Diversity’s Hidden Dimension: Gays and Lesbians in the Peace Corps

-Jim Kelly, RPCV, El Salvador

I was surprised and pleased by a Peace Corps Volunteer’s recent reference on the LGBT RPCV Yahoo group listserv to my 1991 master’s thesis “Diversity’s Hidden Dimension: Gays and Lesbians in the Peace Corps.” I was motivated to write the thesis back then for three reasons:

1. The knowledge that thousands of PCVs like me expended enormous amounts of energy hiding their sexuality from PC staff, other Volunteers and their host communities in order to protect their ability to serve effectively.
2. My desire to illuminate a significant but invisible population of RPCVs who were proud of their successful service and also happened to be lesbian or gay.
3. My love of Peace Corps and a conviction that if the agency better understood the unique circumstances of being a gay or lesbian applicant, trainee, and volunteer, it would take steps to better serve and support that population.

Post-publication, I was gratified by two unexpected outcomes. First, the Peace Corps’ Office of Special Services distributed copies of the thesis to every PC post, and many overseas PC staff wrote to tell me how helpful and change-provoking the thesis was for them. Second, the founders of this incredible LGBT RPCV national group credit the thesis for providing impetus to the group’s formation.

Seventeen years later, Peace Corps is a far more welcoming and supportive agency for us, and we can predictably count on support from most of our peers in the field. Yet LGBT PC applicants must still struggle to decide whether they are able and willing to subjugate their sexuality to the predominate values of the host culture. I believe that all PCVs with stellar service records do not resent the personal sacrifices they made in order to give and gain the most from their service.

Although GLBT PCVs must usually conceal their sexual orientation, most RPCVs surveyed for the thesis believed that they were better Volunteers because of, not in spite of, their sexuality. They understood viscerally and empathetically the experiences of being marginalized and powerless - just like many of the people they served.

Yet camouflaging a core piece of one’s identity in order to serve is a sacrifice only GLBT Volunteers must make. Thanks to the LGBT RPCV group, prospective and current Volunteers know they are not alone, and that they belong to a truly courageous population of RPCVs who served their communities well during Peace Corps' entire history.

Jim Kelly can be contacted at jamesbkelly@comcast.net.