San Diego State Will Offer an Undergraduate Major in LGBT Studies

October 4, 2011, 9:29 pm

San Diego State University announced this week that it had received approval to offer an undergraduate major in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies, and would begin accepting students into the multidisciplinary program next spring. Esther Rothblum, a professor of women’s studies and the LGBT-studies academic adviser at San Diego State, said in a news release that the four-year major would be the first in California and the second in the United States. The other institution offering such a major is Hobart and William Smith Colleges, in New York, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Ms. Rothblum said the degree would be applicable to a variety of careers, and an asset for students applying to professional programs in areas like business, law, or medicine.

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Guest

I think this is a good idea. I have long thought that if there was a whole major in LGBT studies some of the popular gay movement’s more problematic claims — such as their claim that gays are “born” a certain way — could finally be questioned because there would be enough room to go into the history and cultural complexities involved. Congratulations to SD State.
electronicmuse

Better expand this to include all victimology, or graduates with a degree in this “discipline” will have a harder time finding a job than English Lit majors . . .

P.T. Barnum would have told us there will be no shortage of such “majors.”
ruskaya

Really? There are more than 1500 non-profit organizations related to LGBT issues across the country that would benefit from educated people on this topic. There are colleges running multicultural student centers and student clubs that need advisors, research roles in private and government organizations, and I can think of many other places where an education in LGBT studies could be useful. As a straight ally I wish I could have taken classes in the topic to be better able to serve the students I work with.
katisumas

…and where is your evidence that the “claim” that the consistant ratio of all mamal species is not a natural phonomena that also helps the survival of the species?

Why is it that gays and lesbians know they are such from a very early age. As for transgender people, evidence is conclusive that some people are born with the gender identity mixed up. For instance, in the past (I don’t know what the practice is now) a baby born with both female and male appendages had her incipient penis cut off, just as they used to cut off an extra digit.

Being brought up as a male or female while being actually of the other gender is cause for an incredible amount of anguish in one’s life.

R.O.P. Lopez, your mentioning that you yourself are bisexual (in your previous avatars of Coco-rico and of Robert Oscar Lopez) would lead me to expect that you would feel some empathy for LGBT folks. You insisting that sexual orientation is a choice works to demonize people who are born different from the rest of the population. Are you advocating a return to making homosexuality a crime, and forcing gays to only have sex in the dark in public parks or bathrooms? In short, are you trying to force some of your fellow human beings back into the closet or into prison or into mental institutions? And aren’t you afraid that other folds (how about people with more melaning in their skins) will as well be forced into subordinate positions?

Could it be that you are fighting what you consider your own demons and thus wanting to fight others who have overcome the illusion that these are demons?
rmelton5

Presumably, your reference to Barnum is for the “freaks” he exhibited in his American Museum in nineteenth-century New York City. If so, this is one of the most offensive comments I’ve ever read in the Chronicle and as such it really doesn’t merit a response. However, the fact is that graduates of such a program will have an excellent foundation for careers in social work, family planning, counseling, medicine, law, the ministry/rabbinate, human resources, and K-12 teaching in various subjects, as well as for advanced academic study in disciplines such as literature, history, sociology, the arts, or theology, just to name some of the obvious ones.
electronicmuse

Casting a pretty wide net here, rmelton5. LGBT sutudes are an “excellent foundation” for the study of “medicine, law, family planning, the arts, etc.?”

And here I was thinking that there are fields of study amongst these and others you cite that have absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation . . . Sounds a lot like those who fixated on “communism” in the ‘fifties: if you look for it, you’re going to find it . . .

As you’re apparently unaware of Barnum’s most famous aphorism, I’ll let you slide on that one.
electronicmuse

Yeah, really. “More than 1500 non-profit organizations related to LGBT issues . . . ” Are you doing the relating and the counting . . .

Show us the job notices . . . baccalaureate degrees with this much specialization are simply asking for a surfeit of unemployable graduates . . .
ruskaya

It’s pretty freaking easy - as a career counselor I kind of have a handle on where the jobs are. I know how to look for jobs, I know how to find organizations that operate on whatever topic a student might have an interest in, and I have done this EXACT search a number of times because students are INTERESTED in working for organizations that care about the needs of the LGBT community.