Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
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: 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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As 8th week of Michaelmas started to reach its end, I couldn’t quite prevent myself from thinking about how near the Christmas holidays were. As a lesbian, I always wfound the holidays really quite strange: heterosexual couples dressed in visually unpleasant red and green Christmas jumpers would plaster my TV screen as early as November, […]
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On 23rd January, Angola adopted a new penal code, its first since its independence from Portugal. The former penal code was in effect from 1886 and had not undergone reforms since 1975. In doing so, it removed an article that prescribed a jail sentence of six months to three years for “vices against nature”, an […]
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Image description: Ellie Oppenheim (left) Recently, Pink had a chance to talk to the charismatic and capable Ellie Oppenheim, who is the current president of the LGBTQ+ Society. Love it or hate it, “the Soc”, supposedly the third largest student organisation here, is the core of our community’s social life in Oxford. I invited Oppenheim […]
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Image credit: AnonMoos [Note: this article contains mentions of ableism, sexual trauma, possible physical abuse and fractious family relationships. Due to the sensitive nature of issues discussed, the writer has chosen to remain anonymous.] My ‘discovery’ that I am asexual was oddly complicated. It is a surprisingly difficult matter for me to acknowledge because so much […]
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Image Credit: MegaPixelStock Last week, on the 2nd of October, at the Conservative Party Conference, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that civil partnerships would no longer be limited to only same-sex couples. All couples, including mixed-sex ones, can now opt for a civil partnership instead of a marriage. The decision follows a high-profile case this […]
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Image Credit: John Peart (cc-by-sa/2.0) Pride in London, the non-profit organisation behind the famed annual Pride parade in London, has released a statement condemning the anti-trans group Get The L Out after the group “forced their way to the front of the parade” this Saturday. They reportedly displaced the NHS, who were supposed to march […]
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Homophobia and transphobia are certainly not concepts known only to Britain. Whilst it is easy to see areas in which our Government does not act sufficiently in promoting the rights of LGBT+ people, one thing we can at least say with confidence is that they do not actively work against them. We are lucky as […]
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The 10th International Transgender Day of Visibility took place on 31st March 2018. Established in 2009 by transgender activist Rachel Crandall, it is a celebration of the lives of those living in the transgender community, while also recognising that there is still work to be done to make transphobia and cissexism things of the past. […]
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There is a sense in Oxford that sexuality is no longer an issue – a kind of lull of apathy. Whilst people would be reluctant to say as such, and many LGBT+ people’s experiences prior to Oxford are ones of clear disadvantage, no one can deny that we have it better here where people are […]
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Until recently in the UK it was expected that one would meet a member of the opposite sex, fall in love, and get married before then starting a family. In a progressive 21st Century society, however, this stance is changing as social identities are rapidly evolving. Not only is it now social acceptable and legal […]
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