In December 2008, at a Christmas party hosted by the Center for Gender Studies, CGS staff asked those who intended to participate in the party dressed in drag to refrain from doing it. Despite our commitment to fighting discrimination against gender minorities and sexual minorities, we at CGS had unwittingly lost sight of our principles and had come to mix up familiarity with easiness to control. We wish to express our sincere regret for the incident last year and we apologize to all those who were victimized and hurt by our actions. CGS regards this incident as a serious issue for our entire organization. We issue this statement to express our firm resolve to prevent such an incident from occurring again in the future and to express our apologies to all those concerned.
CGS began as a communicative space for all those concerned with issues of gender and sexuality. Over the years it has acted as an open forum for those both within and outside ICU. While not all the staff members specialize in gender studies, we are all united in our desire to learn from our activities at CGS. We admit to our mistakes in this incident and wish to learn from them in order to help create an even better center with you all. We humbly ask for your continued guidance and support in helping to make CGS such a learning place.
We reproduce here our letter of apologies addressed to the participants above mentioned as follows.
We express our sincere regret for the unjust drag-related discrimination at the CGS Xmas party on December 22, 2008. CGS exerted unwarranted pressure on those dressed in drag and asked them to refrain from participating in the party in their costumes and make-up. This reflected an attitude regarding "those who are allowed to exist." Despite CGS's affirmed commitment to abolishing human rights violations on the basis of gender or sexuality, we exercised discrimination against those who defied the norms of gender and sexuality in our society. We are aware of the gravity of this problem. This incident occurred because CGS regarded CGS members as "insiders" who could be coerced to act in certain ways. While it may not have been intended as a conscious act of repression, it rested on the presumption that those dressed in drag were "others" who were inappropriate for a public place and should be excluded. As a result, those dressed in drag were asked to refrain and remain hidden. CGS had arbitrarily been applying the category of "insiders" and that of "others."
CGS has always regarded its mission to be to fight all kinds of discrimination. We are extremely ashamed and sorry for having caused such hurt and distress due to our own inadequacies. We are currently considering specific measures to prevent such an event from occurring again. We also regret that time required for staff discussion has resulted in a delay of over one month since the incident until the delivery of this letter of apology.