I guess I should explain. I would love to be able to write completely truthful things like "I've loved my time at UP! I've met so many wonderful people and I've had so many great and terrific experiences! It's been really great". In reality, there is some truth to those quotes statements. I have met some really incredible people that are really fantastic and I have had some really amazing experiences (Kenya ring a bell? And meeting Cleve Jones still seems like a dream to be real.)
But at the same time, my experience has been really difficult. During the last three years, this is where I've become a queer feminist and activist. This is where I've stood in protest, helped to start a movement, and heard so many stories of oppression, of disrespect, and just overall rudeness.
The last several months of the spring semester this year put me into such an incredibly vulnerable position and I experienced some amazing support but also some really awful backlash. The thing that surprised me was that near the end, I was actually experiencing more backlash and anger from students (including some I had considered friends and allies) than from any other population. I have felt like I've been thrown into terrifying situations solo and even if I ask for help, no one seems to know how to help me.
When I think about going back to UP for even just for one more year, my stomach knots up, breathing gets difficult, and at times, I get close to tears. I think about the last several months of spring semester when I felt targeted by fellow students and when I read comments from the Portland community that said I was crazy for believing that I could be accepted. I think about how disjointed I have felt for so long from the campus community, in hopes that one day I would fit in.
And in truth, if I leave, then I've given up the chance that things will change. I won't have the chance to see if I do finally feel like a part of the community. But if I haven't felt that in three years, why would that change now?
I've written before about not feeling welcome or accepted on campus because of how I identify and part of that is my sexuality and my gender identity. But I've discovered that it really seems like at least for me, the reason I feel that way is because I don't have resources or mentors to turn to. Yes, there's the Gay Straight Partnership, a club I have been a part of for about two and a half years. But at this point with GSP and for me, I have become the resource for other students. Being on the exec board for about a year now and a member for longer, I've come to realize that GSP is a really amazingly wonderful place to build community and to educate the members and campus community. But now that I'm going into my senior year and second year as vice president, I feel like I've come to the rope's end for having mentors to talk to about things I'm going through.
(Just to clarify, I really do love GSP. It has been and continues to be the best decision I made during my college career and it has, at least for me, done a good job at creating community. This post isn't to go against GSP, it's mission, or any past, present, or future members.)
Getting back to the point, I feel unaccepted because of my identity because there is such a small percentage of people that might even begin to understand what I go through living as a queer person in a dominant heterosexual culture. I look at professors, staff members, and mentors and realize that the people I look up to and ask for advice might not even understand where I'm coming from. I've gone to professors (whether I have had them or not) and asked for help and while many have been really supportive, I still feel like there is a barrier between me and them of just not being able to experience life in the same way.
And you could say things like, "well you're not going to find mentors or coworkers or people that come from similar backgrounds in the real world" but that's exactly my point. Here at UP, there is the opportunity to actually control at least some situations (like this one). Here, there is a chance to offer services and resources to students during a time that often described as one of exploration and sometimes confusion. If resources and support aren't offered to not only those who are queer in any regard but also of any other minority here at UP, where else are people going to get them?
Yes, there are plenty of organizations in the Portland area that offer resources and yes, I could (and at this point should) use the resources out there. But that just helps to alienate me from the UP community and it perpetuates the issue that I still don't feel like I belong on campus. That isn't a solution to the problem of not feeling welcome or represented on campus but rather, just furthers the problem even more.
And the final reason why I don't feel welcome is that I am very much a rebel rouser, a trouble maker, a rather loud mouthed activist. A staff member once told me that the way I handled social issues (petitions, rallies, traditional activist things) weren't the way in which issues were handled at UP and they are completely right to say that.
But the reason why I should stay is that I only have one more year left to finish my degree and then I am done. I feel the huge societal pressure to get my degree because afterall, I have been told time and time again that if I want to do anything with my life, I should get a degree. And my parents have already spent a ridiculous amount of money getting me through the past three years and I feel like that would have all been a complete waste if I left a year early.
At this point, there is so much history of pain and unacceptance for me and I can't help but have massive amounts of anxiety when it comes to UP that the idea of going back is so repulsive to me. But the other end of things has a ridiculous amount of social pressures that not going back to UP is just as terrifying.
I don't know. Right now, I just feel really isolated and as if all of my communities have been ripped out of my life.
But at the same time, my experience has been really difficult. During the last three years, this is where I've become a queer feminist and activist. This is where I've stood in protest, helped to start a movement, and heard so many stories of oppression, of disrespect, and just overall rudeness.
The last several months of the spring semester this year put me into such an incredibly vulnerable position and I experienced some amazing support but also some really awful backlash. The thing that surprised me was that near the end, I was actually experiencing more backlash and anger from students (including some I had considered friends and allies) than from any other population. I have felt like I've been thrown into terrifying situations solo and even if I ask for help, no one seems to know how to help me.
When I think about going back to UP for even just for one more year, my stomach knots up, breathing gets difficult, and at times, I get close to tears. I think about the last several months of spring semester when I felt targeted by fellow students and when I read comments from the Portland community that said I was crazy for believing that I could be accepted. I think about how disjointed I have felt for so long from the campus community, in hopes that one day I would fit in.
And in truth, if I leave, then I've given up the chance that things will change. I won't have the chance to see if I do finally feel like a part of the community. But if I haven't felt that in three years, why would that change now?
I've written before about not feeling welcome or accepted on campus because of how I identify and part of that is my sexuality and my gender identity. But I've discovered that it really seems like at least for me, the reason I feel that way is because I don't have resources or mentors to turn to. Yes, there's the Gay Straight Partnership, a club I have been a part of for about two and a half years. But at this point with GSP and for me, I have become the resource for other students. Being on the exec board for about a year now and a member for longer, I've come to realize that GSP is a really amazingly wonderful place to build community and to educate the members and campus community. But now that I'm going into my senior year and second year as vice president, I feel like I've come to the rope's end for having mentors to talk to about things I'm going through.
(Just to clarify, I really do love GSP. It has been and continues to be the best decision I made during my college career and it has, at least for me, done a good job at creating community. This post isn't to go against GSP, it's mission, or any past, present, or future members.)
Getting back to the point, I feel unaccepted because of my identity because there is such a small percentage of people that might even begin to understand what I go through living as a queer person in a dominant heterosexual culture. I look at professors, staff members, and mentors and realize that the people I look up to and ask for advice might not even understand where I'm coming from. I've gone to professors (whether I have had them or not) and asked for help and while many have been really supportive, I still feel like there is a barrier between me and them of just not being able to experience life in the same way.
And you could say things like, "well you're not going to find mentors or coworkers or people that come from similar backgrounds in the real world" but that's exactly my point. Here at UP, there is the opportunity to actually control at least some situations (like this one). Here, there is a chance to offer services and resources to students during a time that often described as one of exploration and sometimes confusion. If resources and support aren't offered to not only those who are queer in any regard but also of any other minority here at UP, where else are people going to get them?
Yes, there are plenty of organizations in the Portland area that offer resources and yes, I could (and at this point should) use the resources out there. But that just helps to alienate me from the UP community and it perpetuates the issue that I still don't feel like I belong on campus. That isn't a solution to the problem of not feeling welcome or represented on campus but rather, just furthers the problem even more.
And the final reason why I don't feel welcome is that I am very much a rebel rouser, a trouble maker, a rather loud mouthed activist. A staff member once told me that the way I handled social issues (petitions, rallies, traditional activist things) weren't the way in which issues were handled at UP and they are completely right to say that.
But the reason why I should stay is that I only have one more year left to finish my degree and then I am done. I feel the huge societal pressure to get my degree because afterall, I have been told time and time again that if I want to do anything with my life, I should get a degree. And my parents have already spent a ridiculous amount of money getting me through the past three years and I feel like that would have all been a complete waste if I left a year early.
At this point, there is so much history of pain and unacceptance for me and I can't help but have massive amounts of anxiety when it comes to UP that the idea of going back is so repulsive to me. But the other end of things has a ridiculous amount of social pressures that not going back to UP is just as terrifying.
I don't know. Right now, I just feel really isolated and as if all of my communities have been ripped out of my life.
