An Outsider Story

Daniel Goldberg on the Northwestern Lakefill Rocks Provided by Daniel

On January 14, 2020, Daniel Goldberg, a first-year student at Northwestern, spent an hour and a half deliberating which sorority to put as his first choice. He’s usually indecisive regarding everything, from class selections to which sushi restaurant to eat at for dinner. The next night, in a classroom of the largest STEM building on campus, he opened an envelope with an invitation to join the Pi Beta Phi sorority, the house he ranked first. His face lit up. Daniel ran out of the classroom into the large auditorium farther down on the first floor. There, members of each sorority cheered, holding giant, wood greek letters eager to collect the newly invited members. Daniel and his new sisters walked to the Pi Phi house across campus where a group of male a cappella singers greeted them. He gushed over their looks with everyone. An older member handed Daniel a turquoise long sleeve t-shirt with Pi Phi written in a comic book styled bubble. He put on the shirt and a pair of translucent orange heart glasses members passed out, adding to the night’s colorful comic book theme. He joined groups of women posing for pictures, striking a hand-on-hip and duck face pose. Daniel’s thighs burned as he held a squat position for “squad pictures,” photos where everyone poses with serious faces back to back or in a squatted position, pointing at the camera. Afterwards, everyone sat in a circle introducing themselves and gave a “hot take,” meaning an unpopular opinion. Daniel announced, “I don’t like New York City!”

Daniel does not identify as a male. But he doesn’t identify as a female either. Rather, he is gender non-conforming. Daniel considers gender nonconformity as a philosophy more so than a label. It has nothing to do with assigned sex, meaning his physical and biological attributes. As gender non-conforming, he does not group himself with either gender, the social and cultural components associated with sex. He rejects the gender binary system altogether. He decided to go through sorority recruitment not because he identifies as a woman, but because he does not identify as a male. Growing up, Daniel's closest friends were always female, so upon entering college, he wanted to find a centralized girl-group, a community where he could be himself and feel supported. While Northwestern’s policy allows for gender-fluid, gender non-binary and gender nonconforming students to go through sorority recruitment, not every individual sorority permits students like Daniel to join their chapter. Daniel still went through the process because in the back of his mind he hoped it would work out for him. As he went through recruitment, he heard from sorority members that people were crying because their chapter automatically rejected a member like Daniel. Some threatened to deactivate as a result. He didn’t join a sorority to make a statement. He wanted to join one for the same reason as every other student in sorority recruitment: to find a home on campus. “It was really more of a by-product that I challenged these outdated laws and institutions,” Daniel told me. “I was doing it for myself.”

Daniel, who is 19, is short, at 5’3. Despite his stature, his presence fills the room. The high pitch of his voice makes everything he says sound positive and evokes his loving persona. Last summer, on a whim, he dyed his short hair platinum blonde. Now that his roots have grown back, the platinum color expresses itself as frosted tips. His go-to winter look is a pair of low waisted jeans with a cropped sweater. Many of his sweaters incorporate a pale pink, one of his favorite colors. After his junior year of high school, during his summer at Cherubs, one of Northwestern’s enrichment programs for high school students, Daniel tried on female clothing while shopping with his girlfriends. On this shopping spree, he discovered that the smaller fit of women’s apparel works best for him and his fashion style. He now chooses crop tops and jumpsuits over button down shirts and suits. “Why wear a boxy t-shirt from J.Crew when the tighter fit of Urban Outfitters is more flattering and fun!” he exclaims while showing me his favorite pieces in his dorm closet. He pulls out a pair of blue striped overalls and hot pink fur flip flops to show me.

Just as gender isn’t black and white, gender outside of the binary system isn’t simple. “By saying non-conforming, I’m putting myself in another box for people. But it’s not ideal because it feels very labeled,” Daniel said. “That's the only way I find effective in communicating how I feel.” He doesn't use the term gender non-binary to refer to himself because it suggests that he identifies as something outside the binary system. Daniel does not see himself as a gender different from male or female. Nor does he use the term gender fluid to define himself because it means he would fluctuate between genders on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, which he does not. Raised using he/him/his pronouns, Daniel keeps using these male gendered nouns because he’s used to them. “I think it’s dumb that language is gendered,” he told me. But in the end, he doesn’t think it makes or breaks his identity. He will mention to new people he meets that he uses they/them/their pronouns to avoid getting automatically grouped with men. When he moved in this fall, the men in his residential college added him to the “boys group chat.” He did not get added to the girls group chat. At first he cared. Now, he realizes that if the girls won’t add him because he’s not female, he doesn’t want to be a part of their chat anyway.

In the eight grade, Daniel came out as gay to his friends, and in the ninth grade he came out to his family. Daniel knew his family would support him, yet he told his friends first because it felt more natural. One evening, he asked his parents to come to his room to talk. He let his indecisive nature get the best of him when they arrived, saying, “Never mind! I don't need to talk.” A couple hours later as his parents were getting into bed, he dragged them back into his room. His mother, Adena, told me that he announced with an air of confidence, “I’m Gay!” Adena immediately conveyed her support. 

Adena found out about her son's gender non-conformity when she received a call from one of the high school’s rabbis. Daniel attended the Solomon Schechter School, a Jewish day school, in Westchester, New York. One afternoon, his torah teacher Rabbi Sosland called Adena to ask if she felt comfortable with Daniel exempting himself from the male practice of tefillin, the ritual of tying two black leather boxes and straps to men’s head and forearms, during morning services. During these daily assemblies, students could sit with whomever they wanted to, so Daniel chose to sit with his closest friends, a group of girls. When the rabbi called on the boys to stand to begin the tefillin ritual, Daniel’s close friends stayed seated while he stood. For the ritual, he would place one box on his bicep, wrap its corresponding tefillin strap seven times around his left forearm and hand, and place the other box on his forehead and wrap the straps around the back of his head tying it in a special knot. Although other male students stood during the ritual, Daniel felt alone and disconnected as his closest friends stayed seated since they were female. As he recounts to me his discomfort, Daniel speaks slowly, looking down at his hands and pausing in between sentences. He seems stiff. He tells me that one day at school, he spoke with Rabbi Sosland about his discomfort with the gendered ritual. He questioned his participation in tefillin since he believed he had to take part in it solely because of his assumed male identity. The conversation prompted Solsland to reach out to Adena, unknowingly before Daniel had a chance to speak with his mother about his disagreement with teffillin. Daniel confides in me that he feels bad that Sosland blindsided his mom. When he returned home from school the day of the call, his mom asked him, “Well do you not identify as a boy?” She seemed confused, not concerned. Daniel responded curtly, trying to end the conversation as soon as possible. He told her he was gender non-conforming and didn’t elaborate, going right to his room afterwards to do his homework. On the call with Sosland, Adena approved of her son’s request to exempt himself from tefillin. Although Adena supported her son, Daniel tells me she felt hurt that she learned about his gender identity from the rabbi rather than himself.

Two weeks after not participating in the ritual, Daniel met with the head rabbi at school. In preparation, he studied the Jewish texts, which state that only women are exempt from tefillin. The texts declare that even if he does not identify as a man, he still has to do the ritual because he does not identify as a woman. “I acknowledge that yes, that’s the law, but in practice it’s not like that at all,” Daniel told me. “In practice it’s that men are required to rather than women are exempt from. Also, as a conservative school, we didn’t follow all of the rules, so…” But, the head rabbi insisted that tefillin was part of the school’s protocols. “We’d hate to see you go, but you have to decide whether we align with your beliefs,” he told Daniel. Daniel pauses after recounting his discussion with the rabbi. “Well…” he giggles, “I sort of just disregarded his take it or leave it.” Daniel sees the good in everything around him and complimented his rabbi, who in short told him no. “He was actually great. He’s actually a very caring and open minded person,” Daniel said about his rabbi. “Well, relatively open-minded. And, he’s a great educator. He’s just,” his voice trails off, “I don’t know. He just takes very seriously Jewish law!” Daniel stopped participating in tefillin for the rest of his junior and senior year. His school psychologist told him the school ultimately ignored his non-participation because they did not want to drive him away from Judaism. 

Adena says Daniel never feels inhibited; he does what he wants. At six years old, Daniel self-taught himself flips on his family’s outdoor trampoline. When he convinced his mom to let him join a gymnastic class, he quit a couple weeks in because the instructors were teaching front rolls and balance beam walks while Daniel wanted to learn more advance moves. In the first grade, Adena recounts that he asked to read “Harry Potter” at school, but his teacher insisted the book was above his reading level. So what if his friends weren’t reading “Harry Potter.” Why couldn't he? It’s not about proving a point for Daniel. He simply does the things he wants to.

Daniel did not just challenge tefillin, he also disputed same gender rooming on his school’s Shabbat weekend trips. Before a trip to D.C. his junior year, he told the faculty in charge that he wanted to room with the girls. He gave a speech to his grade that explained to them how he connects more naturally with the girls in his grade and finds society’s gender divisions a barrier to his friendships. The principal, who wasn’t in attendance, heard such positive remarks about the speech that he reached out to Daniel to commend him for how well he spoke.  In the end, the school found a balance where Daniel could room with girls who felt comfortable with the arrangement.

Others find solace in Daniel’s openness. When Daniel was a sophomore, a senior girl, Maddie Burton, who knew Daniel from an after school theater program, asked him to the prom. Daniel was giddy with excitement. “Oh my god,” he told her. “Are you kidding? Of course. What are we wearing? Should we color coordinate?” Daniel then surprised Burton with a prom proposal. After a day of three midterms, Burton’s brother urged her to come downstairs from her bedroom. Irritated at the intrusion, she complied. On her front lawn, Daniel’s three brothers, each of them dressed in a suit and holding a rose, sang to her. Daniel promposed. Daniel and Burton ended up color coordinating at prom. He wore a blue tie to match her royal blue mermaid-cut gown. They alternated who stood in the back when they posed for the quintessential prom photo: the male date wrapping his arms around his female date’s waist. “He made me feel so comfortable about bringing him as an underclassman because he was so relaxed and comfortable,” Burton said. The whole night they danced together. Burton equates their dancing to the scene in the movie “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” in which the two main characters dance in their own world while the rest of the prom stares at them.

When it came time for his own prom senior year, Daniel decided to wear a dress. His mother took him dress shopping. Daniel admits he has strong style preferences, but deep down, he cared about his mom’s opinion When Daniel and his mother entered the dress store, Adena made a point to ask the younger saleswoman for help since she would probably be more “hip”, she says, and understanding. But, on his way into the dressing rooms, an older saleswoman stopped him. “Hi, you aren’t allowed back here,” the saleswoman said. “Why not?” Adena replied. “ He’s trying these on.” The saleswoman quickly gathered herself.  “Oh of course! Let me know what you need.” This comment wasn’t new for Daniel. During his summer at the Cherubs program a year earlier, he had gone shopping with friends at the mall, and a Zara saleswoman had told him he couldn’t enter the women’s dressing room. Atypical to his do what I want attitude, he listened to the saleswoman, walked away from the dressing room and waited for his friends outside Zara. He did not make a big fuss or comment about it, even when his friends finished at the store and met him outside.

At the dress shop, Daniel avoided the large mirror in the lobby, and instead hid away in his private room. He felt uncomfortable.  He slipped on a red two-piece gown with a halter neck top. He thought the breast paddings in it felt awkward and looked ridiculous. The color also didn’t suit him. But, it was the only dress style he liked. His mom asked if she could see it. Hesitant, Daniel walked out of the dressing room into the main room. People in the store complimented him, but he left without buying a dress. With his mother’s help, he found the same halter top gown online and in blue. The night of prom, Daniel did his own makeup even though his mom offered to hire a makeup artist. He applied silver eyeshadow to match the silver heels he bought. The heels were meant for a narrower, female foot, but Daniel squeezed in. He adored their sparkle. His mom lent him beaded bracelets to adorn his wrists, which he wore proudly. The only disappointment of the evening: he didn’t like any of the photos he took.

Daniel and his friend at prom Provided by Daniel

—————————

In room 119 of Jones Residential College, Daniel introduces me to Honey Bunny, his stuffed animal white rabbit. The rabbit belonged to his mother when she was young. In a conversation last year with her, Daniel learned his mother referred to Honey Bunny as a he. But Daniel talks about Honey Bunny as ‘she’.  “She just occupies a feminine role in my life,” he told me. “A lot of my closest relationships have been with girls so it made sense that my favorite stuffed animal would also be a girl.” Daniel places Honey Bunny on his bed amidst his six decorative pillows which are of various blue and gray fabrics: suede, fleece and corduroy. He contemplated the color scheme of his room for almost all of senior year leading up to college move in. 

Daniel’s professional headshot. Provided by Daniel

Daniel is a double major in theatre and computer science. His schedule is packed with rehearsals and attending office hours to solve his problem sets. He can work as late as 3 or 4 a.m. on homework, especially when he has an upcoming essay due. He’s a self-proclaimed procrastinator. Daniel gains energy as the his proceeds, and often after midnight, his roommate William Price told me, he’s dancing around the room, singing. Daniel usually needs to be up by 9:30 am for class, yet sleeps through his multiple alarms. Price wakes him up most mornings.

While Daniel prefers rooming with females, a randomized gender non-conforming match seemed too big of a risk since gender non-conforming could mean many different things for different people. He also had the general fear of rooming with someone he didn’t really know. He and Price knew each other from the Cherubs program and got along well, so they decided to be roommates. At the beginning of the winter, Daniel made a pledge to Price to be cleaner since his messiness got out of control in the fall. “I told him, I don’t think we can do it,”  Price told me. “But he corrected me and said we had to.” Later that night, after Daniel’s proclamation of his goal, he asked Price if it was okay if he threw a shirt on the floor, too lazy to put it in this laundry. But just for the night, Price recounts Daniel saying. Price is sad the two of them won’t be living together next year. He’ll be in his fraternity house. Daniel will be at the sorority house.

Except, when Daniel and Price planned for the sophomore year, Daniel didn’t know he did not have a guaranteed spot in the Pi Phi house. Upperclassmen get priority if they want to “live-in,” the term associated for members with a room in the house. Pi Phi works off of a point system where by attending certain sorority events and engaging in other on campus activities designated by the leadership board, a member can earn points that go towards earning a room in the house. Daniel admits that the leadership board mentioned everyone might not be able to live in during one of the new members’ initial meetings. Daniel says they did not stress the likelihood of that scenario or the importance of the housing points. On March 29, the house chair sent a message in the Pi Phi group me with a list of everyone’s Northwestern ID’s and housing points. Eager to see, Daniel began calculating his points in comparison to everyone else, soon realizing he had the lowest score at 22 points. The next lowest scores were between 30 and 44. The gap between his and others point was a bit comical. With the show he participated in that winter and rehearsals for a cappella, Daniel did not have enough time in his schedule to attend every Pi Phi event. It made sense. The next night at 7:50 p.m. a message subjected Housing 2020-2021 Update appeared in Daniel’s mailbox. He rolled his eyes. It read:

Dear Dani,

Unfortunately, based on the number of points you accrued this winter quarter, you will not be able to sign a Housing Contract for the 2020-2021 school year.

I’m sure this will come as a disappointment as I know all of MC ‘20 wants to live in, but sadly next year we simply do not have the capacity to house everyone who wants to live in. Living in the house is a great experience no matter your year in school, and is an opportunity all Pi Phis will have at least once in their three years as members. Living in is a privilege, which is why we base all housing related decisions on points, and why older members who have more points get priority for living in over new members. So, while it may be upsetting that you cannot live in your first year as a member, know that if you want to you will absolutely have the opportunity to live in as juniors, and that it can be an equally meaningful experience.

 Additionally, I hope you are staying safe and healthy at home! Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me over email or text if you have any questions.

Best, Maeve

The email bothered him. He already read the list of points. He didn’t needed another reminder that the house did not have a spot for him. He didn’t want an apology either. Daniel’s vision of sorority life shattered. What was the point if he could not live in? He went through sorority recruitment leading every conversation with his desire and excitement to live in a sorority house. He could live in junior year, but by then he envisions himself moving off campus with his theatre friends, he told me.

The options were limited. Most people already had a plan for their living preferences. So did Daniel, except his didn’t pan out. He had a little over two weeks to find people to live with before the Northwestern released housing draw order. Initially, Daniel thought he would ask around Pi Phi to figure out who else didn’t get have housing points. He was not the only one. He texted the other new members, “Hey, do you know who’s not living in the house next year?” Most responded something along the lines of, “No, but I hear one person for sure isn’t.” Because Daniel had been texting everyone it was only logical that the “one person” was him. Once he exposed this in his texts, he got responses reading, “OMG,” “No!”, and “I’m so sad.”

Price offered to live with him again if his fraternity living did not work out. He mentioned to Daniel that they should get an apartment together as juniors or seniors. Daniel confided to me though that he doesn’t envision a future where they would live together again. “Navigating freshman year together was so special,” Daniel says, “But I’m ready to move on and find my own community within Northwestern.” Luckily he did not have to rely on Price. He found two non Pi Phi friends to pursue a triple with him for the 2020-2021 school year. In case the draw numbers were not good enough between him and the two friends to get a triple, he thought about rooming with an incoming freshman he knew from home. No surprise in his lack of options though. The common thread: all the women eager to room with him were his friends within his theatre community at Northwestern and in Westchester.

As Daniel grappled with reorienting his living situation and subsequent changing of his Northwestern journey, he had to confront the complexity of his identity. Only three triples exist on south campus: two male and one female. Daniel would need to register himself as female within the housing system to be able to room with his two friends. “Being gender non-comforting is a philosophy that becomes tricky to navigate in situations like these. This idea was not lying,” he tells me. “I don’t believe in gender.” Uncharacteristically, Daniel emailed the housing department and even spoke on the phone with representatives to gather all of the information he could, state his case and make this new living situation become a reality.

On April 15th, fifteen minutes before the university published the housing draw order to the student body, Daniel received a text from Maeve, the housing chair at Pi Phi. A spot opened up for him in the house. In his Westchester basement, where he had been dancing that night to prep for his Zoom dance classes, his face lit up. He began jumping, instilled now with a new energy on top of the endorphins from his dance class choreography. He had just been talking to the friend who was an incoming freshman, and the text from Maeve came out of nowhere. He first called Morgan Small, one of his sorority sisters who he knew from fall since they were in the same a cappella group. “What? Is this a joke?” he said. “No! OMG, I’m so happy for you! Quick go text her back,” she said to Daniel over the phone. About ten minutes later, Daniel got the email with his Northwestern housing priority number. What he once anticipated, he now opened without any stress. His number was 1699. A sense of relief filled his body that he would not have to deal with the consequences of this low number.

After receiving so many texts of disappointment when Daniel told his Pi Phi friends he wouldn’t be living in the house, one would imagine the flood of excitement and eagerness to have him be their roommate. When Daniel asked Small and her planned roommate if they would want to be in a Pi Phi triple, the two friends did not respond warmly. “This is a big deal for us,” they told Daniel over the phone from their respective homes where they were quarantining. “We need to feel like we can be 100 percent ourselves in our room because at the end of the day, thats where we go back to.”

“In my head, I was thinking, so you don’t feel 100 percent about me,” Daniel told me. He questioned his relationship with the person he considered his closest friend in Pi Phi. Small called him after to say that she did not agree completely with some of what the other girl said in the phone call. She still would not be rooming with Daniel though. Just like when he found out he would not be living in the house, he began texting everyone to see which roommate pair would be willing to be in the Pi Phi triple with him. Some blatantly said they would not feel comfortable because of his sex. Others preferred not to live in a triple. The only new member who agreed to living with him had a roommate who for medical reasons couldn’t live in a triple, and felt bad breaking her promise to room with the other girl. “It’s crazy cause my two female theater friends were so happy about rooming with me, and then I got the totally opposite response from Pi Phi which was really frustrating. I don’t know, theater people are different. The one person wanting to live with me in Pi Phi is a theatre person,” Daniel says.

Due to coronavirus, Pi Phi won’t be choosing rooms until the summer. Daniel has two options. He could file a medical note to sorority nationals to obtain a single. This would mean he would take away a single from an upperclassman who worked hard to earn her points for it, and deserved it, he says. Option two would be that he could live in the guest bedroom on the first floor of the house, which has its own bathroom. Normally members do not live here. “Is that worth it for me? I’m already set a part a lot. It will seem either way, I’m getting special treatment. The conventional way of housing didn’t work so we will move them to a separate area because they are different,” Daniel says. Deciding on his living has been and will continue to be a test on his gender philosophy.