Welcome back, Comets! We hope you spent spring break healing and are ready to jump into more exams than you should ever have to take in your life. If the Department of Education is going down for real this time, at least you’ll be spared from the Testing Center.
Campus recently got a spotlight from the internet after a student attacked tabling members of TPUSA, an organization famously known for encouraging bigotry against marginalized groups every time they open their mouths. TPUSA leader Charlie Kirk wasted no time in taking the issue to Twitter and blaming the entire incident on trans people’s inherent violent tendencies. While details on the reason for the assault are still unknown, spectators have used it as yet another reason to be viciously transphobic to the community at large.
This tendency to willingly harm queer spaces is, unfortunately, not new. The UT system recently reheated A&M’s nachos to ban universities from sponsoring or hosting drag shows, following the pattern of executive orders against minority groups set and encouraged by Trump and Abbott.
In an interview with the Texas Tribune, attorney Adam Steinbaugh from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression responded to this nonsense with the simple logic of “If drag offends you, don’t buy a ticket,” and we honestly couldn’t agree more. Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to make it everyone else’s problem when you don’t like something, but you do have to respect their basic right to exist in peace.
To our LGBTQ+ friends, we stand by you and your right to be protected from negative rhetoric that sparks from one incident to define you in all others. We also highly encourage you to celebrate the colors of spring by carrying glitter in your pocket and throwing it at anyone who thinks they know your own identity better than you do. To the allies in our audience, Get More Woke Now. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we’re all going to need each other more than we think in the coming years. The only closet anyone should be in is Temoc’s Closet, where your spring cleaning finds a new life and we make use of our best resource — each other.
