The Daily Princetonian: Queer Remembrances, Queer Futures

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Friday April 22, 2022 vol. CXLVI no. 11

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Cover design by Omar Farah; photography by Erin Macanze

Friday April 22, 2022

Letter from the Editors

By Omar Farah and Marie-Rose Sheinerman | Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief

A

s Princeton’s paper of record, The Daily Princetonian plays an important role in the creation and maintenance of the queer archive on campus. Unfortunately, given a history of violence toward and attempted erasure of the LGBTQ+ community, the archive of queer existence on this campus and beyond is often remarkably thin and marred by a lack of empathy for its subjects.

This issue, entitled “Queer Remembrances, Queer Futures” argues that, before diving into the present challenges and future aspirations of the queer community, it is essential to provide space for ref lections back on queer narratives of the past. In potent prose, Professor Jeff Nunokawa and Dean of the College Jill Dolan reflect on their experiences as members of the LGBTQ+ community in the 1970s, documenting the vastly different reality for the LGBTQ+ community just a couple of decades ago. Engaging with the past can inform how the queer community tackles critical issues in the present and how they imagine a future where fear of plurality is subsumed by celebration.

In this issue, we do just that — exploring queer students’ experiences securing housing accommodations, the power of representation offered by campus queer student-athletes Abby Meyers ’22 and Marge Donovan ’22, and a reflection on living between worlds by a queer Muslim student. Together, their stories form a snapshot of Princeton’s LGBTQ+ community today.

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But we are looking forward as well, challenging the design and content conventions of our paper in a digital and print product that incorporates the work of queer artists and their reflections on identity. In self-essays and profiles of LGBTQ+ students on campus like Josh Babu ’22 and Griffin Maxwell Brooks ’23, we offer a multiplicity of queer experiences that affirm the present diversity of queer voices, ushering in a future that embraces queer experiences and identities on their own terms.

We conceive of this more than anything as an invitation to the queer community on campus. An invitation can only be truly genuine when it goes beyond empty words: The content curated for this issue represents a public record — and a public commitment — to elevating the voices and stories of queer folks in our pages.

Our sincere hope is that this marks not a one-off product, but a catalyst for continued, consistent, and abundant storytelling in the ‘Prince’ for and by members of the Princeton queer community.

Omar Farah is a Managing Editor at the ‘Prince’. They are also a queer visual artist and curator who have poured their heart and soul into this issue. They can be reached at ofarah@princeton.edu.

Marie-Rose Sheinerman is the Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Prince.’ She has endless gratitude and admiration for the staffers and editors who made this issue possible.

She can be reached at eic@dailyprincetonian.com.

Friday April 22, 2022

FEATURES

In a Manhattan nightclub, Griffin Maxwell Brooks comes alive

By Sam Kagan | Staff Features Writer It’s 2 a.m. A pop-house remix of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” is playing loud enough to make your teeth chatter. And the pride of Princeton diving is plunging into a crowd of 600-odd fully vaccinated, mostly queer, and scarcely clothed partygoers in Midtown Manhattan.

As tequila-powered dancers stumble through the strobe-obsessed basement venue, Griffin Maxwell Brooks ’23 literally rises above it. Wearing little more than an oversized white faux-fur vest and tight-fitting black leather pants, they grab hold of their necklaces (one pearl and one a Beanie Baby Dalmatian head), lean against my shoulder, and hoist themself atop a table.

Brooks is a paradox. Unapologetically queer and expressive, their larger-than-life wardrobe and personality stand out among the clean-cut khaki of Princeton, N.J. All the same, balancing a rocket scientist’s course rigor with

the demands of a Division I sport are hardly the norm in New York City’s queer nightlife scene. For Brooks, life itself is a contradiction in terms, a never-ending balancing act of remarkably disparate identities.

“I am me,” they told me. “Queer, genderfluid, gay, all of those things, on a men’s varsity athletic team at Princeton. It’s funny, I wouldn’t call myself not a walking dichotomy.”

A junior majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering, Brooks’ ascendance to New York nightclub notoriety took hold through TikTok. The self-described “digital club kid” carved a niche of comedy, fashion, and social justice rooted in their queer identity, earning @griffinmaxwellbrooks (they always SAM KAGAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN go by their “government name”) over “It’s funny, I wouldn’t call myself not a walking dichotomy,” said Brooks ’23.

980,000 followers.

“Social media [is] a place where I can express my ideas and philosophies Brooks, who identifies as non-binary, that I’m steering people wrong only and show people my life,” explained gay, and genderfluid. ever comes out of the mouths of people Brooks’ daily TikToks garner hun- whose perspective on queer people may dreds of thousands of views and of- be not the most politically correct,” fer a glimpse into their label-defying they responded. personality. Boasting a brand of affirBrooks expanded their persona mational positivity, tongue-in-cheek beyond the internet in the summer confidence, and fiercely independent of 2021, launching into queer nightexpression, they’re a digital flagbearer life and quickly becoming a regular for Gen Z’s queer community. at Manhattan parties thrown by the While Brooks’ public persona ap- legendary event producer Susanne pears effortless and easy-going, their Bartsch. stature as a young, queer public figure “[When] the summer hit, TikTok often invites challenging private con- started to merge with real life because versations. people were going outside again,” “My DMs are full of people saying Brooks said. But once the vaccine came ‘you helped me figure out that I’m out, “it dawned on me that I did have non-binary, you helped me figure out fans, that it wasn’t just a number of that I’m gay or that I’m this, that I’m faceless people on the internet comthat, or just helped me be more com- menting. I’d go out to parties, and fortable in my own body,’” they said. nightclubs, or just to Washington “Does that weigh on you?” I asked.

Square Park and people would be like “A little bit. I think that the part of ‘You’re the kid from TikTok.’” it that’s a compliment seriously out“I think a lot of people think [Princweighs the worry.” eton] is the world,” they continued. “I “What’s the worry?” don’t. It gets suffocating, when you “The worry [is] that I’m steering treat it like the world … so I leave.”

SAM KAGAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN people wrong, but I’ve never felt like Brooks’ ascendance to New York nightclub notoriety took hold through TikTok. I’m steering people wrong. The notion See BROOKS page 3 THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

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Friday April 22, 2022

‘Confidence is just a made up word’ BROOKS

Continued from page 2

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Typically “escaping” to Manhattan as often as three nights a week, Brooks has lived the overwhelming majority of their life in suburban New Jersey.

They grew up just an hour north of Princeton in sleepy Berkeley Heights, a community Brooks calls “semi-conservative.” At home, they often faced rampant homophobia.

“Senior year, me and Griffin and all of the other queer people sat together, literally separated from the rest of our classmates,” explained Monica Martinez, Brooks’ friend and high school classmate. “I saw firsthand how Griffin was ostracized. They were bullied by people, often left out of things, and just the dynamic of the school [was

that] people didn’t really talk about it, they didn’t really recognize it as ‘Oh, you’re being homophobic.’”

Years removed from the days of high school bullying, Brooks now derives strength and value from their queer identity. They identified changes in their mentality as a key reason for their radical shift.

“A lot of my mindset is very ‘fake it till you make it,’” they explained.

“Confidence is just a made up word for you to use to describe when you stop caring what people think. So just stop. Just go out and do your thing and don’t look at the eyes of people who look at you. That’s how I want to be so that’s how I am.”

And while Princeton is a wholesale improvement upon Berkeley Heights, Brooks noted, the school is often a difficult place for queer students.

On Dec. 13, 2021, they made a TikTok

stating just that. “My name is Griffin Maxwell Brooks,” they said, “and as a queer, and gender nonconforming person, I often feel unvalued, unwelcome, and sometimes unsafe here at Princeton University. Have a good night.”

In an interview, they elaborated on the substantial disconnect between Princeton and New York, specifically with regard to queer spaces and culture.

“Queer is an identity that encapsulates a culture,” they said, “and there is not a lot of that culture at Princeton. We’re very different. When I meet somebody in New York and they hear about [Princeton], they make a face.

They’re like ‘You’re a what now? You go to Princeton?’ or they’re like ‘What is that?’”

I mentioned to Brooks that the University has a considerable gay popu-

lation, with over 25 percent of firstyear undergraduates identifying as LGBTQ+. They didn’t quite buy it.

“There’s a difference between being gay and being queer,” they said.

“Princeton might be gay but it isn’t very queer.”

Brooks’ claim isn’t hard to verify.

The revealing white crop top and hot pink sunglasses they wore to our interview are easy to spot amidst a sea of sweatpants and loose hoodies.

“People [at Princeton] look at me and think ‘What the hell?’” they explained. “But any press is good press.

I like the way I look. There’s nothing offensive about the way I look or dress or act. So I know that when people are taken aback by it, it either comes from ignorance, surprise, or admiration.”

‘Some might say camp’ “How would you describe the way you dress?” I asked.

“Eclectic, flashy, over the top,” they responded. “Some might say camp.”

Juan Hermo ’23, Brooks’ roommate, sees the way Brooks dresses and speaks as a necessary form of representation.

“I don’t wanna say ‘walk around and be a stereotype,’ but that’s what we do,” Hermo said. “We walk around, we use the gay words, we dress the gay way, and if you don’t, then they forget you exist and it’s all the easier to erase you.”

Brooks’ attire may be too outlandish to erase. Their TikTok account features countless videos of them getting dressed in the morning, styling tight-fitting corsets and towering high-heel boots alongside cropped knit sweaters and shoulder-length earrings.

Their unconventional mix of sheer and skin is par for the course in Midtown. Nobody notices jewelry featuring a pair of miniature swords next to a man covered head-to-toe in intricately painted cheetah spots wearing only gold briefs and a lady toting five pounds of denim on her head.

“The way you fit in at a Susanne 3

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Bartsch event is by standing out,” Brooks told me in Manhattan, gesturing to a woman coated in green paint sporting gold panties, star-shaped pasties, and thigh-high black rubber boots. “People dress like [it’s Halloween] literally whenever we want.”

“Bartschland” is a world unto itself. Born in Switzerland, Bartsch rose to prominence as a tastemaker after moving to New York City in 1981. She helped expand followings for now-prominent designers like Vivienne Westwood and Marc Jacobs; launched the career of drag megastar RuPaul; and hosted parties at the legendary Copacabana.

The event I attended alongside Brooks — one in a series of Bartschland spectacles — was a practicum in garish absurdity. Located at Sony Hall in the basement of the Paramount Hotel, the event featured outrageous costumes and began with a burlesque show which included, among other things: Lola von Rox stripping naked and covering herself in spray paint before pulling a chain out of her vagina; Pissy Pussy parading around on stage in a sparkling red skin-tight

SAM KAGAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Griffin Maxwell Brooks ’23 with Susanne Bartsch (right).

bodysuit and makeup ala Jim Carrey’s “The Mask” to the tune of “Mr. Saxobeat;” Julie Atlas Muz appearing seemingly out of nowhere in a black thong and copious amounts of body glitter before encapsulating herself in a large, clear silicone bubble; And László Major twirling around a precariously mounted silver firehouse pole, displaying bedazzled nipples through an overwhelming display of strobe lights.

According to Brooks, this is all more or less standard for a Bartsch party. Her regular crowd ranges from queer royalty to nervous students, but the events are open to anybody with $45 and the desire to buy a ticket.

Seeking to expand her digital presence, last year Bartsch hired Brooks to run her TikTok account. The influencer was tasked with utilizing their extensive savvy to further build the Bartsch brand.

Friday April 22, 2022

‘My space to be me’ For those who know Brooks, Bartsch’s interest was of little surprise. At once charming and charismatic, Brooks’ magnetic personality affords them an ever-present and constantly-growing harem as we weave through the dance floor. They’re a modern socialite and a consummate people person — everybody seems to want to speak to them and they seem to want to speak to everybody.

“The way that Griffin can read a room and make every single person in that room feel as though they belong there is such a gift,” said Topaz Winters ’23, Brooks’ close friend. “I can, and routinely do, talk to them for hours about love and sex and life and gender. They’re such a delight.”

Gender is little more than a foreign, faroff idea in Bartschland. The space’s abundant queerness and unrelenting dress both embraces the extremities of gender expression and eradicates the concept completely.

“How do you think about gender in a space like this?” I asked Brooks after watching a drag queen adorned in lace shred a rock ballad.

“I don’t,” they replied. “It’s all either non-existent or super exaggerated.”

Murray Hill, a drag king comedian who hosted the event, put it best.

“You’re wondering,” Hill said to a seemingly perplexed audience member, “is that a man or a woman? The answer, sir, is ‘no!’

And in case you were wondering, my pronouns are yabba/dabba/doo!”

With regard to gender, Brooks lives simply as they please: dressing and behaving without so much as a passing consideration for assigned norms. Exemplified by the dramatic eyeliner and pearl jewelry in which they chose to be photographed for their Princeton Athletics profile, it’s difficult to overstate Brooks’ fervent rejection of norms.

Diving, and the abundant responsibilities that accompany Division I varsity athletics, is also a notable component of Brooks’ life — and a sizable time commitment in and of itself. When their team was not holding workouts during the summer of 2021, they continued training regularly on their own, going to great lengths to stay in form.

“I dove for the summer, like four days out of the week,” they said. “It was a twohour long practice but I had to get on my electric longboard and go from [Lower Manhattan] up to Grand Central, the safety of which I will not comment on … and then I’d get on the train and take it to Greenwich, Connecticut. It was the closest pool that

would have me.”

“You would take the train an hour to Greenwich just to dive?” I asked.

“When things were shut down, there weren’t indoor pools that were open to the public,” they explained. “The places in New Jersey where I could practice were Princeton and potentially Rutgers. Rutgers, they said no, and Princeton said no unless you were in the testing protocol. And NYU said no. The only place I could find was the YMCA in Greenwich, Connecticut.”

“Do you ever get tired?”

“Sometimes. When I do, I have some coffee, or a Red Bull. But typically, I run on straight fumes.”

Luckily, supplementing the fumes, Brooks feels supported by their teammates and even somewhat at home among athletes on campus.

“Diving is much more queer than swimming and lots of other competitive sports,” Brooks said. “I fit in with the divers. The dive team has other queer presences.”

Nevertheless, the nature of varsity athletics is one which can often be inhospitable to LGBTQ+ students, even in ostensibly liberal and accepting spaces.

“I’m the most presentationally queer on my team,” Brooks continued. “It’s difficult … [people] stray away from me because of it. I think that being remotely feminine is an instant no-no for homosocial fraternal spaces like a men’s athletic team.”

Similarly detached from Brooks’ Manhattan presence is their love of engineering — a drive they’ve honed since they matriculated, alongside Martinez, at Union County Magnet High School, a small application-based public school for STEM students.

“Everybody was insanely smart,” said Martinez, referencing the institution’s engineering magnet status.

For Brooks, that aptitude continued right through college.

“They are wildly smart,” said Winters.

“That kid knows numbers and engineering like nobody else … I make fun of Griffin because I think they work too much and if you know me, people think I work too much. They worry so much about stuff like grades, stuff like classes and, not a lot of people know that about them.”

“My brain is very STEM-oriented,” Brooks said, “so my mind is kind of like a bulleted list. I’m going to do this, then I’m going to go here, then I’m going to do that and then I’m going to go to bed. And then I’m going to wake up, sometimes two hours later, and do it all again.”

SAM KAGAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Topaz Winters ’23 and Griffin Maxwell Brooks ’23.

Brooks’ STEM work often surprises their Manhattan acquaintances. “[People] usually ask me ‘What do you do?’” Brooks said. “‘I’m a student.’

‘Oh, where do you go to school?’

‘Oh, Princeton.’

‘Oh, that’s far.’

‘Yeah, I have a car.’

‘Oh, okay.’

And then, ‘what do you major in?’

And then I usually say ‘you’ll never guess.’

And they’re like ‘I don’t know. Philosophy? Psychology?’

And I’m like ‘mechanical engineering.’

And they’re like ‘You’re right, I would not have guessed that.’”

At first glance, Brooks’ pursuits may appear confoundingly disparate. Yet, as with most things in their life, Brooks exudes a sense of cool control about the chaos — to them, honing a smorgasbord of passions comes naturally.

“They all work together in a non-tangible way,” they said of their various interests. “They all play together, in a really weird way. I think the way my brain works is conducive to all of these things, it just so happens that all of them are wildly unrelated.”

It’s unclear which of Brooks’ many talents will continue with them after school.

But, despite the excitement about life beyond University classrooms, they remain committed to their engineering aspirations.

“I [may] never become an engineer; that’s very possible,” they said. “I definitely think it’s likely that I do [though]. I think it’ll be in an interesting capacity. I might do, you know, 10 years of being a socialite and then I’m like ‘okay, time to be an engineer.’”

At 3:30 a.m., Bartsch’s crowd is left weary and depleted. Though Brooks hasn’t sat down since we arrived over seven hours ago, the rest of the venue had tired, shrinking to no more than 150 people.

Brooks told me they didn’t want to leave.

But they had assignments and practice and a whole host of other obligations, likely due to begin in a matter of hours. So we piled into “Karen the Stallion,” their white 2014 BMW X3, and headed home. We arrived on campus at 5:20 a.m.

“How do you do it?” I asked them. “How do you stay up all night two or three times a week and not absolutely die?”

“I love it. You have to love it. I lived a whole second day in that space,” they replied. “I do it because I have to — it’s my space to be me.”

Sam Kagan is the Head Data Editor and a senior writer with experience reporting on University finances, alum in government, University COVID-19 policy, and more. His projects, including the Frosh Survey, focus on numerical storytelling and data journalism. He previously served as a news editor. Sam can be reached at skagan@princeton.edu or on Twitter @thesamkagan.

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Friday April 22, 2022

PROSPECT

Remembrance of the Gay Things Past: My Local Gay Bar

By Jeff Nunokawa | English Professor Guest Contributor

Content Warning: The following piece contains references to drug use and gun violence.

I wrote this several days after the slaughter at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla. June 12, 2016, where a gunman killed 49 people before killing himself, on June 12, 2016. *** I got all my sisters with me (Sister Sledge) I don’t think that poppers are probably very good for you. They’re probably bad for your heart.

Also, they may not be as much fun as they used to be. My best friend tells me that the formula for them has changed, and that what’s available now is a pale substitute for what we used back in the day. I don’t get out much anymore, so for all I know, the same may be true about the place where I was introduced to them: my local gay bar.

For all I know, the formula for that bar has been so diluted and displaced by all the apps, that the local gay bar I knew doesn’t even exist anymore.

In my youth, your local gay bar was a place you could go if you were gay or lesbian of any size or shape and wanted to feel safe from the various kinds of sticks and stones that came for you then. (The shapes and size of those sticks and stones have changed some in shape and size since I felt them, but they haven’t lost any of their power to draw blood, real and metaphorical.)

That local gay bar was a big and noisy tent.

There was room there for anyone who was “Queer,” though we didn’t use that word back then. And it welcomed everyone else too, including the boys who said they were there because they “just liked to dance” — though I have to tell you, we often thought of the boys who were there because they “just liked to dance” the same way we did the ones who told us they were bisexual: guys who just hadn’t gotten around to coming out yet. (There’s another formula that’s changed, I think.)

I don’t remember when exactly in the fall of 1976, my freshman year, that I got up the nerve to go to my local gay bar, a place close to campus 5

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called Partners. And I can’t remember all the friendships I started there –(a fair number of them lasted for longer than a night; a couple of them look like they’ll be around for last call).

I’ll tell you something I do remember though: a group of young lesbians who hung around the dance floor with tambourines, poppers, and whistles. I knew them a little from the local Wawa where they worked. I’m not exactly sure why they were so friendly to me. Maybe they could see I was a nerdy kid from far away just trying to fit in. Maybe they thought I was funny. Maybe they were just friendly. One thing’s for sure, though. They (along with anyone else who happened to be looking) could sure see I wasn’t there because I “just liked to dance”. I didn’t like to dance. And I was terrible at it. There was nothing cool about my moves. They were a hyper-kinetic cry for help rather than anything

That local gay bar was a big and noisy tent. that belonged under a disco ball.

Later on, a clued-up lesbian classmate gave me the best dancing lesson I’ve ever gotten: Jeff, just make sure that everything you do goes to the beat of the music and you’ll be fine. And mostly I have been. Of course, in recent years, I’ve mostly been fine by mostly staying as far away from the dance floor as possible. Back then though, there was no staying away from the dance floor.

You had to get on it to get anywhere, and at the rate I was going, I was going nowhere fast. Then one night, one of those girls who worked at the Wa pulled me over to where she and her friends hung out, gave me a hit of poppers and pushed me back on to the dance floor. I felt like Fred Astaire. Also Ginger Rogers. Also Gene Kelly. Also, other dancers of more or less historical interest

— but never mind all the footnotes now. You shouldn’t talk too much when you’re dancing or look at your feet, not to mention your footnotes.

(People were always telling me that.)

I don’t think it was so much the poppers that made me feel good about my moves. I think it was those girls from the Wa, with their tambourines and their whistles, cheering me into believing that however much I might feel otherwise, I had the music in me. *** Notes: 1. Mom mom mom mom! (Norman Casiano, a patron at Pulse, on the phone with his mother during the attack.)

On the phone a couple of days after the attack, my mother, in the state of confusion that she got into sometimes toward the end of her life, mentioned that when she hadn’t heard from me, she got worried because of what happened at that bar in Orlando the night before. I wasn’t there that night, but I wanted to remember the ones who were there and didn’t get to talk to their mother the next day, or the day after that. It helps to remember that when I was young, I used to go to a bar like that, myself.

2. “It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind,; — but when a beginning is made — when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt — it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more” (Jane Austen, Emma).

Jeff Nunokawa is a professor of English at Princeton University and former head of Rockefeller College.

Self essays at The Prospect give our writers and guest contributors the opportunity to share their perspectives. This essay reflects the views and lived experiences of the author. If you would like to submit a Self essay, contact us at prospect@dailyprincetonian.com.

Friday April 22, 2022

OPINION

On the politics of identity

By Jill Dolan | Dean of the College Guest Contributor

LGBTQ+ communities inhabit the continually shifting terrain of “identity politics” — the notion that affiliating with an identity group provides an adequate political and social agenda — which, at the moment, is historically under scrutiny from both the left and the right. To align your politics and values with an aspect of your identity — be it gender, sexuality, race, class or ability — seems to some narrow and exclusive. To others, it’s a necessary affirmation of marginalized people in the face of hegemonic power, a portal into a broader social analysis.

LGBTQ+ identity remains a high-stakes topic in an increasingly bitter and divided American public sphere. On the right, some politicians turn to gender and sexuality to inspire moral panics convenient for stacking elections.

On the left, some activists close ranks around identity, drawing strict boundaries around, for example, who has the right and authority to teach or speak to certain subjects. In my field of theater and performance studies, for example, artists and critics debate who can embody or write about certain life experiences and stories.

Both positions harden identity into a knowable, singular essence, and obstruct the curiosity, respect, and dialogue necessary for any minoritarian subject to achieve full equality. Our goal as critical thinkers and citizens should be to complicate this impasse and consider the politics of identity from more nuanced, fluid, and generative perspectives.

In 1977, I came out as a lesbian feminist. Publicly asserting my sexuality (along with, for me, a politic that framed it), was cataclysmic then, as it meant being something of an outlaw, even for a white, middle-class, college-educated young woman like me. This was before assimilation was even a choice — decades before same-sex marriage was legalized, before queer people could more easily become parents, and before anti-discrimination housing laws were passed.

American culture has changed dramatically in the years since. I was in college when I came out; now, kids in high school and younger declare their gender and sexual identities, and find possibility in stating them, publicly and privately, more fluidly. This opportunity, though, may now depend on the state in which they live. For instance, recently passed Florida legislation, colloquially known as “Don’t Say Gay,” prohibits teachers in grades K-3 from talking to students about gender identity or sexuality. Legislation pending or passed in other states refuses medical care to transgender young people and criminalizes parents and doctors who would support their gender transitions or explorations.

“Coming out,” in fact, is never an endpoint, even now.

For me, this declaration requires perpetual reiteration: at appointments with a new doctor, at meetings with new

colleagues or friends, and certainly every time someone inquires after my “husband.” These moments require me to assert my difference from the heterosexual norm, so that this aspect of my identity can, when it’s relevant, be fully present.

“When it’s relevant,” of course, becomes the question.

How central is a minoritarian identity to your life? For people whose gender, sexuality, and other identity vectors center them in political and cultural representation, it can be difficult to imagine how it feels to be marginalized.

How do we shape ourselves and our choices without stories and images that let us see and imagine multiple ways of being in the world? The presumption of heterosexuality (or that my sexual identity aligns with the majority) erases the specifics of my life and my values as a lesbian, just as the presumption of Christianity erases my difference as a Jew. Identity politics are tied to political and cultural representation. Which identities does political representation enfranchise? Which communities and ways of life does cultural representation — theater, film, television, media — engage or erase? My own cultural criticism argues for the importance and world-remaking vitality of representation of women, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists of color in a cultural mainstream that, when I started as a critic in the late 70s, rarely acknowledged their existence. My scholarship aligned with what was then a plank of lesbian and gay identity politics. The artists about whom I wrote — Holly Hughes, Peggy Shaw, Tim Miller, Carmelita Tropicana — performed from bodies deeply and productively marked by their own exclusion from dominant culture.

Writing about these artists, I urged spectators to witness the pleasure and power of deviating from a white, male, heterosexual cultural norm. I argued that they exemplified how to be socially different while claiming the right to be politically equal. But over the years, as LGBTQ+ artists and people in the U.S. gained cultural and political ground, I began to loosen my own fierce personal and professional commitments to identity politics. The “calling cards” of identity, in which people introduced a thought or an idea by saying, “As a [fill in the blank: white, woman, lesbian, Jewish person, etc.], I . . .” now seemed parsed, and the presumption of knowingness these cards laid out too limiting and finite.

Those calling cards also didn’t work when my identities intersected. Decades ago, I traveled with several colleagues to an area of the country in which as a Jew and a lesbian, I didn’t quite feel safe. One of my colleagues was Jewish and straight; one was a lesbian and not Jewish. As we boarded a city bus one day, my friends sat one behind the other, each with a space beside them for me. I was frozen with indecision and responsibility; in a social context in which they

were both vulnerable because of their visible otherness, should I sit with the lesbian or the Jew? Where we put our bodies matters, as we literally and metaphorically form and reform necessarily shifting alliances.

Identity politics debates persist and repeat. For instance, once lesbian, gay, queer, bisexual, and transgender characters began appearing regularly in plays, on television, and in film, critics and activists discussed which actors could best portray them. Could a straight actor play a gay character? Some activists insisted gay people could more authentically portray gay characters.

More recently, debates about whether only transgender people should play trans characters repeat similar themes or, for that matter, whether only Jewish actors should play Jewish characters.

In historical moments when a minority is politically and culturally invisible, representation means putting bodies on view that are intimately carved with the particulars of experience. At these times, the politics of identity require that minority subjects tell their own stories.

But eventually, as cultural and political representation proliferates, an artistic practice of imagination and creativity for artists and audiences might be just the scene on which to expand our identity claims. Actors train to think and feel their way into the experience of another, of a character who is not themselves, of a life about which they might educate themselves and with which they might empathize, but which is not their own. Isn’t this the hopeful power of the arts, to encourage us to think, feel, and see differently, with love and curiosity, respect and regard?

The history of LGBTQ+ political representation reminds us that for every step forward, two steps beckon on which to slide back toward homogeneous hegemony. Progress toward equality is never linear but always requires new strategies, new arguments, and new claims to public and cultural visibility.

Perhaps what we need most is simply more: to produce more representations of complexity, variety, and nuance across our multiple, ever morphing identities. We need representations that encourage surprising and important allegiances and multiple belongings, cultural and political representations that can’t wholly be owned but that many can try to engage, by which they can hope to be moved and touched. We need to learn complicated ways of speaking about identity and experience — in the arts, in politics, in life — and how they push us forward into a more equitable future.

Jill Dolan is Dean of the College at Princeton University, Annan Professor in English, and a professor of theater studies in the Lewis Center for the Arts.

THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

6

Friday April 22, 2022

How Whole

By Anonymous | Guest Contributor i asked her: what if our gods were not gods and not men? then, would you let me place your hands on my breasts, so that they could feel the throbbing beat? what if we could pray to demons, and over the balcony hang up our dripping sins to dry in the morning sun, as soft and laundered

Raw Fish

By Elliott Hyon | Guest Contributor

as bedsheets? what if you could bruise my neck beneath a bruise-colored

Look past dried sheets of salty seaweed

sky, or any sky, and not feel your bones folding into themselves like

crunchy flakes of tempura and

and you will find me tucked underneath

paper crumpling beneath a great palm. what if we could have lived, alive, sucking our

smoky orange roe. My skin bruises as

air through shared lungs. and in the morgue, when they peeled our body open

wasabi, a brown-green paste mixture

you brush me with soy sauce and

the sheet might remain on the floor, our skin burning beneath fearless fluorescent lights, and

that reminds me of the grains of sand

they could have taken three-dimensional photographs

open with care, pink flesh gently yielding

of our skeleton, so that the world could know how whole we are, how holy.

you scrubbed off my body. You sliced me

under the knife you made sure to sharpen, the same one you wielded to rip me away from the bone when you fileted me. Maybe I am to blame when I bent over for you, rolled and compressed deep into pickled radish and minty perilla leaves. Did I taste good on your tongue, did my bare flesh remind you of the sea that you conquered?

But I am no ocean spirit, just raw fish pressed onto rice and made tender against my will.

7

THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Friday April 22, 2022

PUZZLES

Pride Flag

By Katherine Dailey Contributing Constructor

ACROSS Photo finish?

Inner triangle of the pride flag 9 One might know the ___ and outs 12 Michael Jackson’s reign 13 Furniture designer Charles 14 Born this way 15 ___ shock (minor injury sometimes caused by a carpet) 18 Couples cruise planner?

19 It’s blowing up: Abbr.

20 “525,600 minutes...” show 21 Poke fun at 23 Something often lent, but never returned 24 Stores 31 “Gross!”

32 He said “Slump? I ain’t in no slump... I just ain’t hitting” 33 Take a load off 34 “___ and Mindy” 36 Bad thing to tear: Abbr.

37 “___ Bitsy Spider” 38 “And I ___,” onetime trendy phrase 40 Gold fish 41 Kool Aid competitor 48 Great Basin group 49 Name that appears 2,698 times in the Quran 50 End of some28-Downs 51 Princetonian right-wing publication 53 Orange ___ (Princeton tour group) 54 Princess ___ Martell

“Game of Thrones” 55 Stop watching a creator’s videos, colloquially 57 “Bye Bye Bye” band 58 Play that introduced the word “robot” 60 2020 hit that advises listeners to get “a bucket and 1 4

a mop” 61 “Yum!” elicitor 68 To and ___ 69 Nintendo fighting video game, colloquially 70 “Dora the Explorer” character 71 Wood strip 73 UFO pilots 74 Indian flatbread 75 Take ___ 77 Author of this puzzle, to friends 78 Prickly plant 80 Charming groups?

81 ___ tart 83 Classical music group 89 “And your very flesh shall be a great ___”: Walt Whitman 90 Hardly guzzle 91 PHY 104 units 92 The Little Mermaid 94 Bird-like 95 Billy Mays medium 99 Persevered 100 Original design of the pride flag DOWN 1 Ajar 2 Water ___ 3 Some track and field Olympians 4 One of the letters in 60-Across 5 Comedian Kevin 6 Comment after a cue 7 This is not a ___ 8 Winter hrs. in New Jersey 9 First word of a tangent 10 No: Ger. 11 Shakers or Quakers 16 ___ Pet 17 Sea that’s going away 22 Lobster catcher?

23 “I’ll be there in five, e.g.:Abbr.

24 Piña colada ingredient 25 Pixar character Anton who says “The work of a critic is easy” 26 Meadow 27 “The Lord of the Rings” baddie 28 dailyprincetonian.com, e.g.

29 “___ the season” 30 Pig pen 35 Mauna ___ 37 “Don’t worry, I’ll Venmo”: Abbr.

39 ___ mater, membrane surrounding the brain 40 Abbr. on street signs across the pond 41 Native Rwandan 42 Lots 43 Type 44 Draft status?

45 “It’s a no from me” 46 Penny or nickel 47 Climate control syst.

52 Gagarin who took the first space flight and said “I see Earth! It is so beautiful!”

54 “SportsCenter”channel 56 Tom Brady’s squad, informally 57 Humorist who wrote “Happiness is having a scratch for every itch” 59 Fog-induced frost 60 Weak one 61 Key of “Claire de Lune” 62 Get rid of 63 “Whole ___ Love”: Led Zeppelin hit 64 ___ milk 65 Act over the top 66 Necktie material 67 007 and others 72 Can make it 74 “Five stars!,” e.g.

76 “Feel the ___” (onetime

political slogan) Caffeine nut A good idea has them Size in a lingerie shop Pollution stat Apt rhyme for “ahhh...”

Singer Kelly or Amos Ones holding their horses?

Nirvana, e.g. ‘=: Fr. Network to watch the Maple Leafs: Abbr.

93 “She walked like a woman but talked like a man,” in song 94 Bat beginning?

96 The year Michelangelo began “David” 97 One in Germany 98 One of 23,924 for Wilt Chamberlain, the most all-time: Abbr.

77 79 80 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

8

Friday April 22, 2022

NEWS Angel Kuo / The Daily Princetonian

Amid Pride Alliance advocacy for housing accommodations, new dorms will include gender-inclusive bathrooms

By Lia Opperman and Brenden Garza | Assistant News Editor and News Contributor For months, student organizers with the Princeton Pride Alliance said they’ve struggled to navigate the process for helping fellow queer students obtain gender-inclusive housing accommodations on campus.

Now, The Daily Princetonian has learned that new dorms in New College East (NCE), New College West (NCW), and Hobson College have been designed to include gender-neutral restroom facilities. And a University spokesperson said that the University has taken a number of steps over the last few years toward gender-inclusive housing, including converting some bathrooms in older buildings to gender-neutral ones.

But for some directly impacted students who spoke with the ‘Prince,’ the University’s efforts have felt insufficient.

NCE, NCW, and Hobson College will include two types of gender-inclusive restroom facilities.

“One type features a central room with sinks and mirrors.

Off that room are two shower compartments, two toilet compartments, and one room with a toilet, lavatory and shower.

Each compartment has a door and full-height partitions,” wrote Deputy University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss in an email to the ‘Prince.’

“The second type of restroom features an individual room equipped with a toilet, sink and shower,” he added.

In his email, Hotchkiss wrote that “all housing on campus has been gender-neutral since 2016.” He added that, since 2014, approximately 250 bathrooms on campus have been converted to gender-inclusive spaces.

Since 2010, returning undergraduate and graduate students have been able to select roommates and rooms without regard to gender. Hotchkiss also clarified that entering first-years, undergraduates, and graduate students can make requests for gender-inclusive housing during in the housing application process, room draw, and throughout the year.

To be inclusive of transgender, non-binary, and gender-non-conforming students, Housing Services and the Gender + Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC) has created a “Bathroom Accommodation Pre-Draw Form” for students to be given a room and bathroom assignment that may be more gender-inclusive than assignments based on a student’s sex 9

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assigned at birth.

The ‘Prince’ reached out to leaders of the Pride Alliance, a student organization devoted to advocacy for queer students, to hear their perspectives and experiences in receiving housing and restroom accommodations.

Kristal Grant ’24 and Max Jakobsen ’24, the group’s co-leaders, told the ‘Prince’ that queer students have found the process of obtaining such accommodations “confusing” and “difficult-to-navigate” process.

Grant and Jakobsen explained that after stepping into their roles at the helm of the Pride Alliance last spring, they received many reports from students and friends that obtaining accommodations has been difficult.

According to Grant, pre-draw bathroom accommodations are for students requesting accommodations on a “non-medical” basis, such as for students seeking gender-affirming bathrooms. During the process, students can explain why they have a need for a particular style of bathroom, whether it be a bathroom adjacent to a bedroom or a single stall option in the hallway.

Grant is an opinion editor emerita for the ‘Prince.’

In a meeting with the University Student Life Committee last fall, Jakobsen and Grant said raised issues to the committee of a lack of communication between the University and students, poor explanations on the difference between medical accommodations and pre-draw bathroom accommodations, and general stress around the process.

In an email to the ‘Prince,’ Grant wrote that she and Jakobsen “didn’t receive much of a response from the committee,” besides a few people who came up to them after the presentation to thank them for their organizing efforts.

“We’re both very skeptical of these committees and understand that they often serve as delay tactics to prevent real structural change and to protect these larger systems that Princeton exists within and benefits from,” Grant wrote.

According to Jakobsen, one of the biggest issues for students with the pre-draw bathroom form and accommodation application process has been that many are “just unaware and very confused about what accommodations [are] available to them and also what the deadlines were.”

“For those that did apply, they still had very difficult issues getting [accommodations],” Jakobsen said. “Applying and never getting a re-

sponse from housing, applying and getting rejected after submitting an entire application describing your trauma.”

Part of the reason for this confusion, according to Grant, is the near lack of communication from the University about these opportunities.

“There was only one email that was sent out about accommodations on the basis of gender and that was the day before the application was due,” Grant added.

In February, Jakobsen and Grant met with Director of Housing Dorian Johnson to discuss these issues and formulate a plan to resolve them. The two students told the ‘Prince’ that Johnson seemed willing to work with students to address these issues.

According to the pair, many students didn’t understand that you needed to fill out an application for pre-draw bathroom accommodations. However, after Jakobsen and Grant met with Johnson and brought this issue to his attention, Johnson informally reopened the application.

He also directed Jakobsen and Grant to “have any students who feel like they’re having issues and need accommodations for bathroom for various reasons [to] apply,” Jakobsen said.

Jakobsen described these actions as “small victories,” for students, but said that the housing process remains “a very stressful process, a very difficult process.”

“Housing has been working in close partnership with the GSRC and LGBTQ+ student leadership to obtain feedback about the current Housing process,” Hotchkiss told the ‘Prince.’

But one student’s story of seeking gender-inclusive housing this academic year show the prolonged, complex, and emotionally draining experience that such a process has sometimes entailed.

Max Peel ’25 told the ‘Prince’ that when they first realized as an incoming first-year that they had been not been assigned gender-inclusive housing and instead assigned to a male roommate, “it became quite clear that Princeton viewed me as a man.”

Peel explained in an email to the ‘Prince’ that it was difficult to deal with the gender dysphoria that came as a result of the situation, on top of all of the other “academic, personal, and extracurricular stress” that they encountered in their first semester on campus. Peel said that they contacted Housing Services, but the office did not initially respond. They also said that their Director

Friday April 22, 2022

Your Name / The Daily Princetonian

of Student Life (DSL) was “sympathetic,” but claimed that their residential college was “at capacity” in terms of housing. Peel then reached out to their Sexual Harassment / Assault Advising, Resources and Education (SHARE) therapist, who they said “advocated on [their] behalf.”

A few days after reaching out to their therapist and filling out a few new forms, Peel was temporarily moved to housing in McCosh Health Center, and later permanently moved to housing with a gender-inclusive restroom.

“I was given access to a single with a gender-inclusive restroom... I was also then given the pre-draw forms for applying for housing next year,” they wrote. “I got another single in [the same building] for my sophomore year.”

In the summer before their first fall semester, Peel said they felt confused by the housing forms.

“I found the forms very confusing and misleading and that partially contributed to why I was placed in my initial housing,” Peel wrote. “Housing has committed to do better with this next year, though. They’ve also promised to make it clearer for incoming first-year students what they need to do in order to access gender-inclusive accommodations.”

“The University needs to be more actively committed to modernizing the older residential colleges,” they added. “The University has emphasized its commitment to modernizing bathroom facilities on campus but provided absolutely no timescale for this which effectively allows them to delay this indefinitely.”

Peel also expressed their thanks to the Pride Alliance, specifically for the help they got from Jakobsen, Grant, and the SHARE office during their process of getting new housing.

For Grant, such cases of student struggles in obtaining gender-inclusive housing represent the broader disconnect between administrators and students in this process.

“It is important to highlight that this disconnect has been orchestrated. It didn’t just happen, this has been very intentional,” Grant said. “It’s because of the legacy of the school in general, these things are built into the school.”

Grant noted that a lot of the work that has been done in advocating for and advancing the interests of queer students on campus has been by the students themselves.

“When you look at the people who are being asked to do this unpaid labor, Max and I are both Black queer people,” they said.

“It’s like we’re being asked to do a lot of this labor and it’s the University [that] needs to think about compensating people for this labor.”

But in the meantime, their efforts continue: Jakobsen and Grant plan to work with Housing Services in the near future to ensure that the language on housing forms is inclusive and accessible. And the pair stressed above all that they intend to support any queer students on campus who need assistance with the process.

“We are a resource to any queer and trans students who have questions about housing,” Jakobsen said. “Because of our personal experiences with housing, but also [we’re] supporting our community.”

Lia Opperman is an Assistant News Editor who often covers University affairs, student life, and local news. She can be reached at liaopperman@princeton.edu, on Instagram @liamariaaaa, or on Twitter @oppermanlia.

Brenden Garza is a news contributor for the ‘Prince.’ He can be reached at bg8077@princeton.edu or @brenden.garza on Instagram.

THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

10

Friday April 22, 2022

Space to grow: Comfort, change, and being queer at Princeton Princeton University is a place of change for many. As they come of age, first-years from many different walks of life are brought together into a community of learning and understanding. For some queer-identifying students, the University has been a space where they have been able to be more true to who they are. For this series of photos and interviews, we asked students to give us a look into a space where they feel the most comfortable in their identity and tell us a little bit about their experiences being queer at the University.

The responses have been lightly edited for clarity and concision. The ‘Prince’ granted anonymity was granted in a number of cases due to the sensitive and personal nature of identities described.

How has your experience with being a queer-identifying individual been at Princeton?

Princeton has been a place where I could truly explore my queerness. I came from a very rural conservative area, and there my only option was to not think about it or hide it. Since coming here and being surrounded by a queer community through my theater company, I feel not only do I not have to hide my queerness, but I can be proud of it.

- Alexis Maze ’23 (she/they)

I’ve been able to find an incredibly couldn’t really find in my hometown. I that may appear queer and I am able when I encounter situations where I do

welcoming community here that I don’t have to hide parts of myself to turn to friends in full confidence not feel safe because of my identity.

- Jasmyn Dobson ’24 (she/they) 11 THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

I wasn’t sure what to expect because I come from a really queerphobic area. It took a lot of getting used to before I realized I could openly and safely be myself. I’ve been able to have both personal and intellectual conversations about LGBTQ+ experiences with a wide range of people. CisHet, queer, student, faculty, and everything in between.

- Anonymous (they/them)

Princeton is a place where someone can navigate several distinct spaces and communities each with their own set of rules, boundaries, commonalities. In some of those, I feel comfortable in this part of my identity. In others it never surfaces. Nevertheless, seeing students be so fully themselves here has given me more comfort in finding my own sense of self.

- Anonymous

Friday April 22, 2022

Awesome (in terms of inclusivity), though still personally daunting to navigate how I feel about myself existing day to day. But I have never felt shame from something anyone else has said or done to me surrounding my identity and I’m very grateful for that.

- Abby de Riel ’22 (she/they)

I have realized that people in Princeton feel inclined to compare my experience to that of other gays on this campus, and even my brown South Asian friends are complicit in this.

My experience, however, is far removed from the experiences of other gays on this campus.

There is no monolithic way to be gay here at Princeton or elsewhere. I am unapologetically gay — and in my own right. There is a profound disconnect between my experiences and the experiences of white gay men, despite our shared gay identity.

I end with this plea: please show some love to your non-white gay friends and seek to understand us in our own right. We are doubly marginalized!

-

Anonymous

During my time as a varsity athlete at Princeton, I faced discrimination for my sexuality. I found community and support in the members of my eating club, Tower Club, as well as in theater.

- AJ Lonski ’23 (he/him) In comparison to ... memories at home, Princeton has been a breath of fresh air, or even the fresh air itself. In all honesty, it’s not easy to be gay here.

But, right now, I want to spend a moment of thankfulness on the queer students at Princeton who have fought like hell to make this place home. When I think of Princeton’s queer community, I think of the late nights I’ve spent talking about love and loss with my best friends, strangers who’ve DMed me to ask for help or advice on being out here or how to navigate relationships with people back home who might not support your identities, time I’ve spent with queer friends in my eating club, the resiliency of people like AJ Lonski who have spoken up against homophobia they’ve encountered on campus, the multitude of group chats I’ve been in just to say hi and I love you to other people like me, the labor of those involved in the Pride Alliance, gay poems spoken with feeling on my slam poetry team, and the graduate students and professors who would do pretty much anything to see queer students succeed. Shit might suck sometimes. But god! It’s good to find each other here, and I’m so glad I’ve had that.

Princeton has been the first place in my life where I feel safe being out. I have been surrounded by so many other queer people that are so open and proud about their identity. It was a bit jarring to see people so open especially coming from a small rural community but I have never felt so loved and accepted by my community.

- Ella Weber ’25 (she/her)

- AG McGee ’22

McGee is a former managing editor, de Riel is copy staffer, and Dobson is a staff news writer for The Daily Princetonian.

THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

12

Friday April 22, 2022

FEATURES

Josh Babu ’22 researches the effects of genderaffirming care on transgender youth’s long-term health

By Sejal Goud | Staff Features Writer For Josh Babu ’22, a pre-med concentrator in the Department of Molecular Biology and Rhodes Scholar, a certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies (GSS) might not seem like the most obvious choice. Far from it, his studies in the GSS department actually led him to the topic of his senior thesis.

“When I started to focus on GSS a little bit more and look into queer and trans health specifically, that’s when I found a real true passion and felt driven,” Babu explained. “So I would say the GSS certificate program was actually pretty instrumental in my career aspirations.”

Princeton’s GSS Department enables undergraduate students seeking a certificate in the department to explore the intersection of GSS with interests in their home department, ultimately creating a diverse array of research avenues for student independent work.

Babu is certainly taking advantage of this opportunity. His experience in the GSS department, he says, guided him to research on gender-affirming healthcare, now the subject of his senior thesis.

This passion led Babu to pursue research on transgender healthcare with clinical support from Princeton and the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He studies biological markers of stress in transitioning youth, contributing to the literature on the psychological effects of gender-affirming care.

Gender-affirming care, according to the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, is a model of healthcare that validates patients’ diverse gender identities.

Babu’s research looks at the effect of gender-affirming care on the degradation of telomeres, or protective regions of repetitive sequences at the ends of chromosomes. As telomeres degrade and shorten, they limit the ability of the chromosome to replicate without losing critical DNA, essentially counting down the life of a cell.

Chronic stress in individuals has been shown to increase the rate of telomere degradation, so telomeres can serve as a biological marker of stress. According to the American Psychological Association, “a number of studies have linked stress with shorter telomeres, a chromosome component that’s been associated with 13

THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

cellular aging and risk for heart disease, diabetes and cancer.”

Stress is a particularly important element of transgender medicine, as numerous studies have documented that transgender and nonbinary teenagers experience anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation at much higher rates than their cisgender counterparts.

Though the research group has not completed their data analysis, Babu explained that he expects “to find an increase in the activity of the protein that regulates telomere extension” among patients who received gender-affirming care. In other words, Babu anticipates results that indicate gender-affirming care prevents accelerated rate of telomere degradation due to stress in trans youth.

“If gender-affirming care can help with that and make [telomere degradation] less severe,” Babu said, “then that’s also really important to know and will help healthcare providers and policymakers make more informed decisions about gender-affirming care for kids specifically.”

His research goes beyond telomere analysis.

With this senior thesis and beyond, he hopes to pave the way for future studies of trans health and to provide a framework for navigating some of the challenges he has faced along the way.

“My goal is to build a methodology and infrastructure for studying trans health in general.

And that means establishing a roadmap for future researchers so that they know how to deal with big institutions and how to apply for grant funding in a way that will make them successful and how to establish credibility as a researcher in the trans community,” Babu said.

Babu noted that this kind of medical research has not always prioritized the well-being of transgender individuals.

“There’s an extremely unfortunate history of trans people being tested on and treated like lab rats,” Babu said. “And it’s important we combat that.”

Babu’s research is informed by first-hand experience.

“I’m gay myself, and I have had experiences in healthcare that were subpar at best. And I understand that, especially in the place I grew up, there weren’t a lot of doctors who understood

the needs of queer patients,” Babu explained.

“While that’s less common now, and less common across the United States, it is far more common for physicians not to be familiar with issues dealing with trans patients. So that’s something that I really felt pushed to help improve,” he continued.

While conducting his research, Babu grappled with his role in the queer community as a cis researcher in the context of historical tensions between gay and trans members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“There’s something to be said about leaving intellectual work about a community of people to the community itself. With that being said, I do think my experience in the LGBTQ+ community is relevant, but not necessarily parallel at all,” Babu said.

“In fact, I think the experiences are wildly different in most scenarios,” he continued. “But being a part of the LGBTQ+ community has made me appreciate and understand how important it is to have an alliance across the full spectrum of the queer and trans community.”

Babu emphasized the importance of direct involvement with the trans kids in his study, so as not to assume he knows what is best for an entire community.

“I sat down with [a transgender youth] and their family and asked them, ‘What kind of research do you want to see? What kind of research do you think will be helpful to you?’ And this was at the very early stages of the study, before we had established a research design or even applied for grants,” he said.

Applying for these grants eventually became one of Babu’s greatest challenges. Babu recognized that many of the obstacles to his research have come in the form of systemic institutional barriers as opposed to outright rejection of advancing trans health. In particular, he noted the complexity of navigating funding from small nonprofits aimed at LGBTQ+ research versus larger organizations who may consider it less urgent than other biomedical research.

“If you approach individuals at these [large] institutions and propose a study like mine, their initial response might be ‘Oh, that sounds great. That’s very important socially, yes, we support.’ But then when you get down to it, and

Friday April 22, 2022 you actually want to apply for money at the institutional level, they generally don’t put their money where their mouth is,” Babu said.

“That’s just been a general trend in the field of trans health research, but it’s not true across the board. We were able to get funding pretty easily from the NIH [National Institutes of Health], but I think that was a unique case,” he continued.

The support he has received over the course of his thesis work isn’t only financial.

His advisor Dan Notterman, Professor of the Practice in Molecular Biology and one of few practicing physicians among Princeton’s faculty, has guided him through this process, even though the field of transgender healthcare is largely new to him. Notterman noted that his medical training did not adequately cover gender diversity.

“Physicians my age didn’t have training in gender and sexuality aside from training in disorders of sexual differentiation,” Notterman said.

Notterman stressed the importance of continual learning about gender diversity by reading and allowing other professors at Princeton to shape his biology lectures on these topics.

“I have to say, though, that it has been mainly my students who teach me this,” Notterman noted, in reference to students like Babu.

As Babu prepares to continue his education in medicine and healthcare policy at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Gillian Hilscher ’23 will build on Babu’s research with Notterman’s guidance in the coming year.

Hilscher is also a pre-med concentrator in the Department of Molecular Biology, pursuing certificates in GSS and Neuroscience.

Hilscher did not originally intend to study GSS. She was first introduced to the field through her first-year Writing Seminar, The Politics of Intimacy, taught by Professor Alexander Davis. Then, in her junior year, Babu presented his senior thesis research to one of Hilscher’s classes, piquing her interest as a way to combine the study of gender and sexuality with her biology focus.

To date, she has outlined her research proposal in her Junior Paper and will work to extend previous research in the field by examining the blood samples of trans youth for changes in gene expression as a result of outside influences, a branch of biology known as epigenetics.

Specifically, Hilscher will study DNA methylation and epigenetic age as further biological markers in relation to gender-affirming care.

“I couldn’t imagine not having this aspect of education [in GSS]. Especially as a pre-med [student], I think that it’s very important to have these perspectives,” Hilscher said. “These are the people you’ll be serving.”

Sejal Goud is a staff features writer. She can be reached at sejalgoud@princeton.edu.

vol. cxlvi

editor-in-chief Marie-Rose Sheinerman ’23 business manager Benjamin Cai ’24

BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 second vice president David Baumgarten ’06 secretary Chanakya A. Sethi ’07 treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90 assistant treasurer Kavita Saini ’09 trustees Francesca Barber

Kathleen Crown Suzanne Dance ’96 Gabriel Debenedetti ’12 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 Michael Grabell ’03 John G. Horan ’74 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Julianne Escobedo Shepherd Abigail Williams ’14 Tyler Woulfe ’07 trustees ex officio Marie-Rose Sheinerman ’23 Benjamin Cai ’24

146TH MANAGING BOARD

Rohit A. Narayanan ’24 associate opinion editor Won-Jae Chang ’24 head photo editor Candace Do ’24 associate photo editor Angel Kuo ’24 Isabel Richardson ’24 head podcast editor Hope Perry ’24 associate podcast editors Jack Anderson ’24 Eden Teshome ’25 head prospect editors José Pablo Fernández García ’23 Aster Zhang ’24 associate prospect editors Molly Cutler ’23 Cathleen Weng ’24

managing editors Omar Farah ’23 Caitlin Limestahl ’23

Tanvi Nibhanupudi ’23 Zachariah Wirtschafter Sippy

Sections listed in alphabetical order. head audience editor Rowen Gesue ’24 associate audience editor Meryl Liu ’25 Sai Rachumalla ’24 head cartoon editors Inci Karaaslan ’24 Ambri Ma ’24 associate cartoon editor Ariana Borromeo ’24 head copy editors Alexandra Hong ’23 Nathalie Verlinde ’24 associate copy editors Catie Parker ’23 Cecilia Zubler ’23 head web design editors Anika Maskara ’23 Brian Tieu ’23 associate web design editor Ananya Grover ’24 head graphics editors Ashley Chung ’23 Noreen Hosny ’25

print design editor Juliana Wojtenko ’23 special issues editor Evelyn Doskoch ’23 head data editor Sam Kagan ’24 head features editors Alex Gjaja ’23 Rachel Sturley ’23 associate features editor Sydney Eck ’24 head news editors Katherine Dailey ’24 Andrew Somerville ’24 associate news editors Kalena Blake ’24 Anika Buch ’24 Miguel Gracia-Zhang ’23 Sandeep Mangat ’24 newsletter editors Kareena Bhakta ’24 Amy Ciceu ’24 Aditi Desai ’24 head opinion editor Genrietta Churbanova ’24 community editor

head puzzles editors Gabriel Robare ’24 Owen Travis ’24 associate puzzles editors Juliet Corless ’24 Joah Macosko ’25 Cole Vandenberg ’24 head satire editor Claire Silberman ’23 associate satire editors Spencer Bauman ’25 Daniel Viorica ’25 head sports editors Wilson Conn ’25 Julia Nguyen ’24 associate sports editor Ben Burns ’23 Elizabeth Evanko ’23 associate video editors Daniel Drake ’24 Marko Petrovic ’24

146TH BUSINESS BOARD assistant business manager Shirley Ren ’24 business directors David Akpokiere ’24 Samantha Lee ’24 Ananya Parashar ’24 Gloria Wang ’24 project managers Anika Agarwal ’25

John Cardwell ’25 Jack Curtin ’25 Diya Dalia ’24 Jonathan Lee ’24 Juliana Li ’24 Emma Limor ’25 Justin Ong ’23 Xabier Sardina ’24 business associate Jasmine Zhang ’24

146TH TECHNOLOGY BOARD chief technology officer Pranav Avva ’24 lead software engineers Roma Bhattacharjee ’25 Joanna Tang ’24

software engineers Eugenie Choi ’24 Giao Vu Dinh ’24 Daniel Hu ’25 Dwaipayan Saha ’24 Kohei Sanno ’25

THIS PRINT ISSUE WAS DESIGNED BY Dimitar Chakarov ’24 Brooke McCarthy ‘25

Annie Rupertus ’25 Juliana Wojtenko ’23

AND COPIED BY

Tiffany Cao ’24

Jason Luo ’25

THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

14

Friday April 22, 2022

OPINION

There’s no ‘moving on’ from queer marginalization

By Hannah Reynolds, Senior Columnist Content Warning: The following piece references sexual assault. If you or a friend have experienced sexual misconduct and are in need of assistance, Princeton has a number of resources that may be of use. You can also reach SHARE, Princeton’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education service at 609-258-3310.

“Moving on…” — these words used to swiftly change the subject make me wince every time I hear them. I feel shame, embarrassment and discomfort, as if I had said something I clearly should not have; as if I lacked the self-awareness to realize how uncomfortable my words made others. It is striking to me how just two simple words can convey so much meaning, how something that simple can send the message so clearly that my identity and experiences are not worth dwelling upon. That we ought to just “move on” with the conversation.

These words have been said to me time and time again, in one form or another, since I first openly identified as queer. Sometimes, it’s “anyways…” or “anywho…” or just a total lack of regard for what I just said. These phrases are often used when I mention my sexual orientation in passing around people who are not part of the LGBTQ+ community and don’t know how to respond to my queerness. They are used in times when I am undeniably queer, making those around me uncomfortable. They are used to move the conversation past the queerness and to get back to something less “taboo” and “uncomfortable.”

These words seem like a natural way to deal with the awkward silence that follows the mention of the part of my identity seen by many as unnatural, deviant, or sinful.

And yet somehow, those two simple words, ‘moving on,’ sting so much worse than any of the blatant homophobia I have experienced for much of my life.

To get to the root of the problem with the term ‘moving on’ and other similar phrases that seek to move past queerness, it is important to consider how differently heterosexuality is treated in the same context. As someone who is bisexual, I constantly experience double standards in response to the way I express my sexual orientation. After mentioning my same-gender attraction and past relationships, I have repeatedly experienced quick changes of the subject and awkward silences followed by something as inconsequential as a joke about being “in love” with a famous actress.

On the other hand, when speaking about my experiences dating and being attracted to men, I have not once experienced this kind of tension and change of subject. In fact, many of the same people who expressed discomfort by harmless references to queer love and identity found no such uneasiness when discussing my experiences of sexual assault by a man — in far more detail than I have ever shared about any female partner.

It becomes clear to me, then, that the discomfort around conversations about queer sexualities stem not from a resistance to discussions about sexuality, but 15 THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

rather from a discomfort when diverging from heteronormative standards. For instance, one wouldn’t typically express discomfort in hearing about the plot of a typical, heterosexual romantic comedy, or in listening to a song by an up-and-coming straight artist.

Nevertheless, sharing media by and for queer people is sometimes considered too “in your face” about queerness, in a world where LGBTQ+ people seldom get any representation.

Similarly, hearing a funny story about a friend’s partner of the opposite sex wouldn’t be a cause Photo Courtesy of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center to tense up and utter “Moving on…,” but the same is not necessarily true when won’t, come. To hear the likes of “moving on” as a way to the partner is of the same sex. overwrite such a vulnerable expression of self, no matter It seems that the discomfort which comes with dis- how seemingly trivial, can be incredibly invalidating. It cussions of queer identity emerges from a hyper-sexual- indicates a desire to gloss over the difference and demonization of queerness that entirely disregards the reality of strates a certain amount of discomfort with queerness queer experience. Queer love becomes something taboo — a fundamental part of the identities of many LGBTQ+ and inappropriate in a world where heterosexuality is students on campus. expected and institutionalized in every facet of our exWhile seemingly harmless, phrases like ‘moving on’ istence. and ‘anyways’ in response to expressions of queerness are To be queer is to live in a world of perpetual precarious- indicative of a far larger problem on Princeton’s campus: ness and uncertainty. Of course, there are accepting mem- the unwillingness to hear and validate the experiences bers of the LGBTQ+ community and supportive allies on of queer people who are open enough to share them. The this campus, but there is also a non-negligible population solution is to just listen, even if you disagree or feel unon campus that believes queer people like myself do not easy. Sit with the discomfort and be grateful that you have deserve basic human rights. I have experienced such ho- been trusted with such an integral and personal aspect of mophobia firsthand. someone’s identity.

In order to safely navigate life at Princeton, it becomes Queerness is about more than attraction, who you love, necessary to be selective about how, and with whom, one or even sexual orientation. Queerness is living through shares their queerness. One instance of poor judgment the precariousness and coming out the other side stroncould result in social exclusion, experiences of homopho- ger. It is watching elected officials debate how to regulate bic and transphobic rhetoric, or other forms of rejection your body, your love, and your very existence. It is finding by peers. Conversations with peers who might not be so community and strength in those with shared identities accepting in many cases become carefully calculated so and the prior generations that fought for queer rights. It that every sign of queerness is censored: the pronouns is learning to love yourself for the very reasons that many in funny stories about ex-partners, passing references people might hate and ridicule you. Queerness is about to queer culture, and any divergence from the expected strength and survival and resilience, and I, for once, am heteronormative culture. not willing to move on from such an integral part of my Therefore, when one shares their experiences with life, whether it causes others discomfort or not. queerness at Princeton, even in a passing joke or reference, it is a display of trust in another person. Expressions of Hannah Reynolds is a senior in the Anthropology Department queerness mark us as different, leaving queer people open from the Finger Lakes in Upstate N.Y. She can be reached at hanto the rejection and ridicule that could, but hopefully nahr@princeton.edu.

Friday April 22, 2022

PROSPECT

Doormats, being nonbinary, and me Aster Zhang, Head Prospect Editor I’m a bit of a doormat.

More than I’d like to admit, I tend to give more than I take in relationships and friendships. I let others dictate our party plans, where to go for dinner, and a number of other daily matters. I tend to listen too long and not speak enough. Often, I find myself looking back on these occasions, trying to figure out why I’m so god-awful at seizing initiative. But of course, these are small things of little consequence.

As I write this, there’s a slew of legislation designed to curtail the rights and free expression of queer and transgender people in the United States passing through various legislatures.

There is endless and overwhelming discourse on how we ought to supposedly “Save Women’s Sports”; to restrict and ban gender-affirming healthcare for minors; to enact an alphabet soup of other restrictions that apply especially to kids who are just beginning to come to terms with their gender and sexuality.

Seven years ago, I was 13, and I didn’t feel comfortable in my skin. I started using the name “Aster” for the first time. Timidly, having just moved to a new state, feeling the opportunity to present myself as someone new, I began asking people to use gender-neutral pronouns for me. At first, it was just a few close friends.

Gradually, it became peers more generally; then, teachers; then, professors and coworkers.

One day, it’ll be my parents, who I’m fairly sure don’t read The Daily Princetonian.

This journey hasn’t been affirming. It’s not hopeful. It’s crushing.

It’s marred by people who have asked me “Why are you doing this when you’re clearly a man?,” who have told me in pointed terms that my name by birth “sounds better,” who have gone for the iconic “he-oops-they” gendering in what seems like every conceivable reference to me. I was once told — outright — that somebody preferred to use male-gendered pronouns for me because it “seemed more respectful.”

Let me be selfish: what often causes me the dullest, numbing anguish about these minute actions is that they’re rarely something I can fault somebody for. I can be convinced, at least, that the people I surround myself with love me, and that they make a genuine effort.

But, after seven years of this, I know when somebody is making an effort only because I’m lucky enough to go to a school where my gender identity is — at least, to external notions — acknowledged and supported. It’s abundantly clear to me, as it has been for quite some time, that some people will never see me as the gender I’m seeking to present.

Put in other words, I’ve gone through all of these tribulations during a time period you could reasonably construe as the most openly inclusive to diverse gender identities in history.

I do all this while attending an educational institution that claims to make diversity and inclusion one of its top priorities. And I still can’t shake the fear that some of the people I love will always see me as a man and nothing else; that I’m somehow “incorrectly” presenting a gender identity I can’t even articulate; that all this will make me undesirable as a subject of romance and intimacy.

Doormat as I am, then, I’m afraid of what I might have been, growing up in a world less tolerant than the one I experienced. A world where public figures can call trans people “perverts and predators” without expecting one bit of meaningful pushback, and where politicians with support numbering in the millions can posit that being transgender is an act of “aggressively replacing” some abstract cisgender population as if there were some kind of limit.

I worry about what I might have been and what I might have not; about not only whether the people around me would have accepted me but also whether I could have accepted myself for who I am.

I don’t think I have too many answers to this problem. If writing this piece has taught me anything, it’s that definitive conclusions — whether they apply to myself or to others — are few and far between. So I’ll continue doing the only thing I can, which is to persist in the constant, ever-changing journey of carving out an identity for myself. And then fitting into it.

Aster Zhang is a sophomore concentrating in Economics and Head Prospect Editor for the ‘Prince.’

They can be reached on Twitter at @aster_zh or by email at brentonz@princeton.edu.

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Friday April 22, 2022

PROSPECT

The power of coming out – and of not having to Katherine Dailey | Head News Editor I built up the moment in my head for so long. With almost every person I’ve ever come out to, I have labored over the thought of having to actually go through with it.

I’ll never forget the very first time I came out to someone. It was to my best friend from home. We were sitting on the couch in my basement — my whole family was out at an end-of-season celebration for my little brother’s robotics team — and I said to her, “I don’t think I’m straight.” She gave me a hug. That was June 14, 2019, the very end of my junior year of high school. It’s been almost three years, and I’ll never forget that day.

I had no idea what kind of journey was in store for me. At the time, I identified as bisexual, and now I’m a lesbian. But before I could even find the words or the strength to say that out loud, I knew I wasn’t straight. I knew that something about my experience wasn’t like what the people around me were feeling.

It took a long time to put a word to those feelings. The COVID-19 pandemic gave me a lot of time alone with my thoughts for self-reflection, and starting college gave me a brand new chance to start over with whatever labels — or lack thereof — that I wanted. It let me build an identity where I was openly and visibly gay, all the time, and I stopped having to come out to people.

Maybe not everyone I pass on the way to class knows that I’m a lesbian, but looking at me, it’s pretty easy to figure out that I’m queer.

That was liberating. I didn’t have to work up the courage to tell everyone I was getting to know that I had some big secret to tell them — that I was gay. I could make jokes about my sexuality, especially with my other queer friends. We bonded over shared experiences, both good and bad, and it was never awkward to bring it up in conversation. I just existed, as a lesbian.

I have a girlfriend now. I never thought I would get to say that. In concept, sure, 17

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I thought someday I would find someone who makes me happy, but it always felt out of reach in reality. The first few times I went on dates with girls, early on in my Princeton experience, I would have ridiculous bouts of incapacitating anxiety for days before, and I would struggle to even verbalize what I was feeling. It was all so new.

It felt just like staring at myself in the mirror of my childhood bedroom, pleading with myself to just be able to form the words: “I am gay.”

But as I became more comfortable in my own skin, settling into this label that I had chosen for myself, I began to feel like I had found a home in the word “lesbian.”

That’s not to say it’s all roses and sunshine. On Valentine’s Day this past year, I took my girlfriend out to dinner on Nassau Street. It was a moment that brought me so much joy — skipping multiple meetings to take my girlfriend out for a moment that could just be ours. But I went home that night and scrolled through Instagram story after Instagram story of friends from Princeton and from home with their significant others, largely those in heterosexual relationships, and I cried, wishing that I could be so open about this person who I care so much about. But at the time, my parents didn’t know I was gay, and I wasn’t ready to tell them quite yet, so that wasn’t an option.

Even still, I think about how much better it is here, where I am openly and unapologetically queer. I brought my girlfriend to the sophomore “redemption prom,” something I never would have dreamed of in high school. We hold hands as we walk around campus, and we make fun of the few times we’ve been mistaken for friends or roommates by some oblivious acquaintance.

The concept of “coming out” is certainly not flawless, even beyond the obvious flaw that only queer people have to do it.

And it’s liberating to be in a space where I don’t have to “come out” to everyone

KATHERINE DAILEY / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

I’m talking to — I can just mention my girlfriend to my coworker at my campus job or crack a joke about being gay and no one bats an eye.

But I’ll never forget the first times I was able to say those words to someone else, or even to myself. After months and years of trying to reach a point of self-acceptance, even though I certainly hadn’t reached that self-acceptance yet, I was able to speak it into existence. I’m a lesbian, and there’s power in those words.

Katherine Dailey is a Head News Editor who often covers breaking news, politics, and University affairs. She can be reached at kdailey@princeton.edu or on Twitter at @ kmdailey7.

Friday April 22, 2022

PROSPECT

Between two communities: Being queer and Muslim at Princeton Anonymous

I’m a queer Muslim.

I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud, at least not like that. Some people know I’m queer. Others know I’m Muslim. But it’s difficult to say both of those things together, not in middle school when I realized I was queer, not in my relatively liberal Muslim household, nor in my socially conservative high school environment. I thought that Princeton would be different. I was wrong.

I have never been fully “out.” My reasons for being in the closet at Princeton were many. Generally, I was anxious about being out in a school where I did not yet have any support and had not found a safe space, no matter where I turned. Additionally, my immediate and extended family are incredibly homophobic, and I feel that their knowing would have incredibly harmful effects on my life.

Throughout my time here, I have tried to find a home for myself in Princeton’s Muslim community. While I have great friends within the community, the community itself and many of its members have been alienating and have turned me away both from finding the religious community I want and the community support I need.

As a first-year student, I had great difficulty making friends. Then, a Muslim student I knew from class invited me to a Muslim Student Association (MSA) mixer. Through the group, I made fast friends, though I always felt a bit awkward. My family may have espoused and upheld certain Muslim values like modest dress, strict gender roles between men and women, and the importance of prayer and fasting when possible, but the strictness to which the MSA adhered to these values was often off-putting. I was one of few women who wore less modest clothing; I was a loud and outspoken feminist. Meanwhile, one member of my friend group once told me she “did not believe or understand feminism.” And of course, I was in the closet.

Once, during an informal discussion about politics, a former MSA student leader remarked that all Muslims should hold the same conservative values, including a conception of “marriage between one man and one woman.” I rebutted that not all Muslims believed in that rigid structure of marriage, but was told by other members of the group to “let it be.” In a different instance, another

student leader made a transphobic joke and I watched as other MSA members laughed in agreement. In Muslim spaces, I felt that I couldn’t defend my own queerness even if I wanted to — even if they had known.

Just like being queer in Muslim spaces felt risky, being Muslim in queer spaces felt difficult as well. The LGBT Center (now known as the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center) staff and student leaders were generally kind and supportive. They often tried to help me, and their workshops were a highlight of my freshman year, including my favorite “Mom, I’m Gay,” a workshop on coming out. However, as a closeted student, it was hard to feel comfortable spending time in the LGBT Center when I was not out on campus. I did not want to have to explain to friends that I had made there that I did not want to be known as queer outside of the center. In addition, I was worried about being seen at LGBT Center events by students I wasn’t yet out to.

Additionally, I recall multiple instances in which students were openly Islamophobic to me in queer spaces, further alienating me. During a dinner in my freshman year, a fellow queer student told me that “all Muslims are backwards and homophobic.”

He then proceeded to describe the ways in which Arab countries punish gay men, including capital punishment. While it is true that some Arab countries still carry out these horrendous practices, it had nothing to do with me, a non-Arab Muslim student who was born and raised in the United States. The conversation left a bad taste in my mouth, and I only felt further pushed away from the queer community.

In a double whammy instance of Islamophobia and homophobia, a former friend from my freshman year, a devout Christian, told me that in their view, both Muslims and “homosexuals” would end up in hell. I thought about discussing the situation with a peer mentor, but I didn’t want to out myself to them either.

I felt completely alone.

As the semester went on, I began to feel more weary about being in the closet entirely.

However, when I sought the advice of some queer friends, I was told to cut out the MSA entirely if they would not be supportive. I was scared. What would I do without a religious community? Who else would I meet

for late night prayers or fast with during Ramadan? Who else would remember to wish me an Eid Mubarak if not for my Muslim friend group?

One tradition that kept me going during all of this was weekly dinners I would have with some of the friends I had made through the MSA. At one of these dinners, I broached the subject of sexuality with a quiet mention of “Love, Simon” as a recommendation for our movie night. I wanted so badly to come out. I thought that the movie would be a good segue. I’ll never forget what my friend said: “That actually makes me uncomfortable. I’d rather we didn’t talk about that.”

She didn’t say gay, or queer, or anything of the sort, but I knew what it meant. It was the end.

Then March 2020 came around. I found myself hurriedly packing my bags to make the next flight home where, unbeknownst to me, I would spend the next year and a half — only furthering my time in the closet.

Over that year and a half, I distanced myself greatly from the MSA and my friend group within it. As I dealt with being closeted at home, and once again being sequestered into my family’s conceptions of womanhood, I still sought the religious support of an Imam in the community.

Unfortunately, he was not affirming when it came to my sexuality. In a moment of great discord in my family during COVID-19, I came out to the Imam and asked for his help.

I was looking for someone to tell me that my feelings towards women and my conception of myself were not wrong. Instead, I received a mostly one-sided discussion, where I was told that while my feelings were natural, acting on them in any way was Islamically forbidden. He assured me that I could and would continue to have “deep friendships” with women, even if I could not act on my feelings.

I was crushed. Not my Muslim friends, nor my Imam would accept me. For a year, I turned away from Islam entirely. I focused on getting closer (virtually) to my newly found friends in other communities, other clubs and activities. I found queer students who I could relate to, and look up to. I reconnected with my friends from high school, by virtue of all being quarantined in the same town.

I tried not to think about my faith. When

Art by José Pablo Fernández García

we returned to campus, I greeted Muslim friends cordially but without zeal. When Ramadan began, I let it pass without another glance.

Then Imam Sohaib passed.

At that moment, I wanted nothing more than the community I was so lacking. I wanted to run back to my Muslim friends and mourn with them, hold space with them for the Imam that I had so dearly loved just as them, despite our differences in ideology. I’ve been trying to find my way back ever since.

It hasn’t been easy. While there are so many first years and sophomores that have changed the culture of the MSA, I would still feel uncomfortable being in the same space as those I know to be homophobic. I have great supportive friends now, from all faith traditions, and I refuse to be with people who will not be supportive.

Progress has been slow. I joined an online community for queer Muslims, affectionately called the “Muslim Fruit Bowl.” I discovered Hidayah LGBT, an advocacy group based in the UK, which gave me a source of information for finding out more about queer Muslims around the world. While I know of a few other queer Muslims, I have found queer students who I can relate to in other faith traditions, or who come from more conservative backgrounds.

For the queer Muslims on our campus, and around the world, I just want to say that we exist. We are and have always been queer Muslims. If you search online, there are plenty of sets of scripture which will defend this, as many that will refute it, but I don’t need scripture or an Imam or the Muslim Student Association to tell me who I am, or who I will be.

Editor’s Note: The ‘Prince’ made the decision topublish this piece anonymously due to privacy and safety concerns for the author.

Self essays at The Prospect give our writers and guest contributors the opportunity to share their perspectives. This essay reflects the views and lived experiences of the author. If you would like to submit a Self essay, contact us at prospect@ dailyprincetonian.com.

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Friday April 22, 2022

PROSPECT

Telling our beautiful stories

By José Pablo Fernández García Head Prospect Editor

Anyone who has read my Self essay from last fall for National Coming Out Day might recall that I first came out to people by writing letters to them. I found safety and confidence in writing what I could not yet bring myself to speak out loud. I discovered the power in writing and sharing a story because in those moments, when I was writing and sharing my story, I happened to be saving myself, in a way, as well.

What I left out of that essay, however, is that a few weeks after I finally came out to my mom, I wrote and published in my high school’s monthly newspaper what I guess you could consider one of my very first Self essays ever. In it, I started by describing how being born in Mexico City but growing up in Cincinnati since I was 4 years old felt like existing in the overlap of a Venn diagram — identifying with both worlds but existing distinctly apart from them as well.

Then I complicated things, adding more parts of my identity — more circles to the Venn Diagram — until, towards the very last paragraph, I mentioned ever so briefly, my gay identity.

The thing is, I attended a Catholic high school — fairly liberal in its teachings but still Catholic. So when I first submitted my article, it led to conversations with administrators in which I had to convince them that my article should run in print. Truthfully — and to their credit — I had to convince them that I was prepared for any fallout from the essay’s publication more than I had to convince them of anything else. Somehow, I managed to do it, and then I braced for the backlash they cautioned me of.

Instead, a classmate emailed me to thank me for writing the article, a teacher commented during class on the fresh perspective it gave him, and months later a classmate came out to me — mentioning the piece.

Still, despite this prior experience and the knowledge of the powerful impact an ar-

ticle could have, I was rather terrified to write and publish my article this past fall — publishing across The Daily Princetonian’s many platforms, with all their reach, is quite different from my high school newspaper’s couple hundred print copies. It also didn’t help that one of my other articles had just exploded online thanks to a viral tweet, adding to the anxiety of being so publicly open about my identity.

In the month or so leading up to National Coming Out Day, I told then-Editor-in-Chief Emma Treadway ’22 that there was a reason I hadn’t previously touched the topic in an essay before.

I hadn’t yet been comfortable enough with myself. I had been worried about who might read it and how they might react to what I wrote. I was unsure of my own voice; afraid to somehow say the wrong thing in my own words.

But, I told Emma, that now I felt ready — strong enough to challenge my comfort zone.

Still, I didn’t rest well that night before my article went live on the website of the ‘Prince.’ But the morning came either way.

With it came a flow of emails, texts, and comments from classmates, strangers, and administrators alike all throughout the day, reminding me what makes writing these stories worth it.

There are moments when writing and editing for the ‘Prince’ becomes overwhelming. It’s an experience that can so easily and so quickly tear you down. I’ve seen the toll it has taken on some of my friends. And I’ve felt it myself at times as well.

But then I remember how I felt after publishing my essay last fall and after seeing its reception. I remember the joy and comfort and sense of assurance that I felt as different people reached out to me. And it reminded me so much of my earlier high school publication experience.

I was unsure of my own voice; afraid to somehow say the wrong thing in my own words.

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And in the past few weeks, as I’ve edited some of the essays for this special issue and as I’ve seen others work so tirelessly on other parts of it, all these memories have resurfaced yet again. There’s something truly beautiful in how my friends have worked with so much care and compassion to tell the story of this part of the Princeton community.

Telling our stories is part of living openly. It is powerful, and it is beautiful.

Recently, in my Italian class, we were tasked with writing a couple sentences about what beauty is according to each of us. I didn’t love the answer I wrote. After all, I wrote it in a bit of a rush while trying to complete all my various assignments. So in writing my response, I failed to fully capture this side of beauty.

There are beautiful stories, and there are stories beautifully told. Somehow, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness the creation of both.

So maybe beauty is something so wonderful and inspiring as to keep us going, pushing through life and its many terrors.

Certainly, reading and editing the stories I’ve seen pass across my screen over the past couple weeks — and, truthfully, even further back — has kept me going.

What I’m trying to say has already been written in an anonymously-published essay I was honored to edit earlier this semester: “We are so much more powerful when we live openly as ourselves.”

Telling our stories is part of living openly.

It is powerful, and it is beautiful.

I encourage you to tell your own.

Friday April 22, 2022

NEWS

QP@P: Sitting down with LGBTQ+ politics research scholar Andrew Reynolds

By Erin Lee| Staff News Writer Senior research scholar Andrew S. Reynolds in the politics department is pursuing research of LGBTQ+ representation in the political sphere through Queer Politics at Princeton (QP@P). Since its founding in 2020, the organization has become a hub for queer research and scholarship that Reynolds says “[has] not [been] seen at any other institution.”

“QP@P is really supposed to shine a light on the reality of this world socially and politically,” Reynolds said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “This is the only queer politics center in the world that is focused on this [LGBTQ+ visibility].”

Through the organization’s creation, Reynolds said he aimed to expand the work he was doing prior to coming to Princeton at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he previously conducted research.

“One of the aspirations that I discussed with SPIA [the School of Public and International Affairs], Politics and the University more generally, was to try and build [the previous work] into a bigger shop here at Princeton,” he said. “I wanted to build it out of Princeton because it seemed to be the best place to use as a foundation. And there’s a lot of enthusiasm to do it.”

According to SPIA concentrator and Research Assistant Paul-Louis Biondi ’24, QP@P’s work is especially important in today’s political climate.

“What we’re seeing, especially in the U.S. right now, is a big, big reaction against queerness especially in youth and education, and so I think queer elected officials are a big hope and a big need to be seen and talked about more,” they said.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, QP@P has hosted a webinar series of panel discussions with scholars in queer research, including “Bi/Pan Women Parliamentarians” and “Queer and Trans Muslims in the US.” The webinars had regular attendance, with almost 800 people registered in total coming from all around the world.

“Every week, I had somebody in Namibia, or Germany, or Russia, or Jamaica, or Argentina,” Reynolds explained. “It was very internationalized. And it allowed our speakers as well to come from all over the place.”

Though the webinars have not been held as frequently after the first season, Reynolds said he hopes to build up a program for the series next year. QP@P also plans to launch a film directors series next year by inviting directors and screenwriters of queer storytelling for screenings at the Princeton Garden

Theatre. According to Reynolds, Dustin Lance Black, who wrote the Oscar-winning movie “Milk,” and David France, best known for his writings and documentaries on LGBTQ+ issues, are coming to Princeton during the 2022–23 academic year.

“We’re gonna start this series just talking to storytellers and understanding how their storytelling about queer issues and lives actually affects people’s views and policy as well,” Reynolds said.

With the start of Princeton’s Gender and Sexuality Resource Center’s Pride Month in April, the QP@P will be publicizing its newly launched website, which showcases the research projects it has conducted so far through its extensive data collection.

“We redesigned it totally and have amazing new graphics for all the data,” Biondi said.

One study examines the role of queer identity in elections around the world.

“We have this data set that allows us to really unpack the impact of identity upon vote share,” Reynolds said. “What does it matter that you’re a gay Asian woman in California running for the Republicans?

Or what does it matter that you’re a white, straight man of this education level?”

Another past QP@P research project that Reynolds has conducted involves more complex political interactions, such as those between LGBTQ+ advocacy and xenophobia.

“A lot of countries, especially in Europe, are very Islamophobic and they use LGBTQ rights issues as a dog whistle against allowing Muslim people or people from the Middle East to immigrate,” said Joshua Babu ’22, who led the data collection for the project.

Tensions even occur within the LGBTQ+ community, he said, which QP@P has also been able to explore.

“In the U.K. and in the U.S., there are large coalitions of lesbians and gays who are very anti-trans.

They have very powerful lobbying groups and organizations that are actively making the political standing of trans people worse,” Babu explained.

“I was really floored by the way in which QP@P tackled the diversity of problems that were facing the queer and trans community at large,” he added.

These projects have been able to uniquely and quantitatively illuminate the political landscape of queerness.

“We don’t understand how the world changes unless we have the data and the historical evidence, right? Without really knowing who is running for

office and being elected, we have no real way of testing our hypotheses about how change happens and the relationship between visibility and change,” Reynolds said.

QP@P has been able to examine the importance of visibility in identity politics, but Reynolds said it has also served as a form of visibility itself.

“A lot of universities, if not every university, see queer issues as marginalized, out there with home economics and cooking and girly stuff. And I have to tell you, my experience is that Princeton is not immune from that behavior as well. It is a struggle to try and mainstream these issues at Princeton,” Reynolds said. “So [that’s] what I’m trying to do.”

As someone who hopes to pursue a career in academia, Biondi finds the visibility of queer scholars in QP@P rewarding to see.

“QP@P is the first time I’ve kind of seen more broadly-reflected queer research and queer lab research, which has been really cool,” they said.

Babu shared this sentiment and acknowledged Reynold’s mentorship as he continues his research in trans healthcare.

“Professor Reynolds has been one of my most important professors — and mentors in general — at Princeton,” Babu said. “I think he fulfills a role that has gone unfilled at Princeton for what I imagine is a very long time.”

As a center for queer research, QP@P is working to establish a network of researchers in queer topics.

“Within our orbits, I want to be able to ultimately have a network of scholars working on these issues to sort of cross-pollinate, but also allow our students to go study in London or in Amsterdam, or wherever else,” Reynolds said.

But ultimately, Reynolds hopes to bring queer identity to the forefront of political issues and discussions through the scholarship of QP@P. “When we think about healthcare, transportation, housing… basic rights of the individual, we do think about gender, and we think about race,” he said. “But we also [need to] think about sexual orientation and gender identity, because we have millions and millions of Americans whose lives are not defined, but are shaped by that.”

Erin Lee is a Staff News Writer and Contributing Sports writer at the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at erinlee@ princeton.edu.

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Friday April 22, 2022

NEWS

Coach Carla Berube discusses coaching style, tournament wins, and identity

Alison Araten | Staff News Writer Carla Berube is the head coach of the Princeton women’s basketball team, which went 25–5 overall — including posting an undefeated 14–0 record in the Ivy League — in its most recent season. The team competed in the first two rounds of the NCAA March Madness tournament before falling to Indiana in a nailbiter.

Berube and her wife, Megan, have two sons, Parker and Caden, and a daughter, Brogan. She played college basketball at the University of Connecticut under legendary coach Geno Auriemma and played for the New England Blizzard in the now-defunct American Basketball League before becoming an assistant coach at Providence College. She served as the head coach for the Tufts University women’s basketball team from 2002 to 2019 and has been the head coach at Princeton since.

The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.

The Daily Princetonian: How would you describe your coaching style?

Carla Berube: I’m competitive and demanding, but I also think I’m an educator. My coaching is a lot of teaching the game. I hope I’m a good motivator, and I want to see all of my players be the best versions of themselves and have them feeling really confident and strong as competitors, but also as individuals off the court as well. So I think I’m kind of a player’s coach where yes, I’m coaching the game of basketball, but also, I’m hopefully someone that they can come to and talk about everything that is happening in their roles off the court, as well as on.

DP: What type of environment do you aim to foster among your players?

CB: Just an inclusive environment where everybody has a voice and the ability to be who they are. It’s important for us to recognize, support, and celebrate everybody, whatever backgrounds they come from or how they identify. I hopefully am fostering and cultivating a really open team, where everybody can be themselves and feel like we’re all in this together.

DP: What has been the most difficult aspect of coaching?

CB: As a coach, you’re just so invested in each individual, and when you see them going through difficult times, you want to be there for them as much as they want. Throughout my career, there’ve been some tough times, but I wouldn’t trade this job for anything. I think one of the best pieces is that you can have an impact on 18 to 22-year-olds every year. And it’s a cycle; you get them for four years and then you see them move on, but you don’t lose that contact. It’s a pretty rewarding 21

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profession to watch them grow, spread their wings, and fly. There are many hard times, but all the great times certainly outweigh the tough ones.

DP: What has been your proudest moment as a coach?

CB: I’ve had quite a few proud moments here at Princeton already. I was also at Tufts University for 17 years. I think that one of the things that I’m most COURTESY OF ABBY MEYERS proud of is that players, when they leave, either at Tufts or Princeton, still feel very connected to their Donovan (left) and Meyers (right) have known each other experience here and to their teammates. It’s really imsince middle school. portant that my players have a great experience during their time in my programs and when they walk away from college, they’re not walking away from the family need to know them on a personal basis, and if I’m not they made. open to them, they’re not going to be open to me. So I Also, I was really proud of my team this year making just opened the door, and it felt really comfortable to it to the [NCAA Tournament] Round of 32, and how be who I was. resilient they were. It certainly was challenging at the DP: Has your personal identity influenced your perbeginning of the year when we hadn’t played together spective on your role as a coach? for 18 months, but with every day we took steps forward CB: I hope that my players have felt like they could and came together, got better, and just kept building be who they are, if I’m doing that same thing. I put it throughout the season. It just seemed like everybody in my bio so that recruits know that this is who I am, was together, whether they were playing a lot on the and I certainly talk about my family a lot, my wife and floor or they were on the bench during games. Those three kids. bench players were so vital during practices to get us I think becoming a mother certainly changed me as ready, and it just seemed like a really cohesive unit. It a coach. I think I’ve just become a little more calm and it made the run that we had just so much fun, and I was puts it much more in perspective. You know, I’m coachjust really proud of everyone. ing people’s daughters, so you just think about it in a DP: How did it feel to win the Ivy League and make it different way, and it’s made me a better coach, having all the way to the Round of 32 in March Madness? my own children.

CB: It was just a really fun, amazing journey for this So I don’t know exactly how me being out and open team. Every season is different because there are differhas affected everybody, but I hope it just makes my ent players and different leaders, but I just thought this players and prospective student-athletes feel comfortgroup really came together and developed the chemisable here. try that successful teams need. Watching that just grow DP: Are there any specific people that have helped throughout the year, into the Ivy League Tournament you feel empowered and comfortable being open with and those two games in the NCAA Tournament, was your identity? phenomenal. It was a great run, and I’ve had a couple of CB: At first, I had colleagues at Tufts who just made weeks now to reflect on what a tremendous ride it was. it feel really comfortable and OK and open. It’s now been DP: What impact, if any, would you say your identity maybe 13 years since I put it in my bio, and never once has had in shaping your career? have I felt like that was a mistake or gotten negative CB: Certainly when I was a player in the mid-90s, my feedback about it. I don’t know if there was anybody lifestyle and how I identified was much more of a secret. specifically that encouraged me to do it, but I just It was tough at that time to be who I was. I think during thought it was time to be who I am and that maybe it my time coaching at Tufts I really got more comfortable could impact others in a positive way to feel comfortand shared who I was. Then, when I met my wife, it just able being who they are. made sense to open that door to my personal life with my team. And certainly when I was having children, I Alison Araten is a staff news writer for the ‘Prince.’ She can wanted my family at Tufts to know my family, outside be reached at aaraten@princeton.edu and @alisonaraten on of my profession. For me to connect with my players, I Instagram.

Friday April 22, 2022

SPORTS

Power couple Abby Meyers and Marge Donovan on using their platforms as queer student-athletes

Eric Fenno | Sports Contributor If you keep up with Princeton athletics at all, the names Abby Meyers and Marge Donovan are anything but new to you. You may know senior guard Meyers for her unstoppable scoring on the basketball court or her selection as Ivy League Player of the Year. More recently, you have likely seen senior defender Donovan’s lockdown defense and All-American caliber play for women’s lacrosse.

Their tale began with a showdown in the seventh grade — the Ravens against the Lady Bulldogs — in Maryland’s Rising Stars basketball championship.

Despite Meyers’ 30 points for the Lady Bulldogs, Donovan and the Ravens took home the championship trophy. The two did not know each other at the time, but almost 10 years later, they joined the Princeton community. It seemed as though fate had a plan for the two athletes, who eventually began dating in college.

As a senior in high school, Donovan opened up about her sexuality to her family and friends. Although she struggled with her identity, she recognized that she had her family as part of her support system.

“It was very new to everybody at first, but I, at this point, could not ask for a more supportive family,” she told The Daily Princetonian.

Donovan’s family, which Meyers jokingly described as “a whole [other] level of competitive,” also nudged Donovan into the world of sports. Athletics acted as another important form of support for the budding young athlete. In her conversation with the ‘Prince’, Donovan noted the welcoming nature of her sports teams growing up.

“While I was struggling with my identity, the best thing about sports was that nobody cared. In a good team culture and competitive environment, it doesn’t matter what you look like or how you identify, you’re just playing,” she said. “And I think that I was super lucky to be in an environment where that was the mentality.”

Meyers echoed the sentiment of openness in her sports teams through her journey as a high school basketball player.

“A lot of my teammates were part of the LGBTQ+ community and were not afraid of talking about their lives outside of basketball, so it was a very welcoming space,” she noted.

For Meyers, the Princeton basketball team has also exemplified an open community, especially for LGBTQ+ people. In her first year, head coach Courtney Banghart, as well as most of the entire

coaching staff, were members of the LGBTQ+ community. Having people to relate to and connect with, it was easy for Meyers to feel welcome and included on the team. Current women’s basketball coach Carla Berube is also a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, with a wife and three children. According to Meyers, she fosters a caring and welcoming environment.

Donovan, on the other hand, is the only openly gay member of the women’s lacrosse team. Still, she still knows that her teammates love her for who she is and support her in any situation.

“Just having people on your team that you know have your back just makes life so much easier,” she said. “That could be your best friends, it could be your dance group, or whoever, but for me that’s my sports team.”

Being part of an inclusive and welcoming community, no matter the context, is an extremely powerful part of sports for both Donovan and Meyers. Events like Pride Night games here at Princeton have helped the two feel at home on their teams and within themselves as LGBTQ+ athletes. On top of providing a healthy environment, Princeton sports introduced Meyers and Donovan to their best forms of support: each other.

While both women have found a community that welcomes them, they recognize that not all LGBTQ+ athletes may share such positive experiences. They note that, unfortunately, many LGBTQ+ athletes do not feel the compassion and acceptance that they have personally experienced through sports, even within Princeton’s community.

“I was going into a program that really had a safe space around it for people of any type to go in there and play for them,” Meyers said, “but not everyone is fortunate enough to be in a space like that.”

Recognizing this, the two trailblazers, along with Meyers’ teammate junior forward guard Lexi Weger and senior diver Colten Young, started Princeton’s Queer Student-Athlete Collective. The group offers a safe space for Princeton athletes who identify as LGBTQ+ to convene, share stories, and join a welcoming community of similarly identifying peers. The group aims to quell the anxiety that comes with the pressure and isolation of being a queer athlete by creating an environment where people can feel comfortable and supported.

“There’s sports where certain stereotypes can kind of block or overshadow a person and make

COURTESY OF ABBY MEYERS

Donovan (left) and Meyers (right) have known each other since middle school.

them scared to be who they are, so QSAC is a safe space — a confidential space — for people who don’t feel comfortable in those spaces to enter into this one,” Meyers said.

Meyers and Donovan’s desire to leave a lasting impact on the Princeton community is inspired by their LGBTQ+ role models in professional sports.

Lacrosse player Michelle Tumolo, as well as U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team star Meghan Rapinoe and her wife, WNBA legend Sue Bird, have all used their platforms to spread awareness about the LGBTQ+ community in athletics. Donovan and Meyers have replicated the efforts of Bird and Rapinoe here at Princeton by proudly representing their community on the field and the court while also fostering a safe space through QSAC. Regarding her goal of making a positive social impact like her role models, Meyers told the ‘Prince,’ “I think if one kid reads this or goes to a game on Pride Night and realizes how awesome the environment is, it could really add a new meaning to how they see pride.”

“To me, that’s the true meaning behind sports,” Donovan added. “What you do within your own team, but then also what you do with your platform.”

Eric Fenno is a contributor to the Sports and Prospect sections at the ‘Prince.’ He can be reached at ef4960@ princeton.edu.

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