Saralyn Chesnut
Saralyn Chesnut was born in 1948, in Tifton, Georgia, the daughter of a liberal mother. Saralyn was raised in a conservative town in the segregated South at the beginning of the civil rights movement. She argued about race issues with other kids her age. She vividly recalls making friends with the first Black students â there were only three â to enroll at her formerly all-white high school. She always knew she was different, and she wasnât sure why⌠until she fell in love with her roommate and sorority sister at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.
Saralyn Chesnut made her way to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1973, where she quickly immersed herself in the lesbian-feminist movement that was vibrant there. After two decades as an academic and an activist, an antigay incident led her to take a job as a professor.
In 1993, Saralyn Chesnut served as the first, full-time director of Atlanta’s Emory Universityâs Office of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Life. In her 15 years there, she led the way for numerous causes, including an impressive list of social justice issues: getting sexual orientation added to the schoolâs antidiscrimination policy, creating employee domestic partnership benefits, adding the âTâ in the Office of LGBT Life in 1998, and getting gender identity added to the schoolâs antidiscrimination policy in 2006.