Wellesley College is Not Made for the Marginalized

by Harper Elrod ‘25

CW: Alcohol mention, anti-Latine sentiment discussed, anti-Black racism discussed, classism discussed, depiction of domestic violence, reclamation of the D slur

In the smell of alcohol, I have always been transported to the year I spent with my grandmother and grandfather. All of these moments blend together for me—the alcohol soaking my papa’s tank top when he hugged me, my cries when he broke my grandmother’s rib in front of me. When your liquor-tint breath wafts around the room at a Wellesley event, I do not feel safe. In fact, I feel out of control and subjected to my violent surroundings once again. Yet, when I ask the organizer of Dyke Ball if there will be a space for those who struggle with addiction and have trauma around alcohol, I am told that while I won’t be forced to be in a space where alcohol is served, there will be drunk people attending, wherever I choose to be.

When I was told this, I immediately thought of the other question I asked them—how do we publicize this event to the people of our community who are not out of the closet or aren’t known widely as LGBT+? The organizers told me that those people couldn’t get information about the event and therefore would have to decide whether or not they were comfortable attending if they happened to overhear it from someone. They were barring LGBT+ people who weren’t as connected to the community or as “out” from coming to an event created to celebrate those who weren’t able to go to their own proms—which, unsurprisingly, are two demographics that overlap a lot. Also, when I requested an accessible space for myself, I was denied. This was especially troubling given that Dyke Ball had five different locations organized specifically for students to receive alcohol.

These aren’t even the only ways that Dyke Ball was made inaccessible. Not only were we making it an unwelcome space for those with trauma surrounding alcohol, not only was it a space uninviting to those it was historically formed for, but this event continues under a long running legacy of trans and bisexual erasure at Wellesley. Dyke Ball, formed in 1993, denotes a lesbian slur, which, by nature, excludes bisexual cis women, all trans men, and all nonbinary people or trans women who do not identify as lesbians. It also excludes those who have trauma around the slur, who are overwhelmingly lesbians, and many people whose identities are erased in favor of derogatorily being identified as a lesbian by others. How can this be an accessible event when it demands slurs in the mouths of those who it doesn’t apply to, and demands slurs in the ears of those who have been hurt by it?

Well, we’ve gotten to the part of the writing where we’ve assessed a problem. Let’s blame the administration! Or, let’s blame rich white girls! And sure, to some degree, we can—can’t we always? However, this issue unfortunately isn’t as simple as that. Many people at Wellesley have been protected so deeply by class privilege that other forms of oppression they may experience have been softened and abstracted. There are middle-class nonbinary people on this campus who have never actually faced the medical discrimination which plagues poor nonbinary individuals, and to them, fighting this oppression is as easy as making a sign. It is a theoretical oppression. When it comes to trauma, there are people who have the resources to access therapy guilt-free and probably continually from their youth, oftentimes not needing the access I need to attend events like Dyke Ball. To come back to a very recent example, there are cis women and white women on this campus who fail to understand material reproductive injustice due to the removal they’ve had from the painful and dangerous existence lived by poor birthing people, who often experience greater inaccessibility and subsequently riskier procedures because of their economic status.

This is how you end up with the protest we witnessed on October 21.

On October 20, Kristan Hawkins, a known anti-abortionist, posted about her supposed villainization by the students of Wellesley College, who, at the time, were planning to have protests set up for different sensory experiences all around the college. Well, when I say “students of Wellesley College”—what I mean is that a small group of students, mostly white seniors, decided to make protesting a top-down process and plan within their small group, assuming everyone else’s protests were synonymous with going to theirs. While I made the plan to hand out free condoms outside of the anti-abortion event long before these protestors, when I briefly attended their meeting in Tower Great Hall, I was told that I shouldn’t do that inside of the library in case they received an honor-code violation for my actions. I was shocked—protest is meant to disrupt—but more than that, they assumed that I would be seen as part of their event. Even though I had planned far in advance of their activities, they considered any protest to be under their discretion and leadership. Eventually, they decided it probably wouldn’t be counted as a protest, and that is when they decided that they “approved” of what I was doing. During all of this, I was at least comforted by one thing: they claimed that they would not be planning a reactionary event. Then, Hawkins released her post:

“Pro-abortion students at Wellesley College are attempting to cancel me by blatantly lying about me and my positions,” Hawkins responded to the protest plans. Furthermore, Students for Life ensured that preparations were made for any violence instigated by protestors at the event.

Of course, in light of this, I remember many members of our community warning students of color and assuring them that their presence wasn’t mandatory—they were the most affected by the issue and the most likely to receive violence from any police presence. This wasn’t the only reaction, though. At the final hour, this group of students sent out “new plans” for the protest. They decided that it would be a silent vigil, and told everyone to share their new plans. Did they make these plans with the consent of everyone protesting? No. I’m not even sure that they made these plans with the consent of everyone who had met that day in Tower Great Hall, but they sure expected everyone to follow them. Though, beyond that, the sudden planning of a vigil, specifically, was the most bothersome aspect.

Did they expect us to think that they suddenly were just drawn to caring about the 68,000 people who die without access to abortion every year? To think that that is why they desired to hold a vigil? It was one of the most blatantly disrespectful moves that I’ve seen in any organizing collective. Not only was the protest completely built on their ideas and our compliance, but they wanted to use the victims of the crisis of abortion inaccessibility to make themselves look better. They could say that they cared for the victims all they wanted, but like they said at that meeting in Tower, the intention was clear: they didn’t want to look like “angry liberals.”

This was also a move made, in theory, to address the possibility of violence. To this, I’d ask, what part of the previous plan is considered violent? Is it violent to allow members of our community to speak their opinions? Is it violent to let us speak at all? This “protest” silenced many, but it is especially important to mention a group silenced beyond the general public: Wellesley College’s Latinx/o cultural organization, Mezcla.

At least a week before the “vigil,” I had heard of Mezcla’s protest: they planned to make signs in Acorns and walk to the library together, ready to speak their minds and make their voices heard. What they were met with, in Mezcla’s own words, was “the silent vigil,” and they “weren’t able to say or do much.” A member of Mezcla specifically noted that they were “t[old]...to sit down and to stay quiet…when we came out of Acorns, they started commanding us what to do.” They even went as far as trying to divide them for their own purposes, demanding that, “half of you stay here and the others go to the front area.”

I ask, what is the worth of a protest that specifically silences those of a different culture based on top-down politics and respectability in the face of violent rhetoric? What is the worth of a protest that doesn’t seek to let people be heard, but to seem the most palatable? This behavior is especially disgusting given that the mostly white non-Latinx people running this “vigil” do not face reproductive health-related oppression at the size or rate of Latinx people, who are burdened with the ongoing medical racism of sterilization. This, of course, connects directly to the origins of the anti-abortion movement, which was founded to force the production of white babies and bring down the population of Black and Latinx children through sterilization, not even to mention how the wealth gap influences Latinx access to reproductive health. However, regardless of this obstacle to their protest, Mezcla’s work was noticed, and their dedication to creating a safe and welcoming environment for all will manifest further in the spring with a lovely documentary screening event that you should all keep an eye out for! If we criticize others for not giving Mezcla a voice, we must also ensure that we are doing the work to support them, so please support them for whatever else they need when the chance arises!

Let’s return back to the condom giveaway, though. It had also turned into a Plan B giveaway at this point in time, and we were making strides in informing people how to donate free Plan B (there is a one time fee for prescribing ($15) but beyond that, it is free) through pillclub.com, which is something that I suggest you all do! Donations are accepted through the closet labeled such on the fourth floor of Claflin Hall. We had to move outside because of the library being closed off, but otherwise, it was a pretty good night. Well, other than the cis white woman who kept coming over to tell us to shut up. Yes, even while a close friend was explaining to a visitor how they could donate Plan B, she interrupted and told us to “be respectful” of those observing silence at this event. She did this three separate times, even at one point trying to intimidate us by placing the weight of her body on our table and leaning close while speaking in a threatening voice. Luckily, I had gone to a poor school with people who actually knew how to be threatening and who had gotten into fights before, so I wasn’t scared.

However, her use of “respect” was incredibly illuminating. Respect? I had planned my event weeks before this thrown-together-respectability-politics shitshow. Where was the respect for my event, being actually materially helpful rather than silencing?

How does this connect to the sheltered post-material-oppression mindset of the materially privileged of Wellesley College, you may ask? These people, I’m sure, didn’t plan this with the intent of being assholes to people. They planned it with the intention of advancing the image of a movement—advancing us as “reasonable” people who just wanted to be allowed to get abortions. I say “image” because this is all they believe we face, truly. They have not experienced the depth of inaccessibility, or at least, don’t show it. They would rather focus on an aspect of what we are called, believing that holding signs silently is paramount to changing things for the better—after all, that’s what oppression is to them. Microaggressive instances and name-calling—it is rhetoric. It is theory. In their minds, Kristan Hawkins is someone who speaks violence, but does not truly instigate material violence. But many of us at Wellesley College do not have the privilege of living in a theoretical oppression. We experience material oppression which affects our actual ability to receive an abortion and our actual ability to participate in many aspects of life—even life itself. So when I and those I love try to widen access to Plan B, it is a cute little gesture to them, but it is not what they had in mind. What they have in mind is fighting opinions.

This is an oppressor-centered approach. If you care about Wellesley, you need to listen to the needs of the community and answer them, not wait for an oppressor to grant you the ability to do so. You need to provide where there has been a lack, not beg someone who doesn’t give a shit about you to throw you a bone. Consider the effect of your actions before you organize something. Consider whether it is meant to serve and provide for your community or for those who want to harm it.

It should not come as a surprise that this wasn’t an event that changed our material conditions. It was never meant to. These events were made to combat rhetoric, not oppression. This brings us back to Dyke Ball.

Many people are surprised about Dyke Ball not being fun. Have you considered it was not accessible to those you love? Have you considered it wasn't made to welcome those who are not as connected to a more accepting community, but to embolden those who are already privileged with the ability to be out and connected to other LGBT+ people on our college campus? The entire first floor and basement of my dorm was cloaked in the smell of alcohol. Have you considered that you chose to go to this event and it “wasn’t fun” for you but that access to a mentally-safe life was removed from me, someone who was suffering under the experiences of my own trauma because of decisions made in a hierarchy and without my consent? No. You thought you were going to experience post-oppression bliss and what you experienced was a letdown because you found lacking conversation and an overwhelmingly gender-conforming crowd (what do you expect when the privileged are centered? Our most vulnerable won’t be present). And the organizers? They thought they were experiencing post-oppression bliss, but what they were experiencing was what it feels like to be privileged while the rest of their community drowns.

So, no, I don’t support either of these events, and I won’t support the ones that are to come. I hate to rain on your parade, but you fail to realize that your procession runs through a city which will lose access to functions of living. For you, what has become a vacation has become my loss of home. For you, what has become a vigil combating bad image has become an inability for those most marginalized to raise our voices and care for each other. For you, what has become Wellesley College’s liberal politics has become the marginalized nightmare. I beg you to think of that before you plan your next event that will most certainly end up centering your privileged mindset yet again.

Harper Elrod ‘25 (he100) is grateful for the people on this campus who have made it possible to write. From the December 2021 issue.