Reflecting on Experience

Being an American in England is not so different from being an American in America in terms of privilege. After I speak there is usually a moment where the person I’m talking to says “American?” but never in a way that has made me uncomfortable, more just genuine interest. Other than that and the occasional drunk person giggling as they repeat words I’ve said in an American accent, I don’t feel as if my position of privilege has changed much from when I was in the United States. That being said I do come from a position of considerable privilege in the United States. I’m cis gender, I pass for white, I come from a middle class family, and I’m educated. England has a lot of the same issues America has in regards to social justice. Minorities still face discrimination from the government, and in more personal spheres like walking along the street. In addition LGTBQ students and women on campus receive considerable abuse from certain members of the campus community. When I first got here it was a little jarring to walk along the campus and hear white students heckling Asian students for walking to slowly or openly using slurs. Or to hear stories of women receiving rape threats on social media sites and hearing stories of LGBTQ students having their posters ripped down and defaced.

One notable case where I’ve seen discrimination rampant on campus is during the recent Lancaster University Student Union elections. One student, Anna, was running for the position of VP of Welfare. Anna is a trans woman who has been a student at Lancaster, and a part of the student government for three years. She is an activist, a member of several national movements for racial and gender equality, a prominent face on campus, and an extremely open person. These are all qualities one would expect to work in favor of a potential welfare officer. However, as a trans student, despite the fact that she is an extremely qualified candidate, Anna was met with challenges over the course of her campaign that prove just how much the system leans in favor of cis gender students. People ripped down her signs, some were defaced with slurs, a banner that she put her own money and resources into creating were destroyed. People even went as far as to spit on her. Of course she had considerable support from her friends and activist groups on campus, and eventually she was elected into office, but over the course of the election she had to endure hate crimes that no other candidate was faced with.

As I said when I first got to Lancaster I thought these experiences were jarring but then I realized things really aren’t so different here than they are at Allegheny. LGBTQ students at Lancaster have their white boards defaced with slurs, women get suggestive notes written on their doors, gender neutral bathrooms were removed from the campus center because they made Alumni uncomfortable. Privilege is prevalent all over the world in different ways, America and England just happen to be similar in a lot of respects. Overall I learned, as an American student in Lancaster, England isn’t some magical fairy tale land where everything is better. There are just as many instances of privilege here as there are in America and I have to be aware of the advantages my privilege affords me so I can try to give others the same advantages I have.