San Diego State University has axed its longtime tradition of naming a homecoming “king” and “queen,” and this year will go with the gender-neutral term “royals,” the Daily Aztec campus newspaper reports.
As recently as last year SDSU named a homecoming “king” and “queen” during its annual football game, according to the university’s website. But this Saturday when the Aztecs take on the University of Wyoming Cowboys, the Royal Court will end up with the “final two Royals,” the website adds. It’s unclear if those final two “royals” will be one male and one female, or some other iteration of the LGBTQAAII spectrum.
“During the application process, candidates were allowed to select gender-neutral pronouns to identify themselves,” the Daily Aztec campus newspaper reports. “These gender-inclusive pronouns aim to dispel the common gender binary of categorizing people as solely masculine or feminine.”
Not all students are happy with the changes.
“It’s just a case of the PC police feeling the need to screw with an all-American tradition under the façade of ‘progression,'” Jordan Dennison, chairman of the SDSU College Republicans, said Wednesday in an email to The College Fix. “Imagine all of the alumni at the game who are going to see that and wonder ‘what the hell was SDSU thinking?'”
But other students have voiced support for the decision.
“We are lucky to be on a campus that is really diverse, and so I think having systems in place that reflect the students on campus is a really positive thing,” SDSU Women’s Resource Center Coordinator Jessica Nare told the Daily Aztec. “The reality is we don’t live in a gender-binary system and so really recognizing that in a public way is really important and exciting.”
This is not the first effort SDSU has made to embrace transgender students. Last year it enacted a policy that allows students’ records to reflect their preferred names on faculty class rosters, faculty grade rosters, online Blackboard rosters, Blackboard home room rosters, and student ID cards.
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