I first came to England on the 23^rd  August 2009. Before that, in Romania, I was working full-time and studying full-time. I studied chemistry, which I only did two years of, but I also worked in a hotel bar. 

Originally, I wanted to go to America, but that was too expensive, so I signed up to a recruitment agency to get a job in England. I found out about the agency through someone I already knew from the old bar, who had gone to London to work. This person said it was fine and dandy over here. Everybody can afford everything. Well, obviously not a Ferrari, but within reason. 

I asked him how to apply and he told me it cost roughly £1000. That’s a lot of money. It took me a year to save that. When I went home I felt like an outcast, not because people pushed me away but because I don’t spend my money on luxurious things. In Romania, if someone earned half what I earn here, they would go out every night, buy expensive stuff, treat themselves and only leave themselves a euro.

I had two interviews; one here in England and one back home. It turned out I was overprepared for it, I was so stressed but in the end it was only a conversation. I got through this first interview and then I had a phone interview with a hotel in Oxford: Oxford Spires Four Pillars Hotel. They must have liked me because they asked if I could come and start work on Friday. The interview was on Monday. It happened just like that. I said I could. The flight was £50. I only bought a one way. One-way only, I wasn’t going back.

When I arrived, I was a newbie. I changed all my Romanian money into Pounds and, you know, it’s not a fair exchange. But I’d never been abroad, so I got fooled. I ended up with only £70 for five weeks. But that was okay, I knew how to survive on bread and tea. At the start I worked every day because we got given free food at work.

The main reason people come to England is because of the diaspora. Yes, it is an English word. Everyday you learn something new. Diaspora is a group of people of the same nationality when you go abroad. When I first arrived, English old people, they couldn’t understand anything. The younger ones were ok more or less. The Older ones were like:

“I beg your pardon. Sorry?”

And I was like, why don’t you understand me? It’s your language.

Turns out I was just talking too fast. In Romania people talk fast.

I stayed at the hotel for a year. I had to stay there a year, as at the time according to the agreement between the EU and Britain there were restrictions on Romanians working here. After three months I was promoted to supervisor, but they forgot to increase my pay, so I ended up earning the same.

I started working here at Trinity in 2011. It will be 5 years this May. I love working at Trinity, it’s nice and relaxing. The best bit though has to be the food. What’s that saying? The path to a man’s heart is through his stomach? My official title is SCR assistant, which at other colleges is called ‘under butler,’ but that role is on paper only.

I like it here, I work Monday to Friday, 8 till 4, I can row, and I’ve been told I can play college football on the weekends if I want to. I used to play football before with some Romanian guys; we called ourselves FC Romania and played in lots of competitions with teams based on nationalities. The games were five-aside or seven-aside, and the Spanish usually won. I mean, we have skill too, but they are just better. We did it for charity too.

My main day-to-day roles? You mean, apart from taking your money in the mornings? After that I just have to tidy up the SCR, make the fireplace and make it as comfortable as possible for the fellows. For a few months I would listen to the radio in French, just to hear people talking in French, and to help me remember it from school. One day they were talking politics in French and the French tutor asked me why I was listening to French radio, so I said, why would I listen to English radio? I like French, it’s more musical than English. I’ve been doing it since kindergarten.

I first wanted to get involved with the Boat Club three years ago. The captain at the time told me I should go for it. So one day when I was in the gym, I realised that I could lift as much, if not more than, some of the rowers. I asked the Boat club guys what the test was to join. I didn’t know if they let anyone do it. They told me row as much as possible, so I went on a rowing machine for ten minutes and then I was dead. Now I love being able to row in M2.

Next year I am starting a French course at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. It’s two hours a week and you just do French. I think they start by teaching you the alphabet and things like that, but I want to start on a higher level. I guess I’ll go along and see what happens.

My funniest memory of Trinity hall is when all the football players took their trousers down for ‘trousers-down dessert’, whilst high table were still there.

Sometimes I feel bad when students leave. Last year I did a ‘degree day,’ it was Ben Lake’s year finishing and I started at Trinity when he started. When I saw him and some of the other students leaving I nearly cried. They were such nice people and very polite, regardless of their backgrounds. Likewise, the fellows here are very humble and will help me if I need it, which surprised me.

If I was studying here what subject would I do? I think I would do philosophy. One time a philosophy tutor left their tutorial papers in the SCR, so I read them whilst working on the till. It was about metaphysics, and I thought, I could study this. I like talking in the SCR about random stuff with him and the other philosophy tutor. I like the way they think. They’re so objective about everything. They simply want to learn as much as possible. They don’t label you, but try to understand you and why you do things. I think having a mentality like this is very useful in day-to-day life even if you don’t want to be a philosopher.

As Hong Kong’s Chinese New Year celebrations descended into chaotic rioting, my Facebook wall exploded with vehement denunciations of the city’s government. It transpires that police officers had fired warning shots into the air, a virtually unprecedented act in one of the world’s least violent cities. Bizarrely, the latest set of protests that provoked a police crackdown were waged not over political issues, but were instead carried out in the name of defending unlicensed street hawkers from a government crackdown. 

Whatever the merits of such policies (surely the government could have picked a better time than the most important holiday of the year?), it is difficult to see why this could have aroused a crowd of this sort of protestors. These were violent and deliberately confrontational campaigners, ostensibly linked to the ‘localist’ movement. And that was precisely the point: the specific trigger of last night’s events was nothing more than a convenient casus belli for a large, alienated and increasingly vocal segment of the city’s population. 

Most self-identified localists are of course entirely law-abiding citizens. It would be delusional for the government to try to paint all protestors as bottle-throwing anarchists, although Chief Executive C. Y. Leung certainly cannot be accused of possessing either moderation or common sense in abundance. I do understand why so many young people in the city state, people I grew up alongside, have found themselves attracted to a movement which professes to uphold ‘Hong Kong’ values and Cantonese culture. But I am nonetheless appalled by what parts of this movement stand for and what they aim to achieve. I shudder at the thought that the city of my birth would turn its back on the currents of trade, of intellectual ferment, and of courageous, ambitious immigrants who transformed a barren outcrop on the fringes of China into one of the world’s greatest cities.

Been on the Star Ferry? That was founded by a Parsi from Bombay in the nineteenth century. Stayed at the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon? That was founded by Mizrahi Jewish people from Iraq, a family which remains prominent in Hong Kong’s public life. But the city is not unique in this regard. The world’s great entrepôts did not spring out of nowhere – it took ingenuity, perseverance, and tolerance of outsiders from undistinguished backgrounds speaking eccentric languages and worshipping foreign deities for Hong Kong to acquire its glittering skyline.

Today’s localists reject anything that is not ‘indigenous’ to their city – for them, you cannot be a member of the community without speaking Cantonese. They adopt the mantle of liberalism and progressivism, yet many turn a blind eye to the systematic and shameful marginalisation of refugees, asylum seekers and domestic helpers who live in the city’s dark shadows. If their views had triumphed a century ago, neither of Hong Kong’s two famed seats of higher learning could have existed. The egg tarts much beloved by our Chancellor (and your correspondent) would never have existed in their current form: they’re largely an adaptation of a Portuguese staple. 

We often look wistfully upon the vanished, cosmopolitan world of port cities the world over. The imperialists who shattered that world, bringing misery, bloodshed, poverty and ignorance in their wake genuinely believed in their goals. They were in many cases principled, honourable men and women fighting for a cause they deemed to be just. And so history repeats itself, thousands of miles to the east this time, in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

In the name of fighting tyranny, imperialism and exploitation, the radicalised youth direct their anger towards the same forces that have brought peace and prosperity to their nation. The signposts and bottles flung at Hong Kong’s police force last night will easily be turned against defenceless immigrants from China, Pakistan, Myanmar, Nigeria, the DRC and even further afield. For months, years already, waves of abuse and contempt have already been unleashed online. I despise Hong Kong’s government for its pusillanimity towards Beijing, for its incompetence and for its sheer insensitivity to public opinion.

But let’s not kid ourselves: there is an increasingly dark underbelly amid the democratic opposition as well, and one that does not bode well for anyone who stands for the internationalism and basic tolerance. In this confused landscape, I cannot understand how so many can blind themselves to the intolerance and hatred that permeates part of the localist movement.

And of course, there are a great many Hong Kong people who are tireless advocates for minority rights but nonetheless identify with the ‘localist’ movement. They fear that mainland immigrants will dilute the city’s culture and take over local institutions, but treat those of their friends and relatives from China with respect and courtesy. I have little faith that Beijing’s propaganda outlets will recognise this basic distinction, but there remain, in an increasingly divided city, decent men and women from across the political spectrum who reject both extremes.

Yet equality and tolerance are not items on a menu from which we can pick. You cannot advocate sympathy and tolerance from some people, yet reject the basic equality of others. It is high time that we discard the irrational supposition that your basic loyalties are determined by the lottery of birth. Across the world, there is a pressing need to engage in a sensible, rational debate on immigration and refugee policies. But that can never be a pretext for vilifying an entire people en masse without regard to the unique circumstances of each and every individual. Oxonians are never slow to condemn racism or intolerance in their own university or country; the challenge now is whether we are willing to hold other countries to these universal principles, or consign the ‘Hong Kong’s of this world to the trap of low expectations and the untold misery this brings.

Unless you have no Christian friends whatsoever and a pathological fear of poster boards, you might have noticed that the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union have been running a series of evangelist talks and blog articles called Everything in Colour this term. I would like to offer a response to Everything In Colour as an atheist, and since I can’t afford to print posters or rent lecture halls, I thought I’d write this.

My subtitle is a clear rip-off of the title of the Everything in Colour blog post written by OICCU External Vice-President and fellow Hughsie Johnny Patterson, a man for whom I have a great deal of respect. I intend to do the same thing here that he did there: assume my worldview is correct, and explore the consequences of that. I hope to conclude that atheism isn’t as depressing as OICCU has suggested in this term so far.

So, let’s start. After denying the existence of gods, where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us on our own. And this is where writing about atheism in a proactive, positive way gets quite hard. Because God is a really, really seductive idea. Johnny asks “If Christianity were true, would you want it to be?” My answer? Yes. If the very best form of Christianity existed, the form where God – the God – loved you and required in return only that you love him back and love your neighbour, then yes.

Atheism, on the other hand, is nowhere near as compelling at first glance. It’s seen as a denial of an idea, promising nothing, providing no support. Friedrich “God Is Dead” Nietzsche told the story of an atheist driven mad by this removal of structure to his life: “Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing?”

The thing is, it really isn’t as gloomy as all that. Everything in Colour is fond of reiterating that we, as humans, are like OICCU Jesus college rep Clem Faux, when he said in his blog post he was “totally broken and unable to fix myself”. I think this is going a bit far (not to mention a harmful message to spread in a university with already high levels of mental health problems): but I do accept that we are finite, with limited understanding.

Therefore, why on earth should we need an unlimited being to fill our lives with wonder, and purpose, and meaning? I think anyone who says that it would be impossible for their lives to be filled with wonder without God is making extraordinarily ambitious claims about their own capacity for wonder. For example, I organised a charity event this week making sandwiches for the Oxford Gatehouse to which around fifteen people came, and it absolutely made my week. Goodness me, Christians must be so jaded in comparison.

This point seems to clash with something that OICCU University college rep Paloma Vince says about her former atheism in her blog post, though: “The more I thought about it, the more I realised that my worldview was just empty; void of anything compelling.” Now, I’ve never met Paloma Vince and I’m sure she’s a decent human, but what a ridiculous, small-minded thing to say. Of course life without God is compelling.

Look up. You want mystery? Consider that every part of the observable Universe is flying away from every other at a rate which keeps increasing, and nobody knows why. You want perspective? Consider that if you spent 100 years – more than your whole life – travelling at near-light speed towards the centre of the Milky Way (just our own galaxy, mind), you would get 0.4% of the way there. (Consider that I don’t understand relativity properly, and the correct figure is probably even more shocking.)

Look down. Look at your chest. You want beauty? Consider that over millions of years, your chest has adapted through trial and hardship into a life-giver for the rest of your body more extraordinary and efficient than anything we can currently understand. Consider the overwhelming likelihood that someone, somewhere, finds you beautiful.

Look around. You want comfort? Consider that in the last twenty-five years, thanks to the UN Millennium Development Goals, global extreme poverty has halved, global extreme hunger has almost halved and so has the percentage of young people in the world who cannot read. People’s kindness is rapidly making the world a better place.

Look ahead. You want community? Consider the new goals set by the UN to achieve by 2030, and consider how you can be a part of that. More locally, consider all of the good work being done here in Oxford to help people who are homeless, ill, struggling, disenfranchised: people who are less lucky than we are. You can be a part of that too.

I am not an evangelist, and I don’t want to be one. I don’t think it’s my job to tell you what to believe about God (neither do I think it is the job of Johnny Patterson or indeed Richard Dawkins). Make your own mind up. But just please understand that, contrary to OICCU’s constant and false suggestion over these recent weeks, it is possible to believe that no gods exist and still live a life that is wonder-filled, and compassionate, and fulfilling, and all of it in glorious, stunning colour.

This piece was written in response to the following blogs: 

Johnny Patterson’s Blog: http://www.everythingincolour2016.com/life-in-colour-blog/if-christianity-were-true-would-you-want-it-to-be
Clem Faux’s Blog: http://www.everythingincolour2016.com/life-in-colour-blog/ginger-boy-with-glasses-gets-heart-transplant
Paloma Vince’s Blog: http://www.everythingincolour2016.com/life-in-colour-blog/why-i-lost-my-anti-christian-convictions

Tensions have flared up this week as French and British politicians discuss the potential ramifications of Britain’s exit from the European Union. At the centre of the squabble is the expansion of the so-called Calais jungle were the United Kingdom to leave the EU. The Calais jungle is a migrant encampment three miles from the centre of the French town of Calais, close to the Eurotunnel across the Channel. More than 5,000 refugees are thought to have found shelter in France as they attempt to reach the UK by secretly boarding lorries, ferries and trains. Living conditions are poor and the French authorities are finding it increasingly difficult to address humanitarian needs without attracting further migrants.

Until last week, only a handful of observers would have associated the Calais jungle with the Brexit dispute. That is, until Prime Minister David Cameron announced that leaving the EU would expand the Calais jungle until it would ultimately reach the UK. Political pandemonium broke out following his announcement as British politicians from all sides rose to condemn the idea and members of Cameron’s own party accused him of scaremongering.

Judging by the European press, however, the PM may not be far from the truth, and the collapse of European border control agreements may only be the first of a series of negative repercussions that will affect the United Kingdom should it leave the EU following this year’s referendum.

European newspapers were quick to react following the announcement of an EU referendum, demonstrating a blend of indignation, exasperation, but mostly confusion in the face of an ill-timed assault on European stability. Why is David Cameron doing this and why is he doing it now? The Europe Union is painfully overseeing what will be remembered as its toughest stretch in history as it scrambles to manage one crisis after the other. Naturally, between the European debt crisis, the threat of terrorism and the humanitarian crisis at its doorstep – which has triggered an unparalleled surge in immigration – the possibility of a British exit is an unwelcome addition to a pretty disastrous agenda.

Earlier this month, Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine ran a piece arguing that David Cameron has put a pistol to the European Union’s chest, as well as to his own, by engaging in a campaign for European reform tied to the threat of possible withdrawal. In response, European leaders will be looking to deter populists who see Brexit as a possible template for their own nationalist ambitions. Such populists include far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose support is steadily increasing and who has publicly compared Britain leaving the EU to the fall of the Berlin wall. Deterring such rhetoric and protecting its signature projects is why the EU will punish the UK should it leave, even if it goes against its own interests. Restricting border controls between France and the UK is one of many ways in which this can be done.

A potential European backlash is only part of the problem, however, as Scottish nationalists have added themselves to the equation by threatening to press for another referendum on Scottish independence should Britain withdraw from the EU. The September 2014 referendum was closer than many expected, driving Cameron to roll up his sleeves on television in uncharacteristic fashion to convince the Scottish electorate that Britain is better together. However, with Britain out of the European Union, convincing the Scots may be a feat difficult to replicate, potentially breaking up the United Kingdom and further isolating a newly disintegrated nation.

It is therefore vitally important that Cameron obtains solid concessions from Britain’s renegotiation of its EU membership ahead of the referendum, or he may find himself tangled in laborious post-Brexit trade negotiations with displeased European neighbours in addition to fighting an uphill political battle domestically. To the desperation of Eurosceptic backbench MPs, his demands have been very carefully calibrated and some would argue watered down to increase his chances of success.

Nevertheless, no matter how keen Britain’s European partners are to maintain the UK within the Union, some commentators have argued that Cameron has picked a battle he cannot win by asking for concessions that go against principles that are at the very core of the European ideal. Such principles include the free movement of labour and the principle of non-discrimination, threatened by the Government’s call to restrict benefits to EU migrants until they have been in Britain for four years. If that is truly the case, the British Prime Minister must both rectify the UK’s zone of possible agreement and communicate more effectively his predicament to the British public ahead of the EU referendum, or else the Calais jungle will be the least of his worries.

After months of frenzied discussion, no consensus has prevailed on the question of the Cecil Rhodes statue. Debates held in St Anne’s JCR last weekend about whether to condemn the Rhodes Must Fall Oxford Campaign, as well as conflicting opinions voiced across a whole range of media channels – from Facebook to nationals like The Telegraph – show that opinion remains divided about the future of the statue perched on the High Street facing building of Oriel College. Regardless of your opinion on the campaign itself, it’s hard to argue that the issues these debates have raised – questions about institutional racism, colonialism and social immobility – are not pertinent beyond the scope of the campaign. The very existence of an Equality and Diversity policy at the University of Oxford, for example, is at once an admission of and a commitment to tackling discrimination based on age, disability, gender, race, religion and sexual orientation at the university.

The work done by many of the exhibitors at Oxford’s International Careers Fair can be interpreted similarly. If – unlike me – you weren’t feeling too fragile after the first essay (or two) of term, you may have headed to the event at the Careers Service on Banbury Road last Saturday. Among the exhibitors were NGOs of all shapes and sizes – from organisations looking for volunteers, to the international employers like the Red Cross – acknowledging the existence of and committing themselves to tackling social inequality in a number of sectors, from education to gender and race. I couldn’t help but think this reflected a very different type of university to the one uniquely for white men reflected in the portraits in Exam Schools, where the fair was held last year.

Fast-forward two days, and the scene is cast in a different light. A friend who’s promoting an international volunteering project aiming to improve access to education writes me a Facebook message: “My two friends who I asked to post the event on their JCR pages both said ‘no’ – they were worried about getting a backlash and being called racist.” Being part of a movement to improve access to education far from being discontinuous with the racist, sexist world represent- ed by the portraits of the Exam Schools, it was implied rather that this international volunteering project was continuous with it.

This is not without reason. It’s pretty easy to find critiques of ‘voluntourism’ – projects that masquerade as promoting equality but actually really represent a holiday and selfie opportunity for volunteers and displace local labour. Spending two weeks ‘building classrooms’ in an orphanage in Tanzania, as a friend did on a gap year, may have given them some interesting stories, but ultimately the claim that an unqualified school leaver really does the manual jobs they set out to do is belittling and, in many ways, disquieting. In this case, it overlooked the existence of local, qualified workers – people who could have done a much better job. In other words, the project relied on a belief in Western superiority that stood at odds with its expressed purpose; namely, working towards a fairer, more equal world – in this case, by trying to help give children somewhere safe to live.

Be that as it may, I was troubled by my friend’s Facebook message – having worked with the organisation it was promoting, Education Partnerships Africa, she seemed to have received a knee-jerk reaction dismissing international volunteering. The merits of the project itself didn’t seem to have been considered. After all, if providing a service no one local could provide (time, more than anything, perhaps? You could send money), working in partnership with local stakeholders to develop a deep understanding of, and then solutions to, specific issues rather than to a rigid, preconceived model, international volunteering doesn’t have to be predicated on an idea of Western superiority, but can instead promote intercultural dialogue and collaboration. I therefore think it is important to consider the issue on a case-by-case basis. It’s time to put an end to generalisations. Facing up to the reality of ‘voluntourism’ would be a valuable step in that ‘decolonising’ direction.

Yes: Molly Moore

“Why are there so many gays here?” “Are you really gay?”

These are but two of the strange utterances I have overheard and been asked whilst sweating glitter and dancing my queer butt off at Plush. “Plush is a gay club?” I hear you whisper, to which I reply, “Plush is a proudly queer space.” As such, it is no surprise that as a club it hosts LGBTQ+ Society’s Tues-gay club night, nor is it a shock that people of the same gender can regularly be found making out on the premises. Indeed, at the entrance you’re even greeted with a sign explicitly informing you that you are about to enter a queer space. I greatly admire the steps taken by Plush to create an environment which makes people aware of the nature of the establishment they’re about to enter. What I don’t quite understand is the volume of people who seem surprised that there are LGBT folks in Plush once they have walked through the door.

I kissed my girlfriend at MNB (shock horror) once. We were harassed and assaulted by at least three diff erent guys, including one who made the absurd assumption that somehow, by kissing, my girlfriend and I were inviting him to join in with us. The worst part is that in a club widely regarded as ‘very straight’, my girlfriend and I were then essentially told in no uncertain terms by our heteronormative society that we should expect this kind of thing, that it is in some way normal, and the perpetrators of acts of violence should not be held responsible. We weren’t in Plush, after all. And maybe two girls were only 
kissing for the bantz? But would you believe me if I told you the same thing happened to me in the recently-deceased Babylove – yesteryear’s LGBT space of choice? Or that in Plush, a guy once told me he would fi nd it sexy to watch me make out with another girl?

Queer spaces are not void of lurid behaviour, leery guys, and the lingering threat that someone of a diff erent gender might attempt to chirpse you. However, those responsible for carrying out disrespectful actions in queer spaces towards queer people seem almost unanimously to be cisgender and heterosexual. As an out queer woman, I choose to wear my identity as armour. I inhabit my own queer space. Yet all too often, my personal space comes under attack from people who don’t respect the nature of queer spaces, or neglect to understand how rare such environments are.

I challenge any non-queer Oxford student to name the spaces they would consider to be inherently queer. Did someone say Plush? LGBTQ+ Society Drinks? Well aside from internalised college meetups, liberation campaigns and drinks events, queer spaces are almost non-existent in Oxford and beyond. With that in mind, I’m sure it’s easier to understand why LGBT people so value the right to have our own spaces, free from invasion by non-queer people. When LGBT charities are dropping like fl ies due to government cuts, like anti-domestic violence charity Broken Rainbow or LGBT mental health charity PACE, it becomes increasingly more important to preserve the environments in which queer people are told we matter, are valued, and can have our voices heard. While such spaces are rapidly decreasing, non-queer people seem to be feeling the overwhelming need to invade our safe spaces simply for the sake of a good night, or because it’s in some way their right.

Cisgender, heterosexual people are at the top of the social food chain, and growing up, the world assumes that everyone adheres to these ‘norms’ unless otherwise stated. Maybe in a world in which queer people don’t have to ‘out’ ourselves I’ll be receptive to non-queer people entering LGBT spaces. The unfortunate reality is that the world doesn’t appear to be changing fast enough for such a thing to happen. The issue is a complex one after all, as queer identities are nonbinary, diverse, innumerable, and outside of the defi nitions societal hegemony has constructed. Queer people may visibly appear to be ‘straightpassing’. For example, they may appear to fit the definition of a typic a l ‘heterosexual’ couple. But how are we to know if that’s really the case? We know that it is impossible to enforce policing of anyone’s sexuality or gender, and I don’t believe that is something LGBT people should be advocating. Our bodies and identities are policed already; our bodies are property; our bodies are toys, objects to be judged and laughed at.

The safety of LGBT people is paramount, and as Women’s Welfare Rep for the LGBTQ+ Society and Christ Church JCR’s LGBTQ+ Welfare Offi cer, my main aim is to protect the right for queer people to be safe. Sadly, this is not possible when non-queer people assume the right to enter queer spaces. LGBT people shouldn’t have to give evidence for our identities. Instead, we should be able to trust that the people around us aren’t cishet and easily off ended by queer culture. Our identities are fetishised and mocked in places we are told belong to us, and we’ve had enough.

I’m not asking for segregation when I say that only LGBT people should be allowed in queer spaces. I’m demanding respect for our identities, alongside the preservation of our culturally signifi cant and vital spaces. Yes, we know Plush is a great night out. But it’s our night out. I’m tired of hearing tales of stray heterosexuals wandering into the Plush toilets to vent in fury at “all the gays” they’ve seen on the dancefloor. However, until society ceases to spew its ingrained heteronormative and cissexist values, there is no room for non-queer people in queer spaces – especially when I have to battle through hordes of horny straight men just to be able to kiss my girlfriend safely. My identity is no one’s plaything, and so many LGBT people depend on exclusively queer spaces just to feel valid, visible and alive. Queer only spaces are our lifeline.

No: Jack Schofield

With increasing LGBT liberation, a trend of rising LGBT positivity among young people in particular, and let’s face it, better music and a fun culture, it is not surprising that straight people wish to be part of queer spaces, be that genuinely out of support, just to have a good time, or to make them feel good about themselves as allies, without actually doing anything. Whether the queer community should provide for that inclination is a complex debate, and should be argued asking what will be best for the LGBT community, as that is all that matters here.

Firstly, tempting though it may be to claim, society is not so unsafe that we need to create an entirely separate community for members of the LGBT community. Rather, those of us who can should seek to be members of society precisely like anyone else, in such a way as to show cis, straight people just how common queerness is, and how it has no impact on a person’s ability to work hard and be a fun person that anyone would wish to be around. Nice as it would be not to be dependent on our homophobic society, we simply cannot cut ourselves away from it, and so we must allow cishet people into our spaces to show that queer people are not different, but a normal and valuable part of our society.

Furthermore, it is directly through allowing cis straight people into our spaces that they are most likely to become all the more sympathetic to the cause of LGBT liberation, which in turn will help improve society. I would certainly wager that the more queer friends one has, the less likely it is to be an issue for them. It is a well known fact that humans fear the unknown; anti-immigrant views are most prevalent in areas where no immigrants are to be found, for example. In this way, letting cishet people in ‘normalises’ queerness and thus reduces the need for safe spaces.

A further important point is that the LGBT community has something of a duty to help closeted queer people. Until you come out as lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans, you evidently claim to be cis and straight, and so it simply cannot be assumed that all professedly cisgender, straight people going to Plush, gay bars, or attending LGBTQ+ Society drinks are not, in fact, queer. In my own experience, occasionally attending LGBTQ+ Society drinks while closeted massively helped to give me the confidence to come out, and I believe we would be doing a great disservice to other people if we were to knowingly make that painful process even harder.

Keeping events open allows queer people to have the broadest possible support network if and when they do come out, which is invaluable. Similarly, some queer people might want a friend to accompany them to their first few queer events, and that friend might not be queer themselves. This too should be borne in mind; consider the negative impacts that restricting entry could have on the very people such a policy would be supposed to help. I do, however, recognise that there are some queer spaces which should not be open to nonqueer people, such as support groups, whether online or in person. While a discussion group, such as NoHeterOx, should be open to all, there are other circumstances where LGBT people rightly want to talk openly only to those in the very best position to understand and help them in the right way, and that is those in the same boat as them.

In any case, while I strongly believe queer spaces should generally be open to all, this does not mean that anything goes. In queer discussion forums which are open to all, no cis, straight person should talk over a queer person, and generally speaking, cis, straight people should be there to listen and learn, and yes, to contribute a bit too. There is a simple reason for this: society at large is geared towards cishet lives and voices. Queer spaces must therefore remain places in which queerness prevails and queer people feel entirely safe to express themselves, however they wish. So if a straight man is hit on by a gay man in a queer space, they do not get to be off ended or awkward about it; queer people are allowed to assume any random person in a queer space is queer (in some way) while still accepting that they aren’t necessarily, because there is nowhere else in our lives that this assumption can be made.

Naturally, any person who is being homophobic or transphobic in a queer space should be required to leave, as the right of any person to enjoy queer spaces only goes so far. Regarding the controversy over the ever-popular Queerfest at Wadham last term, I agree it is unfair that an LGBT person wishing to attend a celebration of queerness and queer culture should miss out to swathes of cis, straight people, and that those ‘allies’ should reflect on their actions.

With this said – and I think cis, straight people wishing to make use of queer spaces would do well to have taken particular note of the last paragraph – I wish to convey a positive message that queer culture is something to be celebrated and something which can truly liberate us all. With gender roles in society seeking to limit every single one of us, queer and non-queer people alike benefit enormously from an increasing right to ‘be yourself’ beyond such things. Everyone would benefit hugely from coming to accept just how diverse humanity is and that there is creativity in and much to be learnt from the range of personalities which we all would naturally have, if we were given the message that being who we are, as we are, was fine.

Such a cultural change in society at large will make (and is already making) it easier and easier to come out as LGBT. As our relationship with labelling and fear of the Other reduces, queer identities will become less and less of an issue. This will only come about through openness on our part and our subsequent increasing visibility as everyday members of society