by Mashka Sutton, Class of 2022, Government and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Zaps were a key part of queer activism and organizing at Cornell in the 1970s through the 1990s. These zap workshops usually involved two women and two men from GAYPAC (Gay People at Cornell) speaking to a group about homosexuality and dispelling myths about it. This environment “creat[es] a living workshop in which the vital gay-straight interaction takes place, where we share our own selves and where they experience their true feelings about it,” as Wayne Jefferson writes. These workshops included an overview of the history of gay liberation at Cornell University, describing the services that the Gay Center provided, and taking questions from participants. Participants asked questions that were centered around the themes of coming out and gay relationships, including promiscuity, “naturalness,” oppression, and PDA. The feedback portion of the zap intake sheet from 1982 reflects the reality of zap workshops, that oftentimes there was mixed or negative feedback from participants as facilitators broached still-taboo topics surrounding queerness and were met with bigotry.
When You Meet A Lesbian Person: Hints for the Heterosexual Woman Handout, GAYPAC, 1983. Cornell Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Coalition records, #37-6-1589, Box 4, Folder 47, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library. 
Zap Intake Sheet, GAYPAC, March 16, 1982. Cornell Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Coalition records, #37-6-1589, Box 4, Folder 49, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections,
Cornell University Library.
Discussions during the workshops integrated wit to ease the discomfort of participants, which we see in the “When You Meet A Lesbian Person” handout. The document humorously addresses the troubling ways that straight women would interact with lesbians and dispels common myths about lesbians. Lines like “do not ask her how she got that way. Instead, ask her how you got that way” hint at the other activities that these workshops included, such as straight people roleplaying as gay or imagining heterosexuality as a sexual minority. Working to strike a balance between militancy and lightheartedness, such handouts and activities were used in the workshops to make straight people question their negative assumptions about gay people and relieve their fear towards them. Facilitators of these workshops empathized with straight people’s concerns and non-judgmentally drew out their comments, all the while correcting them by presenting new facts and perspectives about gay people.
As Genny Beemyn writes, these zap workshops would be requested by dorm RAs for their residents, by residence hall directors for RAs to better support gay students, by professors for their classes (usually sociology or psychology classes) at Cornell or elsewhere in New York, by EARS (Empathy, Assistance & Referral Service) to prepare peer counselors to better promote gay students’ well-being, and by sororities and fraternities to raise awareness about gay people involved in Greek life. The zaps at Cornell University diverged from earlier zaps carried out in the 1970s by the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA), which used zaps to garner wide media attention to coerce politicians into recognizing gay issues, usually through shaming and heckling them via theatrical means. As National Geographic describes, zaps involved “sudden, loud, brief action” and were often protesting threats of homophobic violence, media vilification, and repressive laws.
Sources
Beemyn, Genny. “The Silence Is Broken: A History of the First Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual College Student Groups.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 12, no. 2 (2003): 205-223.
Blakemore, Erin. “Zapping: The Boisterous Protest Tactic That Ignited Early LGBTQ Activism.” National Geographic, June 9, 2021.
Cohen, Sascha. “How Gay Activists Challenged the Politics of Civility: From Pie-throwing to Shouting Down Public Figures, These Groups Disturbed the Establishment to Effect Change.” Smithsonian Magazine, July 10, 2018.
On the Circuit Article, Wayne Jefferson, 1975. Cornell Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Coalition records, #37-6-1589, Box 1, Folder 44, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
Zap Workshop Outline, GAYPAC, 1975. Cornell Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Coalition records, #37-6-1589, Box 1, Folder 44, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.