Tuesday, October 27, 2009

This Wouldn't Happen at Florida

Just another Homecoming at the nation's second oldest university.

For Jessee Vasold ’11, the first transgender person elected as a class homecoming queen at the College of William and Mary, the day’s events were not anything too out of the ordinary.

As a member of the court, Vasold attended the pep rally and parade. Vasold was presented at the football game during halftime.

“It was pretty normal,” Vasold said. “The only difference I feel like from anyone else was that after halftime, a reporter wanted to talk to me.”

Vasold’s selection was only the third time that a transgender person has won the title of homecoming king or queen at an institute of higher education in the United States.

Thomas Jefferson wore a wig, people. There's nothing to see here. Move along. Though the College's first TJ might have scratched his bewigged noggin at this passage:

Vasold identifies as gender-queer. According to Vasold, gender-queer is a concept that can be adopted by anyone who feels that they do not fit into traditional gender classification, or anyone who sees the gender binary as an oppressive social institution and wishes to protest against it.

“It’s kind of a political identity, while simultaneously being a gender identity,” Vasold said. “And a lot of times you might see the people … just changing from day-to-day. Some people identify as gender-fluid, so what their gender is may depend on how they dress.”

Apparently, the Embracing Diversity section of Team G:TB's Employee Handbook needs some updating. Gender-queer, huh? Well, 'to each his/her own' has served us pretty well so far. No sense changing now. Rock on, Jessee - I hope the reactionary windbags that chased Gene Nichol from Williamsburg enjoyed your coronation.

49 comments:

zman said...

Is Jessee male or female, genotypicaly speaking? I read this passage yesterday:

"Normally, it really just depends on the day, how I dress," said Vasold, who prefers gender neutral pronouns – "ze" instead of he or she and "zir" instead of him or her. "I don't identify as a woman. It really just depends on the day and the occasion."

http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-wmhomecomingoct25,0,4223064.story

I'll let TJ get his tinyurl shinebox and shrink that link.

rob said...

i believe you just bought yourself an investigative assignment, z-man. we appreciate your initiative.

zman said...

From FoxNews:

http://tinyurl.com/yk33w72

Mark said...

She, or he, kind of looks like Greg...

T.J. said...

So glad one of you Homecoming attendees finally paid attention to what I was hinting at yesterday...

T.J. said...

And why do we need a Homecoming King AND Queen then? Can't Jessee handle both roles?

d-train said...

rob - very timely. did you submit this post before reading my most recent???
so much for "tribe pride"

zman said...

William or Mary. Ha.

T.J. said...

Wow, to all the fucking idiots in the comment section of FoxNews, you're fucking slack-jawed troglodytes and the good folks at G:TB would like to fucking beat you to death.

Shlara said...

I was in Wburg, right outside Zable Stadium at Cary Field and didn't hear a word about this. Had to read it on GTB.

rob said...

how's it feel to get whipped by a school with a transgendered homecoming queen, danny?

rob said...

you forgot 'genially', teej. we'd like to beat them to fucking death genially.

d-train said...

she's actually one of the better looking girls i've seen in that town (no offense should be taken shlara b/c i of course have never seen you)

rob said...

i can't believe it took 13 comments before that thought was expressed.

Shlara said...

Wow--the commenters on Fox are frightening.

rob said...

i think it's a sign of progress that fox commenters can read and (sorta) write. comprehension's right around the corner.

zman said...

Jessee is genotypically (and phenotypically) male:

"I've only had people congratulating me. I know that one of my friends was in a conversation with someone who didn't think that it was fair that I was able to run, because I'm not female-bodied," Vasold said. "But it generated a really good conversation, so they were able to talk about a lot of different things."

http://bit.ly/1X0Ak

zman said...

And you know what ... who cares? Is the Homecoming Queen title important at any school? I have no idea who won any of my four years in the burg.

Mark said...

The Fox News commenters both frighten and amuse me.

zman said...

I just don't understand their outrage.

Mark said...

Neither do they...

T.J. said...

OK, so which one of us is gonna go comment over there and bring this to our turf?

rob said...

as fun as that might be, it'd take us weeks to decontaminate this space.

Marls said...

Because as a God-fearing Christian, what this so-called school did was a perversion of family values. I am going to tell my prayer circle to pay for God to heal this sick, twisted institution. God punished Gommorah. He will punish us, too.

Does this mean I should bet against the Tribe this weekend?

Marls said...

Also, how does a "prayer circle to pay for God to heal this sick, twisted institution"?

Check, Money Order, COD?

Does Yahweh take Amex?

d-train said...

not it
i think i also heard that ze is the starting forward for your hoops team. looks like the whoopings might be confined to football

TR said...

Jessee easily slides into the top half of attractive co-eds. If ze drinks beer and doesn't fuss about the Bible, ze may sneak into the top 1/3.

zman said...

Ze appears to have breasts in the photo. I (zI?) am confused.

TR said...

Ze does have breasts, but so did (do?) many of your old fraternity brothers. So I would guess there is a bit of padding in ze's bra. I bet McLovin wouldn't be smiling as broadly in the photo if he knew that about that.

Whitney said...

Of course, Gene Nichol had larger breasts than the both of them.

zman said...

That's really McLovin? I thought it was rob.

rob said...

that homecoming king will take some shit at the national homecoming king convention.

Whitney said...

Here's a question that Rob alluded to: if the removal of a 2-foot cross from a church made you soil your adult diapers and renege on a $12 million donation, what behavior will this prompt from you?

Everything silly, rebellious, and deviant that happened on campus during the Nichol years were directly attributed to the president's mad liberal politics . . . but nothing this wild happened then. Taylor Reveley's quite different - just a mild, old fellow trying to stay out of the crosshairs. I guess it's time to get a rope.

zman said...

The deviants clearly stuffed the ballot box. Voter fraud.

Marls said...

Tom B definitely peed on chicks uglier than zir.

Mark said...

Didn't know if you guys saw this on Deadspin today but, it seems, ALL signs are now banned from FedEx Field. The official reason is due to risk of injuries and/or obstructed views. Yep, that's believable.

http://twitter.com/RickMaese

rob said...

zimbabwe, bitches.

rob said...

and sean salisbury sued deadspin today. how soon 'til half of espn's on-air roster does the same?

T.J. said...

He sued them over the weekend...I know, news travels slow to the Keebler tree...

TR said...

Whit - was the $12 million donation from the Ukrop family? I know the supermarket mogul is one of the biggest donors.

If the answer is yes, I have a pretty funny story.

Mark said...

Soem probably will but not with the vigor of Salisbury. He's completely unhinged and Deadspin has had more fun/made more news off him than most. Hell, possibly more than the rest combined.

rob said...

tr, for the sake of entertainment, let's assume the answer is 'yes'.

Whitney said...

It's not, it was a d-bag named Jim McGlothlin.

The Ukrops are actually very decent sorts who vocally supported Nichol in his plight. Wealthier than Lord Almighty God Maker of Heaven and Earth and the Wren Chapel, but also decent peeps.

Still wanna hear that story, my friend.

TR said...

Story not as good as the build-up, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm in hour 12 of a 15 hour workday. Goat for life.

Mark said...

Did Danny Ainge suddenly stop dying his hair or did the heart attack do that?

Mark said...

Is Rasheed wearing his hair like that as a show of solidarity with the birdman? Or Maybe Oscar Gamble?

Whitney said...

Once there was this kid who
got into an accident and couldn't come to school.
But when he finally came back his hair had turned from black into bright white.
He said that it was from when the cars had smashed so hard.

TR said...

So Jeanie Buss is much more cougar-ific than I would've thought. When you combine her looks and her money, Phil Jackson has to be pretty happy.

Some members of the Lakers staff are too bashful to go in for a cheek kiss on her when getting their rings. They should mouth-kiss that shit.

Whitney said...

I talked to Teejay tonight. He, Greg, and Granny Smith were playing some sort of insane two-man version of Classic Rock Shootout with the the cable music channels. Excellent.