My life as an LGBT student has been pretty trouble free, although when I came out at my Christian, all girl secondary school life couldn't have been worse. People ran away from me in corridors and would make the sign of the cross at me like I was infectious. Things got so bad that I had to take a year off in sixth form because I couldn't cope anymore.
Just before I went to university I came out as Trans to my Mum and for a long while had been holding off my transition because I was really scared that she would disown me. She’s got more used to the idea lately and things are a lot better for me now.
Gender issues
The only issues I've had at university have been a few comments from people when I was dancing with my fiancé in the students’ union.
I decided to run for election as LGBT officer for my union following several incidents that my fiancé and some of my friends faced. My fiancé, who is Trans, was nearly attacked in the union and had problems with security when he was using the toilets. I wanted to try and change things to make life easier for Trans people and I decided the best way to do that was to stand for election in my union. From there I attended NUS’ LGBT conference and activist training days and it's helped me a lot in my work.
One of the first things I did when I was elected was start working on getting gender neutral toilets in our union and better training for staff on Trans’ issues. I got a fantastic response from the union and students themselves.
That’s not my name
My University is pretty good at supporting LGBT students but it could do better. The Dean of students is very supportive and helped me change the name on my student card to the name I wanted to use.
As LGBT Officer and Co-Chair of the LGBT Society I offer a lot of mediation support when students have issues with the University and so far they've always been very responsive and very quick to act on student issues, particularly those affecting Trans students, such as name changes of changing gender markers. I'm not saying they've got it perfect but they do listen and they are willing to adapt and work with LGBT students to make life as easy as possible.
Two of the biggest issues I've seen in my experience are estrangement and disability awareness. It just doesn't seem to occur to a lot of people that disabled people can be LGBT and that being LGBT can create health problems; a lot of LGBT people suffer from depression that can at least partly be attributed to maltreatment they have received due to their sexuality or gender identity.
Student support
It's also well reported that LGBT students are more likely to be estranged from their parents or guardians and the Student Loans Company don't exactly make it easy on you if you are estranged. In my experience there is little in the way of extra support for LGBT students who are estranged particularly with regards to accommodation or emergency financial support.
If I could change anything it would be allowing students to use the name they'd prefer to be called by on registers and their student cards. I'd love to see gender neutral toilets on every campus in the country. It's not a big thing but it could make a huge difference for a lot of people. The top thing I'd like to see though is more emergency support for students who find themselves estranged from their parents during the academic year, as it can be a very hard and labour intensive process to get extra money from the SLC to reflect the change.