I'm hearing over email that in good ol' Chapel Hill -- home to my alma mater -- openly gay mayoral candidate Mark Kleindschmidt will win his race there (by just 101 votes!). Meanwhile, results in Maine look to be razor-sharp! Very far from news there -- but you can follow raw numbers here or liveblogging here (though the site has been up and down all night).

Aww isn't it so cute! You can really see the resemblance! This blog has been my lovechild for four years now, and I'm so proud to see it continue to flourish today with the addition this year of new voices and a brand spanking new design. I even was lucky enough to be attacked by Christina Aguilera fans who brought my site down for almost two weeks. I was so flattered. Thank you for thinking this blog matters enough to hack!

As has been my custom on this auspicious occasion, I'd like to highlight my favorite entries from over the years. Check them out and take a whirlwind tour of my life and thoughts!

Thanks for reading and supporting this project. It just keeps getting better and more wonderful to have more people logging on and showing an interest in hearing my thoughts. It's the ultimate flattery. For realz.

xoxo

T

From 2005:

Rehnquist Hospitalized, Bush to Take Over World (July 14)

I am a Political Scientist. What the hell does that mean? (July 28)

My FIRST Day as a Graduate Student (August 26)

Online Racial Power Disparities (August 28)

Why I Left the NC Fellows Program (September 8)

The Surreal Life, San Fran Style (October 16)

Creating Change Conference '05 (November 14)

From 2006:

Misogyny and Gay Men (January 22)

"Against Health" Conference (October 13)

Frustrated with San Francisco (October 29)

The Death of Fiscally Conservative Repubs, and the Rise of Libertarian Dems (October 30)

Feminist/Queer/Man: Dialoguing on Gender

From 2007:

LGBTI Health Summit - Philadelphia (March 17)

Beyond Identity Politics? (May 19)

Toronto = Fabulous (October 7)

Longtime Companion, Early AIDS Movies, and Mentorship (October 25)

What I'm Thankful For, 2007 (November 20)

Questions of Trans-Inclusion and Identity (December 3)

A Lovely Time in Mexico! (December 17)

From 2008:

Creating Change '08: Mourning / Celebration (February 10)

Making it Work: Mobilizing Gay and Lesbian Identities in the 21st Century (February 12)

Where's the Pleasure in Gay Sex? (February 16)

On the Staph Debate and the Swiss AIDS Study (February 17)

Barebacking and XTube: A Window Into Our Sex Lives (February 22)

Gay Men's Health Leadership Academy: Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 3 (March 22-24)

Gay.com Conversations on Race: Part One / Part Two (April 1-2)

HIV Prevention Politics in Detroit (April 17)

The Gayest Podcast in Michigan - Episode 2a: Troy Wood (June 23)

Juanita More's 2008 PRIDE Party Extravaganza (June 30)

The Gayest Podcast in Michigan - Episode 2b: Troy Wood, Ctd. (July 4)

"DON'T ASK ME TO PAY FOR THEIR MEDICINE!" (July 23)

Gaycation '08 Photo Album (July 28)

Hooking Up (July 31)

Racial Diversity on Manhunt, Adam4Adam: San Francisco Edition (August 6)

Racial Diversity on Manhunt, Adam4Adam: Atlanta Edition (August 8)

Racial Diversity on Manhunt, Adam4Adam: NYC Edition (August 10)

The LAST Trannyshack EVER (August 13)

Me on "Getting it on with Bonnie" (August 21)

Dating Economics (September 13)

Three Fags in a Boat (October 12)

What is Sexual Health? (October 19)

Outrage! NC DJ Arrested for Having Unprotected Sex (October 23)

Resist "Lazy Structuralism": HIV Prevention as Case Study (October 27)

"BlacksOnBoys": The Construction of Black Masculinity (Vs. White Femininity) in Gay Porn (November 30)

Working Out, or, "What happens to twinks when they hit 25?" (December 8)

Positional Identity on Manhunt, Adam4Adam: SF Edition (December 18)

From 2009:

Positional Identity on Manhunt, Adam4Adam: NYC Edition (February 3)

Me and Loretta Devine!!!! (February 10)

Eric Leven's Recent Barebacking Video: "Why are we..." (March 3)

How Do I Trust Again?: Love, Betrayal, and Moving On (March 17)

Why are Hate Crimes Worse Than Other Crimes? (April 1)

What's New in Gay Sex?: "Natural" (April 11)

Recuperating "Heteronormativity": It's Not *Just* About Heterosexuals! (April 20)

Christina Aguilera Fans Crashed My Blog (May 10)

To Everyone Who Is Demanding Lambert Come Out... (May 28)

Hookups are not meaningless (And other thoughts on sex) (May 29)

From their campus newspaper:

A campus Christian group that receives funding from the student activity fee is coming under scrutiny after a student was asked by advisors to step down from its leadership team when he told them that he had openly accepted his homosexuality. This incident is also raising questions about the effectiveness of campus mechanisms for addressing instances of discrimination.

Chris Donohoe '09, who joined the Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship when he was a freshman, said he had been openly struggling to reconcile his sexuality with his faith in Chi Alpha before he was asked to step down from the leadership team by Matt and Tracy Herman, the organization's pastors. The Hermans, both members of Chi Alpha at Missouri State University before graduating in 2002, became Cornell Chi Alpha's campus pastors in 2006.

The leadership team consists of 12 or 13 especially dedicated students who lead bible studies, teach and are "good examples," according to Danielle D'Ambrosio '10, Chi Alpha's president. The leadership team differs from titled leadership positions because students do not have to apply to be part of the team.

Before joining the leadership team, Donohoe was vice president during his junior year. To enter a titled position in Chi Alpha, students must apply through the Hermans and demonstrate that they uphold certain values, including not engaging in premarital sex, and refraining from drinking alcohol and taking drugs, according to Donohoe.

"I thought it would be an awesome opportunity to be an openly gay man in a Christian organization," Donohoe said.

After Donohoe finished his term as vice president, he was going to be on the leadership team last fall. The Hermans told Donohoe that they were comfortable with his position as long as he did not engage in a relationship. However, after Donohoe met his boyfriend last summer and affirmed his acceptance of his sexuality, the Hermans asked him to step down from the team without consulting the rest of the organization.

"I told them I've thought about [my sexuality] and I'm 100 percent OK with my sexuality. ... I wanted the opportunity to show them I love god and I'm gay and it's OK," Donohoe said.

D'Ambrosio explained that Donohoe was asked to step down because he no longer believed his sexuality was a sin and stopped actively working to overcome it, disregarding the Bible.

"The decision to ask Chris to step down was not that he did something wrong in having homosexual tendencies. [It was because] he no longer thought it was wrong. ... I support the decision fully," D'Ambrosio said.

A number of interesting things happening here. Note the comparison of homosexuality to doing drugs, drinking alcohol, and having premarital sex. Note the pastors' insistence that it wasn't because Donahoe had homosexual DESIRES, its because he had homosexual PRACTICES. Desire is okay, but action is not. But then the organization President says it's also not because he did something "wrong," but that he stopped believing what he was doing was wrong! So it's okay to have desires, and okay to practice, as long as you believe you're a sinner in the end. Sigh. Fucking religious wonks.

I am reminded here of a situation at UNC Chapel Hill when a Christian Fraternity -- Alpha Iota Omega -- refused to sign an anti-discrimination policy required of all student groups who received campus funds. They claimed religious discrimination, and then university eventually caved and revised the policy to allow religious and political organizations the right to discriminate.

This has been a long time coming. Throughout my life, there have been essays-in-progress in my mind and in my heart, stories that have been writing themselves for months or even years. This is a story that I've been carrying with me for many years now. It begins in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I was an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In many ways, this is the romantic tragedy that has defined my relationship to love and to men since that time. I don't usually write this kind of deeply personal story, but I need to tell it. I know that if I do not get it out of me and onto paper, it will only continue to haunt me for years to come. Thank you for listening, and for bearing with me.

So let me begin.

I met him my junor year of college in my Feminist Philosophy class. It was well over halfway through the semester when we crossed paths. It's not that the class was particularly large -- indeed, there were maybe only thirty people enrolled and the classroom was narrow and cramped. But I was supsicious of him from the very first time I saw him: Tall, dark hair, handsome, and a large cross dangling from his neck. At the time, I was knee-deep in a campus culture-war with a Christian student organization which had come under fire for forbidding openly gay and lesbian members from holding official posts. As ridiculous as it may seem, his necklace was for me at that time more than just a sign of faith, but of political commitments.

He was pale and wore glasses, beautiful in a wholesome, simple kind of way. He wore sweaters over button-up shirts, and the overall effect was to come across as a whole-milk-drinking, church-going, future-Father-of-America. He never spoke much in class, but rather seemed to listen intently to what others had to say. So you can imagine my surprise one day when, during a critical discussion of binary gender roles, he raised his hand, brow furrowed, and asked our professor, "If binary gender roles are so deeply problematic, then why don't we simply get rid of them altogether?" I broke out in applause, startling both him and our instructor. I was dumbfounded! Who did this boy think he was? I was the one who usually made ridiculously radical statements about destroying patriarchy and gender oppression in this class! I was shocked. I was flabbergasted. But mostly, I was turned on.

Click here to read the rest!
Click here to read the rest!
Click here to read the rest!

This is how I feel right now! I'm laying in my bed in San Fran, tossing and turning -- and thinking about all the crazy places I've been. I realized I've lived (for at least 3 months) in 12 different homes in 7 different cities:

Columbia, SC: 1983 - 1993
Charlotte, NC: 1993 - 2001
Chapel Hill, NC: 2001 - 2002
Durham, NC: 2002 - 2003
Boston, MA: Summer, 2003
Chapel Hill, NC: 2003 - 2005
San Francisco, CA: 2005 - 2007
Ann Arbor, MI: 2007 - 2008
San Francisco, CA: Summer, 2008

Do I ever get to stay in one place? Or by signing up for academia, am I destined to keep hopping? I hate moving!!!!

It's true! I've been blogging officially for three years as of May 24th. I was so busy with Anthony here that I didn't actually realize it until this morning after he left. In honor of this anniversary with myself, I thought I'd look back and highlight my favorite 30 blog posts over the years. Enjoy!

From 2005:

Rehnquist Hospitalized, Bush to Take Over World (July 14)

I am a Political Scientist. What the hell does that mean? (July 28)

My FIRST Day as a Graduate Student (August 26)

Online Racial Power Disparities (August 28)

Why I Left the NC Fellows Program (September 8)

The Surreal Life, San Fran Style (October 16)

Creating Change Conference '05 (November 14)

From 2006:

Misogyny and Gay Men (January 22)

"Against Health" Conference (October 13)

Frustrated with San Francisco (October 29)

The Death of Fiscally Conservative Repubs, and the Rise of Libertarian Dems (October 30)

Feminist/Queer/Man: Dialoguing on Gender

From 2007:

LGBTI Health Summit - Philadelphia (March 17)

Beyond Identity Politics? (May 19)

Toronto = Fabulous (October 7)

Longtime Companion, Early AIDS Movies, and Mentorship (October 25)

What I'm Thankful For, 2007 (November 20)

Questions of Trans-Inclusion and Identity (December 3)

A Lovely Time in Mexico! (December 17)

From 2008:

Creating Change '08: Mourning / Celebration (February 10)

Making it Work: Mobilizing Gay and Lesbian Identities in the 21st Century (February 12)

Where's the Pleasure in Gay Sex? (February 16)

On the Staph Debate and the Swiss AIDS Study (February 17)

Barebacking and XTube: A Window Into Our Sex Lives (February 22)

Gay Men's Health Leadership Academy: Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 3 (March 22-24)

Gay.com Conversations on Race: Part One / Part Two (April 1-2)

HIV Prevention Politics in Detroit (April 17)

I had the pleasure and honor to attend a performance last night by E Patrick Johnson from his forthcoming book, Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales. "Pouring tea" in black gay southern circles is an expression for dishing gossip, and his performance strings together several narratives from black gay men in the South that he collected between 2004 and 2006. The men he interviewed were between the ages of 19 and 93 and from fifteen different states. I was homesick for most of the performance, with several of his guys hailing from or mentioning North Carolina!

The eight narratives, each built around a core theme ("Religion," "Being Transgendered," "Being Gay in the South," "Coming Out," "Sex," "Coming of Age in the 1920s and 30s," "Masculinity and Peer Pressure," and "Being a Southern Diva"), began first with a short audio clip directly from Johnson's interview with them. He would then perform -- word for word (including "ums" and "ahs"), we're told -- a segment of that interview. It was gorgeous! What complicated and fabulously intriguing stories were told.

I was struck by the resiliency in the narratives he performed, and so at the reception following the event I asked him about just that. He said that he had interviewed some 70 guys (I can't recall the exact number), and that resiliency was not a theme consistent accross all the narratives -- but that those were the stories that he wanted to perform. And it paid off!

The book is forthcoming. You must find it and a purchase it when it comes out!!! He'll be launching the book at UNC Chapel Hill. Sigh. Wish I could be there.

In happier news from UNC, James Alsop is going to be on BravoTV's upcoming show, "Step it Up and Dance." James is fierce - he danced with the group MisConceptions on campus at UNC. They opened for our drag show every year. Fabulous! Good luck, James! The show debuts April 3rd - check it out!

Eve Carson, a Georgia native, was shot and killed Thursday morning. She was UNC's Student Body President. My heart goes out to everyone at UNC, my alma mater!

18 people have reportedly been shot at Northern Illinois University just outside of Chicago . This just breaks my heart! I'm supposed to be headed to Chicago this weekend to see my friend, Spencer. My heart goes out to those affected!

I don't think we've even begun to understand school shootings. And, since it seems that the assailant has been shot and killed, we likely won't get any closer after this terrible event. Almost two years ago now, a student drove his SUV into the pit at my alma mater - UNC Chapel Hill. And there are plenty of other examples in recent years of this kind of violence on college campuses. We've been relying on the media, I think, to give us an understanding. The media will never provide us useful tools for understanding school violence. They're caught up in hype and pseudo-scientific psychobabble. How do we even begin to wrap our heads around it?

I stumbled upon this gem while surfing the 'net. It's from an early GLBTSA meeting and appeared the next day in the school newspaper (where I found the pic). The co-chair of the time, Alice Newton, is in the back. Click on it to get the full effect:

Tonight I put the finishing touches on two papers for my classes, which marks the ending of my official first semester as a Human Sexuality graduate student. Only 3 more semesters to go - goodness how little time we have!

This semester has proven to be both more and less challenging than I anticipated. It has been less challenging in the sense that I find my HMSX classes to be pretty easy and haven't provoked too much critical thinking on my end. I stopped reading months ago because I found it to be unnecessary for success in all of my classes this semester - and because I found a large chunk of it entirely uninteresting.

On the other hand, it's proven to be personally challenging in my quest for knowledge in the realm of sexuality studies. I'm not alone when I say that this program is seriously lacking in several critical areas that I did not anticipate -- namely, feminist thought and theory; queer theory; issues of race and racism; transnational comparative sexual politics and theory; and, possibly to my greatest surprise, Les/Bi/Gay/Trans studies. This boils down to a lot of talk of straight white men (like Freud, for example). To say that I am disappointed would be an understatement.

Slightly more than halfway through the semester something of a coup occurred in our Foundational Theory course when professor Gil Herdt asked students how we were doing. I couldn't restrain my feelings any longer - I had spent the previous two weeks in misery (especially after a guest lecturer on "feminist theory" opened by saying she knew nothing about the subject at hand). I blurted out a diatribe of complaints that ranged from procedural to ethical. The silence that enveloped the room was, in a word, deafening.

I met with the professor several times following that emotional classroom encounter and we've worked through a few of the key issues. He has agreed, for instance, to devote a day or two on race and queer theory. This of course does not satisfy my demanding appetite for critical knowledge and understanding in the field, but it is at least forward movement.

Beyond the class, however, these series of events has certainly set off a chain of doubt for me as to whether I can truly envision a life within the academy. I worry that if a Human Sexuality Studies department conforms to such monolithic, non-threatening understandings, then can I expect any better from more established disciplines such as Sociology? I still have hope that I can, and that this program is a product of a certain school of thought that is not representative of the larger Human Sexuality Studies academic community.

It seems frankly unusual and alarming that my courses and faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took strikingly more radical and progressive views of the field. Professors like Sherryl Kleinman, Karen Booth, Pamela Conover, and Randall Styers all were far more compelling for me than my professors *so far* here at San Francisco State University. I look forward to next semester when I'll be taking classes from both Deb Tolman and Amy Sueyoshi whose work is far more in lines with my expectations for this program.

In any case, I'm doing extremely well despite the academic woes. My thesis is coming along beautifully. Presently, my research question is as follows: "How do young gay men negotiate sexual risk?" I'm interested in finding out how men who grew up with AIDS in the background and who "came out" after the introduction of powerful new HIV therapies in 1996 perceive and understand sexual risk. I think the old mottos of "use a condom every time" just aren't cutting it for young gay men today - and for legitimate reasons concerning how they perceive HIV. They never watched as a community was faced with extinction or had the unpleasant experience of losing many of your close friends within a few short years. So, yea - that's what I'm trying to investigate. What's it like for sexually active 21-25 year-old HIV-negative gay men?

I'm headed home for the holidays exactly a week from today. I can't wait to be back in North Carolina for two weeks! My friends there are throwing me a "Welcome Home / Happy New Year's" party that I'm oh-so-excited about. I can't wait. I'll also be making a visit to Chapel Hill at some point to see a few faces up there and have a drink at my old haunts. Good times, indeed.

Happy Holidays - y'all.

I got an e-mail today from a UNC student looking to ask me a few questions about my time at UNC working as an LGBTIQ student organizer. We did the entire thing over e-mail, so I had a transcript ready. I wanted to share it because I think some of the questions helped me think through what my time at UNC meant to me and what it will probably mean to my future. Many of the questions refer to the GLBT-SA, the undergraduate student organization at UNC Chapel Hill.

Q: What was your major at UNC?
A: Political Science with a minor in Sexuality Studies

Q: What are you doing now?
A: I'm a graduate student at San Francisco State seeking a MA in Human Sexuality.

Q: What position have you held with the GLBTSA or LGBTQ at UNC?
A: When the GLBT-SA was initially formed in the Spring of 2002, I served as Activism Co-Chair for the organization. From the Fall of 2002 to the Spring of 2004 (my sophomore and junior years), I served as GLBT-SA Co-Chair. For most of that time period, I also served as webmaster for the organization.

Also, during my sophomore year, I founded what was then called the North Carolina Unity Conference. During my senior year, we changed the name of the conference to the Southeast Unity Conference to reflect its growth in attendees from other states in the Southeast. I served as Director of that event for my Sophomore, Junior, and Senior years at UNC.

Q: How long were you affiliated with this group?
A: I was working for the GLBT-SA throughout all four years at UNC.

Q: How did you get involved?
A: The group was founded out of Pamela Conover's course in sexual identity politics, POLI 73 (officially known as "The Politics of Sexuality"). I was asked to serve on the board by its founding President, Alice Newton.

Q: Before coming to UNC, did you know that you wanted to become involved in something like this?
A: I made a decision before I came to college to be openly gay, but I never truly anticipated the role I would play in campus activism. I had only done very minor work in the area before coming to Chapel Hill, as I had grown up in the conservative Southeast area of Charlotte.

Q: What are some of the things that you feel leads ppl to become active in this type of organization?
A: I believe that the first and foremost reason that people come to GLBT-SA meetings is that of wanting to belong. A great many UNC students come to Chapel Hill from conservative areas across the state. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people are often marginalized and made to feel as though their desires and lives are sinful, abnormal, and shameful. This is exasperated in the conservative South where "traditional values" -- those of the fundamentalist Christian right -- are considered to be the norm.

Also, I think students come with a desire to lead and be involved in something that creates positive change in LGBTIQ communities. There are frankly very few opportunities to do so before many students come to college, and I think many students come to UNC with a lot of pent up energy and a healthy dose of angst.

Q: What are the things that you feel were most influential for you in becoming a part of (founding) this group at UNC?
A: As the only openly gay person in my high school, I knew what it meant to be considered a second class citizen. I had friends in high school who were gay but couldn’t come out because their parents had indicated that to do so would be a one-way ticket to the street corner. However, I don’t want to make it sound as though I am saddened or regretful of the climate in which I grew up. It is thanks to the homophobia and heterosexism that I was enveloped in growing up that I was able to become so politically aware and active in different movements. Had I lacked these experiences, I probably wouldn't be as interested in different oppressions -- not just homophobia -- like racism, sexism, and class oppression.

Q: What are some of the things that you did outside of UNC that are related to this group (civil rights, social groups, etc.)?
A: Most of my work during my college years was related to UNC – my many roles in the organization kept me quite busy. However, between my junior and senior years at UNC I spent a summer in Boston, Massachusetts working for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. It was the summer of 2003 and there was so much happening politically for LGBTIQ Americans at the time. On June 26 of that year, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, which ruled that sodomy laws were unconstitutional based on a Constitutional right to privacy. I helped organize a mass rally in Boston that summer (if you Google my name, 100s of hits will appear from the publicity for that rally in Copley Square). Also, 15-year old black lesbian Sakia Gunn was brutally stabbed to death in Newark, New Jersey and the NGLTF did some work organizing a Boston youth community response to that heinous hate crime. Finally, it was the summer that preceded the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Goodridge v. Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which ruled that same-sex couples had the right to marry based on the state constitution. I was lucky to sit in on several meetings in which we planned the response to the decision. To my surprise (and their credit), everyone at the table expected a positive decision. When the decision was released in the Fall of that year, I knew I had been a part of something historically important.

Q: How about some of the things that you do not related to this group (do you play a sport, are you involved in religious groups, or in an environmental group pr something of that sort)?
A: My first and foremost priority at UNC was the GLBT-SA and the Unity Conference. I had no time or energy to devote to other interests.

Q: Where do you see this group going in the future?
A: This is increasingly hard to say as the time between my graduation and the present increases. I only can say that I hope the organization sticks to the principles that we purposefully injected into the Constitution. I'm referring here to those principles of being a politically motivated organization that is interested in working to end not just homophobia, but also other oppressions such as sexism, transphobia, racism, and class oppression. We intentionally put quite a bit of language to that effect into the Constitution to preserve accountability in the future once the founding members had left.

Q: Is there anything that you would have liked to change about the movement here (more or less focus on something, etc.)?
A: Had you asked me this question when I was still at UNC, I could have probably rattled off a dozen things I would like to see changed about the GLBT-SA and campus LGBTIQ politics in general. However, the more I see and experience campus politics elsewhere, the more I realize that the GLBT-SA is doing some of the most cutting-edge, radical work in the entire country. I don't think any other college LGBTIQ organization can claim the kinds of successes in size and activity that the GLBT-SA can claim. No other organization I'm familiar with organizes a regional conference, a biannual drag show, publishes its own magazine, and still manages to organize a whole host of other activities.

Q: Is there any other movement that you can see yourself being involved in, in the future, if you ideally speaking had enough time and energy?
A: My life's work is in the LGBTIQ socio-political movement. I'm interested in connecting with other social movements, but I'm here to stay.

Q: What were your personal goals for yourself, as they related to this group? Did you achieve them?
A: I never really set out goals that I could achieve or not achieve. Most of my work was really made up as I went along. My politics changed as the years went on -- so too did my aspirations for the GLBT-SA. I'm most proud of two things: my work directing the Southeastern Unity Conference and my work with the nation's oldest campus LGBTIQ publication, LAMBDA. I could have done things differently and not made a few mistakes along the way, but that would have required that I knew the answers ahead of time -- and I don't think any organizer can attest to being so omniscient.

Q: Was the group making progress towards them?
A: Yes, I’m quite sure that the GLBT-SA has done an immense out of work towards creating a campus climate that is informed and accepting of LGBTIQ people.

Q: If so, then how so?
A: I can remember my first year at UNC feeling incredibly uncomfortable by the sheer lack of open dialogue on LGBTIQ issues on campus. If the GLBT-SA has done anything, it has been exponentially increasing that dialogue. Illustrative of this fact is a small rally we had my first-year at UNC to respond to a hate crime on campus. I think maybe 20 people attended the small march. My senior year, however, when a student was attacked on Franklin Street because of his sexuality more people gathered in the pit for a speak-out against the crime than I have ever seen before. The Chancellor was present! It was phenomenal. That could never have happened my first year. GLBT-SA created the infrastructure to respond efficiently and effectively to such incidents.

Q: What are the ways in which you think your Parents and or family had an influence in your involvement? Were they supportive?
A: When I came out to my parents as gay at the age of 14, one of the first things they responded with was a concern that I was going to get AIDS and die. The year was 1997 and the HIV/AIDS epidemic among gay men was considerably worse than it is today in 2005. However, I still knew that these kinds of stereotypes were hurtful and factually incorrect. From that day on, I wanted to work to end this kind of stereotyping. After a great many conversations and a bit of family therapy to boot, they became much more supportive of my identity and I think their willingness to support my graduate studies in Human Sexuality illustrate that.

Q: Were you involved in a group like the GLBTSA or LGBTQ before coming to UNC?
A: I was just barely involved with a youth group in Charlotte called "Time Out Youth." However, I find that many LGBTIQ youth groups treat everyone who comes through their doors as victims and as troubled youth. I was out by the time I came to Time Out, and I didn't need the kind of support they were offering. Other than Time Out, there weren't any opportunities to be involved in LGBTIQ organizing in Charlotte of which I was aware.

Q: Was there any influence (person, event, etc) here that convinced you to become involved?
A: During my first year at UNC I lived in Granville Towers. At some point during my Spring semester, my suitemate and his friends attempted to break down my door while yelling homophobic and threatening epithets. I moved out into the campus dorms shortly there-after for the remainder of the semester. This instilled in my mind the real physical danger that LGBTIQ people face, even on college campus.

Q: As you were growing up, were there influences from your church, youth groups, sport groups, celebrities, sports stars, or some other type of media that you feel might have had an influence on your involvement now?
A: As I've said before, I occasionally attended an LGBTIQ youth group in Charlotte. I only credit that organization to my interests and involvement now because, I think, they were characteristic of one of the single biggest failures of our socio-political movement. They didn't teach us LGBTIQ history or attempt to give us something to believe in. All of the youth groups that I’m familiar with nationally are interested in preventing the kids coming from killing themselves. They're often run by well-intentioned heterosexual social workers -- which may be nice, but it's just not effective. I think that is a massive failure and is the driving cultural force behind the surreal lack of knowledge of LGBTIQ history among young LGBTIQ people today. I think that's why we're seeing so many young LGBTIQ people who are completely disinterested in activism and politics -- they have no knowledge of the history that precedes us to make them feel compelled to get involved.

Q: Last Question. If there was one message that you could get everyone on the world to really listen to, what would it be?
A: Homophobia, sexism, racism, class oppression, trasnsphobia, and other forms of oppression are connected. You cannot ever end one without attacking them all. After all, no one is singularly gay, black, poor, or female. We are combinations of many different kinds of identities. It takes asking ourselves the question that Durham-based activist Mandy Carter instilled in me, "Justice or Just Us?"

I got an e-mail today from a UNC student looking to ask me a few questions about my time at UNC working as an LGBTIQ student organizer. We did the entire thing over e-mail, so I had a transcript ready. I wanted to share it because I think some of the questions helped me think through what my time at UNC meant to me and what it will probably mean to my future. Many of the questions refer to the GLBT-SA, the undergraduate student organization at UNC Chapel Hill.

Q: What was your major at UNC?
A: Political Science with a minor in Sexuality Studies

Q: What are you doing now?
A: I'm a graduate student at San Francisco State seeking a MA in Human Sexuality.

Q: What position have you held with the GLBTSA or LGBTQ at UNC?
A: When the GLBT-SA was initially formed in the Spring of 2002, I served as Activism Co-Chair for the organization. From the Fall of 2002 to the Spring of 2004 (my sophomore and junior years), I served as GLBT-SA Co-Chair. For most of that time period, I also served as webmaster for the organization.

Also, during my sophomore year, I founded what was then called the North Carolina Unity Conference. During my senior year, we changed the name of the conference to the Southeast Unity Conference to reflect its growth in attendees from other states in the Southeast. I served as Director of that event for my Sophomore, Junior, and Senior years at UNC.

Q: How long were you affiliated with this group?
A: I was working for the GLBT-SA throughout all four years at UNC.

Q: How did you get involved?
A: The group was founded out of Pamela Conover's course in sexual identity politics, POLI 73 (officially known as "The Politics of Sexuality"). I was asked to serve on the board by its founding President, Alice Newton.

Q: Before coming to UNC, did you know that you wanted to become involved in something like this?
A: I made a decision before I came to college to be openly gay, but I never truly anticipated the role I would play in campus activism. I had only done very minor work in the area before coming to Chapel Hill, as I had grown up in the conservative Southeast area of Charlotte.

Q: What are some of the things that you feel leads ppl to become active in this type of organization?
A: I believe that the first and foremost reason that people come to GLBT-SA meetings is that of wanting to belong. A great many UNC students come to Chapel Hill from conservative areas across the state. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people are often marginalized and made to feel as though their desires and lives are sinful, abnormal, and shameful. This is exasperated in the conservative South where "traditional values" -- those of the fundamentalist Christian right -- are considered to be the norm.

Also, I think students come with a desire to lead and be involved in something that creates positive change in LGBTIQ communities. There are frankly very few opportunities to do so before many students come to college, and I think many students come to UNC with a lot of pent up energy and a healthy dose of angst.

Q: What are the things that you feel were most influential for you in becoming a part of (founding) this group at UNC?
A: As the only openly gay person in my high school, I knew what it meant to be considered a second class citizen. I had friends in high school who were gay but couldn’t come out because their parents had indicated that to do so would be a one-way ticket to the street corner. However, I don’t want to make it sound as though I am saddened or regretful of the climate in which I grew up. It is thanks to the homophobia and heterosexism that I was enveloped in growing up that I was able to become so politically aware and active in different movements. Had I lacked these experiences, I probably wouldn't be as interested in different oppressions -- not just homophobia -- like racism, sexism, and class oppression.

Q: What are some of the things that you did outside of UNC that are related to this group (civil rights, social groups, etc.)?
A: Most of my work during my college years was related to UNC – my many roles in the organization kept me quite busy. However, between my junior and senior years at UNC I spent a summer in Boston, Massachusetts working for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. It was the summer of 2003 and there was so much happening politically for LGBTIQ Americans at the time. On June 26 of that year, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, which ruled that sodomy laws were unconstitutional based on a Constitutional right to privacy. I helped organize a mass rally in Boston that summer (if you Google my name, 100s of hits will appear from the publicity for that rally in Copley Square). Also, 15-year old black lesbian Sakia Gunn was brutally stabbed to death in Newark, New Jersey and the NGLTF did some work organizing a Boston youth community response to that heinous hate crime. Finally, it was the summer that preceded the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Goodridge v. Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which ruled that same-sex couples had the right to marry based on the state constitution. I was lucky to sit in on several meetings in which we planned the response to the decision. To my surprise (and their credit), everyone at the table expected a positive decision. When the decision was released in the Fall of that year, I knew I had been a part of something historically important.

Q: How about some of the things that you do not related to this group (do you play a sport, are you involved in religious groups, or in an environmental group pr something of that sort)?
A: My first and foremost priority at UNC was the GLBT-SA and the Unity Conference. I had no time or energy to devote to other interests.

Q: Where do you see this group going in the future?
A: This is increasingly hard to say as the time between my graduation and the present increases. I only can say that I hope the organization sticks to the principles that we purposefully injected into the Constitution. I'm referring here to those principles of being a politically motivated organization that is interested in working to end not just homophobia, but also other oppressions such as sexism, transphobia, racism, and class oppression. We intentionally put quite a bit of language to that effect into the Constitution to preserve accountability in the future once the founding members had left.

Q: Is there anything that you would have liked to change about the movement here (more or less focus on something, etc.)?
A: Had you asked me this question when I was still at UNC, I could have probably rattled off a dozen things I would like to see changed about the GLBT-SA and campus LGBTIQ politics in general. However, the more I see and experience campus politics elsewhere, the more I realize that the GLBT-SA is doing some of the most cutting-edge, radical work in the entire country. I don't think any other college LGBTIQ organization can claim the kinds of successes in size and activity that the GLBT-SA can claim. No other organization I'm familiar with organizes a regional conference, a biannual drag show, publishes its own magazine, and still manages to organize a whole host of other activities.

Q: Is there any other movement that you can see yourself being involved in, in the future, if you ideally speaking had enough time and energy?
A: My life's work is in the LGBTIQ socio-political movement. I'm interested in connecting with other social movements, but I'm here to stay.

Q: What were your personal goals for yourself, as they related to this group? Did you achieve them?
A: I never really set out goals that I could achieve or not achieve. Most of my work was really made up as I went along. My politics changed as the years went on -- so too did my aspirations for the GLBT-SA. I'm most proud of two things: my work directing the Southeastern Unity Conference and my work with the nation's oldest campus LGBTIQ publication, LAMBDA. I could have done things differently and not made a few mistakes along the way, but that would have required that I knew the answers ahead of time -- and I don't think any organizer can attest to being so omniscient.

Q: Was the group making progress towards them?
A: Yes, I’m quite sure that the GLBT-SA has done an immense out of work towards creating a campus climate that is informed and accepting of LGBTIQ people.

Q: If so, then how so?
A: I can remember my first year at UNC feeling incredibly uncomfortable by the sheer lack of open dialogue on LGBTIQ issues on campus. If the GLBT-SA has done anything, it has been exponentially increasing that dialogue. Illustrative of this fact is a small rally we had my first-year at UNC to respond to a hate crime on campus. I think maybe 20 people attended the small march. My senior year, however, when a student was attacked on Franklin Street because of his sexuality more people gathered in the pit for a speak-out against the crime than I have ever seen before. The Chancellor was present! It was phenomenal. That could never have happened my first year. GLBT-SA created the infrastructure to respond efficiently and effectively to such incidents.

Q: What are the ways in which you think your Parents and or family had an influence in your involvement? Were they supportive?
A: When I came out to my parents as gay at the age of 14, one of the first things they responded with was a concern that I was going to get AIDS and die. The year was 1997 and the HIV/AIDS epidemic among gay men was considerably worse than it is today in 2005. However, I still knew that these kinds of stereotypes were hurtful and factually incorrect. From that day on, I wanted to work to end this kind of stereotyping. After a great many conversations and a bit of family therapy to boot, they became much more supportive of my identity and I think their willingness to support my graduate studies in Human Sexuality illustrate that.

Q: Were you involved in a group like the GLBTSA or LGBTQ before coming to UNC?
A: I was just barely involved with a youth group in Charlotte called "Time Out Youth." However, I find that many LGBTIQ youth groups treat everyone who comes through their doors as victims and as troubled youth. I was out by the time I came to Time Out, and I didn't need the kind of support they were offering. Other than Time Out, there weren't any opportunities to be involved in LGBTIQ organizing in Charlotte of which I was aware.

Q: Was there any influence (person, event, etc) here that convinced you to become involved?
A: During my first year at UNC I lived in Granville Towers. At some point during my Spring semester, my suitemate and his friends attempted to break down my door while yelling homophobic and threatening epithets. I moved out into the campus dorms shortly there-after for the remainder of the semester. This instilled in my mind the real physical danger that LGBTIQ people face, even on college campus.

Q: As you were growing up, were there influences from your church, youth groups, sport groups, celebrities, sports stars, or some other type of media that you feel might have had an influence on your involvement now?
A: As I've said before, I occasionally attended an LGBTIQ youth group in Charlotte. I only credit that organization to my interests and involvement now because, I think, they were characteristic of one of the single biggest failures of our socio-political movement. They didn't teach us LGBTIQ history or attempt to give us something to believe in. All of the youth groups that I’m familiar with nationally are interested in preventing the kids coming from killing themselves. They're often run by well-intentioned heterosexual social workers -- which may be nice, but it's just not effective. I think that is a massive failure and is the driving cultural force behind the surreal lack of knowledge of LGBTIQ history among young LGBTIQ people today. I think that's why we're seeing so many young LGBTIQ people who are completely disinterested in activism and politics -- they have no knowledge of the history that precedes us to make them feel compelled to get involved.

Q: Last Question. If there was one message that you could get everyone on the world to really listen to, what would it be?
A: Homophobia, sexism, racism, class oppression, trasnsphobia, and other forms of oppression are connected. You cannot ever end one without attacking them all. After all, no one is singularly gay, black, poor, or female. We are combinations of many different kinds of identities. It takes asking ourselves the question that Durham-based activist Mandy Carter instilled in me, "Justice or Just Us?"

I already posted a version of this article on here, but I thought I'd send a link to the LAMBDA site to show off its beautiful new layout. You can access it here. It's about my initial experiences in graduate school for the audience of undergraduates at UNC.

I already posted a version of this article on here, but I thought I'd send a link to the LAMBDA site to show off its beautiful new layout. You can access it here. It's about my initial experiences in graduate school for the audience of undergraduates at UNC.

"Diversity has never really been a focus of this program." That statement keeps ringing in my head. I'm sitting here in bed 3000 miles away from where I heard these words spoken to me, and yet they still thwart my attempts to sleep. They were spoken by a John Brodeur, the director of a program called the North Carolina Fellows at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is something of a 4-year program aimed at developing leadership in UNC students. Admission into the program is not particularly easy - the interview process is rigorous and the competition high. For whatever reason, I managed to squeeze in after applying my first year.

It was during my Junior year at UNC that the Director spoke those damning words to me. I had come to him after requesting an emergency meeting in October of 2003 because of my serious concerns about the program that had been building for some time. However, the program was not always so overwhelming for me. In the beginning, I was genuinely excited and interested in the program and thought rather fantastic things about my peers in it. But something changed. My values? My peers? Or both?

I should probably tell you a bit about how things fell apart (thanks Chinua Achebe). A major component of the program is the Sophomore Seminar - basically, a class that meets once a week during the Fall of your Sophomore Year that teaches "leadership," whatever that might mean. Not only that, but it is also structured as a way for the cohort to get to know one-another better. The last hour of the class (which met once a week for 3 hours) was allotted for 3 or so people to spend up to 20 minutes talking about their lives - whatever they wanted to say. This was probably the first time I ever articulated fully and clearly my coming out story. This is no small feat - made even more apprehensive by the fact that I was the first of the class to take my 15 minutes of fame (ever the anxious student, I volunteered to do so).

Another serious component of that course was the independent projects of leadership. It ended up that I was situated with a group of 4 people on a project slated to go on during the Spring of 2004. That was our semester, anyways. We hashed out ideas together, but the process began to deteriorate. From the beginning I made clear that I wanted this project, loosely based on "diversity," to include a conversation broader than race. I still stand by my belief that focusing in on race would not just severely limit the kind of conversation that could happen, but also is probably impossible (since no one is ever just white or black, but also students, women, LGBT people, etc).

When it became clear that my peers on the project didn't really have interest in broadening the scope despite my pleas otherwise, I stopped going to meetings. It was clear that I was not taken seriously as part of the constructive process. At one point a peer of mine sent an e-mail out over our small listserv that openly mocked me - he thought I simply did read the emails anymore. I read them all - but the frustration of continually going to meetings to only be made invisible just wasn't worth it to me. I had much more important things to do with my time.

This rather degrading experienece made me reconsider other aspects of the program - first, the Sophomore Seminar. What was it that we studied in that class that we called leadership? I realized quickly that nothing that came to mind in my own life that I considered my avenues of leadership was reflected in the program's values or curriculum. How could that be possible? How could it be that I was one of the most visible leaders of the LGBT community at UNC (for better or for worse) and I did not see myself reflected in a general intensive program on Leadership? As a self-identified feminist / anti-racist / LGBT activist, I found none of these core values represented by the Fellows Program.

One reason might have been that, for the two summers I was involved in the program, we were assigned two books about white straight men: "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" (a true account of sailors lost in the Artic) and "It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life" (Lance Armstrong's ghost writers' book about his struggle with cancer and his early triumphs in racing). Honestly. White straight men have their place in history (and they've made sure of it) - do we really need to spend two summers recounting yet more tales about how they've triumphed over extraordinary circumstances? There are so many more compelling tales out there that tell of struggles we as Americans are yet unaware of because "History" books did not teach it to us. What about Ida Wells? What about Harvey Milk? Cesar Chavez? These represent but a fraction of the rarely told American stories of leadership. We have so much more than Armstrong and Shackleton.

These were the concerns I brought with me when I scheduled that emergency meeting with John. I laid them all out in front of him - from my concerns about the summer reading to my concerns about the curriculum in the Sophomore Seminar. And that's when he said it. "Diversity has never really been a focus of this program." At the time, I didn't really know how to respond to such a statement. What did he really mean? I had grown to respect John - I wasn't prepared for these words to come out of his mouth.

Let's consider what Diversity really means - that's important to understanding his comment. In an Academic setting, Diversity has become a catchphrase whose meaning is not often clear. As I understand it, most people use it when they really mean to say "race." As I use it, I am using it to try to evoke an effort to both include and value a diverse range of perspectives and experiences that include people of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, classes, and so on and so forth. I think John was using it similarly to me - to include more than race as is commonly the case.

Now that we have a better understanding of what Diversity might mean - it's easier to hear what John was saying. By substituting our definition for the word in his statement, his intentions become much clearler: "The inclusion and valuing of different perspectives including people of different races, ethinicities, genders, sexualities, classes, etc has never really been a focus of this program." In effect, what he was really saying was - we don't systematically make an effort to include anyone other than white straight upper middle class men. It's not the focus.

How could this ever NOT be the focus of a program interested in Leadership? Something so broad as that must be seen through many different lenses. To see it just through the eyes of white straight upper middle class men is to continue to support ideas about what leadership is and what it isn't that is at the very root of the capitalist / heterosexist / racist / patriarchy we find ourselves in today. After all, when we think of a "leader" we think of George Bush and his cronies - let me say it again, white straight upper middle class men. A program in leadership that does not systematically attempt to dismantle this presupposition about leadership is, in my humble opinion, not just flawed but inherently FUCKED UP. No one graduating from the program really came out thinking about it very differently because the program never demanded we do so.

Before long, my relationship had unofficially ended with the group. I stopped going to meetings - I mean, c'mon, they scheduled a meeting at the same time as Alice Walker's visit. I told John there was no way I was missing Walker - and to ask any of us to do so was unfortunate, at best. He then e-mailed me saying that he was about to throw me out of the organization. And, ever the drama queen, I responded, in so many words, by saying "You can't fire me! I QUIT!" And so I did.

In any case, I found myself tossing and turning this evening recounting all the upsetting memories that surround my departure from the program. It's well over a year later and I still lose sleep over it. I hope that, now that my story is off my chest, I can return to slumber. Good night!

I've just picked up Inga Muscio's latest book, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil (thanks Win Chesson for the rec!) and I stumbled upon a paragraph early on that struck me. She writes:

"One starts to wonder why exactly it just so happens that almost every US street, building, and landmark that isn't named after Rosa Parks, Pocahontas, Cesar Chavez, or Martin Luther King Jr. is named after a white person."

While not directly related to her point, it immediately pressed play in my brain and a recent memory flashed in my thoughts over and over and over again.

It happened just before I left Chapel Hill. Recently the Chapel Hill Town Council put forth a measure to rename the artery that goes from downtown Chapel Hill to I-40. The road had for years been known as "Airport Road" as it passed right by, no surprise, an airport.

UNC is again planning to expand - this time by building a new campus right over the old Airport. So it makes sense that the name for the road might not be so appropriate anymore. In a gesture of good faith, the Town Council proposed the name be changed to "Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd." Good faith measure. Appropriate time to change the name. Simple, right?

Wrong. A small ruckus ensued that led to public hearings and much squawking about the change. Eventually the Town Council won out and the name was officially changed - but resentment lingered.

That's where my memory comes in. Me and a friend were standing on campus talking to another friend about her new apartment. Asked where she lived, she told us that she lived "just down Airport Road." At that point I corrected her and said "Oh you mean Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.?" With a slight chuckle, she gave a knowing smirk and said "No - I live down Airport Road."

Jackass that I am, I didn't realize quite how heinous that comment was at the time. What - really - was her damn problem? Muscio's point is well taken - a handful of People of Color's names litter a tiny number of streets and buildings, while oodles of White peoples' names litter the country to "honor their memories." Any old white person deserves to be remembered. But not - indeed - any old person of color.

The fact that is name has become slapped on the names of streets in towns across America does not mean Martin Luther King Jr. should not be honored in Chapel Hill. It's thanks to his efforts that we can continue to say with some confidence that Chapel Hill is the liberal bastion of the South. It would be irresponsible of the town, then, to not recognize that reality.

In any case, I should have questioned the woman's motives. It was such a blatant moment of hey-you're-white-you-understand-what-I-mean "buddy-buddy" racism. In the South it happens quite frequently - but even here in California people assume that as a white person I'm going to "understand" when they make a heinously racist remark. Sometimes you have to look hard - the remarks are often cloaked under the veil of seemingly non-debatable issues like crime, poverty, or drug use - or, as in my case - the name of a road. If you're properly attuned, though, you can begin to clearly see the web of comments that buttress American racism.

In the end - I was the real jerk. I said nothing. Her racism left unchecked, she would undoubtedly repeat the line time and time again in the future - reassuring the white people of Chapel Hill that she really understood.

Today, during my last day of work at the ITRC, I had the pleasure of seeing my former professor in Political Scientist, Professor Maria Riemann. She's a visiting professor here who should be immediately tenured as she was, without a doubt, one of the top 5 professor I encountered here at UNC.

She "does" Marxist Theory - which is probably why she won't be seeing a tenure offer anytime soon. We got to talking about UNC's Political Science Department and it's lacking qualities in relation to the discipline. You see, I've graduated with a degree that means very little. I have no real understanding of what it would mean were I to do research as a Political Scientist. If I were to seek a PhD, what would I study? How would I study it? I have no earthly idea. This is, without a doubt, a problem. UNC's POLI department has failed to prepare me for further studies in the same discipline.

This leads me to other problems with my liberal arts education. It was never made entirely clear to me what all the different Social Sciences were, how they differed, and how they thought. For instance - what is Sociology and how do Sociologists do their work? How is it different from Anthropology? These kinds of questions should have been answered upon arriving at Carolina. Anyone interested in the Social Sciences should have been given the tools to discern what the different departments did different from one another and also how they were similar.

This is also (maybe even especially) crucial for those choosing to major in an inter-disciplinary field. International Studies, for instance, is made up of many different kinds of academics who think very differently from one-another. Any major in that field should be prepared to deal with those differences. Without that kind of preparation, I would expect students in that area to wind up extremely confused as to what it is that an International Studies academic does. That's why I tell all incoming students who are thinking about majoring in a field like this to consider double-majoring in another non-inter-disciplinary subject, like Anthropology. That will help them make sense of the rest of the field.

I've had the opportunity this summer to train new students with their laptops at orientation. Students also register for classes during this two-day program, so they inevitably have questions for me about classes. I do not hesitate to offer advice - especially to those students interested in the social sciences. High School certainly does not prepare students to understand what a liberal arts education is and what the different areas of study are. Neither, unfortunately, do UNC's advisors (at least in my experience). Think back to your "Social Studies" courses in High School and Middle School. That certainly did not make clear what it was that Social Scientists do (I remember hearing about Bowers v. Hardwick and our professor refusing to explain what sodomy was, telling us to ask the person next to us if we didn't know).

In any case, I find myself wondering what, if anything, I might choose to pursue a PhD in later in life. I had for some time not considered moving on to Political Science because our department here was so incoherent that I'm left wondering what it would mean to devote my life to the subject. After hearing Cathy Cohen speak at the ISAACS conference (see previous blog entry), I think I might reconsider that decision. Now I've just got to figure out what Political Science is. Any ideas?

Today, during my last day of work at the ITRC, I had the pleasure of seeing my former professor in Political Scientist, Professor Maria Riemann. She's a visiting professor here who should be immediately tenured as she was, without a doubt, one of the top 5 professor I encountered here at UNC.

She "does" Marxist Theory - which is probably why she won't be seeing a tenure offer anytime soon. We got to talking about UNC's Political Science Department and it's lacking qualities in relation to the discipline. You see, I've graduated with a degree that means very little. I have no real understanding of what it would mean were I to do research as a Political Scientist. If I were to seek a PhD, what would I study? How would I study it? I have no earthly idea. This is, without a doubt, a problem. UNC's POLI department has failed to prepare me for further studies in the same discipline.

This leads me to other problems with my liberal arts education. It was never made entirely clear to me what all the different Social Sciences were, how they differed, and how they thought. For instance - what is Sociology and how do Sociologists do their work? How is it different from Anthropology? These kinds of questions should have been answered upon arriving at Carolina. Anyone interested in the Social Sciences should have been given the tools to discern what the different departments did different from one another and also how they were similar.

This is also (maybe even especially) crucial for those choosing to major in an inter-disciplinary field. International Studies, for instance, is made up of many different kinds of academics who think very differently from one-another. Any major in that field should be prepared to deal with those differences. Without that kind of preparation, I would expect students in that area to wind up extremely confused as to what it is that an International Studies academic does. That's why I tell all incoming students who are thinking about majoring in a field like this to consider double-majoring in another non-inter-disciplinary subject, like Anthropology. That will help them make sense of the rest of the field.

I've had the opportunity this summer to train new students with their laptops at orientation. Students also register for classes during this two-day program, so they inevitably have questions for me about classes. I do not hesitate to offer advice - especially to those students interested in the social sciences. High School certainly does not prepare students to understand what a liberal arts education is and what the different areas of study are. Neither, unfortunately, do UNC's advisors (at least in my experience). Think back to your "Social Studies" courses in High School and Middle School. That certainly did not make clear what it was that Social Scientists do (I remember hearing about Bowers v. Hardwick and our professor refusing to explain what sodomy was, telling us to ask the person next to us if we didn't know).

In any case, I find myself wondering what, if anything, I might choose to pursue a PhD in later in life. I had for some time not considered moving on to Political Science because our department here was so incoherent that I'm left wondering what it would mean to devote my life to the subject. After hearing Cathy Cohen speak at the ISAACS conference (see previous blog entry), I think I might reconsider that decision. Now I've just got to figure out what Political Science is. Any ideas?