Virginia Gildersleeve - Sexuality

Sexuality

In her 1954 memoir, Gildersleeve poignantly protested the "particularly cruel and unwholesome discrimination against unmarried women," like herself, who chose to spend their lives living with other women. She attributed this trend to "the less responsible psychologists and psychiatrists of the day," who voiced "disrespect for spinsters in the teaching profession as ‘inhibited’ and ‘frustrated.’" Gildersleeve never identified herself as a lesbian, preferring instead the adjective "celibate.” For several decades she lived with companion Professor Caroline Spurgeon. Later she lived with Barnard English Professor Elizabeth Reynard.