<p>Wow, TD, way to go with the brilliant riposte! Did someone say Smith students weren’t engaged with the world? If so, I guess I missed that comment. Merely suggesting that not everyone who finds it an uncomfortable environment is homophobic or belongs at Bob Jones University. Should be a fairly easy point to concede in a rational discussion, which this apparently is not…</p>
<p>Well sailfish –</p>
<p>I will explain the responses from my point of view. What if someone said they were uncomfortable in a racially integrated environment so an integrated college was off the table. They only wanted to attend an all white college. Nothing against people of color, but it was just so uncomfortable to be around them.</p>
<p>There was a time in the United States when people could have said the above with impunity.</p>
<p>Today probably all of us find that revolting.</p>
<p>So some remarks about the atmosphere at Smith strike folks like that, even if that’s not the way they’re meant.</p>
<p>Some people have a natural urge to fight bigotry.</p>
<p>I’m not saying your remarks fall into that category; I’m just suggesting an explanation for the responses here.</p>
<p>And I agree with mini. “Female power” is still uncomfortable to many, sadly.</p>
<p>Right. The fact that someone is “uncomfortable” says more about them than it does the college.</p>
<p>I’m responsible for the “in your face” phrases that keeps circulating on this thread, and I did not in any way mean for it to apply to Smith’s openly gay couples. I merely commented that ALL college students, in feeling their freedom to be themselves, can seem “in your face” compared to older adults. My college friends, both gay and not, are considerably more subdued than we were as young adults.</p>
<p>I really like Mythmom’s analogy of people used to react to African-Americans (well, okay, some still do react that way) because it nicely illustrates how society changes with time and enough – dare I say it? – in your face reminders that people are individuals, with their own desires and dreams, instead of just being “them.” I know that today’s reaction to homosexuality is in part religion-driven, which gives it a different dimension that curbing rights for minorities and women, but it’s not all that different.</p>
<p>Hey, RocketLouise, I also live in Pennsyltucky, though not in the middle of the state, and, believe it or not, there ARE gays here. 
But yes, it’s conservative outside of the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, even at the universities.</p>
<p>If some Smithies deliberately made some prospective students uncomfortable, then that’s inexcusable. But if a prospective student has never been exposed to openly gay individuals, then that’s more a factor of innocence and the shock that goes with its loss. (Hey, I had a Jewish friend in college who was asked by a fellow student if she could see the horns under her hair. Dead serious. And this was in the early 1980s. I’m sure that the naive individual is mortified whenever she thinks back to that conversation.) </p>
<p>My parents were shocked that we had co-ed dorms. Today’s parents are shocked by different things.</p>
<p>There’s quite a discussion of this in the April 21 issue of the Sophian:</p>
<p>[“I</a> am Smith” and I am male - Opinions](<a href=“http://media.www.smithsophian.com/media/storage/paper587/news/2011/04/14/Opinions/i.Am-Smith.And.I.Am.Male-3993015-page2.shtml]"I”>http://media.www.smithsophian.com/media/storage/paper587/news/2011/04/14/Opinions/i.Am-Smith.And.I.Am.Male-3993015-page2.shtml)</p>
<p>Referring to mini’s question in post #112. There was one gay woman and 3 gay men at the LGBTQ table at Tufts. In the LGBTQ office, there was one gay woman and the gay male director. I do not know the percentages of gay men to lesbians at Tufts. </p>
<p>Oh and for the record, my daughter LOVES the community at Smith. I’m afraid that somehow my remarks are being portrayed as negative towards Smith. I was just posting my observations of two very different colleges. </p>
<p>I was the one way back at the beginning of this thread that said to the OP “All the stuff you mentioned about sex–no different at co-ed schools. Would it be less disturbing if it were heterosexual sex?”</p>
<p>upstatemom: Point taken.</p>
<p>I know you guys drifted off the transgendered debate, but after reading the article that Jake, the student was denied hosting the prospies, I think I understand why some trans students stay at Smith. </p>
<p>I’m not trans and I don’t attend Smith, I’m still in high school. I follow the transgendered community via youtube, ect. and this kind of reminds me some people getting surgery/taking hormones/ect. Some people do get surgery, some don’t. Sometimes it’s because they can’t, but sometimes they just don’t want to. Some trans people accept their bodies don’t match their gender, and are fine with just being referred to with proper pronouns or dressing as the gender they identify with. Some men accept their place at Smith, some transfer. </p>
<p>There is a lot of diversity within the trans community and there is no set of things you need to do or stop doing to transition. There are a lot of gray areas that need to be embraced. </p>
<p>Again, I am not transgendered, but this is how I see it. There is room for transgendered men at Smith. I hope you guys get my drift. :)</p>
<p>Just to be clear, I think my D would have been uncomfortable with ANY explicit discussion of sexual activity during her overnight. I don’t know whether her host specified the sex of her partners.</p>
<p>Well, there’s some interesting moments, to be sure. I forget the name of the club at Wesleyan where a host took a prospie and it wound up being a discussion about sex toys including handing samples around. I would have said ixnay on that but then I’m regarded as stodgy and conventional in many circles.</p>
<p>The implication that Tufts is staid made me laugh. I recollect the news making the rounds a couple of years ago when a new rule had to be put in place barring students from having sex in a dorm room when the roommate was present.
“There were incidents that occurred last year, and in the past, where residents of rooms started to feel uncomfortable with what their roommates were doing in the room” … “This happened more often than we’d like.”
[</a>" + artTitle.replace(“-”,“”) + " - " + “Tufts Daily” + "](<a href=“http://www.tuftsdaily.com/new-rules-regulate-sexual-activity-in-dormitory-rooms-1.1912397]”>http://www.tuftsdaily.com/new-rules-regulate-sexual-activity-in-dormitory-rooms-1.1912397)</p>
<p>There was no implication that Tufts is staid (please, it’s a university!) It was just a visual comparison of two school’s open houses on a particular day.</p>
<p>How can you have sex with your roommate if s/he isn’t present? ;)</p>
<p>Hm. Well, there is always phone ***. (Not a bleepable word I know, but I just couldn’t bring myself to write it.)</p>
<p>I just read Jake’s article in the Sophian. I think his offer to email propsies, so that they had the option of requesting a different overnight host was reasonable. Although the admin disagreed and prohibited him from hosting overnights, I find it hard to believe, however, that the college was, as Jake wrote attempting to “maintain[] Smith’s pristine image as a pearls and sweater sets kind of place.” </p>
<p>ROTFL!!</p>
<p>MM, I’ve been known to say “Quakers and Amish” when asked for examples of safe sects.</p>
<p>At least that’s what I thought they were asking…</p>
<p>Watsthatusayinboutusums?</p>
<p>I didn’t read the article but I’m familiar with the trans-hosting-a-prospie situation from a Facebook group I encountered. To be perfectly fair, a co-ed school wouldn’t allow a male student to host a female prospie regardless of whether the prospie said it was okay. Putting aside anything else that may have happened during the course of the issue, you can’t really dispute that point. If a female-to-male trans wants to be identified as male, then it’s only fair that he not be allowed to host a female prospie, just as any male student wouldn’t be allowed to.</p>
<p>Not sure I agree with your logic. Certainly, a male host would not be the first choice as overnight host to a female propsie. But, I don’t think gay/lesbian studens are prohib from hosting same-sex propsies, so I don’t really see a problem with a pre-op trans Smithie hosting a propsie - - so long as the propsie, who would expect a female host, could opt for a female-identified host. </p>
<p>I just don’t understand why a student who self-identified as male and wanted others to identify him as male would attend a women’s college where the presumption would be that he was female.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with spirit, in fact, I think most Smithies that are wrapped up in this debate are on the same page. I noticed that Micah B. (the first ever winner of the Gold Key of the year award, the person after whom the award is NAMED, and a trans student who was also on Gold Key Central Board) posted on a facebook page about this that that had been his attitude and his presumption when he was a Gold Key guide. </p>
<p>I think the issue here is, as others have noted earlier in this thread, admissions has no published official policy on this matter, so when they do try to enforce regulations it can seem very ad hoc and targeted at individuals, rather than a sensible across the board policy.</p>