Monday, Monday comparison off base

After reading the “Monday, Monday” piece, I would like to ask the author one question: how can you be so categorically offensive, and still find it acceptable to publish your weekly column in Duke University’s student newspaper? As the coordinator of the Center for LGBT Life’s National Coming Out Day, and an openly lesbian student at Duke, I am floored that The Chronicle’s writers thought it was okay to compare Coming Out Day to a “weird” fraternity.

There are two large issues that I think the author needs to educate himself or herself on regarding our event. The first is that it can sometimes be extremely difficult to “come out” on any college campus, and Duke University is no exception to that rule. Six LGBTQ suicides have occurred within the last month; the pressures of being LGBTQ are real. While there is a large amount of support from students, faculty, staff and numerous organizations on this campus, the social pressures that still exist for closeted students cannot be discounted. Your column in no way helped those still working on the continual, daily process of coming out at this University and beyond.

Secondly, the writer’s comparison of Coming Out Day to a fraternity grossly overlooks the women’s community involved with the Coming Out Day celebration. To begin, Coming Out Day is for the entire student body, not just those “conscious freshmen concerned about projecting masculinity.” By comparing our celebration to a male frat, you’re discounting the presence of women within our community. Also, the author might like to know that even today there is still a sexist bias within the LGBTQ community that excludes women and queer women’s issues from the forefront of the LGBTQ movement. Your article did nothing to mitigate this sexism. Lastly, Duke’s National Coming Out Day was coordinated by a woman. What fraternity rush do you know of that is run by a Duke female?

Thanks to Jessica Kim, the Chronicle writer who covered our celebration in a positive, educated and affirmative way. Hopefully students read her informative article, and not the Monday, Monday piece.

Megan Weinand

Trinity ’12