LGBTQ Breaking News Service

To the broader Princeton community, 

We write with concern over the merger between the LGBT Center and the Women*s Center into the new Center for gender and sexuality. We are two queer-of-color alums who attended Princeton University from 2010–2014. Dixon Li is an US-born Chinese-Diasporic Transfem and Estela Diaz is a Queer Latina. During all four years we attended Princeton, we were active participants and student leaders through the LGBT Center and, in Estela’s case, the Women*s Center as well. We write echoing many of the structural issues raised by the Fund for Reunion and the Bisexual, Transgender, Gay and Lesbian Alumni Association (FFR-BTGALA) in an earlier letter to Rochelle Calhoun and LaTanya Buck. As young alums we want to add our personal experiences with a particular emphasis on the urgent issues of intersectional identity which this new merger elides.

It is disturbing that this merger was pursued on the 50th anniversary of the Women*s Center, and in a pandemic year when the Princeton community was already fractured and when opportunities for student organizing and resistance were attenuated. Amid broader calls for particularizing the racial mattering of Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous communities and the gendered mattering of Women and Trans communities, the University is now pursuing a platform of homogenized “inclusion” rather than allocating additional resources to the particular needs of distinct University populations. Having read about the experience of current queer students during the pandemic, we wonder if celebratory rhetoric now matters more than student experience.

This merger erases the history of student activism and labor that produced the two distinct centers; the merger makes it seem as if social difference and adversity have been solved. A single center for gender and sexuality, rather than additional centers bearing distinct names and sources of funding, falsely signals that the issues we spent so much of our Princeton careers raising have been adequately addressed.

As LGBT Peer Educators, we emphasized, year after year, to underclassmen and RCAs, all the ways that Princeton, despite being “welcoming,” was still not a place that helped LGBTQ students thrive or have near-equal experiences to their cis- and straight- counterparts. That it was unpaid undergraduates who spent upwards of 30 hours a year — often exposing incredibly vulnerable personal stories — making LGBTQ issues visible to a broader campus when RCA’s and college staff are all financially compensated and trained to support student experience is telling. 

The numerous panels we spoke on, our conversations with administrators, and the social events we threw tried to laboriously make the space we knew would not exist otherwise. While it may have looked like, to the superficial observer, that some of these activities were “celebrations of diversity,” these activities instead were meant to do the political work of signaling queer existence, presence, and support for students who we know, from personal experience and conversations with friends, hardly felt included on even the best days. 

It took over four years of advocacy between three different iterations of the LGBT Task Force, one of which saw Dixon co-chairing, to secure gender-neutral bathrooms and gender-neutral housing so queer undergraduates could feel safe and un-harassed going to the bathroom and sleeping at night. Estela worked year after year through the Women*s Center and the Pride Alliance to make sure programming expanded to address racialized questions of citizenship, religion, and class.

What we advocated for was an understanding that there are crucial differences within experiences of gender and sexuality and these should always be explicitly marked out, addressed, and supported. We constantly asked for more because what the University seemed to deem as enough could not even meet the needs that we, as two busy undergraduates juggling advocacy on top of intense academic workloads and social life, knew of. We are certain there was, and still is, so much more to be heard.

We therefore feel that this merger has notes of a false celebration of progress and should be noted as such. This feels to us like an austerity measure rather than any kind of additional investment on the part of the University. In fact, the last time staffing and budget gains were made for all three centers (including the Fields Center) was in the fall of 2015 after the Black Justice League protests that, in part, advocated for additional resources around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The new Center’s structure undercuts these gains rather than elevating the previous existing director positions to leadership teams that wield power across larger segments of campus life.

Women and non-men-identified people deserve specific spaces to process experiences and articulate needs, as do the various experiences that exist under the LGBTQ umbrella. Collapsing the existing separate centers into one obscures how these kinds of affinity spaces allow for a deeper and necessary sense of vulnerability in conversation and community. Women cannot always feel candid when non-women are around. Queer people still feel marginalized when heterosexuality is overpresent. Trans people struggle to find voice, expression, and safety when their validity is constantly questioned. Separate space is not divisive space, but is in fact, the most basic level of recognition that demonstrates social difference is actually seen as particular and important.

The notion that a top-down instated conglomeration does the required political and social work of student diversity centers perverts the basis of coalitional and intersectional politics, as well as the reality of our lived experiences. Historically, these kinds of projects emerge not from an assumption of a priori sameness, but come about only after different social groups can come to clarity on their differences and then locate the similar structures that produce their oppression. We all have experiences of gender and sexuality; what we do not all have are the experiential oppressions of homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and racism. 

The very name of this center effaces the political histories of agitation that have produced these campus spaces, neutralizing these histories with academic jargon that potentially alienates students. It further obscures the kinds of exclusions that still have yet to be remedied. By trying to forcefully create “inclusivity,” this conglomeration avoids dealing with issues that years of student activism have raised. What the new Center presents as safe space is actually a politically de-fanged amnesiac space. This space disservices students looking for precise language to describe their experiences of oppression. Worse, it obstructs the difficult and necessary process of forging forms of community across forms of social difference and explicitly naming the kinds of underrepresented, stigmatized, and silenced experiences that dominant campus culture is reluctant to acknowledge. 

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Perhaps our concerns come too late in a process that was highly opaque and feels predetermined from the start. But we write with the knowledge of how the institutional turnover of student activism often means histories of resistance just disappear. A Center for Gender and Sexuality makes it look like the work that we, fellow student activists, and staff members like Debbie Bazarsky, Matthew Armstead, and Andy Cofino from the LGBT center, and Amada Sandoval from the Women*s Center, did was all towards the goal of merging. This is untrue. What we advocated for was more resources to address the diverse needs of students who frequented both centers. We were connected to previous generations of student activists, and the peers that formed the support networks that the University did not provide, by the staff at these Centers who stayed for more than the four years we remained as undergraduates. 

With reduced staffing and fewer directors (indeed, both director positions for the two centers have been vacant for well over a year now), who will remember and pass on institutional knowledge and histories of student organizing and activism? As a younger generation of Princetonians arrive with a much sharper sense of social justice than we remember, many of our peers having at their age, it does not seem sensible to merge rather than proliferate. 

Our time at Princeton was anything but easy — our social, political, and intellectual worlds were deprioritized, given the campus and curriculum’s historical bias towards a wealthy, white, cis-male, culture. The LGBT Center and the Women*s Center are where we acquired a political education on a very a-political campus. It is also, importantly, where we were able to come into contact with other students who were concerned with the visibility of a variety of distinct experiences of social marginalization. It was there that we were able to meet University staff who cared about us as people with underrepresented experience that urgently needed to find a voice and not just students passively receiving knowledge from experts. Under the guise of ushering in a “new era”, the new Center for gender and sexuality erases these distinct experiences and leaves a sanitized and more palatable shadow in its wake. 

Sincerely,

Dixon Li ’14 (they/she) PhD Candidate of English at University of Pennsylvania, (Princeton LGBT Task Force Student Co-Chair 2012–2014, LGBT Peer Educator 2011–2014) 

Estela Diaz ’14 (she), PhD Candidate of Sociology at Columbia University (Women’s Center Intern 2010-2014, Pride Alliance Co-President 2012–2013, LGBT Peer Educator 2012–2014)

Editor’s note: The Los Angeles Blade published a Spanish version of this story on April 30.

SAN MIGUEL, El Salvador — A gunshot to the back on April 24 cost Zashy Zuley del Cid her life.

The murder took place while she was working in an area in the city of San Miguel in which sex workers gather, according to the information that COMCAVIS Trans shared with the Blade. This fact outraged the organization, which is based in the Salvadoran capital, and Colectivo Perlas de Oriente leaders with whom del Cid was working.

COMCAVIS Trans, for its part, issued a statement in which it stressed LGBTQ people in El Salvador should enjoy the right to life, integrity and personal security.

“We suffer attacks for the simple fact of having a different sexual orientation or gender identity, which each person expresses with different patterns and gender roles,” COMCAVIS Trans Executive Director Bianca Rodríguez told the Blade.

“Zashy is one more victim of that prejudice and hatred of which we are victims,” said Rodríguez, recalling del Cid’s work as a grassroots activist in San Miguel that she had been doing since 2017. “We do not want violence to continue against LGBT people, and it is for that reason we have made the corresponding call to the appropriate authorities to be diligent with investigations and (for us) to be recognized as citizens with equal rights and guarantees.”

The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has also condemned del Cid’s murder.

UNHCR in an article it published explained that it, along with COMCAVIS Trans, in 2020 provided del Cid with assistance and housing after criminal elements forcibly displaced her from her home. Del Cid was enrolled in a training program for entrepreneurs and both organizations were giving her support from the framework of protection and protecting the livelihoods of internally displaced people in the country.

Del Cid would have been able to work in a beauty salon in order to support herself.

Community leaders in San Miguel were more united during del Cid’s wake that lasted two days, but Rodríguez told the Blade the fact her family buried her with a masculine gender expression upset them.

“That process was difficult because the family did not want any LGBT people to attend, but a relative eventually allowed Colectivo Perlas de Oriente to attend,” Rodríguez added.

“It is a reprehensible fact, especially because the police have not conducted a credible investigation of the case,” she added. “It is worrying because the prosecutors didn’t even know the victim’s name.”

COMCAVIS Trans figures indicate more than 600 LGBTQ people have been reported killed in El Salvador since 1993.

Statistics also indicate 151 LGBTQ people between 2018 and September 2019 said they were forcibly displaced from their homes. Trans women account for 67.5 percent of these cases, while gay men account for 17.2 percent.

Del Cid’s colleagues will remember her as a woman who was committed to bettering herself with a business through which she could help other trans women get a job, but they will not forget their fear that her case will be another one in El Salvador that will be forgotten forever. That is why LGBTQ organizations will continue to call upon the appropriate Salvadoran authorities to investigate and bring justice for LGBTQ victims of violence.

Later on in the interview, McGregory elaborated on his decision making of accepting the part, stating that he wouldn’t have taken the role if it had solely focused on Halston’s sexuality.

“If it had been a story about Halston’s sexuality more, then maybe it’s right that gay actors should play that role,” he stated.

“But in this case – and I don’t want to sound like I’m worming out of this, because it’s something I did think a lot about – I suppose ultimately I felt like it was just one part of who he was.”

When it came to casting McGregory in the part series, creator Ryan Murphy stated that he was “the only choice.”

“The thing that Ewan got about Halstonm was that Halston had a vision in his mind of who he wanted to be in life. He was self-created,” he said.

Roy Halston Frowick was an openly gay acclaimed fashion designer that rose to international fame in the 1970s. His influence and business strategies redefined American fashion.

The Netflix series will follow the legendary fashion designer and his rise within the fashion industry.

The official synopsis reads: “The limited series Halston follows the legendary fashion designer (McGregor), as he leverages his single, invented name into a worldwide fashion empire that’s synonymous with luxury, sex, status and fame, literally defining the era he lives in, 1970’s and ’80s New York – until a hostile take over forces him to battle for control of his most precious asset… the name Halston itself.”

The ensemble cast includes Gian Franco Rodriguez as Victor Hugo, Krysta Rodriguez as Liza Minnelli, Bill Pullman as David Mahoney, Kelly Bishop as Eleanor Lambert, Vera Farmiga as Adele, Rebecca Dayan as Elsa Peretti, Sullivan Jones as Ed Austin and Rory Culkin as Joel Schumacher.

Daniel Minahan, who is known for his work on True Blood, and The L Word, will be directing and executive producing the series.

Halston is set to premiere on Friday, 14 May 2021.

The Internet’s Queen of TMI came out as gay last week. Nadia Bokody had openly talked about her carnal life and sexual empowerment for almost a decade until she decided to open up about being gay and her struggle to come to terms with her sexual orientation.

“I know this is going to be incredibly hard for some people to understand. After all, I’ve spent most of my career writing about having sex with men! However, a huge amount of self reflection, loads of therapy and exploring my sexuality through dating women helped me come to a realisation that had been brewing inside me for many years, and that is that I am gay,” Nadia said.

“I’ve kissed women. I’ve been on the odd date with women. I’ve had sex with women. But, I guess this is showing the shame I had…I would never tell anyone about these encounters. Which is ironic because I share everything about my sex life. My entire sex life is on the internet,” reflected Nadia.

‘I thought that there was something wrong with me’

“I know this is going to be hard for a lot of you to understand- I have spent so much of my career writing about having sex with men and talking about it, making videos about giving head, you know?”

But Nadia explained that it all stemmed from her unhealthy relationship with her father and little to no media representation of the gay community.

Growing up in a Catholic household had convinced her that her goal was to find a man who would love and marry her. This led her to feel repulsed at her feelings for women.

“When I started having sexual or romantic feelings towards women, I thought that there was something wrong with me. Or that I was a pervert or something…I also had a lot of sex I dissociated from. But I felt compelled to keep up an image of a sex-loving girl who was totally boy crazy in my work over the years for fear I’d look like a fraud if I changed course,” she said.

Women literally be out here thinking it’s ok to just slide into my DMs now I’ve come out as gay. And to that, all I have to say is: you’re damn right it’s ok. Thanks for making me blush ladies.

— Nadia Bokody (@nadiabokody) April 29, 2021

Coming Out Is Daunting

Talking about sexcapades on the internet takes courage, but coming out as gay after years of affirming to a certain sexual orientation can be even more daunting. Nadia was in a monogamous relationship with her boyfriend Kai until they decided to explore with other women. However, neither of them perceived relationships between women to be legitimate like relationships between men and women.

“When I was going on dates with women, even though I was telling myself it was just because I was sexually attracted to them and we were just going to hook up, I found myself feeling more…I found myself imagining what a future would be like with a woman. I never let myself imagine that before,” she admitted.

Nadia is Australia’s Carrie Bradshaw who talks and writes about her sex life and sexual experiences. Carrie Bradshaw, the fictional columnist for The New York Star, used to write and search for the kind of love that is real: “ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other-love.” 

After years of unfulfilling, hollow relationships, Nadia too is perhaps ready for that kind of love and a future with a woman.