Sydney trans students receive death threats at university
Image: Photo: Western Sydney University / Facebook.
TRANS students at a Sydney university have been subject to ongoing threats and violence from other students.
Reported in Western Sydney University’s (WSU) student newspaper W’SUP, students living on campus say they have been victims of “systemic transphobic bullying”.
One student said he’s too scared to leave his house on campus after receiving a threat from another student.
“I had a threat against me, going ‘we should burn you, we should kill you’,” he said.
“You really can’t feel safe when there’s people who want to hurt you for being trans.”
Another student reported receiving extensive online harassment as well as physical abuse and threats. On one occasion a group of students allegedly bashed their window in the night.
Another time, they reported being threatened with weapons by students who were not seriously disciplined over the incident.
“I had people come into the place I was living, with pots, and pans, and bats… it was pretty scary,” they said.
“The solution was to give them a written warning. There was nothing beyond a sort of slap on the wrist.”
One of the students who reported the transphobic abuse said he had spoken with the managers of the student village but been told there was limited recourse.
“We work extremely closely with the university support services, who are the experts… in providing appropriate support,” said WSU student village general manager Steve Tucker.
“Where breach notices are issued for behaviour, these are forwarded to the university for further consideration.”
I wonder how the school would react if the victims had been cis gender. I’ll bet they would have put a stop to the bullying.
It’s hard for me to understand the mentality of someone who’s bright enough to get themselves to university to be so intolerant of someone else who’s not threatening or doing anything to provoke it. Presumably if you have to bully and intimidate trans people it’s because you’re angry and confused at yourself, so do something constructive (counselling would be an obvious start) not destructive. The message needs to get out there that if you need to bully or intimidate anyone based on gender or sexuality, you’re compensating and not being a big man no matter how much denial you’re in.