NUS: Setting The Record Straight

Imagine my surprise when I opened a newspaper and loaded up Twitter to find my campaign – the NUS LGBT+ campaign – being called out by our community for saying that gay men no longer face oppression.

I can assure you that being punched on that bus was a reminder that we certainly do. But we also have to look past the headlines and I want to set the record straight.

Week after week there are endless stories criticising the National Union of Students. We seem to be an easy punching bag. Maybe it’s because we make mistakes.

Maybe it’s because we’re often younger activists who are still developing the confidence and the thicker skin that past generations had.

Or maybe it’s because we often go against the grain, are early to identify issues within society that need fixing and more eager and ready to challenge it than other, more establishment, organisations in the UK, and in fact, the world.

So when it came to our conference just a few weeks ago, the biggest gathering of LGBT+ people in Europe, there was lots of ground-breaking campaigns and ideas to discuss.

We’re fighting to open up sport to LGBT people, we’re talking about how to make education better and stamp out bullying in colleges and universities and how we ensure Trans people are heard. These are issues that LGBT+ people are facing every day – and yet what does the media pick up on?

One line, in one motion that is actually an incredibly detailed (and quite boring if I say so myself) constitutional change to the way we elect people to sit on committees.

What this motion was about was not ‘chucking gay men’ out of the LGBT+ campaign but instead looking at whether we are truly representative of all LGBT+ people.

The motion isn’t worded very well I’ll grant you that – but what it is trying to argue is looking at LGBT campaigns and communities across the country there is trend that they have been dominated historically by cis (ie, non-trans), gay white men.

In order to eo ensure minority voices are not excluded, specific roles on committees have been created for women, bi people, black people, Trans people and so on.

Other places were designated ‘open’ (available to anyone), and very often these were taken up by gay men, but crucially were not restricted to them. That’s about it.

Hardly that controversial and as a gay man, I’m proud to have represented campaigns, for all LGBT+ people, for many years and I know that will continue.

But what we’re talking about is recognising the vast diversity of our movement and that there are people who are worse off, more marginalised and less supported than others – even within our own community... 

Rob Young, Pink News. 

Pink News headline to the earlier story on this said in inverted commas; 'NUS tells LGBT societies to abolish gay men’s reps because ‘they don’t face oppression’'

The article contained the full quote from the motion; 'The reps system exists to ensure that societies committees can always have a reserved place for groups which disproportionately face oppression within the LGBT+ community.

'Gay men do not face oppression as gay men within the LGBT+ community and do not need a reserved place on society committees.'

The article now has over 2,700 reader comments (a record?)

Most seemed to be talking about the silly headline.

Nick Griffin: University Challenged

On Friday, Leeds Student, the paper I edit, printed an interview with Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP. Later that day, the NUS published an open letter demanding that I remove the piece from our website immediately, arguing that fascists should not be granted a platform to express their political views.
The NUS claim that: "Leeds Student risks giving legitimacy to a fascist organisation, and boosts the BNP's attempts to join the political mainstream." Adding: "We... demand the editor of the Leeds Student reconsider this grave error and remove the interview with fascist Nick Griffin from their website and newspaper immediately."
During the speaker-phone interview, Griffin was as vile as you might expect. His responses prompted much outraged gesticulation within our paper offices as we all tried to stay quiet. He told our interviewer James Greenhalgh, who is a gay student, that the sight of two men kissing is "creepy".
Of course I considered the effect these comments could have on, say, a vulnerable, first-year student who is struggling to come to terms with their sexuality – and I mitigated this risk as much as possible. The interviewer spoke to LGBT committee members before printing, and we decided to include the fact that the interviewer is gay in the piece. We also wrote an editorial explaining why we believe it is important that student papers do not shy away from confronting extreme politics...

Lucy Snow, writing for Guardian Education.

I'm with Lucy Snow, for what it's worth.
The NUS has often taken a childish, censorious "no platform" position on free speech. 
Although the interview was done in the wake of Griffin tweeting the addresses of the gay couple in the latest B&B case, it does seem odd/off that more than half of the interview is given over to his views on homosexuality.
I also would have liked it to be more hard-hitting - actually I'd much prefer it if he'd just smashed Nick Griffin's fugly face in with a shitty shovel* - but well done to James Greenhalgh for challenging this Neo-Nazi shitbag's attempts to windowdress his racist and homophobic views as the voice of moderate reason.

* Legal notice: This is a fantasy and not an incitement to violence. Fagburn is a pacifist along Gandhian lines. Thank you.