“Our joy and our magic and our chaos”

Melynda Huskey opens up about the importance of community and irrefutable queerness over three decades of student advocacy

Story & photo by Matthew Phillips

As Melynda Huskey opened the cake box, her heart sank. She had requested that a  rainbow be airbrushed over the white frosting, but during the decoration process, the colors had apparently been mixed together, resulting in an unfortunate, toad-colored streak arcing across the cake above the words “congratulations lavender grads.” Even with a smattering of balloons, construction paper decorations, and a handful of rainbow napkins, the party still felt like something of a disaster. But for the small family of students gathered for Washington State University’s first LGBTQ+ graduation in 1998, this understated celebration meant everything.

“There were students graduating whose parents would not be there because they didn’t want to have them be part of their lives,” said Huskey, who at the time had been the founding director of WSU’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Allies (GLBA) Center. “Being able to create a celebration for students who might not have anybody else in their lives to honor their accomplishments and to be proud of them … I get a little emotional thinking about that.”

When Huskey thinks back on her over 30 years of queer activism, these are the moments she recalls with pride. From distributing HIV prevention kits to at-risk students at WSU to helping establish Western Washington University’s Gender-Affirming Care Team, Huskey has worked tirelessly to support in-need students and prove to them that someone truly cares about their well-being. 

Now the vice president for enrollment and student services at Western, Huskey has continued her legacy of advocacy for the queer community and all students with marginalized identities. A self-described bureaucrat, Huskey has devoted a huge amount of time to working toward incremental changes in systems and organizations, in both her public and private lives.

Originally from Moscow, Idaho, Huskey was raised in a family that supported many liberation movements, including gay rights. Huskey grew up on stories about her larger-than-life great-aunt Lorraine and her partner Chelsea, two motorcycle-riding, softball-playing lesbians in 1940s Nebraska. However, for most of the 1980s Huskey never even considered that she herself might be queer, as she completed bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in English and began teaching at North Carolina State University. 

Then she met Joan.

“Coup de foudre,” Huskey said. “In the instant I knew, I knew. We’ve been together 35 years. We have two kids. It was not quite love at first sight, but very close.”

Existing as a lesbian couple in Idaho in the 1990s was already hard enough, but the challenges imposed by archaic systems only increased when Huskey and Joan became parents. For the first few years of their children’s lives, Huskey’s was the only name allowed on the birth certificates, and anytime she traveled for work she was obliged to leave behind a large folder of documents allowing Joan to legally act as a parent if something happened to the kids.

Although several states were discussing same-sex civil unions at the time, on a federal level, queer couples were still denied access to over 1,100 individual rights freely granted to heterosexual couples, according to a study at the time by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Such rights included sharing home insurance and opening a joint checking account – rights typically taken for granted or forgotten until they’re suddenly unavailable, Huskey said.

Injustices of this sort – insidious and grinding – have weighed constantly on Huskey, from a bigoted Washington legislator requesting the cubic footage of WSU’s GBLA center in order to remove funds from the program’s budget, to the ongoing nationwide attempts to ban LGBTQ+ books under the guise of protecting children. Fortunately, she has been able to work alongside countless incredible people and groups to address these problems.

In spring 2023, when Huskey spoke at Western’s Pride celebration, she reminisced about working with a patchwork of different queer collectives throughout the 1990s, and also emphasized the importance of coalition. Heated debates about respectability politics and the best path toward equality were as prevalent then as they are now. Many groups did not agree on certain issues, but they still made efforts, albeit chaotic ones, to work together toward a better future.

While writing her speech for that first lavender graduation in 1998, Huskey turned to one of her queer elders, Barbara Gittings, for advice. An icon of queer activism, Gittings successfully pressured the American Psychological Association in the 1970s to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness. 

“It’s because we are chaotic that we will win,” Gittings told Huskey. “We aren’t just one thing, just one issue, just one idea. We have to show up everywhere together, being all  of who we are.”

However, the history of queer activism is far from perfect. 

“The movement has been racist in its historic engagements,” Huskey said. “It has been transphobic at times, it has not been at all inclusive of people with disabilities, and there have been struggles between gay men and lesbians forever.” Acknowledging this dark past and striving to do better has made the movement a lot stronger, she added.

“We understand more about the ways in which all kinds of structural oppression implicate each other,” Huskey said. “So there's no moving forward for just one set of people or one kind of identity. It's always got to be coalition work.”

This focus on coalition informs Huskey’s understanding of leadership. When Huskey was at WSU, the mainstream image of queerness was even more heavily whitewashed than it is today, and most of Huskey’s supervisors were people of color who encouraged Huskey and her team to be intentional about including queer people of color in the GBLA Center. While supervisors were usually hands-off and trusted Huskey’s vision, Huskey also recalled times when supervisors would go to bat for the Center, usually against a pocket of homophobic legislators looking for any opportunity to shut them down. 

In Huskey’s second year at WSU, some of her students wanted to invite Olympic diver and gay rights activist Greg Louganis to speak on campus. It was an action that was sure to draw scrutiny. Huskey’s supervisor, Vice Provost Ernestine Madison forbade Huskey from using any of the GLBA center’s already meager budget for Louganis’ speaker fee, knowing that if Huskey used a single penny of school funds, it would give the legislators a point of leverage. Madison’s decision was disheartening, but it empowered the students to fundraise themselves, securing the needed amount a month before Louganis was scheduled to speak.

Huskey remembers a series of run-ins with antagonistic forces during her first few years at the center, but eventually the opposition seemed to fade away. Huskey couldn’t pinpoint the specific moment in time this shift took place, but she attributes it to the queer community’s refusal to stop taking up space, as well as to consistent efforts by dedicated individuals and groups to change the status quo – one policy, one student, and one ugly cake at a time. 

At the root of all Huskey’s work has been a desire to help students, from helping to secure rent for students without homes, to creating themed safe-sex kits – similar to Western’s pleasure packs – to be distributed at local drag shows, to simply offering safe and affirming space for students discovering their queer identities and working up the courage to ask for help. By the time Huskey became WSU’s dean of students, lavender graduations had blossomed into beautiful celebrations, with upwards of 20 graduates receiving rainbow tassels and cords.   

“It’s really sacred, to have been allowed to be there for so many students,” Huskey said.

When Huskey joined Western’s administration in 2017, one of her first assignments was finding someone to lead Western’s own LGBTQ+ center. Following a nationwide search, she hired Litav Langley as founding director. Like Huskey, Langley had a long history of grassroots and legal advocacy for the queer community, as well as a passion for social justice work.   

During their time as LGBTQ+ director, Langley and their team worked to create environments in which students could thrive and find joy in community. While Langley was always free to turn to Huskey for guidance, Langley said they were always supported as an independent decision-maker.

“I always appreciated [Huskey’s] dedication and knowledge from having done similar work at WSU, and her real willingness to let me lead and build the program that I thought was most beneficial for students at Western now,” Langley said.

Such programs include Trans Tea, a safe gathering space for anyone on the trans and nonbinary spectrum, as well as Western’s annual Pride and graduation celebration, and Queerientation, an annual introduction that Western offers specifically for queer students. When Langley and their team hosted the first Queerientation in fall 2019, the room was packed, with students spilling into the hallway to listen.

“I remember a student turning to me afterward and being like, ‘Wow, I have never been in a space with so many queer people,’” Langley recalled. “Just feeling that joy and that community connection is really powerful.”

Arguably the largest undertaking that Langley, Huskey, and countless other people and departments have worked together on over the past few years is establishing Western’s Gender-Affirming Care Team. Launched in Fall 2021, the program is a collaboration by numerous departments to offer services including mental health counseling, voice therapy, gender-affirming hormones, the ability to change one’s name and pronouns across Western’s systems, and information about social and medical transition. 

“Particularly now, when gender-affirming care is under attack in a number of states around the country, it's really meaningful,” Langley said. “We've heard from trans students that it's really impactful to be able to access affirming care through our student health providers.”

Behind the scenes, the logistics of running such a unique program have proven challenging at times, Huskey said. Both the input and concerns of administrative and medical personnel are integral parts of the process, even though these perspectives can sometimes be at odds. There have also been problems with supply shortages, as well as ongoing discussions about accepting insurance while maintaining the privacy of students. However, because everyone behind the scenes is dedicated to providing for students’ well-being as best they can, Huskey sees these obstacles as wrinkles, not insurmountable challenges.

Huskey, now 60, is learning to accept her status as a queer elder. However, she has no intention of slowing down anytime soon.

“I’ve got a lot of work yet to do,” she said. “Not just around LGBTQ+ action, but in my role as VP, I have the opportunity to move a lot of initiatives forward around supporting students of all identities, moving policies and practices in directions that are more inclusive and supportive.”

Huskey also wants to return at some point to an early passion: writing. Throughout her career, Huskey has written several academic articles about the rejection of gender norms and the representation of queerness in media, from “Twin Peaks” to children’s picture books. Huskey has been fascinated for decades by the Victorian-era “sensation novel” – a term referring to scandalous tales of women challenging socially held ideas of gender by shamelessly committing criminal acts – as the origin of modern culture’s obsession with true crime and horror, from Agatha Christie to “Gone Girl.” This intentional rejection of established gender norms and “what is acceptable” through “transgressive’ behavior”, Huskey argues, is inherently queer.      

With this frame of reference, it is easy to see how this philosophy of queerness has presented itself throughout Huskey’s life. While much of Huskey’s work has been in direct response to immense ugliness and heartbreak, it has also inspired considerable joy and laughter. After all, flagrantly rejecting societal expectations is pretty fun.

“Once I retire, when that day comes, I’m just gonna make a lot of trouble,” Huskey says with a mischievous glee in her voice. “I feel like there are a lot of library boards and school boards and all kinds of places that just really need my help.”