All-Women’s Wellesley College Rejects Transgender Diversity Officer Because She’s a “White Man” Now

Whelp. This is where we are as a society now. This story out of Wellesley College—you know, Hillary Clinton’s alma mater—just about wraps it up for me. I can hardly wrap my head around it, but here it is:

Timothy Boatwright was born a girl, and checked off the “female” box when applying to the Massachusetts all-women’s school [Wellesley College], according to an article in the New York Times. But when he got there, he introduced himself as a “masculine-of-center genderqueer” person named “Timothy” (the name he picked for himself) and asked them to use male pronouns when referring to him. And, by all accounts, Boatwright felt welcome on campus — until the day he announced that he wanted to run for the school’s office of multicultural affairs coordinator, whose job is to promote a “culture of diversity” on campus. But some students thought that allowing Boatwright to have the position would just perpetuate patriarchy. They were so opposed, in fact, that when the other three candidates (all women of color) dropped out, they started an anonymous Facebook campaign encouraging people not to vote at all to keep him from winning the position.

I’m trying really hard to take this seriously, but this is madness. Complete and utter madness. I’m sure Boatwright thinks she is herself extending diversity by being transgender, but I love that the female students at Wellesley College have been so consistent about this whole thing. “You said you wanted us to treat you like a white man, right? Well, congratulations. This is how we treat white men.”

And then Boatwright is put in the awkward position of jockeying for “fair and equal” treatment while also wanting to hold on to and maintain the legitimacy of her ridiculous “Emperor’s New Clothes” transgender costume.

Do I feel sorry for Boatwright? A little. But mostly I think this is just a humorous cautionary tale of how political correctness blows up in the faces of its most ardent devotees.

7 responses

  1. Or Chris Rock (who, you must not forget, was supposed to be decrying the white-ness of Hollywood) who got in trouble after a skit about inclusiveness:

    “Rock hailed the firm’s ‘most dedicated, accurate and hard-working representatives,’ and then three Asian kids walked onto the stage carrying briefcases and wearing tuxedos, according to CNN.

    The joke played on the stereotype of Asians being extremely smart, studious and hardworking.”

    • I have found that Asian stereotypes/racism, generally speaking, have not yet been as roundly condemned as racism against black people. Perhaps it is because Asians are generally lumped into the category of “white” or that Asian cultures are exotic enough to the Western perspective to register more naturally as the “other.” I don’t know. But the situation is really ugly. Breakfast at Tiffany’s isn’t even that old, and Mickey Rooney’s character in that movie is jarringly offensive. And oddly, that stereotype would still play today with only a little backlash.

      • As an (adopted) Asian, I notice such things. Even some Asians seem to hold stereotypes of themselves, in a je ne sais quoi sort of way. For instance, I told a Chinese lady the stereotype of Asians being bad drivers & she just laughed.

        On the other hand, I get a good hearty (yet somewhat terrified) laugh from watching the “political correctness” totalitolerantarians (say that 5 times fast) turning on each other.

        “He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made.”

        (Psalm 7:15)

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