In 2023, amidst anti-trans rhetoric across the country and the murder of Briana Ghey, the University agreed to a ‘Trans Action Plan’ created by the Goldsmiths EDI team and based on interviews with staff. This plan included protecting the wellbeing of trans students through events, awareness campaigns, pronoun use guidelines, and very notably, the transition fund. A discretionary fund to subsidise the costs of transitioning for students.
Some things were accomplished. Mostly the low hanging fruit involving staff training, pronouns in emails, and some small awareness events. I welcome these steps and the removal of Terf stickers in the library is progress.
However, there is a distinct lack of a transition fund. As someone who has personally coached several people through their transitions, acquiring estrogen, and everything that comes with it, I know that it is an expensive process. Not everybody can afford it and as students, the associated costs of transitioning make a big difference.
Up to 150£ per transitioning person to reimburse expenses would have a large impact. I’d know. My own transition was aided by a bursary before I started uni at Goldsmiths and I’m forever grateful to Michelle, the woman who helped me access those resources in the first place.
For up to 30 transitioning students per year, this would only be up to 4500£ in total which is half the amount of money our former Warden, Frances Corner, spent on taxi fees per year. I would also like to point out that 4500£ is an upper bound in this hypothetical and I’ve talked to liberation officers at other universities with funds under 2000£.
With the recent ‘freedom of speech’ ruling at Sussex and the worsening political situation regarding the EHRC, the action plan was quietly binned. Part of this was also because of budget constraints with the initial estimate being 9000£ for the full fund which is rather a lot compared to other funds at other universities. The Goldsmiths EDI team also said the plan would be better coming from the student base rather than top down. I think if we the student body pushed for it and showed that we wanted it, we’d be able to push for an appropriately sized fund.
Hi, I’m Mx Eugene Delporte and I’m your current liberation officer for LGBTQ students. I’ve been in every letter of the community over my long journey. I’ve been in the role for a year and have been running events and advocating for the community.
I have unfortunately not been as active as I had wished due to illness but I have recovered and am ready to march forward with my plans for the coming year. I will do my best to advocate on behalf of the student body and to make it clear it is the wish of the queer community to have trans people be protected and supported. Getting a transition fund is not something I can guarantee by any means but our position as a community should be made clear. I would also like to work on sign posting in collaboration with the EDI team as well as highlighting available resources, and helping educate the community about things like deed polls, self medication, et cetera.
I’ll do this alongside more active event organising and community building.
Thank you,
Mx Eugene Delporte
Special thanks to Ash Green from the Liberate Our Library working group who helped inform me of much of the above.