Wanted to post a short post and direct you to a story published in the National Review. If you can get past the inherent bias of that site, check out the post detailing efforts at Wesleyan to publicize their inclusivity efforts.
Wesleyan Now Offering LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM Housing (Not a Typo)
This quote comes from the Wesleyan site: (emphasis added is mine)
“The goals of Open House include generating interest in a celebration of queer life from the social to the political to the academic,” the web page states. “Open House works to create a Wesleyan community that appreciates the variety and vivacity of gender, sex and sexuality.”
Sparked by successes toward full equality in the arena of marriage rights, conservative push back is already fairly insane in its pitch, but really just beginning. (We haven’t seen the worst of it yet!) Everything LGBTQ is about to be drug through the mud in any way possible as some seek to maintain the status quo and if possible push LGBTQ persons even further into the closet.
Too often the focus is on either “Gay Rights” or “Sexual Identity and Gender Expression” as broad categories or issues. Even more often, the debate turns around a binary of “Gay or Straight,” which fails in huge ways to address the reality of orientation, expression, and behavior. The reality is that both orientation and identity fall along spectrums. Sexual orientation, sexual expression, and sexual desire. Gender awareness, gender visioning and exploration,and gender freedom. The Wesleyan approach is almost a harkening back to the beginning of the movement which was all about liberation from rigid heteronormative expectations and rules!
In a way, the Wesleyan rainbow alphabet is so over the top and contains every possible letter, that it encourages you to forget about the labels and the identities, and see the bigger issue which is ultimate inclusivity. And that message, one of ultimate inclusivity and welcoming is the greatest weapon against heteronormativity. The status quo of power over some identities requesters a stratification of groups all battling to get a little more power. The Wesleyan approach says, power isn’t about identity, but about the acceptance and respect shown to everyone.
LGBT, GLBTQ, or LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM, or any collection of letters is not the name of a community, nor a battle about visibility. LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM screams to everyone to stop getting focused on identity politics and refocus on one clear message– Open House (the name of the dorm) is a place where there is respect and a welcome for all. Imagine if our whole society was LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM?
PS: If you don’t believe that the issue here is about inclusivity versus heteronormative exclusivity, check out the way this story is getting trashed by this Christian publication.