May 23-May 30, 2001

An Alternative
Brotherhood

Gay frat finds its footing at N.C. State

by Tom Acitelli

On a warm night this May, several members of the only openly gay fraternity in North Carolina were hanging out at a small coffeeshop in the Five Points neighborhood of Raleigh. The discussion varied widely, from arena football and computers to the recently wrapped up semester of classes and the grim specter of final exams. All the members were decked out in the typical wardrobe of fraternity members at the end of a long day. Most wore collared shirts, shorts and kept their hair trimmed and their faces clean-shaven.
A couple of them wore shirts emblazoned with large red Greek letters abbreviating Delta Lambda Phi. Talk eventually turned briefly to part-time jobs and the recent student march down Hillsborough Street to the state Capitol and the Legislative Building to protest proposed education-related budget cuts by the General Assembly.
It was just coffee and conversation, nothing earth shattering for a Thursday night in the Capital City. The members know this, too, and are unafraid to let other folks know that the tired stereotypes about gay men simply do not hold true in their fraternity’s case. After all, when John Q. Public thinks of a fraternity, he most certainly does not think of a group of good-humored gay men chilling at the local coffeeshop a few miles down from their large Southern university.
“People are surprised we sit here and discuss things like football,” says one member, who is involved in N.C. State’s student government and wishes to remain anonymous because of that.
“We can be who we are without worrying about the fear,” he adds matter-of-factly.

Social, Not Activist
Four people formed the first Delta Lambda Phi pledge class in North Carolina in the spring of 1999 after inaugural meetings the previous fall. Based at N.C. State, it is a colony now, meaning it does not have a more permanent charter from the national headquarters. That charter should come this November, according to DLP co-founder and president Clayton Wilkerson Jr. The fraternity does not have a house either, but that, too, may be in the future. For now, including the incoming summer pledge class, DLP has eight State students and two Wake Tech students as members. They meet at least once a week for business and to just shoot the breeze, re-enacting social rituals that heterosexual frat guys have been doing for decades.
The national Delta Lambda Phi fraternity was formed in Washington, D.C., in October of 1986 and inducted its first members in early 1987. The new fraternity was started and underwritten by three older men who, according to the group’s Web site, “expressed regret that such an alternative social organization had not existed during their formative years.” DLP now has chapters, or colonies, in 14 states and the District of Columbia.
It has all the trappings of a fraternity, including the motto “Lambda Men Are Making Their Presence Known.” An elaborate fraternity crest commemorates everything from the persecution of gays to the parliamentary procedure used at some DLP meetings to two shaking hands representing friendship and understanding. There are national conferences, a toast song — “There Once Was A Mighty Lambda Man” — and fraternity colors of green and gold. DLP, then, remains an unmistakably social organization, leaving gay-rights activism to other organizations, especially State’s own student group, Bisexuals, Gays, Lesbians and Allies.
“It’s a social fraternity, not a club,” says Wilkerson, who graduates from State this month. “It focuses more on the brotherhood bond you get with a fraternity. It is not activist. That is not our focus.”
DLP is based at State, says Wilkerson, but it can theoretically draw members from around the Triangle and elsewhere as well as from outside academia. The fraternity is open to men of all sexual orientations who are willing to come to the weekly business meetings at State and meet other requirements. The minimum age limit for all members is 18 and the maximum age limit for non-student members is 29. The fraternity does not have any non-students at this point. Dues are $50 a semester, cheap compared to other social fraternities at State, whose dues often have to cover the costs of a house and feeding a much larger group of young men. Only pledges pay during the summer semester. DLP members may also belong to other fraternities as two currently do, including co-founder Marshall Smith, who is a member of the coed Alpha Omega Phi service organization at State. Another belongs to the coed Mu Beta Psi musical organization at State.
“Having been with APO, I really liked that atmosphere, so this was a good match,” says Smith, a grad student in computer science, who, while at the coffeeshop, occasionally regales his brothers with funny stories of his part-time life in the working world of computers.
Being able to meet the basic requirements, however, does not guarantee membership. Like all fraternities, DLP reserves the right to blackball for a variety of reasons those who rush it, although the bylaws note that these reasons for blackballing cannot include race, ethnicity or other physical factors. The fraternity bylaws also make it clear that there is to be no hazing of pledges nor sex between pledges and brothers.
“We’re not a sex club,” Wilkerson says. “We have a strict hands-off policy from the national [headquarters] handed down. Pledges and brothers cannot have any — any — relations.”
The social life of DLP also does not necessarily revolve around the stereotypical beer-filled mania long associated with social fraternities. Nor are the members cookie-cutter copies of one another like some fraternities that encourage conformity inside and outside the body. The DLP members dress similarly, sure, either subconsciously or deliberately fulfilling the stereotype — unfair or not — of fraternity men as carbon copies of some sort of GAP-commercial ideal. Still, they claim a diversity of opinions and pursuits. They represent a variety of academic interests as well as ethnicities that include Asian and Latino. And, of course, there’s the obvious issue that separates this fraternity from all others in the state.
Feeling Comfortable
That defining issue of Delta Lambda Phi lumbers through the colony’s reality like an elephant. There were, after all, no gay characters in Animal House, the 1978 movie hit that defined fraternity life in many people’s minds. So why join and actively promote a way of socializing that has long been associated with exclusivity and conformity, not to mention heterosexuality? The members give several reasons.
“I was really looking forward to meeting a group I could feel comfortable with,” says a member calling himself only Evan. Evan is enrolled in a college in Charlotte, but attends the Raleigh meetings of DLP. He says he may transfer to State in the near future. The social scene provided by DLP is a big factor in his decision-making.
Edward, a State student who also didn’t want to give his name, says DLP provides a comfortable social situation that may not be available to gay men in other fraternities. It is a relaxed setting in which to enjoy the fraternal life.
“The social aspect was nice,” Edward says of his decision to pledge. “You could bond with people without having to worry about all the stereotypes [of gay men].”
Knowing there are other chapters throughout the United States, a brother can visit is also a perk of membership. The next nearest DLP chapter is at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. The State colony, in fact, is the only DLP presence in the old Confederacy outside of Virginia, Texas and Alabama. Delta Lambda Phi maintains two national offices in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento, Calif.
“One of the added bonuses is finding other chapters in other cities,” Wilkerson says.
Members who are not yet ready to reveal their sexuality to the larger world can also find a sort of social sanctuary in the scene provided by DLP. Being out, so to speak, is not a prerequisite.
“With that in mind, we respect each other, and thus allow [members] to be as open with their sexuality as they want or as closed,” Wilkerson says. “We make it a policy not to out anyone in our fraternity.”
Not that they would need to necessarily. DLP remains one of the smallest and youngest fraternities at State, a sprawling research university with more than 28,000 students. It is one of four colonies currently striving to organize more permanent chapters. Many students are just becoming aware of DLP on campus, thanks to the fraternity’s own efforts as well as to a February article in Technician, the State student newspaper.
“I haven’t really heard much about them,” says Darryl Willie, State’s student body president. “Are they a big presence on campus? I haven’t really heard anything.”
State’s Department of Greek Life only found out about DLP a little more than two months ago. Since then, the department has offered its services to DLP and its director sees the first predominantly gay fraternity gaining a more visible presence around Raleigh.
“They are starting to get recognized more on campus,” says Mindy Sopher, director of the Department of Greek Life. “They are getting the word out and they are getting written up in the papers and they are wearing their letters around campus. Right now, Delta Lambda Phi and the other three colonies we have now are small enough that they don’t threaten the membership of the ‘big boys.’ Size is very important to the fraternities.”
Sopher says DLP is a reflection of a changing N.C. State as well as a changing society. Until a short while ago, she says, fraternities were for “rich, white, Christian” men. But society has changed and universities have seen the emergence of fraternities that cater to those groups traditionally excluded, including African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Native-Americans and now gay men.
“The other chapters I’ve worked with have had gay men, bisexual men and allies, and I’ve always been a strong ally,” Sopher says of other fraternities at State. “As our culture has developed and our schools also and gay men have become more active and out, new groups spring up. Organizations are reflecting the culture of the school.”

Future Plans
Delta Lambda Phi expects to have around 15 members by the time of its chartering in November. While growing steadily, DLP’s members know they face some obstacles. The obstacles any fraternal colony would face — drawing new members, raising funds, advertising events on a large campus and more — are compounded by the one-of-a-kind nature of DLP.
The fraternity has received a lot of support from the Greek Life department, says Wilkerson, but the other social fraternities on campus have remained largely silent. DLP may one day apply to join the university’s Interfraternity Council, which represents the interests of 23 chapters and colonies at State. Benefits of IFC membership include special educational programs, participation in Greek publications and recruitment help. Their membership application would be welcome, according to the IFC’s president.
“There hasn’t been much of a reaction to them,” says Patrick Daley, a senior and member of State’s Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. “There hasn’t been a negative reaction. They’re very small right now. We know they’re out there and if they’d like to join [IFC], we’d certainly entertain that.”
But Daley echoes the reaction of Willie, the student body president.
“I haven’t heard much about them,” Daley says.
The DLP members have no delusions of what they face as they develop their fraternity from a fledgling colony to a perennial presence at North Carolina’s largest university. Since its founding in 1887, State has remained a fairly conservative school socially. It was only a few years ago, the February Technician story notes, that members of Bisexuals, Gays, Lesbians and Allies were attacked while painting messages about their group at a central campus locale called the Free Expression Tunnel.
“N.C. State is a very conservative campus,” says Wilkerson.
His fraternity brothers at the coffeeshop table nod in agreement. Some laugh knowingly.
“They’re being very quiet about it,” adds the anonymous member from the student government, commenting on the reaction from the other social fraternities. “We’re getting a lot of support from Greek Life, but the [Fraternity] Row has been quiet. We can’t gauge it.”
DLP will press on, however. The fraternity has learned what works and what doesn’t when it comes to self-perpetuation. Rush was organized recently around a small party where would-be pledges could get email contacts. Word-of-mouth is the biggest tool DLP uses to let people know they exist, according to members. Other much larger and more established fraternities usually plaster campus with ads for huge rush parties at spacious houses.
“We didn’t have the manpower to do that type of campus advertising blitz,” Smith says.
Smith also says the fraternity has found it easier to focus more on State in its rush efforts. While it is open to people outside campus, the distances, for now, make such word-of-mouth efforts difficult. DLP does have its own Web site, though, at www.ncsufrat.org.
Growing pains aside, the unique difficulty of developing a predominantly gay fraternity comes with an equally unique reward, according to Wilkerson, who says he plans to stay active following graduation.
“I think an important thing we have had to deal with is the fact that we are gay and a fraternity all in one,” he says. “[Multiple] stereotypes come to mind and it seems that then we have to deal with twice as much in getting the true message out of what we are all about. So it makes for an interesting situation to be in, dealing with different stereotypes that other frats don’t have to deal with. [I] tend to think this has made us stronger in brotherhood.”