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Hello everyone!
My name is Christos, and I will be a 4th year BA Fine Art student after I finish my year abroad in September!
You may remember me as the trans welfare officer of this year and last year – during that time I worked with committee to protect the rights of trans students as the university, and worked with the university and LUU to represent trans students on campus. This year, I’m running for chair so that I can expand this work – I want queer students to have a much bigger voice on campus.
My experience:
2 years on LGBT soc committee
In 2021 I ran a petition which got over 4000 signatures, successfully forcing the university to U-turn on their new dangerous and ill-informed trans equality policy.
I have worked with other queer students and staff members to lobby university leadership to advance the rights of trans students – during 2021 I was in my faculty’s students advisory board, and I have worked in (and attempted to work in) working groups to give trans feedback to the university.
I was the NUS trans delegate 2022 from LUU.
I have written an article for the gryphon and helped write 2 articles on how trans people are treated by the university.
Regular contacts with Trans Leeds and Non-Binary Leeds.
What you can expect with me as chair next year:
Events with your input! Parties, club nights, dinners, quiet board game nights, regular events that create community ties, with a range of drinking and non-drinking events.
This year we spoke about making a community library – I’d like to start to create a library of queer resources and books for all members of LUU, to show that queer students will always be here and we deserve the spaces we have fought for.
More transparency from committee to members – I’d like us to make more effort to invite members to committee meetings so they can see the kind of work that goes into being on committee and give us their opinion and experience on what they would like to see.
HOLDING THE UNIVERSITY TO ACCOUNT: the university has all but dragged the rights and image of trans students through the mud – trans students are still being systemically deadnamed and misgendered via uni IT systems and I will be at the forefront of lobbying the university and their current IT project to make this stop, telling them that queer rights are not up for debate. I have experience in advocating for students who have been mistreated by their school for being queer, and can point you to appropriate support to make sure you are valued as a student.
HOLDING LUU ACCOUNTABLE: although LUU has helped queer students somewhat, the general culture within the union seems to be fairly apolitical and as if they ‘do not want to get in trouble’ by effectively advocating for the rights of queer students. I am here to remind them that they are a student union, students are not service-users but members, and LUU works for their members, the members do not work for LUU. I want to cut through as much red tape as possible to make sure that queer students voices are heard, not censored to be ‘palatable’ for uni of leeds leadership.
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: True liberation comes from community, not individuality. Queer students need to be adequately educated on the rights they are owed by UK law and Uni of Leeds internal policy. If you are ever faced with anti-queer harassment or discrimination you should never just have to ‘grin and bear it’ – I want organise sessions and provide informative leaflets that educate students on what UK law says (and does not say) about the rights of queer people, what Uni of Leeds and LUU policies apply to you too. This is especially needed for new international students, who might be unfamiliar with UK law and who to turn to.
Promotion of queer art and research –as an art student, I love organising and curating exhibitions and encouraging people to make and view art. Next year, I would love to showcase the amazing art made by queer people in Leeds and also provide spaces and opportunities for people without any ‘formal’ arts training to develop their artistic practise. I’m also very keen to give platforms for students who are researching queer topics, to amplify the talents and voices of queer students.
I’m very passionate about DIY publishing and would love to work with media outlets in LUU to showcase the writing talent of queer students – we already have some connections within the Gryphon and the Scribe and I look forward to deepening those ties.
Queer power to all the people.
Reach out to me at fh19cm@leeds.ac.uk if you want a chat about anything here :)