Welcome

Hello to all our fellow LGBTQ students at the University of Birmingham and members of the larger community, and welcome to our website.

This site contains information about our events, campaigns, the services and support we provide to our members, and our work with other Universities and organisations for the benefit of LGBTQ students.

We frequently blog on this page about what’s going on and what we’re up to so check regularly! We welcome any comments/suggestions you may have towards improving the association; either by commenting on posts or pages, or by contacting us directly.

Emma Cooper
LGBTQ Officer, Guild of Students

What’s happening during Freshers week?
Wednesday 21st Coffee afternoon, 12-3pm. Room to be arranged.
Thursday 22nd Freshers bar crawl. Tickets available from coffee afternoon, or freshers fair stall. Meet Joe’s Bar (Guild of Students)
Sunday 25th Film night. 7pm @Joe’s Bar (Guild of Students)

BGSO will be holding their Pride Proms Concert this coming Saturday 11th June, and it would be fantastic if any of you would like to attend.

They’re a completely community run organisation, who do loads of concerts throughout the year, and they will be performing a mixture of classical and modern music, including lots commonly played at the Last Night of the Proms. It looks set to be a fantastic evening, with lots of encouraged audience participation. :]

Dan and I will be performing, if you’re looking to go with other people have a look on our facebook page and see if anyone else is interested.

The event page can be found here

And tickets can be brought here

Birmingham Pride are seriously considering charging and entry fee next year to, in the words of Midlands Zone, ‘keep out undesirables’.
If you’d like to express the fact that Pride should be an event for the entire community, Midland Zone are holding a survey here.

If you’re not quite sure what the problem is with having to pay for Pride, I’ll explain a little why the LGBTQ is for a free Pride, and you can make your own mind up.

No one should be excluded from being able to take part in Pride purely because they cannot afford it. If the entry fee were to be around £10, as has been suggested, many LGBTQ people who are, for example, currently unemployed, students,  or are on things like disability living allowance, would simply not be able to afford to attend. Much as many people would be able to afford it, it is simply not fair to exclude anyone simply because of their income.

The reason for this charge is supposedly to stop homophobic violence and harrassment being an issue during Pride. I personally don’t see why a charge would stop people who were intent on causing harm coming into Pride, and if anything might create a bigger issue if it were to become known among homophobic/transphobic groups that the reason for the charge was their potential actions.

Pride is a Protest. Pride came from the fact that as a community we weren’t able to live our lives, we were being killed and jailed and beaten, simply for being LGBTQ. And that still happens all over the world today, even in Britain (without the jailed part). So until we have complete equality, we must not allow Pride to be solely a party, and we must express our right to still protest the inequalities we face: something we cannot be made to pay for.

Hi everyone,

This is the first of a series of blog posts on different aspects of the LGBTQ movement that we hope will enlighten and educate you on what are possibly the areas which people tend to know less about.

What is polyamory?

The Oxford English Dictionary states that it is: The fact of having simultaneous close emotional relationships with two or more other individuals, viewed as an alternative to monogamy, especially in regard to matters of sexual fidelity; the custom or practise of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the knowledge and consent of all partners concerned.

This is a pretty good definition, but I think it focuses too much on the sexual aspect of a relationship. Polyamory literally translates as many or several loves, so its more of a romantic element than a necessarily sexual one.

However, there are many different things that many different people see as poly. There are many overlapping and intersecting things that are often seen as poly, and I think this chart is the best way of showing them that I’ve come across.

source

FAQs and Debunking myths:

There are so many myths and misinterpretations about polyamory it would be impossible to post them all here.

However, this site has some wonderful and hilarious answers to many of the questions you might have, and answers to many more will be found in the resources further down the page.

Resources: Below you will find a selection of resource: blogs, podcasts, news sites and webcomics, to help you find out more about, or keep up with the news on everything poly. I hope you enjoy them and are inspired to find out more from what you see.

• Poly Weekly: a weekly podcast that you can listen to online or download with a different topic every week. It aims to be talk about ‘Responsible non-monogamy from a kink-friendly, pansexual point of view’. There are 272 episodes, so definately a wealth of information.
• Practical Polyamory: A blog dedicated to passing on help and information on the common challenges of a polyamorous lifestyle and their remedies, as well as info on activism and community organsing.
• Polyamorous Percolations: Polyamory in the News: A news blog dedicated to poly things in the news. not the most prolifically updated site, but atill interesting and useful.
• Poly in Pictures: A funny web-comic updates twice weekly on mainly poly subjects, although others relating to sexuality too. Sexuality via the medium of stick figures, good times.
• The Ethical Slut: is a fantastic book about polyamory, and looks at practical guidance as to how to put such a relationship into practise. Annoyingly, its not available in the University Library (surprise, surprise, prudes. I checked.) but it is available on Amazon here.

So where could I meet more poly people and get more involved?

Aside from getting to know the poly members of the LGBTQ (and there’re quite a few. :]), there are various poly social events that happen. Watch this space for info on when they’re going on, we’ll make sure to put them up as soon as we know whats going on.

UK Poly Mailing List- to talk with other poly people about poly-related issues, and to arrange meetups with other Poly people. Find it here.

As a biologist I am constantly being educated between the differences in sex, in both a reproductive sense. In the mating systems that occur both in the natural world in communities of different species worldwide. Sea horses for one example, the largest amount of parental care is on the male in the relationship. The female deposits the eggs, which are then cared for by the male for the duration of maturation of the eggs. Contrasted with many mammalian species, about 95% of male mammals have no parental investment. The exception to this is human’s. (http://web.missouri.edu/~gearyd/PaternalInvest.pdf) This difference leads me to ask the question, does hetrosexual parenting have any difference over same sex couples?

What importance does parental investmentreally  have on the maturation of the child. Does the gender of a parent have any influence on how well this child thrives? Research has been undertaken as to whether same sex couples make better parents than heterosexual parents. But if we look at animals, it is clear that in most cases only one parent is needed for raising young.  

There are three main types of parental systems in the animal world. Monogamy, polygyny and polyandry. ( This is purely a biological outlook) Monogamy occurs when one male and one female mate together exclusively. This is shown in 85% of all bird species. The second mating system is social polygyny. This is when one male mates with many females. This is the equivalent of one man sleeping with multiple women and having no input into the parenting of the children. This occurs in 10% of bird species. The third is social polyandry, which only occurs in 11 families of birds. This is when one female mates with many male birds. So if we look to our feathered friends, the way forward seems to be monogamy.

This may occur because of the parental investment that males and females have in terms of raising young. The males investment is usually over once fertilization has occurred. Whereas the female, then usually has to carry the young in their uterus for a prolonged period of time. Once the young are born, most females lactate, which is the only source of nutrition for the young.  If the female was to leave and the males left to care for the young, then they wouldn’t be able to feed them.

Because of this, females are far more picky about the males that they choose to mate with. They want to make sure that the male they choose if fit and healthy, and will be able to forage for food ect to support the young and also her whilst she is weak from giving birth.

So can we generalise this to human’s? After all, what makes us as a species any different to another species. Also, if other species have evolved methods of multiple partners, why is there an issue when it comes to human relationships. Multiple partners seems to be the most stigmatised part of society. Is it merely because we do not understand it?

In conclusion, there are many examples of multiple parents in the animal kigdom, and many instances where only one parent is needed. Therfore i can quite happily say that the number of parents that a child or young has, doesn’t really affect how well that child or young does in their life. More so the gender of the parents has little impact on the wellbeing of the child/young.

First blog guys so comments welcome…

The idea of a film based on flipping gay and straight so that gay people are the majority and straight people were victimised is far from new. It’s been done before, but this film, I feel has touched something special by working with such young kids. It’s disturbing to watch as you realise the reality of life for queer teens. Here’s the behind the scenes for Love is all you need?

Love is All You Need Trailer