Student union bans ‘offensive’ drag parties

DRAG-THEMED parties have been banned by a university’s students’ union amid concerns that they “make a mockery” of the transgender experience.

Students at Aberystwyth University have been told not to hold “drag socials” in order to protect the LGBTQ+ and drag community from having their lifestyle ridiculed.

A student union spokesman said the events were banned as they are “usually about members of random groups dressing up as the opposite gender … with the intention of being as funny as possible and not as a celebration of LGBTQ+ pride or sexual liberation”.

It said it would be prepared to make an exception if a club or society wanted to organise a drag social that aimed to “celebrate” the LGBT community.

Aberystwyth’s LGBT society, Aberpride, said it supported the ban.

It said most societies that have drag socials “do so in a mockery of trans women and the trans femme experience”.

The society said: “Often cisgender (and frequently heterosexual) males will take drag socials as an opportunity to ridicule trans people, and Aberpride will not stand by and accept that.”

It is the latest university to ban fancy dress-themed events for fear of causing offence. Earlier this year, Oxford University students’ union warned against fox hunting-themed parties because they promote “stereotypes”.

Students were urged to steer clear of “highly gendered”

‘Most drag socials make a mockery of the trans women experience’

themes such as “vicars and tarts” or “pimps and hoes” because they may lead to non-binary students feeling excluded.

Guidance published by Oxford’s students’ union in January also warned over “culturally appropriative” party themes like “Cowboys and Indians” or “Arabian Nights”. These could leave students from ethnic minorities feeling “excluded, mocked or distressed”.