen Donaldson (born Robert Martin), a member of the New York City chapter of the Mattachine Society, "as a vehicle for students of all orientations to combat homophobia."

The group began meeting in the fall of 1966 and was officially chartered by the university on April 19, 1967, occasioning a front-page headline in the New York Times. The campus newspaper reported that some students believed the group’s creation was an April Fools’ joke.

Other SHL chapters soon formed at other colleges. Women’s movement pioneer and Rubyfruit Jungle author Rita Mae Brown started a chapter at New York University the following year. In 1968, chapters were created at Stanford and Cornell. The latter was founded by Jearld Moldenhauer, who later opened Toronto’s Glad Day bookstore; radical activist priest Daniel Berrigan served as the first faculty advisor.

Stan Tillotson formed an SHL chapter at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1969. He later recalled that he had trouble finding the required five gay students to sign the group’s charter. "It was easier to ask straight friends to sign ‘as a favor,’ not to mention a hoot, than to convince a gay undergraduate that his entire career and future weren’t teetering on the edge." The same year, Lionel Cuffie, an African-American student, started a chapter at Rutgers. "The Rutgers Homophile League [does] not advocate homosexuality," Cuffie told the campus newspaper, "but we do feel that the homosexual has a fundamental human right to live and to work."

The SHL chapters comprised a national network, with Donaldson as chairman. But other early campus gay groups existed outside the network, including Homosexuals Intransigent at the City College of New York (an all-male group founded by L. Craig Schoonmaker), the Boston University Homophile Committee, and Fight Repression of Erotic Expression (FREE) at the University of Minnesota.

The early student homophile groups sponsored educational events, spoke in classes and dormitories about being gay, provided support for students questioning their sexuality, and held events such as dances, providing a safe place for students to socialize outside of bars. "SHL’s primary function is to offer a supportive atmosphere in which gay people can meet to discuss mutual problems, receive legal advice and medical advice, and participate in encounter groups, consciousness raising sessions, as well as social events," read the statement of purpose of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst chapter.

According to historian Brett Beemyn, by 1971 there were gay student organizations at more than 175 colleges and universities. In those days, many such groups adopted a more radical stance than the earlier nonstudent homophile organizations. The Amherst SHL, for example, was determined "to help realize the revolution within our society that will allow every individual to express all the facets of his/her personality and reach his/her full potential as a human being." Gay Liberation Front chapters emerged on many campuses, such as the one in Boston that evolved out of the political action committee of MIT’s student league.

The earliest gay student groups were often male-dominated. Lesbian activist and writer Karla Jay, then a student at Columbia’s sister school, Barnard College, later recalled that she had considered joining the SHL, "but to me it had the off-putting air of a men’s club. I could see why I was the only woman present at the one meeting I attended." Consequently, lesbians began holding their own social events and starting their own student groups. Citing similar feelings of exclusion, bisexual and transgender students, in turn, formed their own organizations in the 1980s and 1990s.

Today, most universities (including even some religious schools) have at least one LGBT student organization, and some have several. For example, according to Beemyn, the University of California at Berkeley has about a dozen, including groups for LGBT students of color and those with particular majors or interests. Since 1986, there has even been a national fraternity, Delta Lambda Phi, offering social, service, and recreational activities for "gay, bisexual, and progressive gentlemen."

And with young people today coming out at ever-earlier ages, student groups now exist at many high schools and even junior highs and middle schools. There are more than 2,000 Gay-Straight Alliances nationwide, often started by students who were forced to go to court to win their right to gather and organize.

For further reading:

• D’Emilo, John. 2002. The World Turned (Duke University Press).

• Donaldson, Stephen. 1995. "The Bisexual Movement’s Beginnings in the ‘70s: A Personal Retrospective." In Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions, ed. Naomi S. Tucker, Liz Highleyman, and Rebecca Kaplan (Haworth).

• Beemyn, Brett. 2004. "Student Organizations." In GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture.