The Mac Weekly

"In-depth identity analysis aside, the word "gay," to me, a queer woman of color, communicates gender normativity and homo-normative assimilationism."

WOW. This sentence, along with the rest of your opinion article, is the biggest load of BS I've ever read.

And in regards to the bathrooms, you're setting a huge double standard. You say it's discriminatory to segregate on the basis of sex, but then you also make the claim that those who feel uncomfortable in the shower should simply learn to handle it. Why is it wrong to feel "threatened" in the shower by the opposite sex if it isn't wrong to feel "threatened" by the lack of unisex bathrooms? Who's to say that people who feel uncomfortable with segregated bathrooms shouldn't just learn to handle it, as well?

The worst part of your article, though, is when you write, "if you don't know what cisgender is, you've just proven my point." Who the hell do you think you are to tell me that I've "proven your point" and am a part of some problem just because I'm not familiar with a word you learned in your 300-level queer/racial/feminist/gender/cultural/postmodern studies class?

And then you criticize the gay community for conforming to "homonormativity" just because they want to be accepted? Wow. This is a new low, even for Macalester. While there are gay rights advocates out there protesting, fighting anti-gay legislation, and actually working to make things happen, you sit around in your little Macalester bubble and whine about heteronormativity.

If anyone sets the gay community back, it's you.

This isn't about marginalizing the work that mainstream gay and lesbian advocates are doing. It's about issuing a critique of movements that are leaving people and communities behind.

Bathrooms, and feeling safe in accommodations in general, aren't a zero-sum game. It's not gender-normative or cisgender women's safety versus that of gender-variant people. There's enough -- resources, good will -- to make sure everyone feels safe.

And more broadly, this isn't about mainstream gay and lesbian advocates versus "queer/racial/feminist/gender/cultural/postmodern studies class" types, as you call them. Again, there is enough for "protesting, fighting anti-gay legislation, and actually working to make things happen" and for people like Danni -- who, by the way, *are* activists and *are* contributing to change and political dialogue -- to do what they do. It's not like there's just some little piece of equality sitting out there somewhere, and either the mainstream gender normative gays are going to get it or the genderqueer people are. Everyone's liberation is tied up in everyone else's!

"White gay men want their in to privilege and are willing to further alienate other marginalized people so they might be seen as "normal."
As a gay white man, I find this extreme generalization not only offensive, but blatantly racist and homophobic. You cannot boil people down to whatever privilege they may or may not have or seek, and then make a blanket villification to top it off. It is not your right to put a group of people in a box and dub them how you see fit.

"gender normativity and homo-normative assimilationism."

I kind of just wandered back into the world of Mac... remembering the "good old days" of the late 70's early 80's, when I was here.

I thought I'd see some idealistic, perhaps a bit uptight young people (like I was, no doubt).

But whoah...

This is the most ridiculous piece of jargon-infested garbage I have ever read. In my whole life, ever. And the "author" has the nerve to chide people for not being familiar with made-up terms that would make Stephen Hawking rise out of his wheel chair and scream "okay, it was all a gimmic".

I prefer the transnormative reducto-flatulanciatic ("of or pertaining to the mass consumption of fava beans") wisdom I used to hear at the bar at O'Garas on a Sundey morning after a night on the top steps of the stadium after a forty-fifth or sixth football loss in a row.

Lighten up "Danni". Really.

A true pseudo intellectual you are, your article is littered with the unneccasary use of "impressive", all you achieve by doing this is confuse readers, i just lost a bit more faith in humanity reading this.

Also, saying "if you don't know what that means, you just proved my point" is unbelievably stupid of you. The only thing you proved in that situation is that i didn't know the meaning of said word, nothing else, please try to put forward arguments that make fucking sense you absolute moron.

*"impressive" words*