The Megaphone as a Site for Queer Advocacy
From the very beginnings of queer advocacy at Southwestern, The Megaphone has acted as a voice for students, especially in moments of positive change for the queer community.
Since as early as the 1960’s, Southwestern’s own student-run newspaper, The Megaphone, has quietly been a hidden gem of counterresistence for the queer community. From op-ed pieces regarding queer issues being published on the front page, to fair advertisement and interviews with queer-adjacent on-campus clubs, leaders of The Megaphone have pushed social barriers and strived for advocacy in times where underrepresented groups needed it against an institution with deep religious roots and a student body that could be less-than-receptive to their messaging.
In 1984, an op-ed about queer rights was published in The Megaphone on Page One, which followed up on an initial letter regarding homosexuality that was published the semester prior by an anonymous author, who then revealed his identity for this article as Ted Bose. He argues for “overt tolerance” and to “put an end once and for all to persecution, propagation of fallacies, bigotry, negative attitudes, and abusive vocabulary.” Bose cites the widespread popularity of local gay bars in Austin for out, closeted, and straight people as evidence that public opinion is shifting in a positive manner.
He also refuted a common misconception at the time: that “the question of homosexuality is not definable in terms of morality, nor is it a question of choice.” This was spurred by a presentation on “Homosexuality: Its Political and Social Implications'' by the Voice, which was hosted on campus.
Another op-ed regarding queer rights appeared in an issue from 1989, where Megaphone author Mick Ellis discussed gender roles in society, and how we’ve been socialized to follow them.
Ellis’s argument references homophobia as a causal factor in regards to the strictness of gender roles in certain cultures, and that “internalized oppression may be the ultimate price we pay for our own homophobia and the demand for gender role conformity.” This piece demonstrates that the Southwestern community had reached a level of awareness surrounding queer issues, but not enough to create concrete change for a few decades more.
These op-ed pieces centering discourse around queer rights only grew in magnitude. In 1993, The Megaphone published a two-page spread regarding queer issues within the context of religion, the military, and as individuals. All three pieces, from three different students at SU, were all in support of queer rights.
They also reported on a talk given at Southwestern from John Corvino, a graduate student from UT’s philosophy department, advocating for queer rights. The event was held in the ballrooms and was sponsored by a student group: the Sexual Orientation Awareness League (SOAL).
His lecture was based on highlighting the logical fallacies of common anti-LGBTQ arguments and moving the audience beyond the emotional realm of the arguments. He ended his talk with stating ways people can help the cause, which included support for policy changes and increased recognition of queer folks, citing that “many people come to understand homosexuality quite often from the experience of personally knowing a homosexual”.
Publicity of queer-centered groups and their leadership started to increase in the early to late 1990s, when organizations like the Gay and Lesbian Student Association (GLSA)-- turned Sexual Orientation Awareness League (SOAL) and the Gender Awareness Center were founded.
Led by these organizations, on-campus events showing support for queer rights started to pick up steam, evidenced by the growth in attendance The Megaphone captured in an interview with SOAL’s then-president, Ame’ Barrier.
Barrier spoke on their grassroots efforts to cultivate attendance with fun, inclusive events like Drag Ball and Coming Out Week, and within a few years, had grown the club from single-digit attendance numbers to averaging a few dozen members per meeting, and hosted a 150-person Drag Ball. This outlines how advocacy and support for queer rights have increased with events and publicity, maintaining that the campus was ready to champion more permanent change.
That moment of sure change arrived in late 2000, when the Southwestern Board of Trustees at last approved an updated version of Southwestern’s nondiscrimination policy to include sexual orientation as a protected status. The Megaphone published this news on the first page of their December 2000 edition, both publicly supporting this decision themselves and drumming up further campus support through quotes from several professors and administrators regarding the news and the victory it held for proponents of the decision.
While The Megaphone has a different role in a world with modern technology that allows for instant communication with others, its importance as a voice for students has not faded, and we cannot forget how influential its work was for shaping campus culture and giving underrepresented groups a voice in prior decades.
This entry is located in the McCombs Campus Center because although the Megphone no longer has devoted office space, the Megaphone was located on the third floor of McCombs from 1998-2021, and before that it was located in the basement of the Student Union Building on the same site from the late 1950s through the 1990s.
