Fashion Statement  

Fine By Us & Worcester Colleges Join the Fight for Acceptance with Free Ts.
By Dani Tifft

Walking across campus seeing a handful of students walk by looking like a sea of rainbow fish, all wearing brightly colored shirts exclaiming “Gay? Fine by me.,” might not seem like a revolution ~ after all, it IS just bunch of T-shirts ~ but somewhere inside the experience has an effect; you are finally able to feel at ease. It says to you that you can talk about your sexuality here, you can have a place here ~ and that you need to get your hands on one of those T-shirts! Whether it is your first day on campus or your last, campus life for a GLBT student comes with a variety of obstacles that the run-of-the-mill heterosexual doesn’t encounter. So WPI and Clark University have teamed up with the national “Fine By Me” T-shirt program to help alleviate some of the stress that GLBT students experience on campus.

The T-shirt program was started in the Spring of 2003 at Duke University after it had been pin-pointed as the most “Unfriendly Gay school in America.” Some students, like Lucas Schaefer, one of the founders of the T-shirt project, felt as though this perception “…did not really reflect Duke,” and that this program “…was a way to challenge perception.” A simple message ~ “Gay? Fine by Me.” ~ printed across a brightly colored T offers all types of students a way to make an anti-homophobic statement to everyone and anyone who sees it. Those who are active crusaders, those who are gay, those who are ‘gay-friendly,” and anyone who cares enough to voice his or her opinion are given a safe way to express their own open-minded views on sexuality and change the perception of their community. Today, the program has moved its headquarters to New York City and become Fine by Me Inc., spreading T-shirts across the nation. Schaefer calls the program “…a first step, not a final step in creating a country in which you do not need a t-shirt in the first place.”

At Clark University’s Orientation Week last fall, the program was implemented when T-shirts were given out to all the Resident Advisors and Peer Advisors who greeted incoming students. As the Administrative Orientation Coordinator, Benjamin Monahan-Estes headed up the front lines, giving out Ts and information. Wearing the shirts was entirely optional for student leaders; having the option guaranteed that the students truly were “…wearing it because they believed in it” and labeling themselves honestly as “…safe people you could talk to.” Both the Dean of Students office that proposed and funded the program and Ben himself received really great feedback on the effectiveness of the program from the incoming students and those already on campus. Clark, already known as a very progressive community, greeted the program with open arms. While it did not have to change a hostile or closeminded climate, it did serve as a “reaffirming gesture, showing [incoming students] right off the bat the spirit of the community” and putting to rest any concerns about homophobia that they might have had. T-shirts were also sold to general students on campus and went like hot-cakes.

WPI decided it was “fine by them” when student Laura Saltzman saw the T-shirts at UNH. She brought back the idea to the Institute as part of Social Awareness Week in January. WPI didn’t have an active anti-homosexual community before the program, but Laura considered there to be “an air of apathy” in the climate and felt it could be turned into an actively accepting, anti-homophobic climate. She received numerous emails in response to the program thanking her for bringing it to campus and for helping students to “…feel more comfortable.” Saltzman felt that the program’s “non-combative, uncontroversial” approach was the perfect fit for the Institute’s moderately minded campus. Schaefer suggests that although this may not be the most effective way for every group to express itself, particularly on more progressive campuses, with hundreds of students fighting to get t-shirts at every social awareness week event, it certainly captured the attention and spirit of the WPI student body.

So if you asked yourself at the beginning of this article what a simple cotton T-shirt could possibly do, now you know the answer. It can do a lot.

Visit www.finebyme.org/ for more information on the history of Fine By Me and on how to order your very own shirt