The Oxford University Student Union launched a “gender expression fund” that provides students with financial assistance to purchase “gender-affirming products such as binders, packers, breast forms, clothing and makeup.”
“The Oxford Students’ Union recognises that widespread transphobia and cisgenderism can lead to feelings of distress among trans and gender-diverse students,” reads the Student Union’s website. “We’ve created the Gender Expression Fund to provide financial assistance for students to purchase items that will make them more comfortable with their gender presentation and, we hope, improve their wellbeing.”
To qualify for the fund, an applicant must be a “trans, non-binary, intersex or gender-diverse” registered student at Oxford who has “not have used the Fund excessively before, unless there is reasonable justification.” An applicant may not request funding for medical treatment or private therapy. Furthermore, an applicant must not give awarded funds to fundraisers or other individuals, and must not “be requesting items with excessive costs (e.g. custom products), unless explicitly necessary for reasons of sizing or access needs to be considered.”
The Student Union LGBTQ+ Campaign brought the motion to create the “gender expression fund” in November. The fund considers applications requesting up to £100 (roughly $127 USD). The fund has £400 (roughly $511 USD) for the 2023-2024.
Some colleges at Oxford University administer similar funding initiatives. The Balliol College “gender expression fund” allows current Balliol students to apply for funding to purchase items such as “wigs, binders and concealing underwear” that “help them feel comfortable with their gender presentation.” The “gender expression fund” at Magdalen College has an annual budget of £400 and awards up to £80 (roughly $102 USD) per student per year.
In 2018, the Oxford Student Union released a “Trans Report” document about “the experience of trans people” and the “nature of transphobia” within the university.
“Many studies have shown that transgender individuals suffer from higher rates of mental illness than cisgender people,” reads the report. “In our survey, 98% of transgender students at the University reported having experienced mental health issues during their time at the University of Oxford.”
The survey that found, among transgender students at Oxford, 80 percent report anxiety, 75 percent have depression, 47 percent have self-harmed, 25 percent have eating disorders, 14 percent have paranoia, and 12 percent have abused drugs or alcohol. The survey also found that over 80 percent of transgender students report their emotional distress has negatively impacted their ability to do academic work. Nearly two-thirds of transgender students who responded to the survey said they had experienced “transphobia” or “discrimination” at the university, although the survey did not provide definitions for either term.
“The majority of responses described ways in which the University impacts negatively on the mental health of trans students,” reads the 2018 report. “The term ‘stressful’ was used repeatedly to describe the University environment, along with ‘aggressive’ and ‘pressuring’.”
The 2018 report states that there is a “chronic issue with anti-transgender hate speech” at the university. The report recommends that the university “recognise that there is a distinction between free speech and hate speech” and “members of staff who espouse openly transphobic views online or in public should be reprimanded for doing so.”
The university’s current policies state that “deliberately using the wrong name or pronoun in relation to a transgender person” may amount to “harassment.” The policies state that the “telling of biphobic or racist jokes” may create a “culture which tolerates harassment or bullying.”
According to a 2021 document released by the Student Union’s LGBTQ+ Campaign, “transphobia” includes “claiming there is a ‘conflict’ between trans people’s human rights and those of any other group,” “deliberate misgendering and deadnaming,” and “expecting trans people to participate in ‘debates’ about their right to exist.”
NHS England commissioned the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People in 2020. The final report, released earlier this year, found that previous studies on gender-related treatment for minors are of “poor quality” and there is “very limited evidence on the longer-term outcomes” associated with medicalized transition.