Hi everyone,
We are really sorry to inform you that Homophobia Is Gay will have to be postponed. This is due to us requiring to sell a minimum number of tickets in order for the event to go ahead, and although we have had almost double the amount of interest than we had expected, tickets weren’t bought before the deadline required for us to hold the night on Friday. The good news is that we will be holding the event on Friday 12th of March, and that even more universities than before are going to be involved.

Ticket prices are the same at £6.00 in person and £6.00 plus a 40p booking fee online. There is a DEADLINE for buying your tickets which is by the 5th March. After this date, tickets will still be on sale, but we cannot guarantee your t-shirt or travel. So buy now so that you get the full HIG Experience…

As before, we will be starting the night in Joes Bar in the University of Birmingham at 6.45pm. We will travel by coach to Hurst St to two awesome bars where we have free shots and Happy Hour. We will then move to Chic, where drinks will be just a pound, to party into the early hours. Profits from the night will go towards funding campaigns against discrimination to LGBTQ students. All are welcome to the event, remember: You don’t have to be a bender to come on one…

*To buy*
- For University of Birmingham Students, Tickets will be on sale in Joes Monday – Friday between 12-2pm except on Wednesdays where they will be sold in Coffee Afternoons. They are also sold at all our events.

- For Warwick Students, you need to get in contact with Katie. k.mann@warwick.ac.uk

- For Coventry Students, speak to Tom Fisher. lcars47a@hotmail.co.uk
-ONLINE Email your name, email address and the number of tickets you require to CRO783@BHAM.AC.UK

If you have already purchased your ticket, then don’t worry. Your ticket is still valid for the new date. But please contact cro783@bham.ac.uk to confirm that you can still attend. If you are unable to attend then email (same address) and we will organise your refund.

Apologies again for the change of date. But it looks to be better than we had ever planned for. Be there or be heteronormative.
We’ll see you very soon,
Emma Xx
(On Behalf of the UoB LGBTQ Association)

Many of you may have noticed a facebook campaign recently more relevant than usual to the LGBTQ. ‘Un-Ban Dominic Scaia’ was a campaign set up because he uploaded photos onto facebook of his recent top surgery and was banned for this.

Obviously, it is not unfair for facebook to remove photographs that are considered pornography, i.e. topless women. However, they do not go around taking photos on men’s chests off the internet and banning those members; we live in a society where it is perfectly acceptable for men to be topless, which is fair enough. As a site used every day by millions of people, facebook have a right to respect people’s differences, to respect their decisions and their feelings, and not to marginalise the minorities they have within their users. Many of the people using the site, who are trans, will have had similar surgeries, and to feel as if by uploading photos afterwards they are doing something wrong, will only serve to break down self esteem and marginalise another minority even more.

What, I feel, makes it even worse, is that when his account was disabled, Dominic contacted facebook to ask why, and if it was to do with the post-op pictures, to complain. No one got back to him. So even if there had been other reasons that he had been blocked from facebook, he wouldn’t have known them, and would have been kept in the dark until the time came when he was finally unblocked. And let’s face it, the images that can so easily be stumbled upon on facebook, and especially upon the internet in general, are significantly worse than anyone, bigoted as they may be, can describe these as.

Thankfully, Dominic’s account has now been unblocked, he has been apologized to about the incident, and facebook have changed their policy regarding allowing post-op chest photographs. But that does not stop the fact that it happened in the first place. Many people think of social networking sites as a platform for speech, sharing of lives. If this was allowed to happen once, what is to say that it will not happen again, to another group, for another, equally unjustified reason? Maybe not just this policy, but many others used by facebook, need to be examined to see just how fair and justified they really are.

I have met many people recently who have been of the opinion that as a community we have nothing left to fight for. In this country we have legal equality and civil partnerships and, usually, the ability to be who we are all of the time. But it is small incidents like this, as well as large, shocking incidents such as the beating and murder of Ian Baynham in Trafalgar Square last year, that should help to push home to people who say this, that even in a Western, democratic society, yes, there is still a lot of injustice to be fought.

The campaign group can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=240719433565&ref=ts

An article including the photo which got him banned can be found here: http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Facebook_reevaluates_decision_to_censor_trans_mans_postop_chest_pics-8127.aspx