But Brandon T. Perkovich ’11, a gay student who was active in the First-Year Urban Program and H-Bomb Magazine, says that there are many supportive allies on campus and that it is unreasonable to expect them to “wear a rainbow flag all the time.”

However, he adds that does not mean allies should stand by and remain quiet when they hear homophobic comments made by others.

“They need to have the courage—allies are uniquely positioned to affect a change by calling people out,” Perkovich says, noting that this does not happen as often as it should.

Some queer students note that integration between the gay and straight communities at Harvard will only come about through significant changes in social life at the College.

Poteat, an openly gay Eliot House resident, says that during her four years at Harvard, she often felt uncomfortable or not fully “accepted” in certain contexts because of her sexual identity. Often social traditions, particularly date functions organized between single-sex organizations, can feel particularly exclusive, she says.

“In other groups [besides varsity rugby] I’ve participated in, the social life consists of going to final clubs and getting guys,” Poteat says. “A sort of spoken intolerance exists by way of not including people who aren’t interested in that. The dominant social scene is not inclusive of anyone who is not heterosexual.”

Wang echoes these sentiments, saying that she believes that some students chose to stay in the closet at Harvard because they feel they will not be actively embraced in their social circles.

“It’s a two-way dance,” Wang says. “We live in a heteronormative society, and for some individuals it’s better to cover and not to risk coming out in an environment that might not accept queerness.”

Though Wang says that she has not experienced conscious outright discrimination herself, Perkovich says that he has been called “faggot” at Harvard more frequently than anywhere else.

“I have been called ‘faggot’ in a really disparaging way here at Harvard,” Perkovich says. “Even more so than in my very conservative hometown in Florida.”

But unconscious bias against queer students is not confined to social settings, some members of the gay community say, noting that it can seep into the classroom. Many say that few classes besides those offered by the Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality department deal with issues of gender and sexuality.

Chou recalls that a teaching fellow once made an insensitive joke in a section comprised solely of women that suggested all the women were interested in men.

A course on inequality included little discussion of sexuality­—or at least not until Wang approached her professor asking if she could write a paper dealing with issues of sexuality, she says.

“We talked about race and gender, but not once did we talk about sexuality,” Wang says. “LGBT issues really aren’t discussed outside of WGS.”

Poteat remembers a similar experience in a class she took that focused on the television show The Wire. The instructor discussed issues of race and class as they are highlighted in the show, but Poteat says she felt that while sexuality was touched on, it did not get the attention it deserved.