My response to the Politically Correct Language of GSALOGO (MRPCLGSALOGO)

Emma GardnerContributorAt this crucial moment in history, when the Supreme Court is poised to rule on gay marriage, LGBTQ groups nationwide require our support. Yet instead of strengthening its ties to the liberal, straight community, Samo’s GSALOGO is, in fact, driving us away.Samo GSALOGO’s [Gender & Sexuality Alliance: Leading Our Generation’s Outreach] agenda of equal rights for all and its commitment to helping students explore their gender identity are certainly praiseworthy. But its increasing reliance on an alphabet soup of “politically correct” language to advance its agenda makes it difficult for some to engage with them. Indeed, this off-putting language makes it difficult for others to even understand them. Many of us want to appreciate the growing gender diversity among our peers, but at the point we need a portable dictionary to decipher all the recommended terminology – and fear that our criticism will result in charges of prejudice and homophobia – this becomes difficult.After Samo’s response to the Westboro Baptist Church protest, GSALOGO held an assembly featuring adult leaders from the national GSA [Gay Straight Alliance] organization. It was then that they taught the audience about “preferred gender pronouns.” Among the lessons: the GSA advocates that when meeting someone, it is appropriate to introduce yourself, and then list the “gender pronouns” you want to be used in relation to yourself – this includes she/her/hers for those who identify as female, he/him/his for those who identify as male, and ze/hir/hirs for those who identify with neither gender.I recognize that the national GSA organization uses its own language among its members, and perhaps the agenda of introducing this language into the broader Samo community makes sense over time. But why has the GSA made language its top priority over the critical issues of changing people’s attitudes, perceptions and behaviors toward sexuality and gender? Said Max Gumbel (’14), “It does not seem politically advantageous for gay activists to push the use of gender neutral pronouns at this stage of a civil rights battle.”“Trans, queer and gender non-conforming people are dying, losing their jobs and being locked up at dramatically higher rates than straight, cisgender populations,’” GSALOGO President Ruhi Bhalla (’14) posted on Facebook on March 26 of this year.Let me translate this: according to UC Berkeley’s Gender Equity Resource Center, queer is defined as “an umbrella term to refer to all LGBTIQ [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer] people, which advocates seeing both sexual orientation and gender identity as potentially fluid.” Gender non-conformers are “people who don’t conform to society’s expectations of gender expression based on the gender binary, expectations of masculinity and femininity.” A cisgender [sis-jen-dər] is “a person who by nature or by choice conforms to gender/sex based expectations of society.”Conservatives are not going to bother getting past this veritable foreign language to discover its meaning. Even liberals may be put off.In employing these new words, GSALOGO appears elitist, exclusionary, or simply “other.”This new language not only confuses, but occasionally offends. GSALOGO leader Ruhi Bhalla wrote of the marriage equality decision in the same Facebook post, “‘Same-sex marriage shouldn’t be banned, but at the same time it shouldn’t be celebrated as if it was some profound step toward a change in material conditions that impact queer people’s lives... Celebrating the ability to get more documented monogamous couples into an exclusionary institution at best obscures and at worst condones the punishment industrial complex, police brutality, employment and housing discrimination and immigration persecutions that queers of color are subjected to.’”If gay marriage is not “some profound step toward a change in material conditions that impact queer people’s lives,” then why are you fighting for it? This aggressive stance on marriage equality, from a group whose goal is to expand the rights of LGBTQ individuals, risks antagonizing those outside the GSALOGO who believe that all people should have the right to marry whomever they want. Few argue that marriage equality alone would wipe out bigotry and homophobia. Nevertheless, isn’t it a laudable enough goal – one that most view as a measure of furthering their cause?Disturbingly, the language of the post, as well as its content, offends. This post turns “straight” into a pejorative, equates monogamy with conformity, and calls marriage an “exclusionary institution”. If straight supporters of the GSALOGO feel their lifestyle is disparaged, they may withhold their support.But not all LGBTQ and human rights campaigns focus so intensively on language. The Courage Campaign, a California-based human rights organization focused on LGBTQ rights, has managed to secure support from both straight and LGBTQ communities without alienating the former. Courage Campaign Development Director Michael Bridges said, “The best route is to simply call people what they want to be called. We strive to be clear and inclusive.”There appears to be a generational discrepancy in “politically correct” language – the older, more grounded LGBTQ organizations are more accommodating and inclusive of straight allies than the newer, more radical groups.GSALOGO’s goal of educating the Samo population about sexuality should not be limited to teaching us lingo. Don’t demand that we be “politically correct” (and use restrictive terminology) at the expense of teaching tolerance and inclusion in more meaningful ways. It is more important that we understand and respect what many of our peers are going through as they question their sexuality than that we use their “preferred gender pronoun.”Respectfully criticizing a social group does not diminish it. Rather, it allows the organization to enter new social-political dialogues and can ultimately lead to greater enlightenment for both members and outside supporters. If no one can say anything critical, and organizations are met with no new opinions, then debate is stifled, and the groups cannot advance. Institutions should welcome feedback — positive and negative — from those who otherwise support them.It remains to be seen whether Samo’s GSALOGO accept criticism from supporters outside its organization without dismissing them as homophobes.eic@thesamohi.com