Q. How Do You Know You're an LGBT Campus Resource Director?

A. You know...

• when your annual budget for lavender and hot pink copier paper is bigger than for white paper.
• when your position title has more syllables in it than supercalifragilisticexpialidoscious - and your business card could easily be the size of a billboard!
• when a cause for celebration comes when you are introduced (including your entire title) completely correctly - at least most people TRY!
• when you're confused whether you are lusting over the old-timer directors, oryou just wanna be one!
• when you are referred to as a "homocrat" or "gay for pay."
• when you know what the letters "LGBTSITQSMQAP" stand for.
• when you know Ronni.
• when you administer a survey and over half of the respondents identify list their gender as "trans" and their sexual orientation as "queer".
• when several of your colleagues start to discreetly confide in you about their "bisexuality"
• when co-workers clip every magazine article or newspaper story with the word "gay" in it for you.
• when your students complain about you and then invite you to a party and then ask you to be the advisor to their student group and then complain about you some more.
• when your colleagues start giving you titles like "The Queen of Queer," "Supreme Director of all Things Queer," and "The Gay Crusader"
• when the maintenance guys always have this uncomfortable expression whey you call them to fix something in your office.
• when a disproportionate number of the female students you work with are on the rugby team.
• when a disproportionate number of the male students you work with are not on any team.
• when your female students are the only ones who offer to put together your new desk.
• when your male students are the only ones who offer to bring you coffee.
• when you complain about your job but secretly love it.
• when the maintenance worker who's painting your office (a real step up, since last time you had to paint it yourself!) tells you, confidentially, that she's "family".
• when respondents to your department's survey list their gender as "boi", "tranyfag," "mostly male", "?", "yes", and "no" and their sexual orientation as all the usual suspects, plus "non-gay," "males", "femmes", "transexual", "pansexual", "open", and "bisexual, I guess".
• when you're the only LGBT person on your campus reminding LGBT students that it's not nice to refer to Graduate Student Housing as "Straight Student Housing."
• when you know that the term "ally" is not a road behind your house!
• when the only letters in your file cabinet alphabetized filing system that are full are the Q's, G's, L's B's and T's, and you can't find anything within those categories.
• when you have had an ongoing conversation for the last gazillion number of years over the use of the word queer.
• when your personal life (read sexual orientation) tends to be a topic of conversation more than anyone else's in the division.
• when you seriously consider issues relating to pronouns on a regular basis in interacting with students.
• when you seem to always have flyers, brochures and promotional items for your office in pink, purple and rainbow color schemes.
• when you seem to be the official campus expert for lesbian sex, transgender physiology, gay men's sex in the bathroom, and bisexual promiscuity (or lack thereof).
• when you feel misunderstood in your professional work almost everywhere, except maybe once or twice a year at a groovy meeting, are on an awesome list serv.

Compiled by Shaun Travers. You may contact him at <stravers@ucsd.edu>. Thanks to members of campusdir-l for their contributions to this FAQ.

(Did you think all our FAQs were going to be deadly serious?)

Last updated 5/16/01

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