On Tuesday, Feb. 5, Migz Espinoza and Lane Lewis, two transgender students running for the ASUCD executive office, were publicly outed as transgender when the ASUCD Elections Committee released their legal names on the ASUCD elections website.

Before being outed, Espinoza and Lewis had repeatedly asked the elections committee chair, Aaron Hsu, to use their preferred names on all publicity and elections material. Hsu responded that he could not because of ASUCD bylaw 405E which states that a student’s “name on the ballot must be that which appears on the student’s UC Davis Student ID card.”

When the official list of candidates was posted on the elections website with Espinoza’s and Lewis’ legal names — despite the fact that they had appealed to Hsu multiple times stating that their preferred names are not simply nicknames, they are their identities, the importance of a bylaw was placed before that of the safety of these two students.

Transgender people often face mental, physical and emotional harassment or abuse on account of their gender identities. Outing a transgender person, disclosing their transgender identity, puts them at further risk of this danger.

Espinoza and Lewis were able to have their names corrected on the elections website over the next 48 hours, after contacting the ASUCD business manager, president and vice president, as well as the director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center and the director of the Cross Cultural Center.

On Thursday, Feb. 7, the ASUCD Gender and Sexuality Commission presented to the senate about the transphobic nature of the bylaw and Hsu’s communication with Espinoza and Lewis. The senate suspended bylaw 405E and, after one failed vote and much advocating by Espinoza, Lewis, the Gender and Sexuality Commission and other members of the public, passed the motion to close session Hsu.

This means the Senate will have a closed meeting where they will discuss the serious nature of these actions.

This is one just example of the many times ASUCD officials, senators and policies have discriminated against marginalized and underrepresented communities. Past examples include challenging the funding for the ethnic and lavender graduation programs, the annual ASUCD sponsored “Singles Awareness” event at which people are auctioned and sold, and the ASUCD sponsorship of events which upheld discriminatory federal policies pertaining to blood drive.

ASUCD has repeatedly, willfully misrepresented the undergraduate student community. By failing to attend mandatory SafeZone and PEACE trainings as well as spend time in outside student spaces, they lack the knowledge and experience to represent the student body.

Migz Espinoza, fourth-year women and gender studies major
Kriti Garg, second-year international relations, and community and regional development double major
Iris Xie, third-year English major
Lane Lewis, fourth-year international relations major

If the adage goes “you are what you eat,” then what does that make us? Probably a combination of colorful, plastic shrink-wrapped packaging and a transparent orange cylinder with a person-proof white cap.

At times, it seems as if we eat pharmaceuticals like food and take our daily doses of healthy food or vitamins. Everything we put in our bodies — pharmaceutical drugs and food — has a profound effect on our health.

Maybe we intellectually recognize this fact, but we are neither particularly patient nor good at resisting instant gratification impulses. Processed food has been designed to taste good, and food companies have found the way to our hearts (and wallets). So, we don’t buy the frozen yogurt, the mac and cheese and the chocolate-covered pretzels because we think it is good for us. (We do it because it’s midterms, and fuck it! I deserve it!)

Pharmaceutical drugs have also been designed as a way to circumvent our lack of patience. Last quarter, I was diagnosed with strep throat — a fairly common and benign illness. Even though the doctor informed me that medication would only shorten the course of the entire infection by 18 hours, he still offered me steroids, antibiotics and Vicodin. Medicine, in this case, was not treating illness, but impatience.

What if we were more patient with medicine? What if we were more intentional with what we put in our bodies? The definition of medicine is something used to treat or prevent illness. Everything we eat could potentially be a medicine.

If this were the case, practically any edible plant would qualify. Walking through the produce section at the grocery store or a wild landscape could be like walking through a pharmacy. Herbalism, the practice of using plants to treat illness, requires both patience and intention in order to be effective.

Probably the biggest blow to herbal medicine comes from the scientific community. Despite the fact that people have effectively used herbal cures for centuries, science prioritizes its limited experience with herbal medicine as the premier source of knowledge on the subject. A Google search on nearly any herbal medicine will likely yield a few academic sources that provide inconclusive evidence on its effectiveness.

Pharmaceutical drugs are recalled from the market regularly and the pharmaceutical industry has a reputation that leaves much to be desired from the standpoint of patient (or consumer) health. Here, it is paramount that we separate herbal medicine from pharmaceutical drugs. Herbal medicine is like open-source software — it is free for anyone to learn about and use. Information on pharmaceutical drugs, on the other hand, is intentionally withheld and too complex to understand even if it were available.

But I can understand herbs. There is only one ingredient in garlic, after all. Garlic is medicinally useful for its antibacterial and antifungal properties. Like all other herbs, its use is accompanied by many positive side effects.

To treat colds or aid digestion, three to five cloves can be eaten raw. Garlic tea is also convenient to prepare, and easy to drink. For colds accompanied by an irritable throat, garlic can be prepared as a sore throat syrup. Simply mash the garlic into a paste and blend it with honey and lemon. Most often, the reason why herbal medicine fails to meet our expectations is because we take too little. Be generous with your herbal treatments!

This is just one herbal remedy of many others. Western medicine has its benefits, but try an herbal option before heading over to Rite Aid to treat a common illness. The Food Co-op on Sixth and G streets has the most extensive selection of herbal treatments available in Davis. If you think herbal medicine is outdated, consider that about 75 percent of the world’s population still relies on it to some degree.

If this topic interests you, read my column next Monday focused on herbs for women’s reproductive health.

To educate ELLI PEARSON on your favorite herbal remedies, email her at erpearson@ucdavis.edu.

Late at night this past weekend, I sat down and watched the movie Love and Other Drugs starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway. The movie follows two particularly gorgeous lovers going at the intricacies of mutual trust and understanding within a society awash in pharmaceutical drugs.

The movie focuses on the development of Gyllenhaal’s character, Jamie, an intelligent young man from a wealthy family of medical practitioners, who has yet to contend with his own potential. At his job, Jamie applies his innate ability to communicate with others toward the manipulation of women for sex, in addition to selling high-end stereos and electronics.

Inevitably, Jamie is caught scarfing down on his oafish boss’s girlfriend and is fired. Jamie’s family then guilt trips him into taking on the more financially rewarding career of a Pfizer pharmaceutical salesman. After a whirlwind introduction into the fast-paced world of promoting drugs to the medical elite, Jamie internalizes the advice of his family and sets his sights on earning more money.

And it is through his new job that Jamie gets to take a peek at the soft exterior of his soon-to-be girlfriend, Maggie, as played by Hathaway.

The beginning of the relationship is hard-fought for the couple, but something compels them to keep seeing each other. It is not until a particular scene in which Jamie is sitting in an empty bathtub, lying to his mom on the phone, that Maggie realizes something is amiss.

Amidst Jamie’s skyrocketing success at Pfizer — he has become the point-man for sales of the newly invented Viagra — Jamie condescendingly exaggerates the dollar figure of his success to his mom in order to make her feel better.

It is here that Maggie begins to wonder if Jamie would ever treat her in a similar fashion.

Jamie’s life has conditioned him into thinking that everything and everyone he wants — particularly women — can be treated like a product that can be bought, sold or traded. And, when someone’s wants are not met, Jamie believes that some drug can replace the longing for even the most profound parts of the human condition.

Maggie has the medical condition known as Parkinson’s. An artist and outsider to the medical community, she has been juggled from doctor to doctor her entire life, her medical needs rarely being met. It is difficult for Jamie to understand that there is a fine line between playing doctor to his girlfriend’s condition and taking the time to appeal to her as a person.

It is very difficult for Maggie to relate to how hard Jamie wants to fight for her. Jamie has been butting heads with members of the medical establishment his entire life. The rage she witnesses from deep within him as he tries to fix her condition intimidates her. Maggie has a difficult time understanding that Jamie, for the most part, seeks only to exert his rage at those who want to exploit her.

The final question posed by the film is whether Maggie can partially compromise her idealistic understandings of her identity in order to let Jamie into her life. At the same time, Jamie has to decide whether Maggie is worth not competing over as though she is a commercialized product in the fast-paced, coat-and-tie world to which he is so accustomed.

Jamie, certain things in this world must develop at a natural pace and there’s nothing that even your best-intentioned rage can do to change that. Don’t coddle Maggie like a child — protect her like an adult.

Maggie, Jamie seeks only to fight for you. At some point, if you ever actually do want your needs to be met by the medical community, you’re going to have to compromise some of your anti-establishment values. Both of these characters seek to gain a whole lot from understanding that, sometimes, the only virtue the strongest warriors carry in their hearts is patience with those who are different from them.

Jamie, while it may be hard for you to see at the get-go, there are a few beautiful things in this world that ought never, ever be even partially about fame, fortune, money or power. To you, Maggie is unquestionably one of these things.

Do our star-crossed lovers ever let go of their personal struggles in order to let each other into their respective lives, or do they go about their own ways separately and wait to become intimate with someone else who is more similar to who they were before meeting each other? You should probably watch the movie and find out for yourself.

MICHAEL FIGLOCK can be reached at the bottom of his prescription vial, or at mpfiglock@ucdavis.edu.