Introducing: Matilda Fitzmaurice

Dear subscribers,

Today, you’ll be hearing from Matilda Fitzmaurice (she/her) who is running for the LGBT+ members’ rep seat in HE. Matilda is a Senior Teaching Associate in Environmental Politics at Lancaster University, and she is currently approaching the end of a term on the NEC as the representative for casualised members in HE. In this mailout, she writes about her priorities for UCU’s LGBT+ work and how she would advance these if elected. She also reflects on the intersections between casualisation and LGBTQ+ issues.

You’ll find more information about all UCU Commons candidates on our website. We have also written an explainer of the role of NEC and the elected officers, how the voting system works, and why it is vitally important to vote in these elections. Please keep reading and sharing it!

The UCU officer hustings were held last week, and the recording is now available to watch online. We strongly recommend giving it a watch.

If you are still yet to receive your ballot papers, order a replacement set here.

In solidarity,

UCU Commons

Matilda Fitzmaurice elections mailout:

I have already written about my UCU experience in my election address, so here I will say more about my plans if re-elected to NEC. First, in December 2024 I was one of those urging fellow HEC members to safeguard the pay-related ToRs. While these were not perfect, they were a starting point for building something meaningful on casualisation within the JNCHES framework. But now they’re gone, and I want to do everything I can to bring casualisation back to the national bargaining agenda. We cannot afford to waste any more opportunities, especially while we have a casualised member as a national negotiator. Secondly, we need to broaden our LGBTQ+ work to include asexuality, and to make sure that everyone belonging to the LGBTQ+ community feels completely at home in our union. We have already done the right thing and come out against the Cass Report. But now, we need to defend a positive vision of what healthcare justice looks like for trans people. This should matter to all of us, because an attack on one is an attack on all. I also want to bring a vote to the NEC for a standing order change that would remove the requirement for a branch nomination to stand for equalities standing committees. This requirement undermines people’s right to privacy and safety, especially for members in FE and prison education, and has a disproportionate effect on casualised members, since we need to change employers, and therefore branches, more often. This will be challenging as it requires a two-thirds majority, but I am confident NEC will do the right thing.

I want to use the rest of this mailout to talk about how casualisation and LGBTQ+ issues intersect. Casualisation and homophobia are both workplace hazards. Compared to some other colleagues, being LGBTQ+ exposes us to greater danger, especially where this intersects with gender, disability or race. LGBTQ+ people are at heightened risk of sexual harassment and gender-based violence, especially bisexual women like me, for whom misogyny and biphobia mean we are less likely to be believed. But being casualised, our position in the institution is already a more vulnerable one. Those with long-term healthcare needs may be even less likely to assert ourselves and our rights at work.

If more established LGBTQ+ colleagues feel they can’t rely on their employers to defend them and champion their work, then how do those of us on very precarious contracts feel? Is it worth taking the risk of outing yourself to your colleagues and students, if in a year or two, you will have to go through the same process again somewhere else? These circumstances are especially difficult for trans and non-binary people. Accessing healthcare when relocating can be extremely difficult, as many GPs turn trans people away, and not having healthcare for a period can lead to longer-term health problems. They may feel they can’t rely on their employer or work IT systems not to deadname or misgender them. Or that the thought of seeking to be their authentic selves at work, let alone looking into support and leave for gender-affirming healthcare, is simply not worth the hassle or the risk if they have unsupportive workplaces and if their contract will be up soon anyway.

Finally, we may not only be more at risk from the current redundancy crisis, but so might the future of our work. In our employers’ bids to protect their balance sheets above all else, the ongoing funding crisis is threatening specialised, ‘low-recruiting’ departments in which teaching and research focused on LGBTQ+ studies (as well as Black studies, gender studies and disability studies), such as at Goldsmiths, is more likely to take place. As a set of ‘minority’ groups, our work, which often challenges the political, social and cultural assumptions on which the ‘norm’ is built, may not fit with the more generic, uniform and managerial vision of what a university ‘should’ do. We have so much work to do, and this will need the undivided attention of our NEC and subcommittees if we are to succeed.

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