BY ANDREA RAEL

Job applicants seeking a position with Colorado College will find five options for a question about gender identity: not disclosed, male, female, transgender and queer.  The question for the Colorado Springs-based private liberal arts college is voluntary, but the inclusion of the word “queer” on the application made 66-year-old John Kichi of Pennsylvania very upset and even prompted him to file a complaint with Colorado Attorney General John Suthers’ office, adding that he’s been discriminated against because of his sexual orientation. “It’s totally from the Dark Ages,” he says.

Colorado College’s Office of Minority and International Students defines queer as “an umbrella term describing people who have a non-normative gender identity, sexual orientation, or sexual anatomy — includes lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, asexual people, transgender people, intersex people, etc.” At another college group, The Queer Initiative, at the University of Colorado at Boulder, queer is meant to be self-empowering.

Read more at Huffington Post Gay Voices

What do you think you think about the transformation of words like “queer”?

Many feel it’s a progressive move intended to be inclusive. Others are afraid it will open up opportunities for discrimation. How do you feel about Colorado College’s choice to include more options than “male” and “female” for gender?

The post Colorado College under fire for use of ‘queer’ on job application first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY ERIN HIGGINS

Chapman University student Addie Vincent had hoped that she would be the first transgender woman to be initiated into a sorority within her college’s Greek system. But things changed after she was cut from the process after the second day of rush. With many friends involved in the Greek life at Chapman, Vincent felt confident about her chances. But when she learned she would be unable to fulfill her dream of joining a sisterhood, Vincent was crushed.

She now plans to start a chapter of Theta Pi Sigma: Chapman University’s first gender-neutral all-inclusive “frarority.” The frarority will be open to students of all background, including gender, sex, gender expression, and sexual orientation, with a colonization goal of Spring 2014.  A GoFundMe account has been set up to help Theta Pi Sigma achieve its financial needs. Vincent has currently raised $470 of the $2,000 goal.

Read more at dot429.com

The post Transgender university student starts gender-neutral ‘frarority’ first appeared on Lesbian.com.

A rally against gay conversion therapy in Illinois (Photo: Andrew Ciscel/Flickr)

BY ADAM L. BRINKLOW
dot429

Should university LGBT centers refer students to ex-gay groups and conversion therapists if they ask for it, or do counselors have a responsibility to caution students against trying to change their sexual orientation? Colleges in Virginia seem to have opted for the latter, leading conversion advocates to call foul and say that schools have a burden to present “both sides” of the issue.

Public universities in other states told 429Magazine that they do not recommend that students, even those conflicted about their orientation, undergo any program claiming to change or cure homosexuality. “We never provide reparative therapy, because being gay is not a mental disease,” says Cassandra Nichols, director of counseling at Washington State University “The APA has guidelines about this and we follow them. It would be unethical not to.” Gay reparative therapy is illegal in California and New Jersey. Virtually all LGBT groups reject the practice.  Groups like NARTH still insist that the treatment is safe and that people should have the right to choose to undergo it if they wish.

Read more at dot429.com

The post Virginia universities stir up controversy by rejecting gay conversion therapy first appeared on Lesbian.com.

A sorority at CU Boulder.

BY LUCY HALLOWELL
AfterEllen

When I first read this article about the straight girl at Smith College who circulated an email to her friends in an attempt to set up a “straights only” sorority my first instinct was to do a whole post about all the awesome ladies who would be in a lesbian and bisexual only sorority. But while I was patting myself on the back for being so very clever I had a wave of empathy wash over me.  I know, it was shocking for me, too. This woman, whoever she may be, is living a reality with which most of us should be able to empathize. It’s pretty terrible to live in a world where you feel marginalized, pushed aside, surrounded by people who make you feel wrong or weird. This woman may have, for the first time in her life, discovered what I felt basically from the time I was a little kid. Doesn’t that suck? Doesn’t it feel terrible to not have a place to fit?

Read more at AfterEllen.com

AfterEllen is the pop culture site that plays for your team

The post A sorority without lesbians at Smith? first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Emerson College in Boston. (Photo: Allston Dave)

BY MORGAN WELCH
dot429

There are multiple issues to consider when looking at colleges; Princeton Review’s annual list, which covers both two-year colleges and four-year universities, rate each institution on multiple criteria for the consideration of prospective students, including LGBT-friendliness. Predictably, schools from California and New England crowded the most LGBT-friendly list, while Southern schools were likely to be rated as least friendly towards the community. However, there were some surprises.

Not everyone considers the Princeton Review’s findings reliable, however; Campus Pride points out that the surveys include only one question on LGBT issues: students are asked if they agree or disagree with the statement “students, faculty, and administrators treat all persons equally regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity/expression.”

Among the most LGBT-friendly schools:

01. Emerson College (Boston, MA)
02. Warren Wilson College (Asheville, NC)
03. New College of Florida (Sarasota, FL)

Among the least LGBT-friend schools:

01. Grove City College (Grove City, PA)
02. Hampden-Sydney College (Hampden Sydney, VA)
03. College of the Ozarks (Point Lookout, MO)

Read more at see the top 20 rankings in both categories at dot429.com

The post The most (and least) queer-friendly colleges first appeared on Lesbian.com.

The University of Virginia’s student council has unanimously passed a resolution to bar co-eds from inserting the word “not” before the word “gay” (meaning “happy”) in the school’s song, which is performed at athletic events.

As Outsports reports, UVA students have been inserting the word in the school’s traditional “Good Ol’ Song” since the 1970s, but previous calls to change the practice have fallen on deaf ears.

Read more at Huffington Post Gay Voices

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