Otto’s Out of the Closet

Image via @Unsplash

Some students might not know this, because for some reason people think a fruit needs to be gendered, but our beloved mascot, Otto, is actually non-binary. While we may have missed Otto’s official coming out post, their instagram profile confirms it. And of course this kinda makes sense, Otto is literally a fucking orange, but the underlying rationale behind this is way more impactful than any of us would think.

Imagine you’re a student coming to SU who identifies under the umbrella of LGBT (let’s be honest, who isn’t a little bit bi), and you’re worried about how you’re going to be treated in this new environment. Imagine then you find out that your university has made the conscious effort to label their mascot with they/them pronouns. That is definitely pretty comforting.

And of course Syracuse isn’t perfect in terms of allyship, but this is a step that many other schools wouldn’t have the guts to make. As mentioned, a lot of students choose to gender Otto anyway. Or maybe they just think oranges are really masculine? Idk we really don’t get it.

We’re sure that this reaction would defer a lot of schools from making their mascot non-binary, but not Syracuse. So for now we say, nice job? We’re loving that you’re doing the bare minimum, yet are still lightyears ahead of most other schools.

We all clearly realize that this isn’t anything too special (one more time, Otto is a fucking fruit,

who would gender that?) but we think it’s really important to realize that this is something subtle that makes so many students feel welcomed and accepted by their school without having any interaction at all.

You have to admit, Syracuse is a little fruity, and we’re all for it.