Queer students share their stories

Of all the beautifully chaotic energies that exist in the world, the opening night of a new play is one of my favourites. To stand in front of a live audience is always a risky endeavour. Gay On God’s Campus: The Students & Stories Behind the Headlines, created by Trinity Western University (TWU) alumni and produced by Dark Glass Theatre, was no exception.

The actors were former students in TWU’s theatre program before it was shut down due to “lack of funding and student interest” in 2021. Tension related to the LGBTQ+ community on campus goes back more than a decade and culminated in a Supreme Court battle in 2018. “Still seeking law school, Trinity Western drops sexual ‘covenant’ for students,” reported the National Post that year and “Trinity Western loses fight for Christian law school as court rules limits on religious freedom ‘reasonable’,” wrote the CBC. While the legal battles made headlines, the queer students who lived through the tension feel like their experiences were overlooked. Now, the only thing these alumni want to set straight is the record.

The play opened to a sold-out house in Fort Langley Community Hall on March 28, 2025, for the first of three shows. This Hall, just a few kilometres down the road from TWU, became the refuge of LGBTQ+ university students after their organization, One TWU, was banned in 2023 from holding events on campus.

What I saw and heard

A broad spectrum of people was in the audience, from pre-teens to seniors, Fraser Valley locals to current TWU students and faculty. I found it intriguing that most of the audience, as well as most of the cast, were seemingly white. I hold nuance for the fact that all of the stories enacted in the play were anonymously submitted by queer TWU alumni and were likely experienced by a more diverse group. 

The play opened with a land acknowledgment that we were on the traditional, unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples. The stage setup was simple: seven chairs arranged in a semi-circle, draped with sheer rainbow scarves. The spotlight began on a solitary woman practicing a valedictorian speech. Her graduation address is full of reminiscing anecdotes, layered with phrases that flatter the university for its dedication to diverse and inclusive education.

“At least that’s how I remember it . . . right?”

“H*** NO!” echoed around the entire hall, causing my friends and me to jump. Then seven “gay-ardian angels” appeared, swarming the protagonist to introduce themselves, compliment one another and re-enact scenes that real students at TWU allegedly experienced.

Each performer held a script throughout each scene, not necessarily because they didn’t have their lines memorized, but to remind the audience that this is an evolving story. It is current events. And as such, there is always potential for this story to be different.

Having never attended university, I always assumed that hazing, co-dependent roommates, antagonistic professors and gossip mills were phenomena of secular institutions. But watching Gay on God’s Campus, I saw how boys’ dorms, even on a Christian campus, could be fraught with “pranks” involving nudity; how girls’ dorms might spawn jealousy over who would get their “ring before Spring,” and how faculty sometimes value donors’ opinions over students’ lived experiences. The actors showed how loving relationships between consenting adults of the same gender were treated as taboo and requests to change names and pronouns were challenged. They also showed how One TWU group members kept Bibles in a box on standby for “study” when they gathered, just in case someone unexpectedly knocked on the door. 

Spoofing straight students’ “vision boards” for their ideal partners, the actors made an interactive “Biblical Dating Game Show” featuring John the Baptist as the host, and assistants David and Jonathan holding up signs telling us when to applaud. But absolutely no one needed to be told when to laugh!

Why stay?

One of the most pressing questions that queer TWU students and alumni receive is: if it’s really so oppressive, why did you enroll? Why did or do you stay? To this, I believe there is no one “right” answer. 

Some students always knew they were queer. After a lifetime of enduring openly homophobic judgments from family, friends and churches, attending a liberal arts college that was still under the Christian umbrella might have initially felt safe and welcoming. Other students might not have known they were gay until they’d already been a part of TWU for some time. Some students might have been there on scholarship with no other options, or would have trouble transferring credits to another school. And even more students might choose to stay because they knew they weren’t encouraged to be openly gay. They believe in staying to make a stand.

Even so, these alumni didn’t write this play because they hate TWU. They chose this topic because they love this school, and they still have hope that it can change. “We believe in the power of potential and possibility. . . we want to leave this place better than when we found it.”

CC reached out to TWU and asked if anyone there would like to comment on Gay on God’s Campus. “We value every student who chooses to attend Trinity Western,” said Winnie Lui, Director of Public Relations, “and as a global Christian university, we recognize the inherent dignity, value and worth of every person as created in the image of God.”

CC also spoke to writer and actor Matthew Wigmore and former-TWU-theatre-professor-turned-director Angela Konrad in the days that followed the play’s debut. They said that the response from the Fraser Valley community has been overwhelmingly positive.

“This has been a healing experience, and we’re seeing interest in turning this production into something more.”