When you were in college, were you directed toward teachers with sexual interests akin to your own?

Future Boston University alumni will answer, “Yes.”

The school has published for students an “Out List,” which allows them to seek and meet those on staff who are sexually aroused by similar things.

“Welcome to the BU Out List!” the online announcement reads.

The list springs from the college’s LGBTQIA+ Task Force.

In 2019, the Force “identified the following barrier to visibility”:

LGBTQIA+ faculty and staff are present throughout BU, but mechanisms through which community members can connect are in short supply outside of a small set of actively inclusive units. As a result, the vibrant spectrum of the University’s LGBTQIA+ community remains largely hidden, both within BU and to prospective faculty and staff. BU faculty and staff repeatedly commented that this invisibility was pervasive and interpreted as indicating an unwelcoming environment.

The next year was a game-changer:

In 2020, under the purview of the Boston University Diversity & Inclusion (BU D&I), the LGBTQIA+ Faculty and Staff Community Network (FSCN) was formed. Eager to collaborate, members of Q, BU’s Queer Activist Collective reached out to the newly formed network about creating a university-wide platform for students to connect with and learn more about queer faculty and staff.

“Within the LGBTQIA+ FSCN,” the news release reads, “a committee of BU faculty, staff, and undergraduate students from Q convened to address the lack of visibility in the LGBTQIA+ community at BU and to create the BU Out List.”

Inspired by the embrace of the Boston University Medical Campus Out and Ally List, the Out List “connects and makes visible the vibrant LGBTQIA+ community that resides at BU.”

Points to consider:

• LGBTQIA+ identified faculty and staff are invited to join the BU Out List to share their expertise, support, and guidance.
• Students are encouraged to use the list to find LGBTQIA+ mentors and connect with the wealth of resources our faculty & staff provide.
• Please understand this platform is intended for connecting and making visible LGBTQIA+ identified faculty and staff. If you consider yourself an ally of our community, thank you! We invite you to use our site as a tool for increasing meaningful inclusion of our community members. We also encourage you to connect with the Allies and Advocates Faculty & Staff Community Network.

It’s an interesting idea. If I accurately understand what sexuality is, it’s the desire to have sex. Would an effort to connect students to teachers by way of similarly preferred means of intercourse result in that very thing? It doesn’t appear wholly impossible.

Of course, the same could be said of a list connecting straight students to teachers of the same sort for “support” and “mentorship.”

As for being “seen,” it seems to me the internet has radically changed the world.

Before people of Earth lived online, there was no “visibility.” If you were in a room with anyone who possessed sight, you were seen. And that mostly meant you wanted to be sure nothing was hanging from your nose.

Prior to our age of affirmation, we weren’t constantly informed that we only exist if everyone says so.

As I wrote back in March:

To anyone aching for affirmation from their screen: You don’t exist because you’re on electronic display. Turn off the computer; put away the smartphone; take off your Apple Watch. Walk into the woods.

That’s as webwide “seen” as any of us were naturally meant to be.

Back to the Out List, Campus Reform suggests the effort may simply be an attempt at virtue signaling:

Those running the Out List plan to expand the project to include “a list of courses that are taught by LGBTQIA+ faculty each semester, as well as a section highlighting research being conducted by LGBTQIA+ faculty and staff.”

Initiatives such as the Out List are part of a broader trend in higher education of universities attempting to advertise their queer credentials, a trend exemplified by the Campus Pride Index (CPI).

As Campus Reform recently reported, CPI is an organization that allows universities to pay a $225 annual fee to be listed on their site as ‘LGBTQ-friendly’, and showcase their LGBT bona fides.

So perhaps the Out List is the Clout List?

Either way, it’s a new day for college students. Open-armed teachers are standing by.

-ALEX

See more content from me:

Jordan Peterson Is Suspended From Twitter After ‘Deadnaming’ Elliot Page

‘Friends’ Creator Surrenders One Percent of Her Reported Wealth to Atone for the Show’s Whiteness

Light on Our Path: America’s Last Living WWII Medal of Honor Recipient Leaves a Shining Example

Find all my RedState work here.

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