We Exist On Campus: An Interview With Dokuz Eylul University’s Eşit Şerit [Equal Stripe] Society

Source: “We Exist on Campus: Eşit Şerit” (“Kampüste varız: Eşit Şerit”), Gözde Demirbilek, Kaos GL, September 27th, 2018, http://kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=26681.

With our new written series “We Exist In Campus” we are directing the microphone toward LGBTI+ communities at universities. Our series’ first guest is Dokuz Eylül University’s Eşit Şerit [Equal Stripe] Gender Research Society, which during fall semester started running a booth on campus. We gave the floor to Ata Alan of  Eşit Şerit.

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When was Equal Stripe founded? To whom is it open?

Our society is a community of students, collaborating with local authorities and many institutions, that does work in the fields of gender and gender based violence, queer studies, and sexual health, and which works to develop space on campus where LGBTI+ individuals and women will be able to be more comfortable expressing themselves, and to strengthen solidarity towards this same aim. It has been active since April 2014, and since November 2015 it has held the status of official student group affiliated with Dokuz Eylül University’s rectorate. It is open to people who want to carry out work in these fields.    

Since starting work on campus in 2015 what kind of course has  Eşit Şerit followed?

We have tried to participate in the the politics of the Municipality of Buca where most Dokuz Eylül University students live. When we were denied space on campus, we turned this into an opportunity and contacted Buca City Council, and now we have a space there too. In April 2017, we established the Equality Council of Buca City Council, which mostly consists of students from Dokuz Eylül. We are trying to create space [for LGBTI+ individuals and women] within the university but also in Buca.        

What kind of methods did you choose to oppose the shrinking number of spaces [for LGBTI+ individuals and women]?

We try to produce solutions to problems that we face due to the university, sometimes through talking at meetings, sometimes through awareness-based activities that we organize. If the obstacles of the university administration reduce our motivation in the activities that we carry out at school, we somehow find the energy to stay together. Above all else we are friends, friends who deeply understand each other, friends who stick together. We somehow find our motivation to expand and protect this space. We are stronger together!    

Have you started work on the fall semester?

For the new semester we started a stand, we opened our first booth on the 25th of September at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, which is located at DEU’s Dokuzçeşmeler Campus. In the coming days we will also open our stand at the various faculties that are found at DEU’s College of Education Campus and the Tınaztepe Campus. We are the ones with the rainbow [flag]!     

When is the group’s first meeting of the year?

We will hold a meeting when we finish running the booth, on the 13th of October we will meet with our new members at the cafe Dera Köşk and plan the new semester together. We are waiting for you!

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