As the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) election circus nears, so too does the annual tradition of LGBT hustings. Candidates who have put themselves forward for election this year will no doubt already have rushed to the auditor of Trinity’s LGBT Society (Q Soc) for advice on a passable LGBT section on their manifesto, and will be contacting as many of their queer friends as they can to ensure that they shine – or at least don’t bomb – at the main event. And if the candidates have any impression of how LGBT hustings went last year, no doubt they will be feeling very, very nervous.
Last year’s LGBT hustings started as normal. Candidates packed into the Arts Block lecture hall with their entourage of campaigners in brightly coloured t-shirts. Members of College’s queer community and other politically minded students took their places in the audience. Then, as it happens every year, almost every single person in the hall took out their phone or their laptop and opened Twitter, waiting for the carnage to unfold. See, the real entertainment of LGBT hustings comes not from the events playing out in front of you, but from the meta-commentary on a social media platform where “shade” is like a second language. And at no point is Trinity’s queer community more “shady” than at LGBT hustings, although some people would eschew the slang term and call it downright mean. Although the Twitter element of the night has been around almost since the inception of the event four years ago, certain aspects of last year’s hustings made for a particularly brutal commentary: an incisive host who called candidates to account on their LGBT manifesto promises, a large disparity among candidates in knowledge and experience with the LGBT community, and a general reputation that has been building of the hustings as a funny experience, often at the expense of the candidates.
Candidates were also insulted for the way they spoke, be it their accent, their volume, or the length of their sentences.
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The hashtag associated with the event – #hungergaymes – shows just how merciless it turned out to be. Some candidates were lauded for familiarising themselves with the issues affecting the community – Lynn Ruane particularly stood out for her insightful critique of the Gender Recognition Bill, pointing out the barriers to recognition for people of lower incomes and for younger people. While Ruane was already liked around campus, her stand-out performance at LGBT hustings propelled her to a new level of popularity. College’s queer community rallied behind her, and the Twitter fanfare meant that many people took note of her name. The night was not so fortuitous for others. One candidate who did not have a real grasp of LGBT issues and terminology was well and truly ripped apart on Twitter and left the event early. Other candidates were ridiculed for admitting they didn’t know much about LGBT issues, while the candidates who did seem to have a firm grasp of the issues were criticised for using “buzzwords”, meaning that even speaking the language of LGBT advocacy could not save them from ridicule. Candidates were also insulted for the way they spoke, be it their accent, their volume, or the length of their sentences.
The prominence of the LGBT community in student politics has countless benefits. Candidates recognise that the queer community is politically engaged and counts for votes, while the community feels recognised by candidates and can evaluate their commitment to furthering causes relevant to queer students. Standing up at hustings to explain and justify manifesto promises makes candidates more likely to remember and fulfil those promises during their term of office. Regarding the “I AM” campaign launched by TCDSU this week, Conor Clancy, the union’s Welfare Officer, explained that part of the impetus for the campaign stemmed from his desire to fulfil his manifesto promise of creating a more LGBT-friendly campus. However, the complex nature of queer issues and the fear candidates have of taking a wrong step means that when the queer community itself steps out of line, no one feels comfortable calling them out. This unimpeachable status is problematic when the collective commentary at hustings effectively amounts to cyber-bullying that should not be acceptable in any reasonable debate.
As a community that preaches about inclusiveness, acceptance and the importance of safe spaces on campus, we should really ask if an image of “shadiness” bordering on pure mean-spiritedness is the one we most want to project to students at large.
The unfortunate truth is that LGBT hustings may be the first and only contact many in College have with the LGBT community. Large campaign teams turn up for hustings, and the flurry of tweets that accompany the event means that its impact reaches much further than the walls of the small and stuffy lecture hall it’s held in. The result of this larger-than-life presence is that students, LGBT or not, may first hear voices from the College’s queer community through Twitter comments made in order to get in a cheap laugh at the expense of a candidate. As a community that preaches about inclusiveness, acceptance and the importance of safe spaces on campus, we should really ask if an image of “shadiness” bordering on pure mean-spiritedness is the one we most want to project to students at large.
The nature of LGBT hustings and its Twitter commentary also highlights some of the most pernicious elements of “callout culture”. Callout culture involves people interested in social justice ridiculing those who get the terminology wrong when speaking about LGBT or other issues, regardless of whether the person being ridiculed spoke with good intent or not. An example might be calling someone out on social media for using the term “Gay Pride” when speaking about the annual parade and celebration of the queer community (the correct term is “Pride” as this encompasses all parts of the queer community rather than privileging “gay” identity). Students’ union election candidates who refer to the “gay blood ban” instead of using the correct term of “MSM blood ban” or who say “transgender toilets” when meaning “gender-neutral bathrooms” receive criticism each year that grossly outweighs their minor and well-meaning missteps. This attitude isn’t conducive to learning and doesn’t give people the chance to make inevitable mistakes. It simply closes off LGBT advocacy, making it an exclusive club that’s intimidating to the uninitiated, instead of being a journey we can all embark on together, regardless of our levels of education.
As a community which asks our fellow students to be aware of others and their current circumstances, we should also be aware of the circumstances of students who are running in the elections. The two weeks candidates spend campaigning are incredibly stressful. Candidates must either balance campaigning with lectures or else forget about class attendance altogether, all while running a team of campaigners, trying to keep in line with extensive Electoral Commission regulations and investing a lot of energy and hope in a very uncertain gain. We ask candidates to step onstage and talk about issues they likely know little about compared to an audience who – by virtue of being queer and politically engaged – are relative experts on the topic. The stress and anxiety that LGBT hustings creates alone is a lot to ask of candidates, who regardless put themselves up for the challenge every year and often do quite a good job of educating themselves before the fact. However, this stress combined with the added strain of a biased Twitter jury, ready to tear a candidate apart for the slightest misstep, is simply too much to ask of candidates. What is presented as harmless “shadiness” risks jeopardising candidates’ potentially precarious mental health in a time of extreme stress and doesn’t contribute anything to the cause of LGBT advocacy on campus. TCDSU has announced that this year Q Soc will host the hustings in conjunction with Trinity News. Trinity News have reported that they hope to open up the format of the hustings, allowing students to submit questions. While this change in format may affect the dynamics of the hustings somewhat, a more fundamental shift in the nature of the event needs to be made. LGBT hustings deserves to continue as an important annual event, but it is past time that the #hungergaymes ended.
