Fine By Me was an organization in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, and now a project of

Atticus Circle Atticus Circle was a non-profit organization whose mission was to educate and mobilize straight people to advance equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender partners, parents, and their children. With the national office located i ...

, with a mission to give voice to friends and supporters of

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

, and

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

(

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

) people. The organization developed a project to print T-shirts bearing the phrase "gay? fine by me" and then worked with communities to distribute and wear the T-shirts to show

acceptance Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it or protest it. The concept is close in meaning to ...

and support for LGBT people and publicly demonstrate against

homophobia Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitude (psychology), attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, h ...

. The organization began at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in spring 2003 after The Princeton Review's college guide ranked Duke number 1 in the category of "Alternative Lifestyles not an alternative." Fine By Me started when, during a dinner conversation, ten friends, both gay and straight, came up with the idea to distribute free T-shirts with an anti-homophobic message The T-shirts were order and distributed by Lucas Schaefer, a junior, and Leila Nesson Wolfrom, a graduate student both at Duke University, and their friends. In less than two weeks, the group distributed nearly 2,000 T-shirts to students, faculty and staff. Even then university president, Nannerl 'Nan' Overholser Keohane, wore a T-shirt., Within two years, Nesson Wolfrom had coordinated the distribution of more than 14,000 "gay? fine by me" shirts. The idea continued to spread by word of mouth to schools all over the country including to traditionally conservative and religious institutions. When the student government backed by the board of trustees for the University of Notre Dame denied recognition of a gay straight alliance on campus, the students responded by pulling together the resources to purchase and hand out 3000 orange gay? fine by me t-shirts. Joe Dickmann, who was a board member of the unrecognized OutreachND said, " headministration...gave us no support and repeatedly tried to sabotage our efforts...so we worked through email and word of mouth odeliver.. 2300 T-shirts by years end." Of the decision Nesson Wolfrom would say that the students "couldn't change the rules, but they could completely overwhelm as a visible presence." Since its founding in 2003, the organization has expanded its focus to include churches and synagogues, local civic groups,

PFLAG PFLAG is the United States' first and largest organization uniting parents, families, and allies with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+). PFLAG National is the national organization, which provides support to ...

chapters, businesses, and other community groups and organizations. For groups wanting to show support, custom T-shirts are printed with a custom organizations name in place of "us" in "gay? fine by us". In September 2008, Fine By Me became a special project of Atticus Circle.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Fine By Me
— official website
Fine By Me on MySpace
Defunct LGBT organizations in the United States Organizations established in 2003

See also

References

External links