Hi MN, I'm feeling particularly angry about the GRA consultation this week. In response to talking about it, I've been called unintelligent, bigoted, accused of hate speech and sneered at by super woke friends who smugly believe they're right and I'm just an enthusiastic, uninformed idiot. I've lost friends over it, although, they clearly weren't very good friends in the first place if that's the disdain they have for a difference of opinion. So I channelled my anger into this. Feel free to add to it.
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I would like to tell you all about myself.
Ever since I was a young child, I knew that I was going to be an Oxford graduate. It is just who I am inside, my destiny. Except, when the time came to apply, I just didn’t have the grades. Except, I am not a mediocre student; I am special, and Oxford University was where I belonged.
So I didn’t give up on me.
I bought myself a gown, and many items of Oxford Uni branded clothing: hats, hoodies. My sister went to Oxford University, so I tried on hers in secret first (I didn’t ask but she never knew - ha!), before buying my own. It just felt right. As everyone knows, all Oxford students are white, posh and from private school. So I tried to change the way I spoke and learn cultural references so I could sound more like an Oxford student. I learned all the names of the colleges, everything. I started asking people to say (Oxon) after my name, and I began to feel more authentic.
But it wasn’t enough. I started hanging around the university buildings. It was so hurtful when they wouldn’t let me into tutorials and lecture halls, saying it was for Oxford University students only. I felt invisible as a human being, denied my right to be who I truly am. Why should they be allowed in and not me? I couldn’t go to any of the societies. I was an outcast. Even though, to anyone else, with my new private school accent, Oxford hoodie and walking like a typical Oxford student, there was no way for anyone else to tell I didn’t really go there.
But I knew.
Hurt, distressed, unsupported by my family, I struggled. I didn’t have a degree from anywhere else and so I couldn’t get a top job like other Oxford graduates. My parents seemed to suggest this was my fault for not going to another university, but they didn’t understand. I couldn’t just ‘go’ to another university. They refused to support my mission to be an Oxford graduate so I have cut them off - the bigots.
I began to self-harm. Thoughts of suicide danced in my head. I applied again for a degree but again, I was cruelly rejected. Why were they keeping me out of the space I so desperately needed to belong to? It was an abuse of my human rights.
Eventually, through endless campaigning, letter-writing and detailed accounts of my self-harm and lack of job prospects, for reasons no-one understands, the university agreed to give me a degree! A piece of paper that confirmed to the world what I always knew to be true: I was an Oxford graduate! They did say I wasn’t actually allowed to use it to get a job or anything, but that didn’t matter. It spoke the truth. It gave me my dignity.
So now, I give lectures about my experience of being an Oxford graduate and my time at Oxford. Just because I didn’t actually go to any of the lectures, or take any of the courses doesn’t actually mean my experience is any less valid than theirs. It’s about being able to accept a wider definition of what it means to be an Oxford graduate. It doesn’t just have to mean people who actually went there, but rather it’s about acknowledging that an Oxford graduate is something we can all be if it’s what we feel inside to be true.
Some have called me inspirational, stunning, brave for telling of my experiences. And I believe I am these things. Yet some Oxford graduates refuse to believe that I am valid; they reject my identity and are seeking to have me banned from alumnae events. They think my degree ought to be revoked! Some have even suggested I am mentally unwell. I think this cruel, exclusionary behaviour is essentially literal violence against me as a person. Who are they to judge me? I have that piece of paper after all, just like them.
Fortunately I don’t listen to them, and any attempt they make to engage me in any debate is met simply by me saying ‘SHUT UP, BIGOT. SHUT UP OR I’LL KILL MYSELF.’ They tend to shut up quite quickly. But then again, as an Oxford graduate, I have excellent debating and reasoning skills. They’ve got no chance against me.
The truth is, Oxford graduates will never really understand how someone like me has struggled to be a part of their world. In fact, I’m actually better than they are at being an Oxford graduate, because it’s been harder for me to get here. My struggles mean more than everyone else who just breezed in. Although, what I really need is an IQ enlargement procedure to put me fully on par with other Oxford graduates except you don’t actually need the surgery to still feel like one of course, it would just make me feel more like one. It is an infringement of my human rights that the NHS won’t currently pay for this to happen.
Recently, even though I wasn’t technically meant to use it this way, I’ve been able to use my degree to get myself a prestigious job. I would never have gotten it without my precious degree and I am completely qualified for the job, and fully deserving of it. I’m just like any other Oxford graduate, so why shouldn’t I? My employers didn’t question it - the degree certificate looks like any other degree certificate.
And so now I feel truly myself, out and proud in the world as the person I have always been: an Oxford graduate.