The policy change would merely reflect scientific fact, but the resolution claimed it would “rob transgender, non-binary, and otherwise gender non-conforming students of their right to seek legal recourse for discrimination on the basis of their gender identity.” It also called on the school to “better publicize” several pro-LGBT groups as “resources” for students, including the National Center for Transgender Equality and Transgender Law Center. Student senator Isabella Chow, a professed Christian and Class of 2020 double-major in business and music, abstained from the vote. While declaring “love and compassion” for homosexual and transgender students and disavowing any “bullies and bigots” committing discrimination or harassment, she respectfully explained that ultimately the resolution would force her to “promote a choice of identities that I do not agree to be right or best for an individual, and to promote certain organizations that uphold values contrary to those of my community.” “I believe that God created male and female at the beginning of time, and designed sex for marriage between one man and one woman.” “As a Christian, I personally do believe that certain acts and lifestyles conflict with what is good, right, and true,” Chow declared. Chow’s own campus political party, Student Action, formally “disaffiliated” itself from her for supposedly opposing the “rights and dignity of the Queer and Trans community on this campus.” Her words were met with a range of hyperbolic reactions, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The editorial board of the left-wing student newspaper Daily California declared that “UC Berkeley students cannot allow and accept leaders like Chow to make decisions on their behalf” because she “used her powerful public platform to negate entire experiences and identities.” She submitted a response to the student paper, but was denied space to defend herself because of the “homophobic and transphobic” subject matter. More than 100 students spoke out to protest Chow during last week’s senate meeting, while just three students spoke in her defense. QARC has gathered a thousand signatures demanding her resignation. There has also been talk of attempting to recall her from her seat, and ad hominem attacks against her have flown across social media. “She could have merely abstained,” QARC president Regan Putnam told the Chronicle, accusing Chow of “shrouding hate in ‘love’” and claiming “nobody who voted ‘yes’ had to explain their vote.”Ĭhow told LifeSiteNews there is also a petition to defund Christian organizations on campus, that she’s been disaffiliated with almost every campus group without being given a chance to explain herself, and that she even had to cancel a piano recital for fear of protests. “It's been difficult to say the least,” she told LifeSiteNews. “Ever since the morning after my vote, people recognize me when I walk around campus. I was filming with an interviewer on the campus plaza this morning, and a passerby interrupted us and yelled, ‘Queerphobic senators must resign!’”Ĭhow told the Chronicle she feels “frustrated and sad that Berkeley students are forced to live in a bubble I go to classes, and people are looking at me. I’ve been painted in such a negative light.
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