Jonathon Ohlinger, known to his friends as JD, never really wanted to join a fraternity. Just wasn’t for him. But after becoming close with a few kids that lived down the hall freshman year who were all going to rush, Ohlinger decided he’d give it a shot.

“We figured out that you can get a lot of free beer and free alcohol and free food if you tell the fraternity you’re rushing,” Ohlinger said. “So I ended up being on, like, 12 different rush lists.”

This was fall 2008, Ohlinger’s first semester at the University. And although he said he enjoyed the rush process — the free parties and booze, the friends he made — Ohlinger never seriously considered joining. Even after he and his friends received a bid to the same fraternity, Alpha Delta Phi, Ohlinger still opted against it.

It wasn’t that Ohlinger didn’t enjoy the people he had met — some of his best friends decided to join. But, rather, Ohlinger thought he wouldn’t be welcome in the fraternity once the brothers found out he was gay.

“I didn’t think the whole, being in a frat and being gay went together at all,” Ohlinger said. “(I didn’t know if) it would be OK with those people having guys come back to the frat … if it would be awkward in front of people, or if people would have a problem with it. So I just turned down my bid right up front. They gave it to me and I turned it down.”

The following day, a few of the ADPhi brothers called Ohlinger to ask why he’d turned down the bid. “Oh, I didn’t tell you guys, but I’m gay,” Ohlinger told the brothers. “And they were, like, ‘Oh, so why’d you turn it down?’ ”

But even after turning down the bid, he still hung out with some of the guys in the fraternity, still attended parties with them throughout the semester.

Throughout the rest of the fall semester, Ohlinger’s friends who were rushing the fraternity and other ADPhi brothers asked him to reconsider. They told him he should rush winter semester. “ ‘We all talked about it and no one cares,’ ” Ohlinger recalls the brothers telling him. “ ‘You’re our friend and we want you in the house.’ ”

But even with the continued encouragement to rush ADPhi, it wasn’t until near the end of the fall semester that Ohlinger seriously considered it.

“One of the older guys (in the fraternity) came up to me the end of the semester. He was always telling people he was homophobic, just that kind of person,” Ohlinger said. “And I forget what he said exactly, but he said ‘I just wanted to say I hope you rush the house, because you made me question what I always thought (about gay people).’

“So what I was thinking,” Ohlinger said, “what it really came down to was, if I could change the opinion of how 60 straight frat guys viewed one gay person, or the whole gay community, while I hung out with my best friends and had a really good time, why wouldn’t I do it? So I ended up deciding to do it.”

Ohlinger rushed ADPhi that winter and hasn’t looked back since. “It was this huge relief,” he said. “There were no negative outcomes. So many people surprised me by the things they said and they did.

“I’d do anything for a lot of the guys in there,” Ohlinger said of his brothers. “For me to keep something like that from them would be horrible and would defeat the whole purpose of what we stand for.”

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Ohlinger’s original sentiment about rushing a fraternity isn’t unique. His initial concern that fraternity life and being gay don’t mix resonates throughout the LGBT community.

However, Ohlinger’s experience is distinctive in his coming out before rushing the fraternity. Numerous other gay men who are in fraternities are either not out to their entire house or only out to a select few. Their stories shed light onto the experiences of LGBT men in fraternities, or those considering joining fraternities on campus, many of whom feel they have to change who they are or hide a part of themselves to fit in.

And while there are other Greek councils on campus — which surely grapple with similar issues — most of the officials and students quoted in this story are discussing the culture in the IFC fraternities as the most blatant examples of Greek life stereotypes.

The following names in this section have been changed to protect the anonymity of these individuals. Their reasons for wanting to remain anonymous are all the same — that most or all of their brothers don’t know they are gay.

Steve, a senior in a fraternity that is part of the Interfraternity Council, the collective group of over 29 fraternities on campus, is not yet out to his brothers.

Steve points to what he calls the “dude culture” as the reason many gay men are not comfortable coming out in their fraternities.

“You have a big social life and parties with sororities and hooking up with girls and all that type of stuff,” Steve said.