It seems funny to me that a couple of articles taken from extreme right-wing sources, (Fox, and WND, which makes Fox look liberal in comparison) are taken at face-value and gospel truth. Are they unbiased sources merely reporting fact, or do they have an agenda they are trying to push, and this story furthers that agenda?
Wouldn't we (shouldn't we?) be praising Evergreen for having such and open, inclusive and accommodating policy toward it's trans students? Why because of one incident is it now important to 'shut it down' 'because of the children'? Could that have been the goal all along? To find a way to attack this college and its' policies, to find a way to force the college to roll-back these (what to us would have been otherwise very commendable) policies for the sake of people who are not even a part of that college community? In the guise of 'protecting the children' are these people really attacking the college and it's policy? And, if such an attack works on the school, is there any reason that 'for the children' could be used to roll back other policies in other areas - like dressing rooms? After all, there are children in Macy's when mom is shopping, who is thinking of them? Actually, simply and just being trans in public could be taken as an affront to all children according to - well according to the very people writing/publishing these stories, that's who.
Look how fast a whole bunch of people - in the trans community itself even - jumped on the bandwagon to bash the school and it's policies, when in fact those policies were made by the school to protect us. Should they not have done that? (Fox/WND sure don't' think they should have, so you better check out what side of the street you're walking down, and who is on that side of the street with you.) Should our most adult institutions be reduced to standards of kindergartens for the sake of the occasional child moving through them?
That.... & how much information is missing? I'm thinking tons. Was the person right there next to the swim team? Or was this at some huge dressing room complex in a public university, where seeing them from across the room is almost the equivalent of seeing them from down the block? And the sauna? WTF are kids even doing near the sauna in the first place? Am I supposed to think that 6 and 7 year olds are using the sauna, because I'm doubting that real hard.
So, what it looks like more and more is Fox/WND trying to find advocates for their extreme right-wing/conservative policies within the Trans movement and give them ammo to destroy the movement from the inside out - particularly from the point of view of people who 'already got theirs' and would now seek to deny that to others.
And people act like college students are some innocent little snowflakes, just waiting for that psudo-Marxist (in his newish - but not NEW - Sabb/Volvo) Econ professor to lure them to the dark side. All most students care about (ideology wise) is 'is that going to be on the test' - they have no intention of it being in their actual life. And putting 'higher education' in quotes, heck, even using the term higher education, is kind of a dead give-a-way. Nobody who works and lives in that atmosphere calls it that. Besides, far and away, the most popular courses on college campuses are taught by the business college, and I can assure you that very little ideology (beyond that of 'the bottom line') is being taught in them. Increasingly there seems to be people who don't much like the idea of education beyond indoctrination, and by labeling it 'elite' or 'liberal' (and golly gosh yes, there is an entire section of courses called 'Liberal Arts' - but it's not what you think, it's math) they seek to diminish it's influence as well as it's impact. And a vast part of the influence and impact upon students that a college has is not the 'political philosophy' of its' students or teachers (no one is listening to that anyway) - but in the very nature of how a liberal society is structured and run.
BTW... I think that some college student buying a $30 tee-shirt with Che's picture on it is not considered 'advocacy' but 'irony' - for sure that's how I think of it ... Che Shirts for more money than Che would have had to spend on one. And I doubt that his estate or heirs are making any money off of it either (thought that would only make it more ironic wouldn't it?). And I sure don't see anyone running around talking about how Communism is cool. The Che wearing hipsters ain't hanging out at the local hipster place - despite the Che shirt - drinking PBR TallBoys and talking about how groovy Marx and Lenin were. Hell, Communists don't even think Communism is cool anymore. Communism is a late-19th/20th Century notion, and we're in the 21st Century, let it go already (everyone else has). I mean last time I saw a Che shirt was when Apple launched its new iPhone, and I'm not sold on the 'commie lovers' standing in line for $600 telephones.
