Just when you’d gotten the hang of LGBTQ, they go and triple the number of categories. Wesleyan University is now offering a “safe space” (formerly known as a “dorm”) for students of the LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM persuasions, or, for those who need things spelled out, for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Flexual, Asexual, Genderfuck, Polyamourous, Bondage/Disciple, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism student acolytes. If you are so heteronormative as to see the word “FAG” in the center of that jumble, you will surely not be allowed into the “safe space,” known as Open House.
At this rate of exponential increase in student gender identities, there will soon not be enough paper in college bureaucrats’ offices to provide official recognition and “safety.” Parents concerned that their little darlings may come home with bruises and abrasion from the whips and leather handcuffs need not worry, though. This proliferation of in-your-face sexual identities is all posturing, just part of the dance between students desperate to find one last means of being transgressive and college bureaucrats eager to show their sensitivity and to justify their six-figure salaries. Students who should be studying European history and the roots of the novel—would that such subjects were still taught—are instead combing the farthest reaches of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Manual for ways to distinguish themselves. By posing what they hope will be rejected demands on their administrations, they seek only to prove that they are living a life of oppression.
Despite the seemingly all-inclusive aspirations of the LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM acronym, the university recognizes that not every student will feel comfortable in this new “safe space.” To accommodate still further variations in student interest, Wesleyan’s Office of Residential Life offers a variety of unique living options. Farm House provides students “interested in the politics and culture of food production and sustainability a place to cultivate a mutualistic relationship with the earth that provides them with their lunch everyday.” Residents of Earth House can “espouse the values and principles of social ecology, deep ecology, and eco-feminism” while simultaneously “challenging traditional social structures and replacing them with new, creative and egalitarian alternatives.” African-American upperclassmen are welcome to apply to live in Malcolm X House, where they can dedicate themselves to “the exploration and celebration of the cultural heritage of the African Diaspora, both for themselves and for the larger Wesleyan community.” Turath House is for Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim students looking “to articulate their views and express and affirm their culture and religion without fear of harassment and discrimination.”
With so many marginalized groups on campus, one wonders who is left to do the discriminating and oppressing.