When determining how QM should act, I struggle with how to consult queer students and to what degree QM should conform to the majority's wishes. Last semester, most students who voted approved of our fee increase, which suggests that they believe our existence is justified by the cost. Most students haven't read through our budget; they don't know about our programming. Most students don't even know how QM organizes itself. I imagine then that our high support merely indicates that students feel a queer organization should exist on campus, and should be given adequate financial resources to grow with the student population.
Few people know that we allocate 10% of our budget to discretionary funding that goes to community organizations. We prioritize queer-related projects, but it's not a requirement. We've sponsored projects meant to benefit the elderly or BIPOC residents of Montreal. A benefit to queer students is less direct here. We do discretionary funding because we feel our organization has a responsibility to uplift other organizations that are less financially stable and fulfil missions similar to ours. We could also argue that for queer students to thrive, they should live in a community that has many avenues of support and that fights against several types of discrimination. But I'm unsure whether most queer students would agree with this call, and even if most did disagree, I'm unsure that QM should then cancel this program.
For many calls about our programming, I think a theoretical polling of all queer students would be inappropriate. QM serves some queer students more than others: those who want to be in touch with specifically queer culture, those who are transitioning and can take advantage of our gender co-op, those that are willing to engage with an organization as a means of joining community. Our programming is meant for those who need - and will seek - support.
I've heard complaints about QM, mostly from people who refuse to involve themselves. The most frequent issue they take is that QM executives conflate queer advocacy with leftism at-large. It would be a mistake to instantly view criticism as a sign that our organization isn't serving our ownership. Not only is it impossible to appease a group as diverse as queer students, it also assumes that the criticism-givers are knowledgeable about QM, and the queer student population at large, and can accurately identify what this population needs and how QM can provide it. I personally feel that "leftism" is inevitable in queer advocacy. I find it impossible to conceive of a world where injustice exists but homophobia & transphobia is eradicated. This line of thinking traces back in QM's history; it's mirrored in other queer organizations; it's reflective of the values of our executive team.
Simply by virtue of being funded, a swath of queer students won't want to associate with us. And every time QM gets friendly with something McGill affiliated, this also alienates students - although these might be people who would've never interacted with us, anyway.
There are two directions QM can take. We can refuse to partner with larger institutions within McGill, or we can try to leverage our status as a service to connect students with the McGill bureaucracy. The latter approach is more optimistic, and presumes that negotiation and partnership with McGill organizations can be beneficial. I don't think I'm qualified to make this decision alone, and because of our contradictory and reactionary governing documents, I am having to make these decisions, at a small scale, semi-frequently.
I talked to people at the Wellness Hub recently who want to present at Queer Orientation. One of the doctors said they're here to serve queer students. Another, in an email, wrote, "I am very passionate about offering quality care to our queer student population". I'm not sure how much policy exists at the Wellness Hub, but maybe serving queer students is included. On a surface level then, our goals should be entirely compatible, yet we often find ourselves in an antagonistic relationship. There are several potential reasons for this. 1) The Wellness Hub interprets that queer students have different needs than we think we do. For example, they might think we're prone to getting on HRT too quickly without considering fertility preservation or our family situations. So in their minds, they're "offering quality care to the queer student population" by gatekeeping HRT. 2) The ways that the Wellness Hub tries to improve queer life conflicts with QM's. For example, they might try to create community by getting everyone to share their coming out story, although this goes against QM's "don't force people to disclose trauma" stance. 3) Although the Wellness Hub claims (and might even believe) that they partly exist to serve queer students, their real priority is self-preservation, which conflicts with serving queer students. For example, the Wellness Hub will double down on its practices rather than prescribe less traditional forms of care to minimize the potential for hate by angry parents or TERFs.
How do I interpret the Wellness Hub's attempt at connecting with QM? To let them paint the Wellness Hub as a viable environment to receive care seems like propaganda. It's hard to believe that the doctors there can, in good faith, recommend the service to people, although maybe they're not aware that 80% of calls get turned away, that calling the Wellness Hub at 8:30am every day is difficult for students, that reports surface every year of medical negligence? But censoring the Wellness Hub entirely seems unwise - either way, students will be trying to access HRT via the Wellness Hub, and they're more likely to have a good time if they're informed about the process. Burning the bridge between us and the Wellness Hub means we'll have to rely on external campaigning to influence their practices, and we give the Hub a narrative that allows them to ignore us. The right balance here seems to be to allow the Wellness Hub its slides, and then tell everyone the caveats, and then let people decide for themselves. This would be easier if interpersonal politics didn't exist. I wish the professionals at the Wellness Hub could understand that I don't have an instinctive resentment or anything. I have one goal, and that is to advocate for queer students. It's not to make friends with doctors, it's not to help the Hub achieve their unrelated goals, and it's not to sit on panels and entice new students to come to McGill because it's such a great time.
I'm wanting for a framework that takes these miniature decisions and brings them back to core values. For every dilemma, I want to be able to trace it back to a QM policy that can be used as defence. But that doesn't exist as of now. QM has no writing about where to align itself in the spectrum of all-advocacy-orgs-should-unite-against-big-corporations to partner-with-the-school-that-we-fight-against-so-that-queer-students-reap-the-rewards. I don't know which method best offers community to queer students, best equips them with resources, best gives them a trusted figure they can go to when awful things happen. I don't know what to base these decisions on. I can return to my main goal, which is advocating for students, and try to seperate the history from our collaborators, and take decisions on a case-by-case basis, using the following questions:
Some questions are easier to answer than others. For instance, letting the Wellness Hub present at Queer Orientation does give queer students more resources, furthers a culture of acceptance, and is something queer students are interested in hearing. On the other hand, I have no idea if this event would alienate those who would have otherwise sought our services. I don't know if the Wellness Hub will tick off the "consulted with queer students" checkbox, despite the fact the event was not a consultation. I don't know if this will curb our honesty, even if we make conscious efforts to stay transparent.
And while most queer students might argue that QM should maintain a friendly relationship with McGill, these students might not be the ones in need of our resources or willing to come to us for them. Before answering the questions, we need to think of who "queer students" means in this context.
Finally, to answer the questions, we need to make some guesses about the Wellness Hub. If they're clueless but well-meaning, care for queer students could be dramatically improved by consultations with our community. But if the Wellness Hub is guided entirely by self-preservation, friendliness can only be used against us. With QM being student-run, our lack of institutional memory prevents us from understanding the Hub. We have to restart, and hope that the staff members at McGill have good intentions, that the political environment is in our favour, that the opinions of the student body makes it easier for McGill to give into queer demands than to refuse. I don't feel like the right person to be making these guesses.