Dear Editors,

As a member of the Pride affinity group, I find that the article was misguided and fails to understand the core meaning of what an affinity group is. The largest complaint that was presented was that for students who are currently in the closet, they have to out themselves to attend Pride, and she argued that Pride should be opened to the whole community to accommodate for these students. This, however, jeopardizes the entire idea of a Pride affinity group. By allowing allies to attend all meetings, the club would lose the safe space that it has created. I know that I personally would not feel comfortable sharing my opinions and my personal experiences with people who did not fully understand what it meant to be part of the LGBTQ community. I would also like to point out that the club does allow and currently hosts questioning students.

I understand the thought process behind this article — to try to protect questioning students — however, not only does the author not understand what makes an affinity group and why it is more beneficial to queer students compared to a GSA, the author has also never attended a meeting, specifically the meeting open to allies. On this basis the author has no knowledge on the difficulties that queer students have to deal with and that Pride affinity is a safe space for us to discuss our identities and a GSA would not be the safe environment that a pride affinity group would be. There is merit to the idea of occasionally opening up club meetings to allies throughout the year. However, the Pride affinity group is a place where queer or questioning students can have conversations about difficulties surrounding their sexuality, and allowing allies would jeopardize that safe space.

Sinqueerly,

Carter Wagner ’21