The survey concluded with a view towards the future. The survey asked how the students perceived Smith and the education they received there, how they imagined their future, and how they hoped their sexuality would fit into their future plans.
55.2% of Smithies imagined themselves settling in a big city after graduation and 28.4% imagined settling in a small city. Very few envisioned themselves in suburbs, small towns, or rural areas. Although 66.7% said that they thought it was “Somewhat unlikely” or “very unlikely” that they would ever be married to a man, 54% said it was “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that they would end up marrying men. 1 The graph below shows how likely respondents felt they would be to be in a sexual relationship with other women in their life after Smith.
In thinking about their careers, respondents varied in how they envisioned their sexuality fitting into their working life. While 26.4% said they “expect to work in a field where my sexual orientation will be accepted,” 41.4% said that they expected to segregate their personal life from their life at work, and 13.2% said they expected to “pass” as straight.” 2
53.8% of respondents said they would “definitely” or “probably” seek out a “lesbian community” after Smith, but the other 46.2% said they “probably” or “definitely” NOT seek out “lesbian community” after Smith. 3
Although all of the respondents to the survey were identified as “Smith women who have been, are, or might be involved in sexual relationships with other women,” clearly, not all of them saw LGBT life as part of their future. There is no way to know, but likely many of the women who completed the survey went on in their life without continuing to identify themselves as lesbian or bisexual women. However, many of them likely continued to identify as LGBT and became part of the wide web of LGBT Smith alumni that exist throughout the world. All of us who are LGBTQ at Smith today live and work in the shadow of what all of these women built at their time at Smith.
If you are a current Smith student who identifies as LGBTQ, please take this survey to show how responses of LGBT Smithies today compare to the 1982 survey.
If you are NOT a current LGBT Smith student, you can see the results of the survey to explore the differences over time at this link.