Spending my most formative years growing up in the city of Brooklyn, New York, I was surrounded by Black and Latina women of different body shapes, using colors, and bodily embellishments creatively in their fashion and self-representation, which seemed beautiful and fascinating to me. Until I learned to classify them as “other”… As a young white girl experiencing the world and all its differences, I learned to classify these groups as “other” based on their bodily aesthetic, the very aesthetics that society warned me about. Enter the monograph titled, Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment, by Jillian Hernandez, the book that breaks down my childhood thoughts surrounding a topic called “aesthetic excess.” Hernandez examines the concept of aesthetic excess through the stories of working-class Black and Latina women from Miami. By amplifying these voices, the author sheds more light on ways that Black and Latina women in Miami have separated themselves from the prescribed white norms around gender, race, sexuality, and the neoliberal view of class.
Continue reading “Book Review – Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment“community
Theory To Praxis: Reconstructing Bathroom Labels at Davidson College
Davidson College is dedicated to “improv[ing] the Davidson campus climate for our transgender, genderqueer, and gender-variant students, faculty, staff, community members, and alumni” (LGBTQIA + resources, Davidson). However, much work still needs to be done to provide basic needs, such as comfortable bathroom stall usage, to the increasingly diverse student body.
A Gender Inclusive Restroom Map can be found on the school’s website showing the gender-inclusive restroom options for the members and community of Davidson. At first glance, it appears that the school provides a wide range of gender-inclusive restroom options. After analyzing the map, all options are single-occupant restrooms which single out people who do not identify as cisgender. A few single-occupant restrooms on campus are still designated as either “male” or “female”. Shockingly, many places on campus designed to be “safe” places for students like Residence Halls (Akers, Knox, etc) and Student Life Buildings (Wildcat Den, Summit Coffee on Campus, etc) include no options for people in the LGBTQIA community who do not identify themselves as male or female. Academic buildings at Davidson College that do have single-occupant stalls tend to have them on the basement floor level. Students who need bathrooms not labeling them as “male” or “female” have a hard time accessing stalls quickly.
It is evident that Davidson has a long way to go in creating a community that “welcomes and fosters mutual respect among all campus members” (LGBTQIA + resources, Davidson). I believe the best way to achieve this goal is by reconstructing bathroom labeling in restrooms at Davidson College. However, it is important to note that creating a safe bathroom environment that nurtures everyone’s needs will be a challenge and a long-term plan. To start, Davidson College should redesign the bathroom signs outside the door. Rather than having your typical ‘male’ and ‘female’ doll symbol, there should be a mixture of both figures where half is wearing a skirt and half is wearing pants. The same symbol should be used in all bathroom signs on campus. Changing the picture on a sign seems like a minor change, but is a big step towards creating a positive climate and raising awareness about gender diversity on campus. Along with labeling, the single-use bathroom should be changed from its traditional “unisex bathroom” title to “community bathroom.” Doing this, single-use bathrooms are rooted to meet everyone’s needs and eliminate the pressure of having to identify as ‘one sex’ as the term ‘unisex’ emphasizes. Using the term ‘community’ accounts for everyone on campus and eliminates gender and identity labeling.
In the long run, Davidson can create a plan to create multi and single-community bathrooms on every floor starting in academic and residential buildings to provide options for everyone at Davidson and make basic tasks, like using the bathroom, accessible to all. Reconstructing the bathroom signs and labels is only the beginning.
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LGBTQIA+ resources. Davidson. (n.d.). https://www.davidson.edu/offices-and-services/diversity-and-inclusion/lgbtqia-resources.
Theory to Praxis: Queer Faith Dinner
Part of being a freshman at Davidson is looking for clubs for everything you’re interested in. Freshmen crave connection to people interested in the same things they are, much like anyone does. Last year, when I was a freshman, I fell into many clubs that I now hold leadership positions in, clubs where I found some of my closest friends. Some of the clubs I joined included Weekly College Worship (a multi-denominational Christian group that holds a worship service once a week), UKirk (the Presbyterian group on campus), and the clubs/affinity groups for LGBTQ+ people. I was looking for ways to engage with some of my identity communities: my faith, my sexuality, and my gender. By my engagement in these groups, I noticed a distinct lack of a space meant for queer people to interact with their faith. While the spaces I’m active in are affirming of LGBTQ+ Christians, they aren’t spaces designed with us in mind. This distinction is an important one to make.
To start working on a solution to this problem, I propose a dinner event or series, maybe co-sponsored by the Chaplains’ Office and the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, focused on creating a space for queer people with a desire to explore their connection to religion. While my own experience lies with being a queer Christian, I would love for this to be an interfaith space that celebrates each person’s connection to both their queerness and their faith. My book report selection for this class, A House of Prayer for All by David K. Seitz, looked partially at how people in the LGBTQ+ community engage with faith when they’re in a space that they feel comfortable exploring the two together. Spaces for these connections to happen already exist in other places, and the Davidson community would be better by encouraging them.
Areas and groups made intentionally for LGBTQ+ students at Davidson are lacking. The Lavender Lounge, while a good resource, is a tiny room near a study area and a laundry room in the basement of a freshman dorm. The Spencer-Weinstein Center, while a great space for all affinity groups on campus, is exactly that: one building meant to allow space for every affinity group on campus. For the queer community, there’s either YANASH or Queers & Allies. Both organizations are wonderful, I’m by no means trying to bash any of these places or groups. My only point is that I can count the spaces, both physical and relational, intended for queer students on one hand. For a group as diverse and with such incredibly varied experience as the queer community, surely we are deserving of more than this? A group for support, encouragement, and community among religious LGBTQ+ people at Davidson deserves a chance.