About gay? fine by me.

The "gay? fine by me."™ T-Shirt Project began at Duke University in Spring 2003. The idea sprung from a dinner conversation between ten friends—both gay and straight. We were talking about social and political issues on campus, and one of the subjects that repeatedly came up was the perception that Duke was homophobic. A few years before, the Princeton Review had named Duke the most gay-unfriendly school in America ("Alternative Lifestyles Are Not an Alternative"), and we wondered if most people at Duke were really homophobic, or if that was just the perception.

Maybe, we speculated, the perception was actually feeding the homophobia; if Duke students thought it was more publicly acceptable to be homophobic than to condemn homophobia, they wouldn't condemn it. On the same note, while we didn't believe the Princeton Review's ranking was true, we were all sure it would mean fewer LGBT students would apply to Duke in the future. If the Princeton Review was wrong to rank us number one, maybe the reputation we gained from it would actually make the student body more gay-unfriendly over time.

So, we figured, if we changed the perception that Duke was homophobic, we might change the reality in the process. As a group we came up with the idea to distribute T-shirts with an anti-homophobic message and to see how many of our fellow students would be willing to wear them.

Figuring out the basics

First, of course, we had to figure out what the shirts would say. We decided to use the word 'gay,' instead of 'queer' or 'LGBT' for a number of reasons. First, it's short and snappy, easily fits on a T-shirt, and is simple to remember. More than that, though, we felt it was the most powerful way to let a vast number of people express an anti-homophobic sentiment in a very public way. While not everyone knows what LGBT stands for, everyone seems pretty clear on what 'gay' means. If you don't know the meaning of an acronym, then seeing a shirt emblazoned with it isn't going to have much effect, and, in most communities, simply putting on a shirt that reads "gay? fine by me." can provoke the kinds of discussions that lead to more complicated conversations—about what it means to be 'gay,' 'LGBT,' etc. When we use the word 'gay,' we're not referring just to gay men. Rather, we're using a word the vast majority of Americans associate with the LGBT community.

Having figured out a slogan, we set about fundraising so we could give the shirts away for free. By the next day, we had secured enough money to order 500 T-shirts. They ended up going so quickly that other student groups and administrators made donations to the cause, and after ten days we had over 2,000 students, staff, professors, and community members owning and wearing the T-shirts. The shirt drive happened to fall on a recruitment weekend for prospective freshmen, so we even had dozens of soon-to-be Blue Devils publicly condemning homophobia.

Stronger Voice

In September 2008, Fine By Me became a special project of Atticus Circle, to give a stronger voice to the friends and supporters of the LGBT community. With our programs combined, we know we'll have even more resources to help people across the country stand up straight for equal rights.