As well as providing welfare support and organising events for LGBT+ students in the University of Cambridge, CUSU LGBT does a lot of campaigning on behalf of its members. A large part of this consists of quietly bringing small-scale issues to the attention of relevant authorities, but where there is a more wide-ranging issue about which the members feel strongly CUSU LGBT often aims to provide a collective voice to these concerns through the running of a subcampaign specific to that issue.
We are currently running a campaign called “Bloody Unfair”, in which we are raising awareness of the National Blood Service’s lifetime ban on men who have sex with men and lobbying the Service to change their policy. We also work with “Think Outside The Box”, an affiliated campaign aiming to improve access for and understanding of non-binary-gendered people, within the university. On a smaller scale, we are in the process of producing some publicity materials to help promote understanding of trans issues and give people the confidence to discuss these in a sensitive manner.
We are always keen to hear from our members about our campaigns, whether it’s giving feedback on our active campaigns or a proposal for a new campaign, and the Campaigns Officer would be more than happy to respond to any ideas you may have. In addition, we are eager to encourage wider participation in our campaigns, and if you would be interested in getting involved please get in touch with us – we would be very pleased to hear from you.
A Bloody Unfair Policy
Blood is essential – without it we couldn’t perform life-saving operations, treat debilitating illnesses, or give emergency transfusions to those who need it. Yet despite the fact that fluctuations in the blood stocks have caused some shortages recently, the National Blood Service refuses to take blood donations from men who have had sex with men, citing out-of-date and unreliable statistics to support this ban. Even more paradoxically, the NBS makes no distinction about “safer” sex – a man who has protected oral sex with an HIV-negative man is banned for life, whilst a woman who has unprotected anal sex with many HIV-positive men is only deferred for a year.
CUSU LGBT believes that the ban puts lives at risk, and to this end we are running a campaign to raise awareness of the exclusion and the issues involved – as many people are quite simply unaware of its existence – and to lobby the Government for repeal or reform of the ban.
More information can be found on the Bloody Unfair pages.
Please note: The Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs, which advises the Government on blood policy, is currently undertaking a review of the ban, reporting back at the end of April. [As of the first of May, this advice has not yet been published, but leaked reports suggest the government may be moved towards amending the policy – as we haven’t been able to authenticate these as of yet, we are waiting for the publication of SaBTO’s report before we decide our position.]
Think Outside The Box
Society’s traditional model of gender is very polarised – people are either male or female – and whilst many people’s gender identities can be classified this way, this leaves little space for those whose gender falls outside the male/female binary or who prefer not to be classified by their gender for any reason. This can cover people whose gender varies day-to-day, has aspects in common with both traditional genders, who identify as no gender, whose sex has aspects not totally according with either of the conventional male or female sexes, and many more besides.
Think Outside The Box is a national campaign, originating in Cambridge, which aims to improve awareness of and inclusivity for non-binary-gendered people, by calling on institutions to improve their accessibility, particularly concentrating on form design, toilet provision and gendered language (i.e. those occasions where one is most commonly required to declare one’s gender), and by running awareness-raising events. On a local level, CUSU LGBT and Think Outside The Box are working together to help the university and other local organisations to implement our recommendations and become more accessible to non-binary-gendered people, though much of the campaign is also relevant to binary-gendered trans people.
More information on non-binary genders can be found on the trans pages, and more on the campaign can be found on the Think Outside The Box pages.