#you'd think it would be easy since my sister is trans but i just know my being genderqueer isn't going to be so easily assimilated

[practically-an-x-man]

arghhhhhh I'm so tired of being called by my birth name irl but I also really don't want to deal with all the hassle and effort and questions that come with socially changing it

[smoozie]

I understand the sentiment here and I'm not trying to diminish or put down the support we do receive from hermits, but a lot of these are sooo surface level, of course there are queerphobic people here.

Cleo and Gem are both openly queer, yes, and that is great and wonderful. Joe Hills doesn't just have a trans sister (Quinn Hills), he actively includes her in a lot of his content (from my understanding I don't watch Joe's videos but I have seen clips). Cub (and I'm sure several other hermits) have actively voiced their support for the queer community on streams or social media platforms. It's very important that we acknowledge these things.

Joel is married to Lizzie (who is bi) which shows a clear support for queer people, but most people who watch Joel will have no idea Lizzie is bi. Hell, most ppl who watch Lizzie don't know she's bi. Half the notes on this post are people finding out. (And someones sexuality is their business. I'm not here to say Lizzie, Gem, or Cleo need to be "more" queer or open abt it). I don't doubt Joel's support for queer people given his closeness to Scott, Gem, Lizzie, and others. But acting as tho having a bi wife negates any possibility of a queerphobic audience is unreasonable.

Furthermore, collabs with queer creators are great (especially since queer creators are more likely to face harassment), but the creators doing these collabs are not actually saying anything besides "I can be friends/work with queer people". Which isn't an unimportant message, but isn't a particularly strong one either.

The best advocacy we see with most hermits is the support through mcc pride events. My knowledge is lacking in this category, but from my understanding, mcc pride is a charity event for a queer charity. Creators actively supporting this charity (not sure what one tbh) on their channels is important and shows their support for the community better than a lot of other things listed here. However, mcc is an invite-only event (and not everyone's cup of tea) so it's unfair to expect all hermits show support through it.

And with a lot of the other things... correct me if I'm wrong, but Joe (and Xisuma) saying they use any pronouns comes from an old stream/vod including the pair? Not to say that it is invalid or wrong, but these guys are not openly asking people to use any/all pronouns. (If there is more information in regards to this topic I am missing please feel free to add on). Additionally, Iskall saying c!Iskall is genderless is lovely, but again I think this is a niche post. I believe it is a screenshot of a text to someone that was posted to Twitter?

Doc retweeting art with top scars and Grian supporting Dan Howell are not monumental voices of advocacy. Most people are likely unaware of these things because they exist solely on the Twitter space. Not to mention, you'd have to dig through Grian's Twitter to find his support for Dan. People also tend to add scars to mc designs, it would be easy for queerphobes to mistake top surgery scars for injuries. (I actually think Doc's encouragement for fans to draw his character in dresses is more important here)

I'm not saying you can't be happy or get excited for these small acts of support, but what I am saying is most of the support mentioned here is easy for queerphobes to ignore, avoid, or otherwise miss. I'm also not saying these minecraft youtubers need to have a psa in every single one of their videos proclaiming their support for the queer community, but we cannot sit here and pretend that queerphobia in a community is independent of the creators. Queerphobes will go where they feel comfortable. While you can never completely eliminate them from a community, it is fair to say these creators maintain a community in which queerphobic people feel safe.

it's crazy to me theres homophobes and transphobes in the hermitcraft community. cleo is bi and uses she/they. gem is bi. doc retweets art of his character with top surgery scars. iskall said c!iskall is genderless. joel is married to a bisexual women. joe hills uses any pronouns and has a transgender sister. cub voices his support for the community. grian supported dan howell when he came out. so many hermits have done collabs with other openly queer creators. so many hermits have been in pride mccs.

you are not welcome in this community if you're queerphobic.

[robotpals]

hey! idk if you're still taking questions about mhc, but i'm committed to mt holyoke for this fall and still not 100% sure. i kind of have a lot, so answer as many or as few as you'd like lol they're in order of priority

completely honestly, how much do people still call it a "women's college"? it was a really big factor for me that mhc was gender diverse, and since visiting has been kind of funky this year, it's been hard to tell how committed the school actually is to trans allyship (full disclosure, i'm a cis girl) and how much the students try to respect that

related to how welcome men and nonbinary folks feel-- when i show up on campus, are like 99% of the students going to be women (trans or cis), or am i being overly pessimistic about the remaining emphasis on women?

sustainability is a big focus for me, and was a factor that actually had me leaning away from mhc (most of the other schools i applied to were shooting for carbon neutrality years before 2037, and had more options for composting and such). the actual question part is: how hard would it be to try to be low/zero waste on campus (esp. plastics)? would the dining halls be able to accommodate that (outside of COVID years)? are there any significant obstacles i might run across?

i'd also like to get more politically involved in college, are there a lot of opportunities for that? (like, protests, or mutual aid, or politically oriented clubs)

how hard is it to get the classes you want? how many classes did you personally take at the other consortium colleges? (or if you're not comfortable with that, what might the average be?)

thank you so much! i'm sorry if this is too much or my tone is weird, and feel free to redirect me for any of this

Hello! Congratulations to you as well -- whether it’s where you end up or not, you should know that I’m proud of you for applying and being accepted! I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be for some of your questions, but I can certainly try to answer them. I’m putting a read-more because I have a feeling my answers may be long!

As to your first question, MHC still is a women’s college -- though a gender diverse one (I know that isn’t a helpful answer, but I think it describes the culture best!). Maybe the best way to think of it is that Mt Holyoke’s history is deeply steeped in what being a women’s college means: a lot of the traditions and details of the school can be traced back to its days as a women’s seminary. The fact that it was a place for women to get an education in a time when typically women couldn’t is something to be proud of, and definitely something that students celebrate -- though of course the category of “woman” who could be educated in the college’s early days was very limited to white affluent women. Something that I appreciated about MHC was it felt like nearly all of my fellow students were as social justice oriented as I am -- so there were always discussions about recognizing the college’s failings and history of discrimination, as well as celebrating those students who pushed for diversity and opened the doors to students who wouldn’t have been admitted in the college’s early days. That doesn’t mean that mhc is perfect, and as a white woman I’m not the best person to talk about those issues, but in general I thought the student body was willing to have hard discussions and advocate for critically examining mhc’s past.

I think my years there were interesting because my first year was the year the college announced it would accept trans women (the first of the “seven sisters” / historic east coast women’s colleges to do so!), though prior to my arrival trans men (those who applied still closeted/questioning and then came out while a student) were enrolled. I should disclose that I, too, am a cis woman! So any thoughts I have on what it’s like for trans students is based entirely on conversations with trans friends and not personal experience. Basically, though MHC is a women’s college, I think the large population of lgbt students means that gender/respect for trans students is more at the forefront than it would be at some other schools. I’m currently a student at a Big 10 state university for a masters program, and I definitely think that MHC was way more accepting of gender diversity than here -- asking about pronouns and respecting people’s gender identities were totally commonplace at MHC seven years ago, but undergrads I know at this university have said that there are lots of students who treat discussions about respecting pronouns as a joke :/ -- I hope that MHC has only continued to improve its treatment of gender diverse students since I was there.

That being said, there are definitely transphobic students -- and unfortunately, old and bigoted staff members. I remember when I was a student, the college released a memo for staff/faculty that said that emails to the student body shouldn’t use gendered language (like saying “Hey girls” or whatever LOL) and while every student I talked was in support of that, there were definitely rumors of some older professors throwing fits about that. I don’t remember any terfs on campus -- thank god -- but there was a “young republicans” student group that was super obnoxious (they only had three members LOL but they complained CONSTANTLY about how other students telling them to shut up was infringing on their first amendment rights). 

I have no idea what the numbers are, but when I was a student, it definitely seemed like the vast majority of students were women/women-aligned (cis, trans, or nb) or nonbinary, so if you really want a campus with more men, MHC may not be a great choice.

As far as sustainability: I really don’t know. I know that a big discussion when I was a student was divestment from fossil fuels, and MHC refused to make any promises to divest. When I was a student, there were a couple student advocacy groups dedicated to challenging the college to be more sustainable, so if you want to learn more, I would try to find info about those organizations and ask them. Sorry I don’t know more! For some reason I thought MHC composted, but I don’t know for sure -- I know that when you finish eating, you just put your plate on a conveyor belt and there are dining hall staff who sort through what’s what. Again, you could reach out to dining and ask! And if you end up at MHC and they aren’t composting, I think that would be something they might be open to implementing -- advocacy is key.

For political involvement, I think there are lots of opportunities! MHC is in a fairly rural location, but students on campus when I was there organized marches, walk-outs, and protests for the student body. There are advocacy groups for different interests, as well as cultural groups that organized events around specific issues. It’s definitely a campus where you can get involved with issues that are important to you. Again, I don’t know what the culture is like at other colleges, but in comparison to my graduate program, activism at MHC was far more robust.

For classes, I never had trouble taking the classes I wanted! But to be fair, my majors were uncommon enough that that isn’t too surprising (religion and ancient studies LOL). Among my friends, no one seemed to have trouble getting the classes they wanted -- the only class that I remember people having trouble getting into was a class on the history of witchcraft in the gender studies department! Which is SO mt holyoke LOL. 

I only took one class outside mhc -- which in retrospect I regret not taking more -- it was a class on Icelandic saga literature at umass amherst. It was a really fun class, and I enjoyed getting the glimpse into what life would have been like if I had gone to a big state school for undergrad! Overall, I thought the process for taking a class off campus was super easy and the only downside was the bus ride was like half an hour.

I hope my answers make sense! I feel like I should disclose that I’m finishing up my grad school program this week (!) so I’ve been particularly nostalgic for undergrad recently -- I’m stressed about exams, so my rose tinted glasses are ON 🙃 but I hope this has been helpful! I think that so many people make it seem like college is the most perfect wonderful time ever, but in actuality it’s pretty weird -- people living away from home for the first time, trying to figure themselves out, exploring their interests and passions, etc. ... so I would encourage you not to think of college as a perfect place, but a place where you will have room to grow! I definitely had times where I HATED being a student at mhc, but I certainly would have had those times anywhere I went -- and in the end, I’m glad I chose mt holyoke and I think it was a place I was able to grow and flourish into who I am today!