Officer Leads:
Derwen Fay (LGBT+ Students Community Officer)
Year Long Campaign
The first objective this campaign aims to achieve is to get students more politically active. It is important given the current era of rights recession, tension around queer identities, and a rising populist movement that students have the knowledge to be able to organise and mobilise. This campaign therefore aims to run events to teach people about political action including how to protest effectively and safely, how to vote and whether one would benefit from doing so tactically, and how to engage with institutions of power such as Parliament through petitions and letter writing. Furthermore, it aims to give people practical experience to boost their confidence so they can continue being activist with events such as a letter writing session and a trip to a protest in central London.
The second broad objective is lobbying for better queer rights and spaces, both on campus and beyond. On campus, this campaign aims to make changing one’s name and pronouns easier on university systems, tackle the topic of trans people using toilets by advocating for equitable toilet policy through either gendered spaces or conversion to gender neutral toilets and responding to the EHRC guidance, more queer content and awareness in teaching, making sports a more queer friendly space, and working to improve the GP in founders to be more queer accepting. This aim extends to national level lobbying aims, looking to work with national bodies such as the NUS, APPGs, and other SUs around the country to push these reforms beyond RHUL. For more details of these aims, see the lobbying action plan below.
Toilets and EHRC Response
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Write response to EHRC guidance for RHUL SU and public dissemination.
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Complete
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Run an event where queer students, staff, and allies write a letter to MPs condemning the guidance and asking for its reversal.
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Planned
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Research responses to the guidance and access arrangements at other universities for evidence of best practice.
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Not started
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Attend meetings with stakeholders in the University and SU to discuss response to the guidance and what to do with toilets, standing up for toilet access on a trans-inclusive basis.
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Ongoing.
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Attend meetings with stakeholders in the University and SU to discuss impact of guidance on sports facilities such as changing rooms, standing up for sport facility access on a trans-inclusive basis.
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Ongoing.
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Run a visual demonstration to highlight issues in toilet access in EWD and other venues on campus.
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Planned
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Increase signposting for gender neutral toilets in a manner supported by trans and gender diverse people.
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Not started
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If university choose to implement guidance, get more toilets converted into gender neutral spaces.
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Not started
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Improving name changes and pronoun usage on campus
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Identify barriers in changing one’s details on university systems such as Campus Connect or their Outlook email. .
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Not started
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Identify the extent one’s pronouns are respected by university staff and lecturers.
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Not started
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Identify whether preferred names are respected by lecturers and staff in everyday activities.
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Not started
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Consult with the university about possible methods through which names could be changed on university systems.
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Not started
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Set up meetings to discuss training for lecturers and staff about how to handle name changes and pronouns.
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Not started
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Improving the RHUL GP for queer students
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Talk to students about issues faced at the GP including refusing shared care agreements.
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Ongoing
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Hold meetings to discuss what previous work has been done on this issue and what needs to be carried forward.
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Not started
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Research the professional standards and NHS guidelines around trans healthcare and interactions with private practitioners.
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Not started
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Hold meetings with RHUL GP leadership team, SU, and staff to discuss ways of dealing with these issues.
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Not started
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Provide details signposting how service users can complain about the standard of their care to the NHS or higher bodies.
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Not started
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Provide advice to students of alternative healthcare providers such as GPs who are more queer friendly.
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Not started
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Queering the Curriculum
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Research the extent that queer issues, scholars, and topics are included naturally in the curriculum of degree programmes.
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Not started.
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Hold meetings with the university to call for more training for lecturers of how to tackle these topics, including using the correct pronouns for scholars, terminology for historical figures, and implementing queer topics in curriculum in a non-tokenistic way.
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Not started.
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Work with EDI leads within departments to identify points for improvement in these areas and departmental level actions that can be taken to improve this.
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Not started.
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Discuss how to get these issues more traction within the university and departmental levels with VP Education.
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Not started.
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Queer Gym hours
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Meet with SU to discuss women’s gym hours and how they were implemented.
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Not started.
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Research the impact such hours would have on queer people’s gym attendance.
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Not started.
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Consult about times these would be possible.
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Not started.
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Meet with RHUL sport team to discuss possible arrangements for this and changing room access.
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Not started.
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Work with LGBT Soc to secure an informal version of this, where a group of queer students go to the gym at a set time for mutual support.
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Not started.
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Implement queer gym hours.
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Not started.
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National Lobbying
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Attend meetings of national level bodies to discuss queer rights and improvements to them.
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Not started.
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Work with Sabbs to ensure they are pushing these issues at events and organisations such as the NUS.
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Not started.
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Take a group of activists to a London based protest to make our voice heard on national level issues.
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Planned.
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Work between universities to improve services and share best practice between campuses.
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Not started.
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Events
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