In this, the month of June, I spoke to the President of LGBTQ+ Society, Darcey McAllister, about the sorry state of the Oxford queer scene. Founded in 1975, this is Oxford’s largest student society, with 3,800 active members on the mailing list. Yet, they consider a non-Plush event slammed if 12 people turn up.

 

 

Darcey, a first year at St. Hilda’s and newly minted BNOC (#18 on the list), rose through social sec roles from her first week at Oxford. She came to the high seat this term and finds her role a dynamic one. It is ultimately a welfare society which tries to remain politically neutral, the same label that ‘Queer Rep’ falls under in the standing orders of most college JCRs. Darcey must tread this line carefully. ‘How do you make it a welfare society,’ she asks, ‘while making political statements—and not excluding anyone in the process?’

 

 

The main theme of our conversation was the startling lack of queer spaces in Oxford and beyond. In 2020, NBC news reported that there were less than 20 lesbian bars remaining across the United States. Her thesis is that the more we talk online, the less we value physical interaction and fail to follow through on physical plans. You might have showed up ten or fifteen years ago–now Discord, Hinge, and group chats fulfill our intimacy quota, giving the illusion that meeting face-to-face is an unnecessary second step. The youth, not just queer, are struggling to find their spaces as cities prefer to sleep and save.

 

 

Now more than ever, Darcey sees this as a ‘terrible thing’. She says that an increasingly polarized society means ‘the homophobia that would’ve been absolutely shat on 5-10 years ago is coming back with a vengeance.’ Can we really expect young and vulnerable queer people to want to maintain physical spaces when there is so much hostility towards them? ‘Food for thought, hunni’.

 

 

Online spaces are important; indeed, there is safety in anonymity. Darcey knows many people who didn’t know they were queer until they came to university, and she emphasises that finding yourself online is ‘a really beautiful thing’. However, going out has been taken over by the line that ‘you don’t owe anyone your time’ or anything for that matter. A night out is too often killed before you’ve even opened your wardrobe by presupposing the event will be lame or succumbing to tiredness. Perhaps, Darcey and I decided, you do owe the scene your time because if you don’t show up, collectively no one is there, and communities will die. Events like ‘Identi-teas’ or casual drinks that aren’t Tuesgays just aren’t attended. It is hard to maintain space and Oxford is tiring, but Cambridge seems to be doing it! Darcey and Jasmine (second year, St. Peter’s) spoke to me about the thriving queer scene there. The fact that Cambridge is literally smaller, ‘a glorified village’ without two bars to rub together means they must put in more effort and necessarily drive the community away from the one paltry dance floor. Its all-female Newnham College has been pioneering queer events since before our LGBTQ+ society was founded.

 

 

‘Tuesgays just isn’t enough!’ the freshers cry to their Reps. Although there is something intimately unifying about the collective sweat rain that we produce, the club arena doesn’t suffice. Darcey is fascinated by the death of the ‘third space’, that is, a free or inexpensive space you go to which is not your home or work. It seems the queer community of Oxford calls for a ‘fourth space’, that is, neither home, work nor club. One thing seemed clear speaking to some JCR queer reps–college will not easily provide this space.

 

 

Steeped in hierarchy, bureaucracy, money, funding, and power and JCRs are becoming increasingly difficult to work with. They won’t book rooms or sell drinks and often impose noise bans. Vita, Queer Rep at Christ Church, admitted that Senior Censors refused to host the last Tuesgays drinks. They also told her to tone down the wine emojis in the emails. Jasmin says ‘Queer reps would be more useful if there were tangible things you could do. Queer drinks don’t do anything’. Jesse, LMH Queer Rep, proposed the ‘Queermobile’ in his campaign – a free taxi service to carry you home after Tuesgays. On the topic of queer spaces that do currently exist in Oxford, he mentioned the Labour Club, but said ‘That’s all queer people in a sad way’.

 

 

Darcey notes that what we have seen are the growth of spaces that aren’t necessarily queer by name but are inherently queer, like Cuntry Living magazine and Hot Mess project. If one in ten young people are queer, how can we expect all these people to connect in a space designated as simply being ‘queer’? As more young people accept and discover their queerness, there is a benefit to creating space within subcultures. ‘Being able to find community not intentionally set up for that community is great because it’s grounded in common interests’.

 

 

Here I end on the pitch, with ‘Futchball’. This is butch football. It was born in The Fir Tree on Iffley Road by Sadie Russell (first year Catz) and Jake Smyth (second year Exeter). Their idea made its way down Jackdaw Lane to the Meadows Lane Playground and takes the form of weekly football matches. Speaking to the crew, team sports often feel so masculine and exclusionary. Here they are staking out and making space for queer people who want to meet outside of a club. It is particularly important to them that this is a space not immediately connected to having sex–it’s an identity, not an act.

 

 

The week I came to watch, one team wore colourful T-shirts, the other wore black T-shirts. There was no referee, they policed each other with frequent cries of ‘YES, nice!’ and a lot of ‘sorry!’s. This is not a competitive space, but an overwhelmingly friendly and encouraging one. Jasmin says it’s perfect because ‘anyone can play football’. Jesse says that Futchball is ‘the best thing that’s ever happened ever’. I asked whether heterosexual people are allowed to come. A considered ‘Yes”, then ‘No one is checking but ultimately this is a space for queer people’. What’s the future of Futchball? Would you have competitions, I asked. No, that’s not really the point. Crewdates? Ugh, unfashionable. Freshers’ fair? Maybe they’ll pitch up outside ‘in the queer vibe, we’re just removing ourselves from a system’. After a good hour and a half, the colored T-shirts team won 3-0, and Sadie shouts ‘Colors for the win–it’s pride month, baby!’.

 

 

Darcey agrees this space arrived at the right time. She’ll be there next week.∎

 

Words by Harriet Wellock. Photo courtesy Darcey McAllister.