Hey, I go to Mason. It is indeed a very exciting time here. GMU has an active and welcoming community of feminists, and a very diverse and accepting student body overall. 'Tis good.

Does it, Marja? I am taking classes there in preparation for a masters degree, which I hope to get at GMU.

This reminded me at once of Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan.

-anin

I used to go to Mason, and they indeed have a fantastic Women's Center and faculty in the department. Diversity has always been a huge factor at Mason, mostly in regards to nationality so it's great to see my alma mater embracing all sorts of diversity!

Sadly, the article quotes one 'dissenter' who the article claims is part of the Mason Ambassadors program (think tour guides for big wigs.) The program claims they select students who have demonstrated pride in the Mason Community but Grant Bollinger didn't seem very proud in our community's choice. When I checked out his facebook page, I was shocked to see this "status message" from February 15: http://img.skitch.com/20090223-1w2g5cxw5264h9urp5sm8w1ags.jpg

Marja, do you think the Ambassador's program would think twice about someone of this kid's 'caliber'?

I'm at Mason for my graduate study. This makes me feel warm and fuzzy about my choice of school. :)

I am both a student and an employee at Mason and the attitude following homecoming is really amazing (although, until the Post article, it wasn't really widely known).

Unfortunately the responses of a few students and some of the outside community has been not-so-great. On Saturday I had a man come up and ask "What are you all going to do about that f***** being homecoming queen?", and another man called threatening to take his child out of school and kept repeating "queers can't be queens".

But now people are talking about it, and that's good.

I am both a student and an employee at Mason and the attitude following homecoming is really amazingly good (although, until the Post article, it wasn't really widely known). People are showing a lot of support and we're getting a lot more inquiries into the Pride Alliance than usual.

Unfortunately the responses of a few students and some of the outside community has been not-so-great. On Saturday I had a man come up and ask "What are you all going to do about that f***** being homecoming queen?", and another man called threatening to take his child out of school and kept repeating "queers can't be queens".

But now people are talking about it, and that's good.

I went to Wesleyan and we had a big Queer Prom (open and enthusiastically attended by both straight and gay people) at the end of every year, complete with a male Queen and a female King. It was a blast. Glad to see this kind of thing happening at other colleges now. Back then, it was considered super-risque and way out there.

I'm also glad that this happened as part of the regular homecoming at GM instead of a special event. (Not that queer events aren't awesome...it's just nice to see that it's a school wide thing).

At Whittier College, my tiny liberal arts college that boasts Richard Nixon as our biggest alum, we have "Mr. and Miss Whittier" instead of homecoming and last year? We voted a butch dyke as our Mr. There was campus uproar, but she held her own admirably and was a great representative.

That's awesome!

Just another example of male privilege displacing women from once secure opportunities.

Nothing should be "secure" for either gender. If a man can be homecoming queen then a woman should be able to be queen. Nursing and secretarial work was once "secure" work for women, and I'd say getting rid of that concept has been pretty damned beneficial to women in the long run, wouldn't you say?

This is a really cool story.

All I could think of when I saw the homecoming king's crown was:

[Jagermonster] Hey, NIZE HAT! [/Jagermonster]

I love this sotry!!! Its great to see such a open minded school.

This is sooo freakin awsome!!

That is fricking amazing!!! Yeah!! :D