October 11th was National Coming Out Day, and I missed it. As in, I forgot about the day. I certainly didn’t need to come out—although, for every queer architect, we find ourselves coming out over and over again to clients, consultants, contractors, etc. An experience not uncommon to the queer community in general.
Had I been paying attention to the date, I could have addressed a question that was posed to me about outing other queer individuals—a topic that has believers on both sides. Should we out an anti-queer politician or religious leader? Sure. I’m good with that. You come at me, then there better not be anything hanging around in your closet.
However, the question wasn’t about politicians, preachers, or celebrities. This time, it was about architects. The AIA Dallas Alliance created an exhibit for Pride this year focusing on queer architects and designers over time, with an emphasis on people who other architects might not know were part of the community. While we couldn’t bring the entire exhibit with us, we did bring most of the elements to display at the Texas Society of Architects’ annual conference the week before National Coming Out Day.
After reading through the information at the Alliance booth, an architect posed the following question: Would they (the people in the exhibit) be okay with being outed?
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good answer. Outing anyone was not something we had considered. We had simply determined who would be good to include, conducted our research, and laid out the information for everyone to see.
Would they have an issue with us touting their queerness? With one exception, everyone was deceased—a little late to be getting upset. Plus, the clues were always there, even if people were willing to overlook them. A designer in the 1870s was in a “Boston Marriage,” a term used to describe two independent wealthy women who cohabitated. The couple was referred to in newspapers as “girl bachelors.” One architect was portrayed in articles as being single because he was too busy with work and teaching to have time for a social life, while everyone at the university knew he was dating another professor.
For gay architects, being out would have been a death knell for their careers. Best not to say anything at all, although that didn’t always matter. A number were drummed out of their positions regardless. However, I like to think they would be relieved for others to know who they really were. After decades of hiding, being out—even posthumously—adds a new lens through which to examine their work. How did their queerness factor into their approach to design? Was being publicly closeted a help or a hindrance? Was that anxiety channeled into their work?
Philip Johnson finally came out in his late 80s, as his career was coming to a close. Friends and clients knew about his partner, and no one batted an eye. But being public about it was another matter. That he felt he had to wait so long speaks volumes about both Johnson and the profession.
And the exhibit just scratched the surface of queer identity within architecture. Would we out another architect currently practicing? No. Besides, there are many more long-departed architects we could out—and perhaps one day will. But to know that the people around you, whom you respect, are part of the community would go a long way toward making future architects comfortable bringing their whole selves to architecture.
We design closets. We don’t have to be in them. And I like to think past architects would feel the same and be happy that someone knows who they truly were, whether they ever intended to be out or not.
