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College scraps homecoming king, queen for gender-neutral titles

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.

Authored by Jacob Floam via Campus Reform:


Administrators at Stony Brook University (SBU) in New York caved to pressure from activists on the Student Affairs Homecoming Committee to get rid of the homecoming king and queen titles, traditions since 1984, and replace them with three “Stony Brook Royals.”

The change, which was originally reported by Stony Brook News, was also pushed by the University’s LGBTQ Services along with LGBTQ Services assistant director, Chris Tanaka.

“Programs, events, and competitions that are categorized by gender put folks in the awkward position of either choosing to not be seen or affirmed for who they are or just not participating at all,” Tanaka said to Stony Brook News. “This change has opened the door for more students to feel like Homecoming is an event in which they can fully participate.”

Under the new format, ten students, regardless of their gender and without ratio, will be chosen as finalists to become Stony Brook Royals. The previous format required that five men and five women be chosen as finalists.

“I applaud the Homecoming Committee for making this innovative change,” Chief Diversity Officer Lee Bitsoi told Stony Brook University News. “This is another step toward building a welcoming, caring, supportive and inclusive campus community where all students feel that they belong.”

“It’s a dream come true,” Stony Brook “nonbinary” student and homecoming finalist, Allilsa Fernandez told NEWS12.

“It doesn’t take away any opportunities from students who would like to be either king or queen,” Stony Brook student RJ Samodal told WABC-TV. “You can still apply. It’s just the title is different.”

The scrapping of the homecoming queen and king titles is nothing new on college campuses. San Diego State replaced the titles in 2015.  In 2017, Northwestern University announced that students would vote on a “Homecoming Wildcat,” rather than a King and Queen. Penn State made the award gender-neutral in April of the same year. This September, Purdue University followed suit.

Stony Brook University also has a decade-old gender-inclusive housing program, which lets students “from across the gender spectrum” live together.

SBU is a publicly-funded school in Suffolk County, Long Island and is part of the State University of New York system. The university has not shied away from public controversy.

During spring 2018, Campus Reform reported on an incident in which SBU’s Students for Justice in Palestine club threatened to “eradicate” Zionism on campus. Also, last semester, in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla., the Young Democratic Socialists of America group at Stony Brook demanded that the campus police be disarmed.

Campus Reform  reported that the university’s Graduate Queer Alliance claimed that a debate in which a Christian author participated was “hate speech” in 2015. Furthermore, the entire SUNY system, which comprises of more than sixty colleges and universities, passed a resolution to “Create Transgender Health Care Education at SUNY Campuses” in Jan. 2017.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.

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Tom Welsh
Tom Welsh
October 24, 2018

This is no doubt a promising start. But “Royals”? That must be wrong in “The Land of the Free”. Surely Americans chose to shun all titles of royalty, nobility, gentry or any other such social ranks when they rebelled against British rule.

As the USA prides itself on being a nation of absolute equals, surely the best that could be done would be “People”.

If that doesn’t sound very special, so much the better. In today’s wonderful egalitarian and politically correct society, no one can be special – because everyone is equal.

emery
emery
Reply to  Tom Welsh
October 24, 2018

Promising start to what? Stopping the normal from taking place? LGBTO should have their own event. Let the individual chose their orientation, but do not allow them to force their way of life on the majority. They are in perpetual victimhood mode in order to justify their aggressive agendas. Ultimately this is an immoral act.

Bob Valdez
Bob Valdez
October 24, 2018

Another step closer to Sodom and Gommora and the collapse of us society as a whole.

You can call me AL
You can call me AL
Reply to  Bob Valdez
October 25, 2018

Stony Brook University (SBU), soon to become “Stony Broke University (SBU) if they carry on with this freak show.

emery
emery
October 24, 2018

Actually this “innovative change” will deprive all those students who wanted to be Queen and King of their legitimate fun. They say “all that has changed is the name”, but if that should not matter why don’t we call the winners the Stony Brook LGBTO choice.The majority of people do have normal sexual orientation. It is a crime to force on them the sexuality of a few. Let the LGBTO have their own separate event. But no, they aim to destroy what they can not be, healthy normal youth with normal sexuality.

TheCelotajs
TheCelotajs
October 25, 2018

The only thing the LGBTO need is a good plow job to get them back on the right track in life.

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