Purpose/Giles Bench

I just got through most of the posts on the blog as its existence has somehow escaped my surfing habits. I can say that I'm rather proud of the idea but as I see it now it is lacking in that it caters almost exclusively to the LGBT crowd. While I understand that it serves as means of self-help in between us, it would be of much more help if the greater public and our allies would benefit from reading our insightful and somewhat revealing experiences and ideas. Maybe if we advertised the blog more? or somehow include more people in it I believe it could become a good vessel of peaceful discussion, without it becoming an LGBT version of the metoo blog.

I am certain we have many allies in our student body who are either unaware of the adversity we face everyday, even with what some might deem minor lingual kinks, or who see them happening everyday but do not know how to cope with them. What if we could somehow reach out to them and give them the background information they need?! Think if every day just a couple of people back-lashed when someone uses the word gay or fag?! I think the reason why this social phenomenon has been rampant is exactly the lack of response from everybody. This in turn has lead to what the previous poster described as, the terms becoming part of "habitual-daily speech", a mass-desensitizing phenomenon.

As part of my coming-out process I've tried doing my best to kindly correct any people I was talking too if they ever used any terms associated with LGBT or any other minority or group for that matter. While some viewed it as me beeing a "party-pooper" and taking things "too seriously" I remained adamant and I hope that if not all, some realized that it was something that really mattered to me and have stopped using it.

Trying to cut my late-night stream of conciousness blurb, I want to end by saying that I have great hopes for the LGBT community and Duke and that if we work at our full potential there is room for great change. We have the raw materials and the tools, we need just be the catalyst for change.