Oral History with Mary Beth Dunkenberger, November 6, 2014 (Ms2015-007)

Interview with Mary Beth Dunkenberger

Date of Interview: November 6, 2014

Interviewer: David Cline

Length: 48:49

Place of Interview: Dunkenberger’s office, 205 W. Roanoke St., Blacksburg, VA

Transcriber: Bryanna Tramontana

David Cline: Today is November the 6, 2014. This is David Cline from the History Department

for the LGBTQ oral history project and I am here today with Mary Beth Dunkenberger. If you

could, just for the record, state your name and it’s sort of good to start with ‘my name is’ or ‘I

am…,’ and where and when you were born. Then we will talk a little bit about your family.

Mary Beth Dunkenberger: Okay. I am Mary Beth Dunkenberger and I was born October 10

1963. So I am 51 years old. I was born in Roanoke, Virginia. My family is from Botetourt. So, I

grew up in Botetourt. I have always lived in Virginia. I have said that I’m a bit embarrassed that

I have never lived outside of the state of Virginia even though my career has gone from

international trade 00:01:00to international public policy studies, but I have always been a Virginian. I

went to the University of Virginia which, can be a bit of an issue when you’re at Virginia Tech.

Went from there to Washington DC, and received my master’s at George Washington University

and worked in the international trade field for about the next ten years or so.

CLINE: Did you have a sense of what you wanted to do as a kid when you were growing up?

DUNKENBERGER: Well, I think the first time I ever thought about what I wanted to be when I

grew up, I said I wanted to be the first women Justice on the Supreme Court, and when Sandra

Day O’Conner destroyed that dream I just thought I would go ahead and be a simple attorney.

My first job out of undergraduate was to work in a law 00:02:00firm, and to try to go to law school at the

same time, going to get my JDNBA. After working in a DC law firm I decided I didn’t want to

be an attorney. I think that looking back, I think were my heart was, was always a little bit of

politico and interested in public policy.

CLINE: So tell us a little bit about the work you do here and when you first came to Tech and

what you have been doing here.

DUNKENBERGER: I came to Tech in 2001, doing some part time consulting but mainly being

a stay-at-home mom for ten years. I came here in 2001 to start a PhD program at the Center for

Public Administration and Policy and within the first three months I was working 00:03:00almost full

time, for what was then, the Institute for Public Policy and Outreach. So it derailed my PhD

plans. I was told because I had an NBA, I had a terminal degree, that they could hire me on as

faculty, so fourteen years later I am ABD. Well thirteen years, but I am still all but dissertation

and hoping to complete that within the next year. I said I would complete that before my

youngest son graduates from high school. [laughter]

CLINE: Before he gets his PhD right? [laughter]

DUNKENBERGER: That’s right.

CLINE: So you mentioned having children and being a mom can you tell us a little bit about

that?

DUNKENBERGER: Sure. I met my former husband, I knew him from the University of

Virginia and 00:04:00we reconnected while working in DC and were married in 1989 and had three

children. Will, who’s in his senior year at James Madison University, Alex who is in his second

year at UVA and Jack who’s a junior in high school. And we were married for, I am trying to

think back, it was nineteen years. Moved back here from DC once we started having children

cause it was a little difficult being in DC and being able to spend as much time with your

children as you wanted to.

CLINE: I wonder if I could just ask you to tell us a little bit about your sexuality journey and

how that played out?

DUNKENBERGER: Well 00:05:00I suppose it was around 2000-2001 that I began being, I think, more

honest with myself and then slowly with those around me about my sexuality. And something

that I think at some level I always knew, that I am and was a lesbian, but that was a very slow

process for me. I was in my mid to late thirties before I really started that process of coming out

to myself or to others.

CLINE: And was that a difficult process? Let’s start with yourself first maybe of that journey of

figuring out and admitting to yourself.

DUNKENBERGER: It was and I think, in talking to others who have been in my 00:06:00situation and

the term ‘coming out’ later in life is often used, and it is both exhilarating, to be honest, but also

terrifying. Especially when you do have family or are in situations where you think those that

you care the most about will not be supportive. And when there are some potential risks to

children and being a parent. That’s not very quiet [referring to cellphone vibrating]

CLINE: The cellphone, that’s alright. So if you wouldn’t mind just saying that again I just want

to make sure we get it for the recording. That sort of talking about what’s at stake I guess.

Especially when you have kids and a family.

DUNKENBERGER: Well I think for me, and maybe to give you a little bit more insight when

we moved back, my former husband and I moved back from 00:07:00the DC area, we moved here

because we had family here. He grew up in Montgomery County as well and had a large family.

I had a large family still in Botetourt. So we moved back here to be with family, we were both

involved, to a certain extent, in family businesses together. At the time that I was coming out,

our children were relatively young, still in elementary school, I think the oldest was maybe going

into middle school. So there were some real concerns at the time of losing the support not only of

my former husband and being a parent, but of our families and for me to potentially lose custody

of my children.… 00:08:00I’d like to think that my former husband and I are still good friends. It’s easier

sometimes than others. But I cared a great deal about him as well; and so, it was as difficult

process. A long process I think [laughter]. Much longer than others that I know of. It took me

actually from the time I came out to him probably another 6 years to move into my own home

and to formally separate.

CLINE: So was it, and this is something we hear from many people, that you don’t just sort of

come out once but there are multiple coming out, there’s a process. So is that true for you?

DUNKENBERGER: Absolutely. We separated in 2006, it became known to my family, for the

most part, before we separated, 00:09:00to his family certainly. And even now in 2014 I typically have to

come out to someone once a week for some reason or another.

CLINE: How is that?

DUNKENBERGER: It’s become much easier. Little by little it is much easier. It’s particularly, I

think with some of the rapid changes and acceptance at different levels, particularly legally. But,

there’s still times that in certain contexts, whether it’s at Virginia Tech-- not so much at Virginia

Tech, but in the local community I am not as comfortable with coming out. So when I do find

I’m comfortable it’s still exhilarating.

CLINE: And there are, as you pointed out, different circles of community 00:10:00within our community.

So how has it been within the Virginia Tech community for you as far as finding support and

allies during the beginning of your process of coming out and then over the years?

DUNKENBERGER: I think, I try to think if I’ve ever had a negative experience personally. I

cannot say that I’ve had a traumatic experience. I’ve certainly been in meetings or in a classroom

where negative comments are made, not directly at me, but in a general sense. I actually had a

GA one time working on a project and he thought it was so funny that I was a UVA grad, and

started to mock the UVA fight song. Which, I don’t know if you know the UVA fight song.

CLINE: No I don’t know.

DUNKENBERGER: There’s a line in it that says ‘UVA where all is bright and gay’ 00:11:00and over

the years that’s become very much of a chant for other fans to use against the UVA fans. Even in

the last, it’s just been the last couple of years, the students had started to say, at the end of the

song they would say ‘where all is bright and gay’ they’d say ‘not!’

CLINE: UVA students would say that?

DUNKENBERGER: Mmhm. And just recently the administration asked the students not to do

that, and I think there’s been more of an effort. But yeah, I mean, knowing at times that there has

been maybe some passive anti-gay sentiment, but for the most part it’s been a positive, very

positive experience. Especially the support over the years from other people at the university

who identify as LGBTQ and 00:12:00when there have been some of these tipping point events when you

come together and you really feel that sense of community.

CLINE: So what have been some of those moments?

DUNKENBERGER: Well the first one for me was in, I believe it was 2003, it starts to get a little

fuzzy, but back when there were some actions by the Board of Visitors, one when Dean DePauw

was hired as I guess the first openly senior administrator at the university and her partner was

coming in as a partner hire and it was blocked by the Board of Visitors and really in an

unprecedented way to block a hire for that particular reason. Then subsequently efforts to take

sexual orientation out of the Principles of Community. 00:13:00I attended my first protest in front of

Burruss Hall, ever in my life. I was always, I guess, kind of passive when it came to civil

disobedience [laughter].

CLINE: Right.

DUNKENBERGER: I think that was one of the points and then…

CLINE: Do you remember how you felt, it being your first time doing something like that?

DUNKENBERGER: It was great I was actually, it was when I was still really focused more on

my PhD work, and at the time I heard it was happening and was working on a project or paper

with some fellow PhD students and I came out to them and told them how much this was

bothering me. You know here we are in 2003 in Virginia and these kind of things are happening

and then we all walked over together.

CLINE: Great. Do you remember how the word got out about that? 00:14:00DUNKENBERGER: I am trying to think if it was an email. I mean at that point I was still too

reserved or frightened to even have signed up for the LGBT listserv, caucus listserv, so I don’t

know that I would have heard that way, but I think it was just word of mouth. There were other

issues going on at the time with the Board of Visitors wanting to remove affirmative action

measures and really bring to a halt recruiting of racial and ethnic minorities. So there was a lot, a

great deal, of talk particularly in program of public policy about some of these issues.

CLINE: So looking back at those moments, as you called them, those tipping points, in what way

were they tipping points for you personally or for the community larger do you think? 00:15:00DUNKENBERGER: Well I think in that case and then there was the subsequent case when our

Attorney General, our Attorney General Cuccinelli, was trying to force the universities to

remove sexual orientation from their anti discrimination clauses. Personally, you have to make a

decision, you know. Am I really gonna stand up for what I believe, to protect others and myself

or can I continue to expect others to do it for me? So I think in both those situations I decided to

put other things aside and really get involved and try to do what I could. And of course, even at

the highest levels of the university there was support, there wasn’t a great deal of convincing that

needed to be done; it was a matter of just supporting, I think, what their 00:16:00intent was.

CLINE: So did it feel risky to you?

DUNKENBERGER: To a certain extent yes.

CLINE: And at the end of the day looking back on it how do you feel about those times, going

through that? As sort of an unfortunate bump in the road, or how do you reflect back on that

now?

DUNKENBERGER: Well I’m glad they ended up the way they did or we might not be having

this conversation today [laughter]. Certainly, because I think that even now, and I’ve gone before

the general assembly committees a couple of times, even now in our state policy-- our state

policy does not protect against potential firing or employer retributions for sexual orientation. 00:17:00 so

there always is that fear in the back of your mind. I mean, the kind of work I do in public policy,

I assess organizations, I do evaluations of programs and with that work I can always…make

someone not happy with the work I’m doing. If I’m not, it’s what we are reporting in our

assessments. So having that extra fear while they could potentially pull the plug on our funding.

It wouldn’t be that difficult for the type of, especially state level, work that we do. So yeah, I do

think at times standing up as an employee of a Virginia University has been risky.

CLINE: So do you see a connection…when we were talking before I said that there seems to be

often 00:18:00connections between the personal and the political and the professional as far as your

sexuality and maybe even these moments. Do you see points of coming together, of those strands

of your life?

DUNKENBERGER: Yeah absolutely. I think in the back of my mind, and even doing this

interview today, I think ‘okay I’m comfortable doing this within my employment at Virginia

Tech and my colleagues here.’ Not so much if this recording was being delivered to my parents.

There’s still a certain level of acceptance there that it’s very much more of a don’t ask don’t tell

kind of situation, so I think that every time that I’ve approached a crossroads and think ‘Should I

act? Should I be proactive? Should I be somewhat even publicly 00:19:00vocal?’ It is a real decision

point to risk making my family unhappy, versus doing what I think is right.

CLINE: Do you have a support network, a sort of GLBTQ support network in the community?

DUNKENBERGER: At Virginia Tech, primarily, and in the community somewhat. I mean, I

have a very close group of friends that have been actually quite artful at maintaining friendships

with both me and my former husband. I really do, they are lifelong friends that I treasure.

Interestingly, coming out later in life, I probably do not have the network of 00:20:00lesbian or gay

friends that many people who’ve been out for most of their adult life would have. I did find that

in trying to meet people and network that there are certain people that think, ‘oh well, you know,

if you couldn’t be honest with yourself before age thirty-eight, we’re just really not interested in

starting a friendship at that point,’ so I have found that very interesting.

CLINE: Yeah, yeah.

DUNKENBERGER: And even in my neighborhood that I live in, the neighborhood I am in now,

I’m there because it was so close to my boys’ school. It is very conservative, so if

I’m…fortunately we have a very large piece of-- we have three acres so we can you know

[laughter] kind of keep to ourselves to a certain extent. But I think if there’s any place 00:21:00that I’d

say, I’m a little cautious, is in the neighborhood where I live.

CLINE: Right. What about in terms of faith community and is that something that is important to

you and that you have had to negotiate?

DUNKENBERGER: I think that has actually been one of the more difficult, is finding a faith

community that really feels comfortable. I’ve kind of bounced between some different places and

have a church in Salem where I live and a lot of friends attend that for the most part has been

pretty supportive and I haven’t had any issues. I have somewhat been involved with the

Metropolitan Community Church. I’m good friends with the pastor there, but my home church… 00:22:00I still am actually, technically a member of the church I grew up in, which was a Brethren

Church, and that I would have to try to negotiate a bit more I think.

CLINE: Was there a church you attended with your former husband that…

DUNKENBERGER: The church in Salem.

CLINE: So it’s the same one that you’re still affiliated with?

DUNKENBERGER: Mmhm. I still attend and when my boys were a little bit younger we were

involved in some mission trips, we were still very involved from that perspective. My partner

right now, I think we both have had some issues with faith-based representations of the LGBTQ

community that may be falling out of habit of attending a church on a regular basis as a result.

CLINE: What are those issues, may I…? 00:23:00DUNKENBERGER: Well I think, obviously it’s still a discussion within many denominations,

but, she grew up in the Episcopal Church. Then I have been involved, attended both Methodist

Church and Presbyterian Churches in addition to the Brethren Church I grew up in. I think that

depending on the minister that might be in the church at the time sets the tone.

CLINE: Yes

DUNKENBERGER: I think that largely the congregations, even the ones that are more open

minded, take the don’t ask don’t tell, because when the issues are brought to the surface it can

divide congregations and I’ve seen that happen.

CLINE: Yeah I have too. 00:24:00DUNKENBERGER: It’s difficult feeling like, and perhaps in the Salem church, I think if we

looked around we might be the token gay couple for the church [laughter]. I think, that on the

other hand at the Metropolitan Community Church I would like to see that it doesn’t just have to

be a gay church. So I think we still struggle with where we find that comfort, and of course

there’s the whole vein of certain denominations that want to interpret the Bible. Even with some

of the positive things that have happened recently in Virginia, although it wasn’t our choice I

think it was with the Supreme Court and federal Court’s choice, that we now 00:25:00have recognized

same sex marriage in Virginia.

CLINE: Mmhm.

DUNKENBERGER: If you look at some of the commentary that tends to accompany news

articles it is very vitriolic, it’s very according to that, I’m going to burn in hell in the name of

Jesus or God, that just doesn’t feel good when that’s the representation. And of course there’s the

counter arguments, and I just…I don’t… particularly right now I don’t feel comfortable being

caught between those two poles.

CLINE: It’s hard not to read that stuff sometimes. Isn’t it? I mean what do you do with it?

DUNKENBERGER: Absolutely. My son that was at UVA pointed out to me when, it was before

the Supreme Court’s decision, but it was 00:26:00right after the Federal Court made the decision, and our

Attorney General… I’m trying to remember the facts exactly. Our Attorney General actually

asked the Supreme Court or asked to stay the action until the Supreme Court could act. Because

his, what was presented was he didn’t want people temporarily being able to be married or to

have marriages recognized that would later be rescinded.

CLINE: Right

DUNKENBERGER: And Joe Cobb, who’s the minister of the Metropolitan Community Church,

made a public statement about it. It appeared in both the Roanoke Press and in the Charlottesville

Press. For whatever reason my son caught it and said look at the difference in the comments

between Roanoke and Charlottesville. Charlottesville was…there were a few, but mainly

supportive of ‘yes it’s time we need to be able to recognize same sex marriage in Virginia’.

Roanoke was by far 00:27:00‘no this is an atrocity it’s an abomination, the end times’ kind of thing.

CLINE: Does that ever make like I want to be somewhere else?

DUNKENBERGER: Absolutely.

CLINE: Even though this has always been your home.

DUNKENBERGER: Yeah. Absolutely because for me I even take it personally because I’ve

always had a great deal of pride in being a Virginian. My family, we trace our roots back to

Botetourt County to the seventeen hundreds. So, I don’t know, I feel almost, I feel, at times, very

proud of that, and then I am really embarrassed as well to think ‘c’mon we need to move

forward.’

CLINE: So is the adoption of legal gay marriage a moment of pride then for you in your 00:28:00state is

this something you may avail yourself of?

DUNKENBERGER: Absolutely. Actually, we were married a year and a half ago in DC.

CLINE: Okay, wonderful.

DUNKENBERGER: So now it is recognized here and I’ve always tried to be a law abiding

person and in the state of Virginia when you’re separated, if you’re not remarried if you have

minor children, their standard language of separation of divorce decree that you are not supposed

to live with a member of the opposite sex outside of marriage. Of course that was presuming…so

technically, I could have had my partner move in, but, I knew the intent, so before she moved

here, I thought it was 00:29:00important for our children that we be married, and so we went to DC and

were married. And now it’s recognized, so last year trying to do our taxes, when you have to do

them one way federally and a different way for the state, it was twice as expensive to get our

taxes done. We had to do completely separate for federal and for state.

CLINE: Wow. And no more.

DUNKENBERGER: Even now there are certain measures we were looking at how to put into

place for survivorship and so forth that now have been so simplified. Because the way that the

Virginia amendment read was that nothing could approximate, no legal could approximate

marriage between same sex individuals. So yeah, there was a lot of extra legal wrangling 00:30:00 that

people were having to do. Particularly people that had children together. I know a couple who

had been together for twenty-five years and have had two children and trying to have both

individuals as the legal parent wasn’t possible, clearly possible, until now.

CLINE: So how did you react to the news?

DUNKENBERGER: You know, I had to make sure it was true. When I heard about it, my

colleague has a news feed that pops up on her screen (I find that distracting, but she’s young she

can deal with it). She yelled out that she saw that it had happened, and I was just getting ready to

go over to the Inn, where we were presenting the results of the LGBTQ climate survey, and it 00:31:00happened the same day. So, I didn’t know that I would believe until I got over to that group and

they had checked that yes this is in fact going to happen. Hal Irvin was there from HR and there

was a lot of hugging. I hugged people I never thought I’d hug [laughter]. I’m not a big hugger

so…

CLINE: [Laughter] Yeah.

DUNKENBERGER: But it was amazing. I think I would have preferred that it happened--

whether it had been taken on by our legislator-- but happen in a more purely democratic fashion,

but I’m not gonna wait for that at this point.

CLINE: Can you talk a little bit about your kids and maybe a little bit about 00:32:00coming out to your

kids? What your relationship is with your kids?

DUNKENBERGER: Relationship is terrific, I mean they’re wonderful. There were two really

critical moments. I remember sitting down with them, with their dad, and telling them when we

were going to separate. You know, how hard that was for them and they were upset. Then it

wasn’t that long after, maybe just a few months after we had separated, and I had talked to their

dad and he said that it is important that they know why. They’re asking questions, and so I sat

down with them again, and I pulled them together and they were, because they had remembered

when we said we were separating, 00:33:00and the youngest son burst into tears. He said ‘Mom I thought

you were just gonna die or something!’ [laughter]. They just, they’ve done really well and never

really had issues about sexuality. I mean it’s always difficult, I think divorce is difficult under

any situation, so there were challenges there, but overall I think looking at them now I am very

proud of them. I think by my being honest that they can approach life being honest about who

they are and what they want and much more accepting of others, than they may have otherwise

been. I hope they would have been anyway, but they have done remarkably well.

CLINE: I’d like to sort of ask about, and 00:34:00we have sort of talked about this a little bit, but just sort

of what allies, who have been your allies here at Virginia Tech? I would like to hear a little bit

more about the climate survey since you brought that up and what was revealed to you through

that? Sometimes there are allies in unexpected places, I wonder if that’s been your experience?

DUNKENBERGER: Yeah. I think that there are allies within the LGBTQ community and

leaders there at Virginia Tech. I think, I don’t know if you want me to mention names or…

CLINE: Well if there is anyone that you feel that, you particularly want to is fine, but you don’t

have to.

DUNKENBERGER: I mean, Karen DePauw definitely as a role model and as 00:35:00someone who just

really is an example of a top notch professional and academic leader who has never really had to

make that much of an issue about her sexuality. It’s just who she is, but wasn’t, from what I

could tell, going to be treated any differently from any other top academic that is brought into a

leadership role. She wanted the same benefits for her spouse as anyone else who would be

coming into the position. Then Jean Elliot, who has led so many different programs in the

development of the LGBTQ caucus. Ken…why am I drawing a blank on Ken’s name. When I

came to orientation as a Ph.D. student, 00:36:00we had like a picnic setting and different people were

coming to talk to us. This athletic kind of big guy, looked like a guy I could have grown up with

in Botetourt County with a beard stands up, says ‘well I’m gonna tell ya a little bit about myself.’

I’m a member of the Republican party and the NRA’ and I thought, why is he telling us… ‘and

I’m gay.’ And I remember it really caught my breath and made me think, ‘oh okay.’ So, I know

that Ken, even though I haven’t really worked with Ken on as many different projects, that he

really has created a change at Virginia Tech just by being who he is. Chad Mandala, more

recently, really decided to grab the bull by the horns and say ‘no 00:37:00we aren’t gonna sit around

patiently and keep waiting for the Board of Visitors to decide to put gender identity and

expression into our principles of community. We are really going to fight for it.’

So there are a number of people, I don’t get to see them everyday, typically I might run

into them once every couple of weeks or once a month. But as I said, in coming out, whether it’s

been my supervisor here at the institute or just people I’m working with, I’ve never had a

negative experience. Maybe some looks of surprise, never a negative experience.

CLINE: Do you have any questions that you feel like I should ask?

DUNKENBERGER: No not necessarily. 00:38:00I think that the one thing you were talking about the

climate survey, how it did come about. I guess several years ago there was a consistent theme in

the climate survey, the general climate survey that was given to faculty and staff, in some of the

open ended responses it became more and more clear that lack of equal benefits for LGBTQ

populations was a theme. So the question came up about how can we gather more information

with that. So, we started a process doing some focus groups, doing a targeted rolling survey and

really found there was a clear divide. As a survey researcher, my thought was the easiest way to

really get to it, the problem was you could not gauge the thousands of responses that 00:39:00 come

through on the HR climate survey because we weren’t stratifying by sexual orientation. So to

me, the easiest way to do it was to add a question in and just ask people to identify their sexual

orientation. Then you can figure out the results of people satisfaction. And they didn’t want to do

that and members of the LGBTQ community didn’t want them to do it, because there was still a

sense of fear to self identify. And that was very eye opening, that in a survey of over one

hundred individuals who would identify through the caucus, you know, sending it out through

the caucus listserv that at least fifty percent of them did not want to identify on the HR survey.

So, from there then it was decided ‘well, we’ll just develop a separate survey.’ I think that 00:40:00 one

thing that really comes out of that survey that I feel personally is a feeling of comfort and support

on the Virginia Tech campus that can quickly dissipate as you start moving away.

CLINE: Can you tell me more about that?

DUNKENBERGER: Well I think that, my partner is a faculty member over in communications

now, and we’ll meet for lunch and we’re fine just being ourselves between here and going to the

local area. As we move away, you just naturally become more aware of your surroundings and a

sense of comfort. I just think because there isn’t a level of acceptance in some areas, and if 00:41:00 you

stay long enough, maybe you would feel differently, but if I go down to the town in Pulaski to

pick up the New River Trail and we end up having a meal there, I’m probably going to behave

much differently than I would down at Gillie’s, for instance.

CLINE: Mmhmm. So what does that mean in practical terms? Not holding hands?

DUNKENBERGER: Mmhmm. Not holding hands or…

CLINE: That’s just where we live as you say, yeah.

DUNKENBERGER: So, and that’s something that I think came through on the survey.

CLINE: But that’s not the case at Virginia Tech, because Virginia Tech is a safer space than

that?

DUNKENBERGER: I mean that’s what came through in the climate survey. Although, there

was some sense that still not the same as a 00:42:00heterosexual couple might be treated.

CLINE: Do you think that’s changed for students? Do you have a sense of if the climate has

gotten better for students? I mean you came as a student, you’re still a student in some ways.

DUNKENBERGER: Yeah, but I was a non-traditional student. I think so, I do. I think that there

is still some latent issues that my sons report being undergrads and that my partner reports in the

classroom. Some comments still, you know this negative connotation of the word ‘gay.’ I’ve

struggled too with the use of the term ‘queer,’ which I assume when you’re using the acronym, I

didn’t ask you that, but that you’re referring to ‘queer.’ Even in the surveys we did 00:43:00there was

some push back and I think that’s very much a generational issue. Of course the literature, you

get support in the academic literature with Queer Theory and the use of the word ‘queer,’ but I

think there’s some generational differences in the understanding of the term.

CLINE: So can I ask what your take is on it, on that term and using it here or not?

DUNKENBERGER: I’m fine with using it in that context. The idea of reclaiming a term that

from my limited research-- I’m not a Sociologist-- but the little bit of research I’ve done is that

queer was almost always used in a negative way. So to reclaim a word that has always been used

in a negative way, I’m not sure I get that logic, but I could be convinced. I have to be open

minded to that. 00:44:00And I think we’re facing these issues as we do become more inclusive, whether

it’s at Virginia Tech or in society in general. There are these nuances that we have to be able to

talk about, the use of the term ‘gay,’ the use of the term ‘queer,’ when making jokes about

cultural stereotypes are appropriate and when they’re not. There is a lot of that going on right

now, there have been some issues just in the last month raised about that.

CLINE: Here at Tech?

DUNKENBERGER: Mmhmm.

CLINE e: Can you talk about them? I don’t know what those are.

DUNKENBERGER: This is, you know I was not at Homecoming, but I understand, I think it

was the Homecoming king this year did sort of a stereotype. He was dressed up as a stereotype it

was 00:45:00like a Mexican representation that…and just a few years ago there was, I think, a negative

representation of Native Americans that were dressed, and it kind of moves around. Then just

last week, it was Pat Buchanan’s sister who came and was a speaker on campus about

immigration and reform and the flyer represented the alien invasion and there was some very

negative language that was associated with that. So I think use of language is something that we

have to be aware of and think about. I’m going with my son this weekend to go to Richmond for

The Book of Mormon and I’m like ‘okay.’ There’s so many things that now are 00:46:00 politically

incorrect. Even though we do go to all these… you know, satire is satire. But the Mormons,

somehow, still have remained a target that seems appropriate so, I don’t know. I haven’t seen the

play before so I will see how I feel afterward.

CLINE: Okay , we will have to do a second interview just on that [laughter]. So let me ask you

one more time if there is anything else that I should have asked or you want to talk about.

DUNKENBERGER: I don’t think so. We did talk about the fact that this interview will be web

based and I asked if it will be on the local news or anything and you said it wouldn’t because I

still have issues with my family [laughter]. They don’t know that I’m married and I don’t know

that I want them to hear second hand. I’ve tried to approach it with my parents a couple of times, 00:47:00but things are getting better. Things continue to get better.

CLINE: What is it about that, that is difficult?

DUNKENBERGER: Well I mean, I am trying to bring this back to the context of Virginia Tech

and I think we base a lot of things in tradition and my parents are very traditional people and for

them marriage is tradition and it’s between a man and a women and I hate… I did tell my mother

a year ago, I said look I’m happy. I said you treat my divorce and what has happened since as the

greatest tragedy of your life and I don’t want to be framed as a tragedy anymore. So, there is still,

I think, generational issues particularly with people who aren’t really open to change and the

change we’re seeing and 00:48:00maybe to a certain extent that can be, you know, at Virginia Tech. We

still have this traditional homecoming king and queen. There a lot of traditions around that, that

maybe over time will change a bit.

CLINE: The Ring Ceremony. I don’t know if there have been two women. There should be.

DUNKENBERGER: Yeah!

CLINE: There will be two women at some point.

DUNKENBERGER: At some point. And now I feel increasingly that people will feel

comfortable doing that and doing it for themselves, not doing it for a statement for someone else,

and I think that’s important.

CLINE: Well I think that is a perfect statement to end on. I just want to thank you so much it was

wonderful; I really appreciate it.