UNSW's Queerspace is Under Threat

The UNSW Queerspace, a room on campus designed to be a safe space for LGBTQIA+ students, is under threat, with “capital works” currently planned to take place in the June Griffiths building where the Queerspace is located. We will be removed at an unknown time and currently have no confirmation that we will be relocated to a new space.

The space on campus has had a long history, with the first Queerspace being established in October of 2000. This came following violent gay bashings and harassment of queer students on campus. It took nine months of lobbying from the Lesbian and Gay Services Departments, the organisation that later became the current Queer Collective, before the university relented and established a Queerspace on campus. The aim of the space was simple; to grant queer students a safe space to relax with their peers, to give them freedom to be themselves without fear, and to be a space to organise the continued fight for queer rights.

The space only lasted 28 months before it was invaded, vandalised and trashed. While the space was reserved for use only by queer students, its location was easy to discern, and incidents where homophobic students entered only to make bigoted, slur-filled comments were not uncommon.

After the vandalism, the Queer Departments began searching for a new location for the space, and in August of 2003, a new Queerspace was opened on campus. This ‘new’ space is the same one we have now, over 21 years later.

In late 2024, previous Queer Officers Pepsi and Becky were notified that significant portions of the June Griffiths building, including the queer space would be closed to students and staff for an unknown period in 2025 in order for the university to undertake “capital works” on the building, meaning the queerspace would no longer be accessible to students. Given the age of the building and the fact that the rest of the top floors have been abandoned for years, likely due to the existence of better teaching spaces with less asbestos risk on campus, the closure of this part of the building is not unreasonable. However, this announcement was not followed with any indication that a new Queerspace had been procured, leaving the Queer Collective in a state of confusion and worry.

As Alyss and I took on our roles as the 2025 Queer Officers, we made fighting for this new space a top priority for the year.

There may be some that question why a queerspace is needed today; sure it made sense to have in the early 2000s, but queerphobia no longer exists on campus, I mean, we even have the gay stairs now, right? However, despite UNSW EDI’s attempts to paint everything rainbow to make it seem that queerphobia no longer exists at UNSW, it is very much here and alive.

Today, queer students at UNSW still deal with many of the same struggles as our predecessors did. It is still not uncommon to hear homophobic comments and slurs from classmates. Queer couples still worry every time they hold hands after being approached by certain groups on campus reprimanding them for their “sin”. Many students have had lecturers present bigoted, homophobic, and transphobic ideas in their courses, with faculties either unable or unwilling to do anything to defend them. Queer students report experiencing sexual harassment on campus at nearly triple the rate that straight students do. For many queer students, having their identity be public would result in violence against them. Many trans students force themselves to suffer the pain of pretending to be someone else because it is better than risking their safety.

This is why having a Queerspace on campus is so important. Our aims for a queerspace have not changed; we still need a safe place to relax and get away from what we face elsewhere on campus and in the world, we still need the freedom to just exist as we are without pretending or fear, and we still need a space to organise our activism, because the fight for queer rights is long from over. Especially as we see an onslaught of bigotry from governments across the world, from Trump to Dutton, and the Christifulli government in Queensland banning gender affirming care. 

In 2000, announcing the opening of the space in Tharunka, Josh Wright, the co-convener of the Gay Services Department, wrote that “a call for a Queer Space is, in fact a call for a world not to need them”.

24 years later, we continue to call for a Queerspace, because we call for a world where we do not need them.