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Oxford Pride this year was the first Pride I ever attended; I’ve been firmly in the closet around my family for a variety of reasons, and couldn’t take time to go to my local parade without them knowing exactly what I was doing. So, for me, attending Pride this year felt like it was going […]
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Image description: Three generations of a Chinese family “I couldn’t make any sense of it. I couldn’t get over it. That precious son of mine, what happened to him?” These were the confused words of Hao’s mother, fat teardrops sliding down her face. “When I had my son, I loved and treasured him. Plus I […]
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Whilst my escapades with you have not always been riveting, and often not positive, the bizarre social dynamics of this bubble we live in has broadened my perspective on casual sex. In coming to this university, I felt that I was equipped with enough experience to sleep around and ‘sow my wild oats’ as my […]
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Image Description: Naomi Wolf. On Thursday, Blackwell’s hosted a ‘Philosophy in the Bookshop’ talk with Naomi Wolf to promote her new book Outrages. Her recently-published work explores the life and work of John Addington Symonds, a queer English poet who fought for gay rights through persistent expression of his homoerotic experience, and more poignantly, tormented […]
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There are a range of avenues to go down for lgbtq+ specific welfare in Oxford such as locally based charities and college reps, but a massively underused resource is the Rainbow Peer Supporters programme. The programme is made up of already trained Peer Supporters who identify as lgbtq+, who can meet up and support other […]
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“Arthur”, a children’s television show airing since the 90s, kicked off its twenty-second season with a homosexual wedding between the main character’s teacher Mr. Ratburn and his husband Patrick. Arthur the aardvark begins the episode by trying to guess who the bride-to-be is but is surprised to find out the bride is actually a groom. […]
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Image description: Marlene Dietrich in Seven Sinners (1940) “Fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months!” – so wrote Oscar Wilde in a newspaper article in 1885, one of many reflections on the subject of clothing during his prolific career. It is commonly held […]
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Image description: London Pride 2017 After the Supreme Court’s ruling in favour of same-sex marriage, 26 million Facebook users added rainbow stripes to their profile pictures to show support and allyship. After the Pulse shooting in Orlando, GLAAD released a similar filter of a rainbow flag and the words ‘We Are Orlando’. As much as […]
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Being gay at Oxford for me is a very polarised experience; my college is one of the most accepting places I’ve ever been to, and I’ve never felt so comfortable anywhere about my identity before, but the institution at large still suffers with an amount of internalised homophobia I naively thought was extinct. Being a […]
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Image Description: Bird lady painting. The beauty of gender is that it is a mirror. Its tragedy is that we are so seldom able to pass through it. When we do, we are cut adrift, existing beyond the perfect paper fold of a handprint butterfly in a wonderland where nothing seems quite real. Where there […]
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Image Description: Marsha P. Johnson, her boyfriend, Joseph Ratanski, and Sylvia Rivera in parade, 1973 The Oxford Student recently interviewed Henna Khanom, one of the co-chairs for the Oxford SU LGBTQ+ Campaign. For any people who don’t know them, they are the political and activist arm of the university’s queer community. Henna is also a member […]
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Image Description: Mostar Bridge, Bosnia and Herzegovina Travel, without any doubt, is my greatest pleasure. I usually travel alone, and for the purpose of leaving my comfort zone. At the border crossing between Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro, I puff out my chest a little and sit up straight. I keep a stony face. The […]
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Image Description: Gay couple with a child Throughout childhood, images of the typical ‘nuclear family’ pervaded my everyday life. At school, the odd sex education lesson involved fondling an overripe banana with a lube-loaded condom. Any discussion of family planning focused upon the cementation of heteronormative values. Whilst the education system seemingly lacked perspective, I […]
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Heteronormative language permeates almost every aspect of our society to such an extent that it is becoming casual and unconscious. It was not until recently when I sat down and thought about the implications of sexual discourse that I realised how much of an unsuitable medium language is at describing anything which contradicts fierce homogeneity, […]
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Image description: Janet Mock, Grand Marshall at the 2014 San Francisco Pride Parade Transgender Visibility Day, also known as ‘TDoV’, is celebrated on the 31st March. It was started in 2009 by Rachel Crandall Crocker, a trans-activist in the US and one of the co-founders of Transgender Michigan. Though distinct from the Transgender Day of […]
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Since decriminalizing homosexuality in 1997 and removing it from the government’s official list of mental illnesses in 2001, China has gone a long way towards equality. However, LGBTQ+ television is still a taboo subject for most in the country, and the state-controlled media has tightened its conservative policy in recent years. April 2018 saw a […]
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The thing that everyone says about coming out is that it’s never really over, and that’s especially true when starting at university. No one knows you, and you’re developing new and unfamiliar types of relationships every day. This is particularly true of tutors, a new person that you’re going to spend a lot of time […]
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Image Description: Alan Turing It was the year 2016 and I, a quiet and awkward sixteen-year-old girl, was trying to work out how to tell my mother that I had, since January, been dating another quiet and awkward sixteen-year-old girl. Realising that I was not actually brave enough to tell her outright, I found myself, […]
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Weeks ago, the Faculty of Law responded to concerns about the explicit bigotry (homophobia, transphobia, and more) of Professor John Finnis by refusing to investigate or take any action against him. While cursorily claiming to care about harassment and equality, they cited the need to protect free speech. This echoes similar responses when it comes […]
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