Well no, of course not. You’d think that an LGBT is a necessity; a right for anyone who identifies as LGBT to have a safe space where they can speak about how they feel, to share their concerns and their joys, and connect with people who can offer support and if necessary, welfare advice.
Unless of course you work for the Student bleeding Union, at which point the LGBT is just another “club” and a full list of attendees is required – regardless of the absolute downright validity of confidentiality, crucial to the trust and friendship that an LGBT is based on.
The only justification for this is, in my opinion, health and safety. If you want to know the number of people in a room for fire evacuation purposes, that’s fine. But that is a number, which is infitely different to names and email addresses of people who are supposed to have complete confidentiality. It’s nonsense, it’s blind-sighted; it’s down right offensive.
Why should you have to *pay* to join an LGBT? The union doesn’t charge for careers advice, dyslexia help – for god’s sake, foreign students are offered English lessons free of charge from our language centre, think how costly that is. But you have to pay for LGBT welfare?? Where is the distinction here between the kinds of support?
Our LGBT is NOT a club, or a society, or an activity – the category the SU is threatening to classify it as. LGBT is more than an activity you chose.
I know this because my friend is heavily involved, and she voiced her concerns to me. I help run a society. I’m damn proud of my society. But it’s a society, not a welfare organisation, and if the union says members have to pay I’m fine about that. You want me to give you their emails? Can’t see why, but fine. I’ve not made promises to my members – they won’t be frightened away because they can’t trust me with something that personal and that frightening they’re afraid to tell their friends and family.
Fuck off, SU’s everywhere, don’t use funding cuts as an excuse to cut LGBT rights.
I’m not sure this is helpful, but I found that here (and in most other universities) KinkSoc wont take down the names or addresses of its members. This shows that firstly, where sexuality is involved, the unions *can* deliver when it comes to privacy.
Secondly, if the SU does have the ability to make an anonymous society, why can this not be extended to the LGBT? Or any other society with a decent case for anonymity.
Perhaps, at least amongst our peers, being gay is acceptable. Whereas beating someone around the head with a copy of The Awakening in a gimp mask and ballet shoes arouses suspicion. (Ehehe, arouse… see what I mean? No one’s mature enough to let these guys have their gatherings in peace)
I suspect that in the eyes of the union, it is just a society. If you’re not gay and don’t see an issue with being gay, how could you understand the need for support that the members are going to need? To them you’re just hanging out with other people who happen to be gay, just like in the Tea Society you’re hanging out with other people who happen to like tea a lot.