Marcus ‘thanks’ MacDonald By Julia Marcus I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you, CJ, for being perceptive, intelligent, and progressive enough to understand the point of the Queerleaders. When you called them “supposed ‘women,’” you were right on, and I really appreciate your taking the time to come forward, exercise your freedom of speech, and write a Wespeak in public support of radical queer sex and politics. It’s people like you who bring us one step closer to a happy world in which everyone will be assumed to be queer, monogamy will be a relic of the past and perverted public sex will be the norm. As you so aptly pointed out, the category of “women” is one that is highly problematic in its construction. Feminism has historically excluded people of color, queers, and sexual deviants from “women,” which has posed as an all-inclusive word while really only referring to white, middle-class women. Today, when we talk about “women,” we are often still referring only to white women of a higher class who engage only in socially acceptable sex. In addition, as you obviously know, conthe male/female and man/woman binaries work to silence and oppress everyone who falls elsewhere on the sex and gender spectrums. Biological sex is not restricted to male and female; it includes a multitude of intersexuals, many of whom are “fixed” surgically or hormonally. People who deviate from the gender norms prescribed for men and women are also coerced into normalcy. Queers and sexual dissidents become invisible in this system; we are forced to censor ourselves and keep our sexualities and gender expressions in the private sphere to avoid persecution, while constantly being bombarded by images of boringly repressed, monogamous heterosexual sex. I know from your Wespeak that you are no stranger to this, CJ. As an accomplished athlete, you have surely spent much of your time in highly homoerotic situations, both in the locker room and on the field itself. This system that I’m referring to is precisely the one that won’t allow you to express yourself in those spaces that you and I both know are extremely sexually charged. Did you refer to the Queerleaders as “supposed ‘women’” in the hopes that you, too, could transcend gender boundaries and, perhaps, identify yourself as a woman? I commend the enormous amount of courage it must have taken for you to celebrate your deviance in a Wesleyan community forum. It was such a relief to read your Wespeak, CJ, and know that there are people out there who understand how the Queerleaders are key in the destruction of this system. Those quotation marks you added around the word “women” were an impressive display of queer, sexual, and gender liberation on your part. Once again, I want to thank you for making a move to help the Queerleaders dismantle the categories, boundaries, and structures that bind and repress us all. It’s about time that someone took a step to bring Wesleyan together as a community in solidarity for queer, perverted sex in our public domain. Marcus is a member of the class of 2003

editorial letters “rageragerageragerage ” Marcus ‘thanks’ MacDonald The art of transcending reason  Posters display culture not sexism Some athletes misrepresented  Administration must state policies on chalkings Cheerleading entertains but does queerleading offend? Hate transparent in Wespeaks Newsflash: C.J. misses the point Where else were the queers at Homecoming? Winning Candidate Works With Campus Greens Drilling for oil in Alaska: learn history’s lesson Meat-eaters can be converted You’re wrong, Miller Vegan “convert” responds The birth of a vegan The birth of a vegetarian Three offered courses are not acceptable Contextualize with care

The Wesleyan Argus © 2001 Wesleyan University Questions/Comments: Min Ter Lim, Online Editor or the Argus