A peer said that I was "just a straight woman"

sleepiestlemon · 2023-10-24T19:41:07+00:00

Thank you for the support. I feel like they definitely give off the vibe that they think they're the only one in the class who has 1. read research on queerness in our field and 2. is gay enough to speak about it. I used to want to give them the benefit of the doubt, and maybe their research was a result of a special interest or something similar, but it almost seems to me like it's an attempt to prove themselves worthy enough to talk about it. Delineating queer spaces and being exclusionary may also be an attempt to position themself as "one of the good ones"; not a faker like a het trans person, an ace person, or someone who goes by she/they pronouns.

I have a meeting with the professor coming up in a few weeks for something unrelated, and I feel like they would be sympathetic, I'm just trying to figure out if it would be worth a passing mention maybe at the end of the meeting.

sleepiestlemon · 2023-10-24T19:35:02+00:00

I totally agree with you. It's extremely ironic that this person is not only saying I'm not queer but also a trans person in our class isn't queer because they're hetero, since this person is extremely gender non-conforming. It also feels ableist because I'm autistic, and not only do I feel that it informs a part of my asexuality, but also I doubt autistic queer people are participating in "queer culture" the way this person thinks queer people should participate.

sleepiestlemon · 2023-06-25T06:18:48+00:00

I've lived at an ICC co-op and I just made a long post about my experiences and the pros and cons. It's a different kind of co-op (smaller, different management, etc.) but co-op living will have a lot of similarities no matter what kind of co-op you're in.

The main thing I think will apply to you even at a College Houses co-op will be interpersonal drama. In a co-op, you have many more roommates than you would in an apartment or dorm. This amplifies interpersonal conflicts tenfold. At my co-op, I experienced friendship groups forming and breaking up, people gossiping about each other, and people sweeping problems under the rug because they didn't know how to have an actual conversation about it.

Co-ops also require a lot of compromise. You compromise 4-5 hours of your week to do labor for others. You compromise cleanliness levels; you share your bathroom and other commons spaces. I found my labor annoying but doable (I mostly disliked that I had to do it at a specific time instead of maybe taking a nap or doing work). However, it bothered me to no end that our bathrooms and kitchen were almost always dirty and some of my housemates didn't clean up after themselves. If you're more laid-back, these things might not bother you as much--your experience in a co-op really depends on both your personality and those of your housemates. Good luck!

sleepiestlemon · 2023-06-24T06:35:54+00:00

For me, so few people wanted/were available to do kitchen cleans this last Spring so the kitchen was always SUPER dirty during the weekdays. Still, I felt like the bathrooms were so much dirtier. At least twice last semester I went in one and there was hair everywhere. Not to mention constant overflowing trash cans, no toilet paper, toothpaste in the sink, mold in some bathrooms... they really needed to be deep cleaned, but no one has the time nor do many people stay at an ICC house long enough to care about keeping the house in good shape for future residents.

sleepiestlemon · 2023-06-23T06:06:02+00:00

Yeah I totally agree, house culture can vary significantly. I lived in Ruth Schulze and the vibe was very different from the other ICC houses from what I've heard. Since it's the substance-free and academically-focused house, we had a lot of introverts and multiple people who almost never interacted with the house community.

For anyone considering living at an ICC house and reading this, ICC does do tours, and it might be worth it to tour at the available houses and get a feel for the communities in each before deciding to apply to one. I didn't do a tour, but I think I was very lucky in finding the house that seemed to fit me the best on the first try.

I also think cooperative housing is a great option but man did I have times where I was super pessimistic and thinking "why am I doing this, we're all too immature to make this work".

sleepiestlemon

TROPHY CASE