A student who was born female felt perfectly comfortable identifying as a man at Wellesley College — until people said he shouldn’t be class diversity officer because he is now a white male.
Timothy Boatwright was born a girl, and checked off the “female” box when applying to the Massachusetts all-women’s school, according to an article in the New York Times. But when he got there, he introduced himself as a “masculine-of-center genderqueer” person named “Timothy” (the name he picked for himself) and asked them to use male pronouns when referring to him.
And, by all accounts, Boatwright felt welcome on campus — until the day he announced that he wanted to run for the school’s office of multicultural affairs coordinator, whose job is to promote a “culture of diversity” on campus.
But some students thought that allowing Boatwright to have the position would just perpetuate patriarchy. They were so opposed, in fact, that when the other three candidates (all women of color) dropped out, they started an anonymous Facebook campaign encouraging people not to vote at all to keep him from winning the position.
“I thought he’d do a perfectly fine job, but it just felt inappropriate to have a white man there,” the student behind the so-called “Campaign to Abstain” said.
“It’s not just about that position either,” the student added. “Having men in elected leadership positions undermines the idea of this being a place where women are the leaders.”
Boatwright told the Times that his high-school friends knew he was transgender, but he identified himself as female on the application to Wellesley because he didn’t want his mom to know. Of course, Wellesley is also a female school, and “it seemed awkward to write an application essay for a women’s college on why you were not a woman,” he said.
lol
It’s the old story of the left: a culture of diversity means both Marxists and Trotskyists are tolerated. For now, at least.
Maybe if no-one is elected class diversity officer, they can see if the position is needed at all.
perhaps opening the school to males should be considered as part of the diversity increasing process?
“Having men in elected leadership positions undermines the idea of this being a place where women are the leaders.”
…because leadership is misunderstanding the problem, and abandoning the election process in favour of bitching and backstabbing anonymously.
A majority of women put the boot into sole identifying-as-male. It’s the great dream of feminism, doncherknow.
Niels.
“perhaps opening the school to males should be considered as part of the diversity increasing process?”
Possibly, but bricking up the doors and windows with them all inside and painting a bloody big plague warning on the outside would be a simpler and quicker solution.
“student politics are so petty because the stakes are so small” – I heard this attributed to Kissinger but it was probably someone else
He should convert to Islam. Then we could have the best election ever.
Lol
There are cultures in the more remote parts of the Andaman Islands which I could more closely identify with than these lunatics.
If ‘he’ converted to Islam, anyone who opposed him could instantly be branded as Islamophobes and expelled. He’d walk the election.
The scandal is that a tiny minority of misandrists have pretended to speak for the whole school. “by all accounts, Boatwright felt welcome on campus — until the day he announced that he wanted to run for the school’s office of multicultural affairs coordinator”. So the vast majority of fellow students were happy to accept her/him.
The anonymous campaign on facebook supplied just one person to talk anonymously to the press.
If a male launched an anonymous misogynist facebook campaign, he would be arrested but one nasty female can carry out a mirror-image and receive no sanction.
The implication is that the other three candidates thought “Timothy” was a better symbol if diversity than themselves. They should be congratulated on making a principled decision.
Not…enough…POPCORN!
“Popcorn” is a gendered term, containing as it does a direct oppressive reference to patriarchy. Henceforth, only “momcorn” will be available at the university.
NYT report it slightly differently
“Along with Timothy, three women of color indicated their intent to run for the seat. But when they dropped out for various unrelated reasons before the race really began, he was alone on the ballot. An anonymous lobbying effort began on Facebook, pushing students to vote “abstain.”
IMO – when there is only a choice of one,,, abstaining is a legitimate choice. (I conceded it does kind of depend whether they really did drop out for unrelated reasons)
Reading the NYT article: I can see other reasons why these guys aren’t so popular in an all woman’s college… even so the democracy part should deal with that.
“Last spring, Alex Poon won Wellesley’s 131-year-old hoop-rolling race, an annual spirit-building competition among seniors. Alex’s mother was the hoop-rolling champion of the Class of ’82 and had long ago taught her daughters the ways of the hoop,”
Sorry.. I should have read the whole thing rather than multiposts, but this is so fascinating…
“Jesse Austin noticed the paradox when he returned to campus with a man’s build and full swath of beard stubble after nearly two years on testosterone. “That was the first time in my life I was popular! People were clamoring to date me.” another reason why these guys might inspire a campaign… the guess is its their rivals in the Judean peoples popular front…rather than the ordinary rank and file wesleyites.
Why is there only one diversity officer?
Flatcap Army: that’s Sayre’s Law. There have been similar sentiments expressed by others, including by Kissinger.
This does act as a rather useful signalling mechanism: if presented with a stack of CVs, look to see if one of them is from a Wellesley College graduate and if so reject it without further examination. It saves so much time.
““I thought he’d do a perfectly fine job, but it just felt inappropriate to have a white man there,”
Funnily enough I adopt precisely this approach vis a vis my life in general. I have a female Comanche doctor, a deaf Liberian accountant, and a Filipino lesbian solicitor. I will never knowingly fly in an aircraft piloted by a white man either.
Alex’s mother … had long ago taught her daughters the ways of the hoop,”
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
The concerning thing is that these people have the vote and because their likely employment upon graduation will be in jobs which are not required and have productivity rates near zero or indeed, it could be argued, negative, they have plenty of time to change the law to suit their twisted agenda. As Tim says, raving lunatics, but they are growing in power and influence by the hour.
These places are the Madrassas of Progressivism. In all seriousness, this isn’t funny at all. I often seriously wonder whether the benefits of academia are worth the costs.
@ Ian B
@ Van Patten
@ Bloke in Costa Rica
@Glen Dorran
Is there any evidence that there was more than one “individual” behind this campaign?
One vicious bully is degrading Wellesley’s reputation and that of the whole female population of the USA’s universities.
If iot is more than one but less than a million, my comment still applies, albeit with slightly less force.
On a personal note, I first encountered a pacifist 60 years ago bit he didn’t require other people to suffer from bullying: he just accepted it for himself. At that age I had not developed his understanding of philosophy so I just stopped the bully, but girl bullies were much harder to spot and stop than boys.
Never marry a girl who is not an initiate of the ways of the hoop, is my advice.
Ian B,
“I often seriously wonder whether the benefits of academia are worth the costs.”
the problem with stories like this is that they’re really very much Man Bites Dog. You don’t hear much about the people at Cambridge who are studying biomechanics and electrical engineering, who will get degrees and stop people dying from cancer or make computer networks faster.
That said, the more data I get about academia, the more I realise that “a degree” is fucking worthless currency. You’ve got to know about the location and what’s in the course. Many of them are just a scam for extracting money from rubes.
Ian B – ““Popcorn” is a gendered term, containing as it does a direct oppressive reference to patriarchy. Henceforth, only “momcorn” will be available at the university.”
Momcorn is blatantly heteronormative as well as implying that a woman’s only value is as a reproductive tool for the patriarchy.
From now on, the only acceptable choice will be dykecorn.
I for one admire the rigour and consistency of their position. Sure it is insane. But if they really think that putting on a flannel shirt and calling yourself Timothy makes you a White man, it makes you a White man.
Dykecorn?
How would you grow corn in a dyke?
Jack C – “Dykecorn? How would you grow corn in a dyke?”
Well there was that Colombian girl who was growing a potato …
(No, don’t google it)
Per Wellesley College’s web site, tuition, room and board is $59,038 for the 2014-2015 school year.
One can only imagine the number of poor and working class women who manage to attend Wellesley at that price.
It’s interesting to note that it’s always the least diverse people in the least diverse institutions that obsess over diversity. After all, what the story is really about is the refusal of leftist/progressive enclave to accept a result that is outside of the prescribed norm of the leftist/progressive ideal.
Ian B: “Madrassas of Progressivism” has been duly noted and added to my compendium of Top Phrases.