Stalling Progress

The recent proposal by the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) to remove the gender designation from 24 single-occupancy bathrooms would not, at first glance, seem to constitute a pressing item on any political agenda. If only the BGLTSA moniker wasn’t attached to the proposal, it could be seen as a demand for most students’ mere convenience, not for transgendered persons’ civil rights. After all, when you’ve gotta go, you should be able to go, without the oppressive or “transphobic,” to use a choice word from BGLTSA leadership, host of gender-specific signs, heteronormative supers and generally disapproving passers-by holding you down.

What’s disappointing about BGLTSA’s recent toilet-based activism and its character in general is that the club’s disingenuous and alienating language does little good for its cause.

In this particular case, BGLTSA co-chair Stephanie M. Skier ’05 has decided to liken the battle for gender non-specific washrooms to the much more significant fight for handicap-accessible bathrooms. Her comparison of the plight of a transsexual person to the plight of a paraplegic is not only absurd but also highly offensive to both the disabled and transsexuals alike. Suggesting that the discomfort felt by a transsexual choosing whether to enter a door marked with a stick figure in a skirt or pants is comparable to that suffered by someone who does not have the physical capacity to enter an inaccessible bathroom is a parallel drawn in extraordinarily bad taste.

But in BGLTSA’s world, it seems, comparisons like this one are de rigueur. And in this instance, what is perhaps most disturbing is that no one seems surprised that BGLTSA has once again pursued a minor issue by these comparisons and by labeling those who stand in their way “transphobes.” These inflammatory turns of phrase might seem to be merely new additions to the English language’s already-rich vocabulary, but their effect in the long run can be much more pernicious. For instance, labeling someone a “homophobe” for favoring, say, an ROTC presence on campus is an effective way of ending a debate, not engaging in one. To be sure, Skier’s pronouncement that “most objections to [the bathroom proposal] are blatant transphobia [sic],” may give her the rhetorical upper-hand by labeling potential critics as hateful, but it wins her no friends.

Beyond its rhetoric, BGLTSA has made a name for itself by holding workshops on sex toys and sadomasochism as well as inviting groups to campus with names like “The Lesbian Avengers” during its recent month of events, “Gaypril.” And in this way, too, BGLTSA excels at turning what might be an opportunity for serious and valid causes into theater of the absurd. Making the face of gays at Harvard that of a masked and over-sexed person with whip-in-hand does little to endear them to the general public, nor to make the average homosexual feel more at home on the campus or in their company. Indeed, many may be only too quick to jump back into the closet rather than be associated with their extreme rhetoric. More than that, it threatens to diminish BGLTSA’s credibility when it does discuss the prevailing gay rights issues of the day like gay marriage.

BGLTSA’s bathroom proposal is not innately silly. (As we have mentioned, single-stall bathrooms sans gender specification is helpful to all who need to relieve themselves). But the general demeanor of BGLTSA and its politics certainly is, and it does nothing to help gay people on this campus. If BGLTSA wants to achieve things that ensure that people are treated justly, it should engage in debates and show critics the alleged error of their way.

—Travis R. Kavulla ’06, an executive editor, is a history concentrator in Mather House. Alex B.H. Turnbull ’05, an editorial editor, is an economics concentrator in Quincy House.