I've seen a lot of threads this morning discussing the attitudes of students at durham uni, and thought i'd add my personal experience to the list ! however, I wanna preface this by directing people to @itsnicholavo and @sam_jja among others for what they've spoken .. (1/21)

...about already today. I also feel that I should point out that in the grand scheme of things I'm a v privileged student. I'm white and middle class, and have therefore not had to face the brunt of the main issues facing durham uni students, namely racism and classism. (2/21)

...In my first year, my college was one of the few not to have its own feminist society. A friend and I decided to set one up, but by the time we began the process, we discovered that one was already about to be ratified. Great! It was ratified alongside ... (3/21)

...Flat Earth Society (but that's for another day lmao). I was part of the team setting up this society, along with 3 or 4 others, including a member of the uni wide fem soc, who guided us well. This led to me being on the first ever exec for the 1898 Society, in the ... (4/21)

...role of Publicity Officer. The society aimed to meet semi-regularly, but had a Facebook group to organise membership and topics of discussion. This group quickly became a debating chamber, and it became very clear that this was not a feminist society, or a safe space...(5/21)

...Members would post articles, or their own inflammatory posts. Often, this was the same one or two people, and the same groups of people discussing in the comments. *tw/cn: sexual assault, abortion, transphobia* from here onwards... (6/21)

...The worst of these discussions were: abusive and graphic debates about abortion, discussions on whether women deserved to be attacked if wearing certain clothes/whether they should stop wearing certain clothes, and discussions on the validity of trans identities. (7/21)

...From my point of view, and I'm sure many people's, for a group to call themselves a feminist society, let alone one functioning with the intersectionality which is necessary for progress, the group should be united by a set of values which, erm, aren't misogynistic and (8/21)

..transphobic, at a minimum. Despite mine, and others, attempts to cease these discussions, I was constantly told by the rest of my exec (pls note uni fem soc helper was not on the exec and was fantastic throughout this), that to halt these discussions would be to suppress (9/21)

...freedom of speech. I shouldn't need to point out that free speech ≠ hate speech, and that as an exec, the society was platforming this hate speech. These issues came to a head on 2 occasions. 1) A member of the society, responsible for most of the pro-life discourse, (10/21)

...Posted on the Facebook group to announce that he had stolen all of the condoms from the welfare basket during freshers week. This, of course, resulted in a huge pile-on from upset and distressed students. I believe that the individual had meetings in college concerning (11/21)

...this behaviour. However, this was the first time that the college exec considered shutting the page, or the society down, to protect this person. 2) On the second occasion, someone posted a P*ers M*rgan interview on the page, which incited a discussion of trans and (12/21)

...non-binary identities. The comments in this discussion ranged from straight up transphobic, to 'scientific' veiled transphobia. At one point, a non-binary person, who I believe was on the exec for the uni fem soc, popped up. They were arguing for the validity of their (13/21)

own identity and existence in a 'feminist' group? Madness? Again, I attempted to explain to the exec that these conversations should be stopped, or at least MANY of the comments deleted. Do you know which TWO comments they did delete? My friend's one which said, (14/21)

..'You're all transphobic', and another of theirs which said 'yikes'. YIKES. I didn't know what more I could do, as I didn't have enough sway within the exec to do anything, when 5/6 were platforming and censoring as they saw fit. I spoke to the president at the time, and (15/21)

...that nothing would be done. I ended up quitting the exec very shortly after, as my mental health was deteriorating. This plus freshers week incidents made me feel completely isolated in my college. Luckily I had a wonderful department, where I spent most of my time. (16/21)

This society should never have been allowed to exist. I felt unsupported, and vulnerable students felt attacked, and unsafe in college at this time. I'm unsure how college has changed since, and I believe that this society is now reformed and running well, but there are (17/21)

...other people more informed to discuss that than I am. It's also worth mentioning that these incidents came off the back of experiences in freshers week - people using homophobic slurs, someone telling me they would pray for me for being gay, and someone planning to do (18/21)

...blackface for a freshers event. I found it scary and frustrating that these attitudes weren't challenged. I regret staying with the 1898 Society for as long as I did, and wish that I'd spoken up even more on an institutional/society level at the time. Although, I'm.. (19/21)

... very happy to add that this society was actually banned from intercollegiate and uni-wide femsoc events for a long time. If I, in.. my privileged position, felt unsafe to challenge in the heat of the moment, imagine how more vulnerable students feel. I have so much ..(20/21)

..respect for people speaking up, as the Durham student voice can be deafening. Please listen to women, to LGBT+ folk, and especially women of colour at this.. time. What they have to say needs to be heard right now. (21/21)

*hi!!* i v much mucked some of this thread up from shifting tweets around, and would also like to clarify that in tweet #15, the president i spoke to was the *college* president, who wouldn’t do anything :))