A self-styled ‘queer and trans group’ stands accused of censorship and racism after white gay and Jewish students were booted out of the “No HeterOx” organising page which blasts the “monotony of cisheterosexism”.
According to Cherwell, the No HeterOx Facebook group has been accused of anti-Semitism and has allegedly excluded several students who disagree with its hard-left views after purging some members and setting the privacy to “closed”.
The group describes itself as “a new print publication, acting as a platform of discussion and expression for Oxford’s Queer and Trans community… All, regardless of gender identity and sexual orientation, are welcome to contribute.”
However, Tam Guobadia, one of the group’s administrators, posted a statement this week saying:
“Over the last couple of months it has become clear that this group has been more or less derailed from its original purpose which was to provide a space to amplify the voices routinely sidelined by a mainstream gay rights discourse more concerned with marriage than murder.
“Unsurprisingly, the endemic problem is one of white cis men, blissfully ignorant of their privilege, drowning out everyone else with their basic as hell politics.”
Guobadia added that the group is not politically neutral. “We are against assimilation and conservatism,” he wrote, adding: “Zionists are not welcome here.”
Another administrator, Rowan Davis, commented on the post, criticising “the monotony of cisheterosexism,” before adding: “This group is anti-police, anti-prison, anti-heteronormative, anti-homonationalist, anti-colonial, anti-state, anti-corporate.”
Jan Vaclav Nedvidek, a white gay student, said that people like him were being constantly told to “shut the f*ck up”, while graduate William Round said: “I left No HeterOx of my own accord within the last week because, as a gay man with moderate political views, I was tired of the effectively doctrinal insistence of administrators and dominant members of this page that discussion of LGBT issues should be conducted within a narrow, radical left-wing framework.”
Round also accused the group of “anti-white racism”, adding: “It is simply wrong to alienate a substantial proportion of LGBT people in Oxford”
Another student, David Browne, criticised the use of the term “zio” which he describes as “anti-Semitic”.
“I think the mass removal of people based on politics (or even suspected politics in some cases) is extremely unhelpful; it plays into a false narrative that being LGBTQIA+ somehow inherently determines your political views. There is nothing about anyone’s sexuality or gender that dictates you must be anti-establishment, anti-capitalist, anti-marriage or anti-Zionist.”
Tam Guobadia defended the group, however, saying: “This has never just been about offence: These “opinions” offend us because they oppress us- they make it easier to do violence to the most marginalised of our community. So we abhor the pink washing of the colonialist projects these politics uphold.”
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