George Mason University has crowned a male student The student apparently felt affirmed. "It was one of the best feelings I've felt in a long time," said Ryan Allen, who won under the name of "Reann Ballslee." Allen said he had been taunted since he "came out" as a freshman in high school.
A male student dressed in women's clothes? Being made fun of? What's the world coming to?
But it's not clear from the press reports whether the votes he got were votes for his sexual proclivities or whether they were joke votes. When I attended the University of California at Irvine as a freshman college student, we students had to endure the school's mascot: the "Anteaters." It was foisted upon the school in the late 60s when the uppity student body rebelled against the administrative decision to name the school after the more conventional "bruin". So (remember, this is the 60s) the students voted for the most unusual thing on the ballot, partly as a snub to the authority they were then questioning, and partly for fun.
When I got their in the late 70s, it wasn't like we didn't like our mascot: in fact, we liked it precisely because it was weird. It was a stupid thing to do, and so we thought that was pretty cool.
If students at George Mason did this as a joke, then Allen got elected precisely because he's weird, and it's hard to tell exactly how much different that is from being made fun of.
And speaking of weird things, has anyone bothered to notice that it's the champions of "fairness" who are applauding a male winning a contest set up for females?
"And speaking of weird things, has anyone bothered to notice that it's the champions of "fairness" who are applauding a male winning a contest set up for females?"
ReplyDeleteSilence! You must stop speaking inconvenient truths.