A student's anxiety attack about 'cisgender' workmen is peak Oberlin
Early in October, Oberlin College in Ohio (annual tuition plus living expenses: $78,147) began to update radiators in student rooms, something that's good in a cold climate. However, one student living in "the home of the Women and Trans Collective" was so outraged by having "cisgender men" invade "his" (?) room that he wrote a long essay about the horror of it all. And The Oberlin Review, rather than having a good laugh at his expense, went ahead and published the darn thing. The student's abnormal reaction to a normal event is very telling and worth noting.
This is Peter Fray-Witzer:
peter fray-witzer... pic.twitter.com/6lJIWK5Bzg
— AND (war-hardend goblin) (@DPVXMV) October 18, 2021
Fray-Witzer lives in Oberlin's Baldwin Cottage. Baldwin Cottage is one of ten "identity-based communities":
As part of the effort by Residential Education and Dining Services to provide singular and individual housing experiences, 10 houses are arranged across campus and cover a variety of interests. They include language-based houses (French, German, Russian, Spanish) and identity-based houses (Afrikan Heritage House, Asia House, Hebrew Heritage House, Latinx House, Third World House, and the Women and Trans Collective).
Clearly, Oberlin students go to college not to expand their horizons, but to narrow them.
Baldwin Cottage is the "Women and Trans Collective" residence. The official description is a collection of mindless leftist buzzwords about identity politics and "gender identity."
Baldwin Women and Trans Collective Mission Statement: Baldwin is a safe residential community for anyone who identifies as female or trans, regardless of race, nationality, religion, assigned sex, or sexual orientation. Baldwin provides a safe space for engaging in discussion regarding gender and sexual orientation, and for challenging dominant heteronormative, patriarchal paradigms. Residents seek to provide and support programs around campus that advocate for women/trans people and challenge systems of oppression. We aim to build a strong community in our house, and to forge relationships with organizations and individuals across campus who support Baldwin's mission.
Fray-Witzer wrote an opinion piece describing how normal men showing up to fix the radiators on less than 24 hours' notice led to emotional collapse:
In general, I am very averse to people entering my personal space. This anxiety was compounded by the fact that the crew would be strangers, and they were more than likely to be cisgender men.
[snip]
Cisgender men are not allowed to live on the second and third floors, and many residents choose not to invite cisgender men to that space.
I was angry, scared, and confused.
[snip]
When the insistent knock eventually came, I scrambled to get my mask on and repeatedly shouted, "Coming!" through the door. Four or five construction workers stood outside, accompanied by someone who I could only assume — by his neat polo and clipboard — to be an emissary of the College. We stared at each other for a moment before I moved aside to allow the workers to enter.
After more expressions of peevishness and fear, Fray-Witzer wrapped up by indicting the college for insensitivity: "They should have taken measures to keep students comfortable and safe — especially those who have elected to live in a specifically designated safe space."
Do I need to say Fray-Witzer's response to a dorm room repair job is totally abnormal? Someone this emotionally fragile shouldn't be taking up space in an institution dedicated to education. Of course, education doesn't seem to be high on Oberlin's list of services it provides to its students. Those who follow the news know that Oberlin is much more interested in indoctrinating them in leftist shibboleths — and Fray-Witzer's bizarre reaction to "cisgender" men in a "safe space" indicates that when it comes to indoctrination, Oberlin's doing just fine.
Fray-Witzer's over-the-top response to radiator repairs also puts the lie to the whole "transgender" thing. The housing is for women or "trans" people. With a male name and a five o'clock shadow, Fray-Witzer doesn't look like a woman. That means "trans" and raises two possibilities: a female who thinks she's a man and, judging by the little beard, is taking hormones to advance that illusion or a male who, despite the male name and beard, thinks he's a woman.
If Fray-Witzer was born female and magically became a man, the fact of "his" being a man makes ridiculous the fear of "cisgender" men because we're supposed to believe that Fray-Witzer is as manly as men. Alternatively, if Peter was born male and magically became a woman (who still looks like a man), he also wouldn't be in a tizzy just being in the presence of biological men. Most women like men, and even lesbian women can tolerate men.
No matter what Fray-Witzer's biological reality, this person is oppressed by the mere presence of actual, hard-working men making an honest living serving spoiled, mentally disordered neurotics — and that's nowhere near normal.
Glenn Greenwald, who is gay and a leftist, is nevertheless a sane man who is becoming disenchanted with leftist madness. Therefore, he nails the intellectual rot that Oberlin is allowing and even encouraging:
Ponder the rotted roots of an ideology that convinces highly privileged and wealthy students at elite colleges that the guys who come to fix their radiators are their oppressors, and that the ones whose family is paying $80k/year are the oppressed.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 18, 2021
A start to fixing these institutions would be to withdraw all federal taxpayer money from them. They should also be on the hook for finding jobs for those students who accrued hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to attend these neurosis factories.
Image: Baldwin Cottage. Public domain.
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