Nobody needs to get mad at this. I’m pretty sure that my one daughter is unsure of her sexual preferences. She found out that Wesleyan is the college that the guy who wrote Hamilton attended. I was all happy that she finally sounded excited by an east coast college. And now she wants to consider this university.
Thing is, I love this kid like crazy, no matter her sexuality… But this link makes it sound like the school is predominantly - or at least very “Queer” to use the language on their own website.
While I want her to embrace herself for who she is, as a dad, I also don’t want her to insulate herself from the majority of the population, which is straight. And knowing her, it is possible that she just might.
I have never seen a college with so many LGBTQ groups on one campus.
Can anybody give me opinions on how - geez, I hate saying this even though I don’t mean anything negative - “queer” it is?
Wesleyan doesn’t necessarily have a higher LGBTQ % than comparable colleges, it’s just that there’s more visibility of, awareness of challenges faced by, and acceptance of, people who identify as such. It’s a majority heterosexual school, just like pretty much every other college in the US.
IMHO colleges that very publicly embrace LGBTQ openness DO have a higher % of LGBTQ students, simply because many such students seek schools where they know they’ll be accepted. I’m pretty sure no school is LGBTQ majority.
I can’t say anything specifically about Wesleyan except that nothing in that link says or implies Wes is predominately queer, and I think there are probably a fair number of schools with that many queer organizations.
If I had a kid that seemed gender unsure, I think I’d want them at a college where they would be exposed to different possibilities without facing stigma. My D attended a boarding school that brought us face to face with many gender variations and I think it’s been good all around.
I don’t think you should try to veto any school on these grounds.
Wes students tend to be a little louder than many of their counterparts. That’s all you’re seeing. No, Wes isn’t the official gathering place for college kids trying to figure out their sexuality. But, sure, those kids probably feel more at home at Wesleyan than they might at BYU. What can I say?
I wouldn’t worry about it. If you’re D is unsure about her sexuality, I’m guessing she’s going to be something other than decidedly heterosexual, and it sounds like you’re the one who needs to reconcile yourself with that fact.
I’m not mad. I don’t have this particular issue among my kids (as far as I know at least). But your post at least somewhat implies that this issue makes you uncomfortable to one degree or the other.
No, you can go to Wes, wind up embracing your sexuality, and not “insulate” yourself from the straight population and thereafter be able to function with the majority in this country.
No offense, but this is almost a silly discussion.
PS: I don’t think Miranda is gay. Just in case you were wondering.
all you have to do is go to the schools and in short order you’ll see men and women holding hands and making out all over the place.
but to a kid struggling with sexual identity, I think it’s relevant to know that the campus will be a tolerant place for them. I just think the OP is in a different place with his kid.
BTW OP, Hamilton started at Wesleyan and then was brought to Vassar for development. They also have a great theater program and arty people. It is LGBTQ friendly, but also loaded with straight people.
@AbsDad , no, I don’t have you figured out, and I’m not attempting to figure you out.
I’ll just take at face value your assertion that you’re worried about your D diving into the gay world to the exclusion of interacting with the non-gay world.
Not something I’d worry about, but to each his own.
Hi @AbsDad. We are going through similar times with our oldest. We want a school where our student is safe and feels accepted regardless. No preppy schools, those are out. But also rather not a school that is overboard quirky (e.g. Ithaca). I honestly feel that Wesley is neither and has a very fun student body. They’re very opiniated and the school lets them be themselves. It’s great.
Good luck with the process!
As a current queer Wesleyan student, I must stress to you that you need to really be hands off with your daughter and whatever her process of self-discovery is like. With all due respect, it sounds like you have a lot of self-educating and unlearning to do in order to make life as a queer woman easier on your daughter. And, to answer your question very frankly, whether I am at Wesleyan or literally any other place on earth, I am the minority both in mind and in social reality. If you think queer identity and affinity groups are somehow shielding students from a (very) heterosexual “real world,” and are unaware of their position, then I think you should do more work to expand how you think of the “real world”
Wesleyan, like most other high-ranked colleges, takes in about as many students from the richest 1% of Americans as it takes students from the poorest 60% of Americans.
The real world is, obviously, majority lower- and middle-class. Your daughter will be much more shielded from the real world by the class disparity at high-ranked private colleges than she will be by the presence of LGBTQ+ advocacy groups on campus. If you want her to be exposed to the real world, you should be looking at public schools like CUNY.
But if this is really your only concern, my brother is at Vassar, which has a similar reputation, and he is not in some kind of oppressed minority as a straight person.
