The other day I was walking past a group of tennis players with my friend who also plays tennis. My friend said to me under his breath "I bet I could beat all of them, they look gay". I thought this was extremely inappropriate and derogatory for my friend to not only assume their sexual preference based on looks but also to assume that this would make them bad at any sport. 

​I was leaving the library and watched a car run a stop sign. Luckily no one was crossing the street at the time, so no one was hurt. A student walking near me joked that the driver was probably Asian, clearly finding the stereotype of Asian as bad drivers to be amusing. I told them that their race was irrelevant, and that I was just glad no one was close enough to get hurt. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that people continue to perpetuate racist stereotypes, but I guess I expected better from the students on our campus.

​I overheard a student in the Pitzer dining hall describe a final he had taken by claiming that “I know I did awful, the test was so gay”. Even though I have heard the word ‘gay’ used with negative associations for years now, as a lesbian it certainly bothers me that this phrase persists. People who use ‘gay’ to describe something in a negative fashion only further the association of ‘gay’ as ‘bad’.