LGBTQ society’s Facebook frenzy
By Jonathan Tomlin
Oxford University LGBTQ Society is reeling after a spate of aggressive in-fighting on Facebook which saw a former Secretary of the Oxford Conservative Association (OCA) temporarily banned from the society’s official group.
Hundreds of increasingly heated comments were posted on the OU LGBTQ Society Facebook group, which is public and has over 300 members, within a period of only a couple of hours last Friday.
The argument arose when Yingtong Ding, the female bisexuality rep for the society and a visiting student from China, complained at how few women attend society events, she wrote: “Girls: can you please show up more in our future events”. Some other members of the group viewed her reference to ‘girls’ as sexist and anti-feminist.
An argument then ensued as members debated whether or not the term ‘girls’ was sexist. Simone Webb, a first year PPE student at Hertford, commented on the group: “You know, I think if you called us ‘women’, it might make some of us at least more likely to turn up to events.”
An administrator for the society deleted the thread from the Facebook group after Jim Everett, who was OCA’s secretary in 2011, commented: “You are fucking insane.”
He also said: “I think you girls should go get another group where you can go hate on the world and circle jerk together, instead of pissing off everyone and making LGBTQSoc members look idiotic.”
As the number of comments escalated, administrators deleted hundreds of comments from the group, causing more controversy over what many members viewed as censorship.
The dispute has intensified after a number of blog posts about the incident were posted online, including one by Alex Gabriel, an undergraduate studying English and German. Tom Oakley, a student at Hertford, posted a link to the blog post on the Facebook group on Monday, to which Webb, replied: “ Right, Tom, posting that here wasn’t in any way provocative….”
After a response from Oakley, Webb avoided a potential second online quarrel, writing: “Either way, I’m out now. You won’t catch me engaging any more on this issue.” Another student, Eli Keren, also posted: “I don’t think that it’s going to help anyone if we risk descending into another public tiff. That’s not what this group is for.”
The society has faced a number of difficulties recently. Three committee members have told The Oxford Student they are considering resignation over the facebook dispute. Last term Alex Brahmam, a student at Wadham, resigned from his position as Entz rep on the committee over a dispute about the weekly LGBTQ drinks event and society funds. After his resignation Bramham said: “I can’t be bothered working with these clowns anymore, they go to pieces over “gay marriage” being a discriminatory term because it excludes “bisexual marriage” but leave the society itself to shambles!”
One committee member, who asked not to be named, said: “The committee has been plagued by problems recently. Our president has not been elected officially by the society and many positions are vacant.”
In a committee email shown to The Oxford Student, the society’s treasurer said: “We decided that it is best to make the Facebook group admin” explaining that this would: “mitigate both the flame wars and the unnecessary spam that gets posted on the group.”
However, Stephen Pritchett, publicity officer for the society, said: “LGBTQ society is a welfare society and as such it’s our responsibility to provide a safe space for members. This should extend to our online presence but it shouldn’t go as far as censorship. The decision to stop members being able to post on the Facebook group was not made by the whole committee.”
Webb disagreed: “I felt that considering Jim Everett’s comments in that conversation, it was right that he should be removed, as he’d contravened the Facebook rules. I think the person who removed comments from the group acted as she saw best, and I have no complaint.”
Everett, a student at Corpus Christi, said: “LGBTQSoc has no place for sexism, transphobia and ableism. Unfortunately, certain reactionaries see such things where there are none, alienating members and causing substantial unnecessary divisions in the society. The argument was between an extreme fringe with LGBTQSoc who make things very difficult for the majority by attacking them on minor, terminological issues.”
Oakley added: “Basically they’re acting like we’re naughty schoolboys and can’t be trusted with their precious internet… some people are being ridiculously oversensitive, for example pretending to be really offended by the fact that a female member of the group said something along the lines of ‘can we have more girls turning up to events’ and someone took huge offense to not being referred to as ‘women’.” He went on to say: “The person in question is lovely in person but she really needs to get a life when it comes to being offended about things on the internet.”
Ding was upset by the dispute, and said: “I think it will be good to have a uni-wide discussion about not only what happened in the LGBTQ group but also what is going on Facebook: people being irresponsible with regards to what they post on Facebook. You can delete the posts, but you can’t delete the harm you did to people. People’s Facebook presence is also part of themselves, and they should be very aware of that.”
The society’s president, Sam Weinberg, said: “Ours is a large and diverse society—there are therefore plenty of diverging viewpoints about nearly everything. We aim to accommodate those viewpoints until debate devolves into name-calling and mud-slinging, at which point it is our job to moderate discussions, as with any online forum.”
Tom Oakley
19/04/2012 at 12:18
come on guys get the name of the society right in the headline
LGBTQsoc member
19/04/2012 at 12:18
Given the degree of internalised homophobia and closeting in our community, no one should be surprised that the LGBTQ society lacks solidarity.
Soc member
19/04/2012 at 13:45
Shocking news: people have arguments on the internet.
Tom Oakley
19/04/2012 at 21:40
“Given the degree of internalised homophobia and closeting in our community, no one should be surprised that the LGBTQ society lacks solidarity.” – Are you for real????????? People having different opinions is nothing to do with homophobia. Do straight people all get along with each other all the time? NAAA.
Anyway OxStu you have misquoted me and I am pissed.
Tom Oakley
19/04/2012 at 21:40
http://0akl3yt.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/im-famous.html?spref=fb
LGBTQsoc member
19/04/2012 at 21:51
Yes Tom, I’m for realz.
I was referring to real life, not the internet exchange. In real life, Oxford has a problem with LGBTQ community members with internalized homophobia and closeting.
Personally, I know more closeted queers here than out LGBTQ*, and I have been shocked by some of the self-hating comments coming from queers, not to mention the transphobia and misogyny!
Outsider72
19/04/2012 at 22:09
Is ‘girls’ an offensive term? I’ve not followed this debate at all, but I don’t quite understand. I can see why it can be implying somebody is a bit childlike, just like saying boys might be so. But it was a self described girl who first used the word in the thread, and Jim just used the same word.
In that context, I don’t understand why it is offensive.
… and really, if one feels persecuted by the world ‘girl’ then some would argue they’re completely out of touch with the real world.
Reubs
19/04/2012 at 22:42
Sam’s remark at the end seems like the most sensible approach. Jim Everett is a perfectly nice guy most of the time and his political affiliations haven’t prevented him taking an active role in the society, even though despite the apartisan constitution the majority of members are distinctly left-wing as far as I can tell; this is unsurprising given the politics of the LGBTQ community nationally. However, politics aside Jim’s remark was not appropriate or in any way insightful, contributing only heat and ill-feeling to the discussion, so it was appropriate that his membership to the Facebook group be suspended I think. I also think people often don’t realise how patronising it is to some people to call them girls rather than women, so anti-feminist or not it wasn’t ideal language to use. I know of one trans-woman whose mother said to her “you’re a girl, and a man, not a woman” meaning that she was feminine but had none of what the mother considered to be “features of mature womanhood”. I realise this seems a little irrelevant, and as far as I’m aware she wasn’t involved in the thread, but it is nonetheless a poignant demonstration of how some people use a distinction between the words to belittle and subjugate women who they feel aren’t “proper women”.
I just want to add that I have had many heated discussions with members of the society both online and in person, but have been able to maintain friendships with those people not in spite, but because of our differences, and this is the strength of a society that brings together disparate groups facing similar issues. I do not think I am in a minority in this.
@TomOakley
19/04/2012 at 22:45
Congratulations for announcing to the whole of Oxford, albeit in a somewhat convoluted fashion, that you are an utter wanker.
Another @TomOakley
19/04/2012 at 23:17
Not.sure.if.serious….
Tom Oakley
20/04/2012 at 00:24
to “@TomOakley” – I prefer the term ‘self-love enthusiast’. It’s people like you using non-pc terms that discourages enthusiasts like me from attending your events.
Now that...
20/04/2012 at 01:03
is what I call a comeback
Simone Webb
20/04/2012 at 08:25
Outsider72 – this is not the place for an argument around “girls” to start, but if I could summarise the reasons why it was irritating me (I never described it as offensive, IIRC, in my original comments):
a) it is used to belittle women, especially when Jim Everett used it in the context of “men and girls”. It is different from “boys”; there is a different dynamic, and “boys” is never, for instance, used in the context of “women and boys” as far as I am aware.
b) I felt it refers to a particular type of femininity, and was perhaps exclusive of butch women, for instance.
I think it’s important to point out that I was ~never actually that bothered~ about it: I made one throwaway comment, followed by a question to Yingtong about the upcoming bi/pan tea. Everything then got very out of hand, but I don’t think I was entirely to blame.
LGBTQSoc Member
20/04/2012 at 19:13
I think there has recently been a number of instances were discussions have been won or curtailed prematurely based purely on the relative minorities of the groups who have been participating in them, this one being the most recent that caused a larger discussion.
There is a legitimate discussion to have about balancing the offence that diminutive terms against minority groups can cause against a culture of fear about what can be seen as incendiary. Anybody may feel the answer is obvious but the fact that people have been arguing about it both ways mean that this perception of there being an obvious right answer is incorrect. I genuinely feel that people have been bullied into submission to believe that a particular opinion is true, and the reason for that because people are being proclaimed as bigoted if they do not agree purely because of the SO/GI of the people.
–
On another note, a member of the LGBTQ Society committee has called people “sexist shitheels,” “cataclysmically stupid” and “a fucking disgusting excuse for a carbon-based lifeform” about this instance. This is hypocrisy.
LGBTQsoc member
20/04/2012 at 20:27
@LGBTQSoc Member posting at 19:13,
Rather than viewing the resolution as one minority status trumping another to win the argument, I recommend that you recognize that the privileged are often blind to oppression.
It’s easy for me, as a cis-gendered, upper-class, white woman to be ignore the oppression that others face on account of gender expression, class, and race.
LGBTQsoc member
20/04/2012 at 20:28
*to ignore / to be oblivious to
trolololol
21/04/2012 at 20:09
Love how an article about internet fights results in another internet fight in the comments.
dj black treacle
23/04/2012 at 17:10
simon webb from blue?
Jeremy Packsmen
21/02/2013 at 02:32
Aaand they’re at it again. Misogyny Overheard At Oxford Uni = OULGBTQSOC’s proxy Thunderdrome. Current battLOL: Simone Webb v. a transsexual with Asperger’s. Staying classy.
Julie Bindlol
21/02/2013 at 02:45
FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Jeremy Packsmen
21/02/2013 at 23:25
Deleting comments, now, are we? It’s almost as if someone feels they’re doing something that might look bad in the press.