Another Pride Month has come and gone, and along with it many cherished yearly traditions have vanished into hibernation till June 2023. Whether it’s mocking Raytheon Technologies’ use of the pride-flag to advertise their newest stinger missile with choruses of “silence brand!” in the quote retweets, or staring in horror as another company creates an ill-advised ad with glib references to anal sex. I’m sure Guy Debord is getting a lot of exercise from all the rolling he’s doing in his grave.

It comes as little surprise then, that Trent University — a school which tries so hard to be “cool” it’s embarrassing — decided to get in on the trend. On June 1st in a post seen by tens of people on both their twitter account and the Trent Central Student Association (TCSA)’s website, the university officially announced their campaign launch for Pride Month 2022. Over the past several weeks Arthur has sent their intrepid reporter Evan Robins to cover the various pieces of Pride programming, and what follows is her account of this month’s festivities.

In a show of dedication towards their LGBTQ students, Trent announced some administrative changes to foster a “more inclusive, woke learning environment”. In addition to the yearly Academic Integrity and Library Instruction modules, students returning for the 2022/2023 school year will be required to sit an entrance exam on the events of the last season of HBO’s Euphoria. To coincide with the opening of priority registration on June 14th, administration also revealed a new CUST-GESO class on the history of queer film, whose syllabus includes many beloved films such as Below Her Mouth, Blue is the Warmest Colour, and a curated selection from the “Lesbian” category of PornHub.com. When asked about their response to the University’s decision, a senior Cultural Studies prof (whose name I’ve redacted for the sake of their tenure track) told me they were “ready to go Valerie Solanas on their asses”. The rest of the interview consisted mostly of said Professor bemoaning the fact that “nobody understands Laura Mulvey anymore,” repeating “that’s not what ‘the Male Gaze’ means,” and insisting (at length) that Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake is a better coming-out movie than his film Call Me by Your Name.

This comes partially in response to criticism that the Gender and Social Justice department has not done enough to cover queer and (especially) trans perspectives in their syllabi. In a June 12th press conference, a spokesperson for the department said they’d “really taken the advice to heart” and were making Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire mandatory reading in all GESO classes. Furthermore, a new class on gender diversity in popular fiction would offer a “queer reading” of the upcoming JK Rowling novel Harry Potter and the Reason Why We Can’t Just Say “Women” Anymore. The spokesperson was also “ecstatic” to announce that tenured U of T Professor Ray Blanchard would kick off a series of Fall 2023 guest lectures for the department.

However, administration understands that the university experience is not limited to the classroom, and bearing that in mind, Trent Student Wellness have announced they are rethinking the way they treat LGBT+ students.

“What we’ve learned from treating a number of extremely vulnerable gay and transgender patients, is that it’s actually quite difficult, and actually not all that fun,” admitted a spokesperson for Student Wellness in a June 17th press conference. “Finding therapists whose practice is trauma-informed is difficult, not to mention, expensive, and the thing is, is that in catering towards the specific and — quite frankly, niche — needs of certain demographics, we’ve been overlooking some of the most prominent voices tertiarily related to the LGBT community.”

As part of this revolutionary new approach to LGBTQ mental healthcare, Counselling Services revealed to Arthur that they are creating new services for SBoBG (Straight Boyfriends of Bisexual Girls). Said the Trent spokesperson, “what we’re doing is really a shift from asking which people need our services the most, to finding the most people who might theoretically need our services.”

In addition to this revamping of mental health services, the TCSA has also stated their intent to expand their Health & Dental Benefits to better serve their queer constituency. Given that gender-affirming procedures and surgery are of particular concern to the transgender community, the TCSA is keen to improve their existing coverage wherever possible. Going forward, not only will septum piercings be fully covered, but haircuts will also be covered up to 80%, so long as the desired style includes bangs.

However, the program itself still only provides coverage up to $200.00, meaning many more expensive procedures might remain inaccessible for the time being. When asked why the program was not designed with gender-affirming procedures such as top and bottom surgery specifically in mind, a junior secretary for the VP Health & Wellness told me it “didn’t seem like something people were interested in,” and clarified that “chicks with dicks are in vogue this year,” while furiously mashing Ctrl + W on an open tab of futanari porn. To promote the new initiative, the TCSA held a “Queer Salon Day,” where students could get acrylic nails done for free, yet curiously, not a single woman came to the event. The TCSA did not offer comment when asked why the exorbitant promotional budget wasn’t just put towards the bursary instead. 

Rather, the TCSA unveiled a new line of Pride-themed merchandise, in a collaboration with a summer class in the business department, which is instead meant to subsidize the bursary. “It’s genius really, isn’t it?” said one business student. “For every purchase of our pride merch, a whopping 3% goes back to fund the program. It’s like the queers are effectively buying into their own bursary. If that’s not the most efficient and fair economic system ever conceived at work, I don’t know what is!”. Further investigation by Arthur revealed the remaining 97% of funds (minus manufacturing costs) would be used to charter food trucks to promote the TCSA’s fall by-elections. A spokesperson for the TCSA argued this was “fair game” as one of the ten vacant positions yet to be filled is that of Queer Students Commissioner.

As for the merchandise? The line includes bucket hats emblazoned with various words such as “Zaddy” and “Slayy” and a hoodie with the LGBT acronym spelled out as “Lesbian, Gay, Bi, TRENT.”

Not to be outdone, the Trent Follet Corporation © Bookstore showcased their own line of school supplies for Pride, including a pink, purple, and blue eraser with the word “bisexual” printed in bold comic sans on its face. The bookstore also showcased their new Athletic line, featuring sports bras printed with the tagline “invading women’s sports,” and a pair of booty shorts with the phrase “this bussy belongs to ___” printed across the ass. The shorts also come with a free fabric marker for the purchaser to fill in the desired name.

While pride month may be over at Trent, there’s still plenty of leftover Gay to go around With Montréal, Ottawa, and Peterborough’s pride parades still to come, pride as both sentiment and movement far outlasts the confines of a single month — something Trent University certainly seems to have taken to heart. The policies instituted this pride month will no doubt change the long-term experience of being queer on campus. Whether that’s for better or for worse, well, per the terms of my Non-Disclosure Agreement I’m legally obligated to say it’s a good thing. Remember kids, Trent bleeds rainbow everyday of the year, just please don’t ask us to build you another fucking bathroom.