THE
Daily Egyptian SERVING THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY SINCE 1916.
DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
InsiDE
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2025
VOL. 109, ISSUE 15
Panel debates higher ed funding, page 4 | Faces of Southern Illinois, pages 6-7 | Saluki women drop 5th straight, page 10
How the Carbondale trans community is navigating a changing federal landscape KRISTIN BORCHERS KBORCHERS@DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
Born and raised in Florida, Junara Quinn-Miller’s fears were growing in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration. Quinn-Miller is a first year student at SIU pursuing her master’s degree in Communication studies and is researching depictions of media through a critical and queer theory lens. After writing a paper on Desantis’ decision criminalizing the trans population’s access to public restrooms, which published with the National Communication Association, QuinnMiller made the jump to Carbondale. Despite leaving her family and friends
behind, she said SIU was the only school interested in her research. “It was fear. Fear is what made me move,” Quinn-Miller said. “I don’t see my family every day anymore because I was afraid. Maybe I was a little hasty, maybe not, we’ll see.” Quinn-Miller, a trans woman, said she left Florida because she was afraid of losing her rights to gender affirming care. She no longer feels safe traveling outside of Illinois. Due to spending her adolescence in Florida and some time in Georgia, she’s no stranger to the challenges of being queer in the South; she was familiar with being cautious.
In Florida, trans and queer rights are under a near constant attack. The don’t say gay bill bans instruction of gender identity and sexual orientation from Pre-K through grade 8. Medicaid cannot cover gender-affirming care for both minors and adults and the state can temporarily take custody of a minor who’s receiving gender-affirming care. Doctors in Florida can deny medical care to patients on the basis of their religious beliefs or personal values. Now living in Carbondale since April and a part of SIU’s Communication Graduate Assistant Program, she TRANS | 3
Salukis topple Trojans 74-65
David Starr-Fleming | dstarrfleming@dailyegyptian.com
Giant City State Park steps up to host wedding amid federal shutdown JACKSON BRANDHORST JBRANDHORST@DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
SIU guard Jalen Haynes (5) yells in celebration as the Salukis defeat the Little Rock Trojans 74-65 at home Nov. 29, 2025 at Banterra Center in Carbondale, Illinois. Lylee Gibbs | @lyleegibbsphoto ELI HOOVER EHOOVER@DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
After over three weeks on the road, the Salukis men’s basketball squad finally returned to the Banterra Center on Saturday, Nov. 29 to take
on the Little Rock Trojans. The home crowd played a huge part in SIU being able to keep their home record unblemished with a 74-65 victory. “The fans gave so much
energy and we appreciate that, we can feel that,” guard Drew Steffe said postgame. The Salukis started out slow, giving up the first seven points BASKETBALL | 10
The longest-ever government shutdown has been over for nearly a month now, but southern Illinoisans are still feeling the effects. Stories continue to emerge from during the time in which federally funded operations came to a halt in Little Egypt, such as the tale of Jacob and Raimie Smith and how Giant City State Park stepped up to save their big day. The Smiths had been planning their wedding for Oct. 13 at Devils Kitchen for over a year, but just days before they were set to say “I do,” they got a call from the federally operated park with devastating news. “I was actually on the phone with our vendors that day,”
Raimie said. “I got a call from Devils Kitchen, and I was like, oh, I better answer, because they’re probably telling us congratulations or giving us a rundown of the wedding … but that was not the case.” On the other end of the line, a federal employee explained that, because of the government shutdown, nobody would be available to open the gates at Devils Kitchen on Oct. 13. That meant no access, no staff and no wedding. “It was devastating,” she said. “It was so devastating that I couldn’t even bring myself to cry.” With barely a week left before the 13th — a date the couple was hard-set on — there was no time for tears. The Smiths
had to figure out a way to save a wedding that they had built around a date and a place that carried years’ worth of meaning. The couple first got together on Oct. 13, 2020, and they’d tried to stack major moments of their relationship on top of that anniversary. Their engagement happened in October, their move to southern Illinois happened in October and so to them, their wedding had to happen in October too. “We had been trying to keep everything the same,” Raimie said. “That’s why it was important for us to get married on Oct. 13.” The date mattered dearly to them, but so did the location, and while the couple WEDDING | 2
OPINION
Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now? A critique of Vogue’s article MARIAH FLETCHER MFLETCHER@DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
In late October, Vogue posted an article titled “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” which set the internet on fire — well, especially my corner of the internet. The headline sparked controversy among several people with boyfriends, or just people trying to date men. The content within the article is what some people needed to see. The author, Chanté Joseph, explains how
modern dating has shifted, and explores the discomfort of what would be traditionally seen as an accomplishment for women. Joseph also focuses on how putting too much into a relationship can “water down” a woman’s individuality. Joseph dug into why women are not posting their boyfriends on social media, or why women are not striving to be in relationships with men. She also critiques how having a boyfriend has lost its shiny “badge of adulthood”
status, claiming that some women are choosing independence rather than relationships. Joseph also touched on the generational shift of what is an accomplishment. Many women today set values within careers, friendships, and hobbies rather than relationships. Some people immediately said, yes, having a boyfriend is embarrassing, especially in the day and age of hookup culture and men whose world view
comes from podcast clips on TikTok. Others disagreed, making sure the masses knew that their boyfriend could never embarrass them. Some expressed how they believed this was just another way to divide women who date men, splitting and categorizing us by who is single and who has a boyfriend. I believe some readers took a personal offense just by reading the headline, not bothering to read the article. Some people clutched their
pearls at the headline, going onto social media posting pictures of their man, claiming having a boyfriend could never be embarrassing — which proves that media literacy is dead, but that is a conversation for another time. After reading the article, not just the headline, I didn’t perceive it as man-hating, despite what many said. Instead, it was a quite mindful critique of modern dating, very much in BOYFRIEND | 8