Dear Red Barn community: Enough with the equestrophobic speech

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

As a(n equine) member of the equestrian team at Stanford, I am grateful to be surrounded by such intelligent, thoughtful and supportive friends at the Red Barn, human and horse alike. But there’s something that’s been neighing on my mind lately that I can’t be silent about any longer. 

Yes, Stanford’s Office for Inclusion, Belonging and Intergroup Communication (IBIC) was recently shuttered — the administration was forced to refocus its limited resources on support groups for underrepresented legacy students — but someone has to say it: the equestrophobic language that is so common across the Stanford community has to stop. Every day I am faced with the indignity of watching some of the brightest young minds in the country carelessly use language that dehorsifies me without a second thought.

Therefore, with the help of this year’s group of Community Impact Champions (goody-goody postdocs waiting to be employed for real), I’ve created a guide for the community of horse-friendly alternatives that won’t contribute to the perpetuation of harmful equid stereotypes.

• Instead of “horseplay” or “horsin’ around,” try “having a bit of a romp with the boys.”
• Instead of “Hold your horses,” try “Slow your roll there, Jack.”  Or actually hold a horse. Try it, it feels nice.
• Instead of listening to Pink Pony Club, listen to Sabrina Carpenter, the true Main Pop Girl.
• Instead of “A horse walks into a bar … ,” try telling better jokes.
• Instead of comparing certain politicians to “a horse in a hospital,” use the tried and true “bull in a china shop.” Bovines are worthless, anyway, and their feelings do not matter. 
• Don’t say “long in the tooth,” try “Shit, you’re old as hell, man.”
• Instead of calling your cramp a Charlie Horse, call it a Charlie [THIS SECTION HAS BEEN OVERWRITTEN BY ADMINISTRATION DUE TO RECENT EVENTS THE AUTHOR 100% HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH]
• Instead of “Hey/hay is for horses,” try “Shut your mouth you ill-bred troglodyte.”
• Instead of “Get off your high horse,” try “What, you think you’re better than me?” then let out a tremendously loud fart to assert dominance. Maintain eye contact.
• Don’t say your throat is “ho(a)rse,” say you’ve “got a frog in your throat.” Seriously, other animals are fine, just not horses.
• Instead of “horseshoe theory,” try “The dipole framework of our modern two party system is insufficient to faithfully represent the views of broad swaths of Americans.”
• Don’t say “send them to the glue factory,” instead understand that under Catholic law, euthanasia is a mortal sin and we are all more than the sum of our parts.
• Don’t say “straight from the horse’s mouth,” try saying … in fact, don’t say anything at all, this one is just nasty.
• Instead of “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse,” try pausing for a reverent moment of silence. My second cousin was eaten.
• Don’t say “dark horse.” It’s just racist, man.

So there you have it. If we as an institution can waste resources funding three separate labs trying to figure out if AIs can kiss each other or whatever, then clearly we have the collective bandwidth to make the hallowed halls of this school a more welcoming place for all of its residents — no matter how many legs they have. 

I’m glad I had the opportunity to share this with my friends at the Red Barn. I hope it reaches its intended audience and nothing stupid happens, like, I don’t know, a deranged news outlet owned by accelerationist lunatics picking this up and plastering it on every screen imaginable as yet the latest example of Horse Sharia Law being forcibly implemented on campuses across the country and corrupting our precious, precious 20-year-old children. But what are the odds of something like that happening? Haha.

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… Low, right?

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