Guest writer, Maya Corral, wrote this very special op-ed piece for us. You can guess to the source material that it is referring to. 

In 2014, as a Sophomore in high school, I came out by reading a poem that began with the lines “I like my coffee like I like my men, / And I don’t drink coffee, / Yeah I’m lesbian.” It was one of the more cringe-worthy things I’ve done, and possibly my greatest accomplishment thus far. The poem details a lot of niche fashion choices and TV shows, but perhaps the most surprising part of the poem is when I announced, for all the 25 people in the room to hear, that I am a lesbian conservative, and that they can lick it up.

While I bellowed into the uncaring crowd about my conservative gayness, I suddenly realized something. This was a moment, where I’d look back, and think to myself, “huh, maybe this is something that I shouldn’t have said out loud to other people?”

As a lesbian conservative from Oregon, the liberal capital of the world, I’ve had to deal with my fair share of “fervent Bernie supporters and dispensary frequenting Oregonians.” Unfortunately, my time at Columbia is comparable to my high school experience at a left-leaning public high school, where I was forced to transfer because the other kids bullied me for bringing Ayn Rand books to school. My parents became worried for my safety, because, you know, public schools, and I was forced to transfer to a Catholic private high school, where I wasn’t a political minority.  I was just a regular lesbian pretending to be religious and straight. If only I could’ve known that the college I chose to attend was a politically active, left-leaning university that has a reputation for social justice. I assumed that the Core would be a better indicator of the students at Columbia, offering me a chance to expand my white supremacist beliefs. Instead, I am stuck with these snowflake liberals, where I am forced to angrily scratch off the liberal graffiti in the Hungarian Pastry Shop.

I also didn’t realize that Barnard women were so liberal, and that it would be so difficult to be a lesbian, when you have so many qualified, liberal women across the street that the Columbia lesbos would prefer over me, the conservative lesbian.

After me, the conservative lesbian, explained nothing about my political leanings, background, or reasoning behind my conservatism, you may still view me as a petulant adolescent who’s just looking to be contrarian. You’re entirely right. I may complain about my inability to marry because of my political leaning, but I want you to all understand that I am a political minority at this school. I will never find a person who loves Ben Shapiro as much as I do. I will never be able to marry or find love, which is especially a tragedy since gay people are actually allowed to marry now. Anyways, please give me your sympathy, as I am a lesbian conservative who chose to attend this elite private (leftist) school, and I have no friends. The conservatives don’t like me because I’m gay, and the gays don’t like me because I’m conservative.

Oh, and I’m also a pro-life feminist.

a cool storm over Oregon, the liberal capital of the world via Wikimedia Commons