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Nancy Kelly’s activism and work are a study in resilience. She was born in Denver in 1958, somewhat younger than her four siblings. The age gap left her feeling disconnected, but when her family moved to an affluent Maryland suburb of DC, Nancy found the community she craved at school. Even as a kid, Nancy knew she had crushes on other girls, but since she thought being “gay” was uniquely for men, she didn’t have the vocabulary for her feelings until college.
She enrolled at Virginia Tech and was very comfortable on campus as two of her siblings had attended the university before her. As a freshman, she had assumed she was heterosexual. She even heckled a panel discussion when gay men came into her sociology class as she didn’t realize that anyone she knew was gay, she thought gay people were only men, and she was completely unaware of her own sexuality. It was at the beginning of her sophomore year, where, after an experience with a classmate that she realized she was a lesbian. In one moment, her entire life made sense to her.
After several difficult experiences on campus, Nancy became involved with the Women’s Collective (a Lesbian group) and was the first Lesbian co-president of the Gay Student Alliance. She worked to encourage further solidarity in the gay and lesbian community, in defiance of Virginia Tech’s general atmosphere of ambient homophobia. Nancy and the GSA planned a Gay Awareness Week for the winter of 1979, including an event called Denim Day. In Nancy’s words: “The message was very simple: support gay rights, wear denim.” Nancy hoped that by picking a fabric that everyone owned, more people would participate, but she suspected correctly that Tech’s straight students would still not be receptive.
As soon as the announcement was published in the student paper, Blacksburg erupted: the paper got over 150 letters ranging from mockery to explicit threats, and local merchants reported record sales in “anything else but denim.” On the day of the event (January 17) Nancy remembers that it was “a sea of corduroys,” and that she was one of the few people daring to wear jeans. The GSA was banned from repeating the event, with administrators saying that they had “embarrassed the university throughout the state.” The GSA (and Nancy) moved off campus for the remainder of her time at Tech for their own safety. To top it off, the University refused to further fund the GSA, asking if the gay community was “recruiting,” which made Nancy vow to “never donate a dime to Tech.”
Nancy graduated in 1981 and worked in media in nearby Roanoke, Virginia, where she got involved in the local lesbian community. They organized parties and bolstered the community with Lesbian joy, called First Friday, in the face of homophobic oppression, including running lesbian retreats in the 1980s that served women from all across the South. Nancy later moved to Durham, North Carolina, adopting two daughters with her then-partner, with whom she still co-parents. She now lives in Durham.
In 2019, Nancy heard about the opening of a new LGBTQ+ Resource Center on Tech’s campus. This heartening development, paired with the encouragement of her students at Duke University, inspired her to pitch a 40th anniversary Denim Day Do-Over. In stark contrast to the threats and crackdowns of 1979, the 2019 Denim Day was celebrated in the Tech and Blacksburg communities. Nancy and other queer alumni came back to campus in their denim and were stunned to see LGBTQ+ Hokies finally being celebrated and honored by their peers. After 40 years, Nancy finally got her win for Denim Day, making Virginia Tech a safer place for queer people.
