Our department sees itself as the representation of queer students and primarily advocates for the rights of queer students at Otto von Guericke University.
The unit defines itself as a free, independent, and grassroots democratic group that acts in its own interest and in the interest of the Student Council.
In the unit, all opinions are considered regardless of gender, sexual and romantic identity.
Discrimination of any kind based on origin, skin color, appearance, disability, gender, sexuality, romantic orientation, education level, physical and mental health, neurodivergence, and class will not be tolerated in the unit.
The awareness concept regulates further instructions on how to deal with and proceed in the event of borderline violations.
Our main tasks are as follows:
- Providing a safe space and community for queer students and staff.
- Reducing discrimination against queer people in everyday university life
- Organizing queer cultural events
- Creating a meeting place for queer students with non-queer students
- Education about queer issues, especially at the university, but also beyond (social media, city of Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt)
Additional tasks may include:
- Peer-to-peer counseling for selected topics. Current topics may include:
- Gender identity, coming out, TIN* at university, sexual and romantic orientation, alternative forms of relationships (esp. non-monogamy), neurodivergence.
- Help with problems of queer students especially related to structural discrimination in the university context
- networking with queer associations and groups in the city of Magdeburg and the state of Saxony-Anhalt
- Networking with other queer university groups from Germany
These additional tasks are handled by us on a voluntary, case-to-case basis and are secondary to our primary tasks.
We are not obliged to perform these tasks. We reserve the right to withdraw at any time, to abandon or cancel the organization of events or to reject requests and requests if we do not have the necessary competences and / or capacities.
Our department does not feel that it has the responsibility or ability to help queer students with the following issues:
- Legal advice or legal assistance
- Resolution and punishment of individual incidents of boundary violations (e.g. violence, abuse) outside the unit
- Settlement of private conflicts
The unit explicitly positions itself against the following worldviews:
- Racism against BIPOC
- Racism against Sint_izze and Rom_ja
- Racism against people due to their assumed heritage
- Discrimination due to disability (ableism)
- Discrimination due to mental disorders (saneism)
- Islamophobia
- Sexism
- Queer hostility, esp: hostility to lesbian, non-binary, and gay persons, trans and inter hostility, bi hostility and hostility to other multisexual identities, a*spec hostility (includes asexual, aromantic, and aplatonic identities).
- Right-wing extremism
- Neo-Nazism
- Conspiracy theories
- Discrimination due to looks (Lookism)
- Discrimination on the basis of social status/class affiliation/class membership (classism)
- Age Discrimination
- Fatphobia
- Antisemitism
- TERF ideologies (trans-exclusionary extremist feminism).