Campus life still a queer thing
To find Sydney’s most engaged social and political GLBT community, you can skip right past Oxford St or the usual suspect organisations and go straight to campuses like the University of Sydney.
Despite the impact of voluntary student unionism (VSU), the union manages to put on large parties each semester for GLBT students to meet each other and find friends.
Walking through the campus’s Queer Space at any point in the day, you’ll find students chatting, studying or just eating lunch. Dozens more can be found at weekly discussion groups, workshops on coming out, safe sex and self-defence, or organising meetings with queer officers Jess and Michael.
In my first year the combination of being a bit shy and work schedules meant I couldn’t be active at all -” I just went to the big events, Jess, now a third year Arts student, said.
For some students going to one of those parties or walking into the queer space is the first time they’ll meet a gay person, she said.
Group excursions to gay venues are also arranged. Safety in numbers, Michael explained. Lots of people are scared and disempowered, so we ran a self-defence workshop this year.
The discussion group has been quite popular, which gives students outside the Arts Faculty a chance to explore issues of sexuality and gender. This week the collective decided to make a queer zine for a campus cultural exhibit.
The Gen Ys tasked with keeping campus life engaging for GLBT stud-ents make a lot of personal sacrifices on top of their classes, homework, and part-time jobs, in addition to huge budget cuts that result from being children of VSU.
The burn-out rate is incredible. For people with passion it’s hard to say no, and many don’t have support at home, Jess said.
She works 6-10 hours a week in childcare on top of her studies and queer collective work, and only staying with her parents keeps her above the poverty line.
I’d have to do less study, which would be devastating. I love being at uni, she said.
As for the future, both Jess and Michael said they’d been inspired to continue working in the community.
This year I really got a sense that working in the queer community would be amazing, Jess said. A job with ACON or Twenty10 would be dream-worthy. But I want to do another degree so it’s a few years off.
info: Sydney Uni is opening its doors this Saturday with more than 1000 academic staff and student volunteers on hand to talk about the campus and degree opportunities. More information can be found at www.usyd.edu.au/live.
