communities:

Georgetown’s past of marginalizing its queer community is as integral to its history as its Catholic identity. “The University rejected GPGU’s request for University recognition on the grounds that the group beginning, right, I was very focused on saying, no, I want to show my students as happy, thriving, well-adjusted, joyful people.”

The understandings of what queer joy is are as diverse as the Georgetown queer experience. It was described as everything from “liberating” (Joe Hofman, CAS ’23) to “freedom in community” (Tara Ravishankar, CAS ’22) to simple scenes of love and community abound.

“When I think of queer joy, I think of the party that we threw for a trans student when he got top surgery,” Siena Hohne said (CAS ’22).

Henry, who sees queer joy as something beyond words, highlights that some of the happiest experiences of queer community they’ve found here are grounded in connection. “It is the best feeling when I meet a trans-masc person and I’m like, ‘You’re here, I’m here, we’re here.’ It’s those moments of affirmation of your existence,” they said.

Yamamoto found queer joy in their involvement in Rocky Horror. “For Rocky, I think you can just show up and be silly. You can go up in your brawn thong and dance to a song that doesn't make sense in a movie with a plot that doesn’t make sense,” they said.

“Seeing this person that made a really good point in your IR class also be able to strut down the aisles in stilettos—it’s a very exciting thing to see,” she added. Seeing the raw and visible queerness of Rocky Horror is important and exciting because it represents that queer people can show up to spaces as they are and want to be.

For me, understanding, accepting, and expressing my queerness was a journey marred by shame and seriousness. I hid my own queer identity for years, from myself and the communities I loved, and dismantling those external and internal barriers changed my relationships and made me feel fully seen and valued. This experience of interviewing my peers on what queer joy means to them has provided a moment of pause and reflection on that journey— it’s shown me how far the joyful, silly, expressive person with almost completely faded pink hair is from the fifth grader who didn’t understand why he liked boys, and hated himself for it. Reflecting, here, in community with others has shown me that the work of self-affirmation, above all else, ends in joy. G