The toxic nature of VCU Gamma Phi Beta exposed (stories from ex-members)

Just to start off, I want to say this is the experience that myself and other girls experienced while being in the organization. Not every single sister was treated this way or treated others in the ways listed later in the thread.

This is not easy for me to share. The majority of my freshman year was controlled by an organization that caused me so much hurt. I feel as though I lost such an important year of my life, but I was lucky to not experience the worst things from the organization.

To give some background, Gamma Phi was established at Virginia Commonwealth University in September of 2019. I was in the founding class, and extremely excited to join a new and exciting organization on campus. Little did I know it would be a horrible experience.

To start my story, I joined Gpb with 3 of my closest friends on campus. We joined because we wanted to be able to create a strong sisterhood, and positive experience for many different women at VCU. We were told we were going to be the start of something beautiful.

Throughout my time in gpb I witnessed not only racism and homophobia, but fat shaming, slut shaming, and so many other toxic things. I personally experienced slut shaming and was screamed at for trying to stand up for others.

Starting in October of 2019 when I decided to distance myself from a certain group (lets call them group A), I was told that I was bullying them by leaving group chats, alienating myself from my friends, and ruining my own mental health because I was moving away

from a situation in which I felt I was being hazed. This is not a rare occurrence. Later in the fall semester there was a mixer with a fraternity, in which I stayed after the mixer to hang out with a guy I had been talking to at the time. I was slut shamed by the president of the

organization for kissing a boy I liked after a mixer had ended. I realized her toxic nature, and decided to quit engaging. About a week later, a girl within the organization lost her father. I started a card with the entire chapter and stayed at the library for hours so everyone

had the chance to sign the card for a sister in mourning. The president continuously tried to remove the card from me to give to the sister in question, and when I refused, screamed at me over the phone for being a terrible sister.

This was just the start. I was blocked from gaining a position in the organization because I spoke up against our campus advisors, and was unable to gain a position until late in 2nd semester after more than half of my pledge class had dropped.

While in that position and trying to organize events, I was continuously blocked from leading any activities, despite it being in my job description. I felt more loved by girls in other organizations than my own sisters.

Once covid-19 hit, it went even more downhill. I was blocked by multiple sisters on social media, some of which prevented me from accessing important chapter messages and preventing me from gaining stronger relationships in the organization.

The breaking point of my time in gpb was when one of the few black sisters left in the sorority messaged into the chapter group chat about how she had reverse searched sisters names and the N-word on twitter, and found tons of examples of sisters actively using this derogatory

term. Some of these were surprising, and some were not. Some were girls I considered close friends at the time. I am a white woman who has never experienced racism towards myself, but I refuse to stand with an organization that does nothing to tackle this toxicity.

I didn't make the official decision to leave until I was called into a meeting with the President and our chapter advisors to discuss my "mean behavior" towards the President. She accused me of hating her, and treating her extremely negatively.

I will admit, I didn't like her. However, I didn't like her because I was aware of the racist comments she made about my friends, the bullying she directed towards others under the guise of friendship, and her willingness to slut shame sisters for no reason.

This is just part of my story within the organization. I reached out to 10 other girls who I knew had experienced negativity within the organizations, and this is their experiences.

A: "I never felt included, every time I went to. an event without someone I knew, no one was friendly, like they would just ignore me. I also don't like how they didn't include POC in the new recruitment, the fat shaming was disgusting, they talk about bringing up girls but-"

"-are so toxic.". A is just a title for one girl, but many others share this sentiment.

Z: "from the beginning there were cliques, and several girls had zero interest in branching out and meeting their 'sisters'. a lot of sisters bullied and fat-shamed other girls. there was a nutrition coach brought into chapter to talk about how we can lose weight, making girls-

- feel as though they weren't worthy of being in a sorority. When issues were brought to standards, they were never addressed, and were brushed under the rug. most of the BIPOC in the sorority left. For a 'diverse' sorority, they never posted the diversity on the ig-

-girls were discriminated or not represented because the didn't fit the typical sorority look. When I was given a position several girls stopped talking to me because they didn't like that I had the position"

H: "When participating in a fraternity competition, we did a dance and got third, and the whole chapter was a sore loser. I am a trained dancer, and they never added me to the dance group chat. I didn't know about the practices until you told me about them, and I had a breakdow-

-trying to find the room to practice. And then they had me... a whole dancer who can do real tricks... do the cotton eye Joe, and still get mad that we lost. It is not how the sorority should act as a whole. We also weren't even doing any philanthropy which is why I joined"

D: "At the info session for recruitment there was only one black girl in the book and her photo was used in every powerpoint we saw. At the first sisterhood event there was a table of black girls and they were taking photos, not being invited in them. There was no-

-POC in any of the "popular cliques" (group A). They basically forced all of the black girls to drop because of how we were treated. They reported us to standards for everything, things others get away with. My friend got told she didn't need to carry around mace because no guy-

- would touch her, and she was an embarrassment to the sorority for being "fat". My friends got denied at parties being at 'full capacity' but they let white girls in. sisters REPEATEDLY said the n-word, in public and private. Sisters fetishized black men and didn't stand up-

-for POC sisters. The president slut shamed sisters for making out with guys at parties, to their faces and in messages. The president reached out to members. and blocked them. When I dropped she promised we could stay in touch but blocked me the next day.-

The president and her friends (group A) went to parties on dry weekends despite other members getting in trouble for doing the same thing. A member of Exec screens hotted my private story about me being anxious about finances and how the chapter was being run.-

-this bid day they only recruited one mixed black girl, the rest were white/white-hispanic. Girls stopped being my friend because I got a position they wanted. Social media chair never accepted or posted photos of POC sisters or girls she wasn't friends with.-

-A member said she couldn't pay a fine because she needed groceries and they threatened to kick her out over $25.

-president told a black member she was "aggressive" for standing up about the lack of leadership in the chapter, when all she was asking was when our badges were coming in. We contacted a hazing hotline and gamma phi beta headquarters about bullying and had no response."

MM: "Joining this org I was so excited to be a part of something new on campus and make it unique and different from the rest, but I was absolutely wrong. There were many times I expressed my thoughts and was completely ignored and brushed to the side. I witnessed many instance-

-where I would try and talk with people just to get to know them and I was quickly shut down and ignored. it was so obvious who was liked in the org and who wasn't. There were cliques, drama, obvious discrimination, and in my eyes I would say hazing. It was so disorganized and-

-run so improperly, I had expressed many times that if my feelings were not taken into consideration then I would drop the organization but nobody took me seriously. I thought it would change but it didn't. I refuse to be a part of something that was supposed to 'inspire the -

-highest type of womanhood" which was not the case. I was also basically bribed into staying in the org to maintain diversity. I was paying on my own and was paid every 2 weeks, and I couldn't pay dues once because I wasn't paid for another week and was told that I knew the-

-rules for dues when signing up so I had to pay my dues on time so you need to figure it out. I refuse to be stressed about money over a sorority that could care less about me"

This is the end of my thread for now, but it isn't the end of this fight. Too many people have been hurt by certain people in this organization, and we refuse to be silent.