Natsumi IKOMA
Director, CGS
[The article below is the same as the article that appears in the eighteenth issue of the CGS Newsletter.]
CGS was created not only as a research institute for gender and sexuality studies, but also as a communication space open to all, including students and non-ICU visitors. This has always been one of our most important missions. A university research institute can often be quite intimidating for students. In order to make CGS more welcoming, we regularly organize events such as reading groups and tea parties, and the center is usually open all day on weekdays throughout the semester and vacation periods, so students can drop in for a chat or borrow books from our library.
As a result, CGS had over 4,200 visitors in AY2014. In particular, the number of students who visit CGS almost daily increased by 50%. Many of these students come to the center upon arriving on the campus, stay here until their classes begin, and come back again when their classes are over. This proves that CGS functions as a safe and comfortable space, which we are delighted about. However, we also realize that this may indicate that some students feel unsafe or uncomfortable in other spaces on campus. It is worrying that we are encountering more students who complain that CGS is the only place where they feel that they can talk about gender and sexuality issues. Such feedback reminds us of the many unresolved issues on campus, which CGS must continue to pressure the university to deal with.
Sadly, the campus environment is not yet minorities- and women-friendly. This manifests itself at times in clearly discriminatory behavior or expression, but more often as ignorant words casually expressed by friends or professors, which may not have had any harmful intention but cut deep. In order to change this situation in which students can only feel safe at CGS, we need to put more eff¬ort into awareness raising.
Another noteworthy point in the statistics of AY2014 is the increase in the number of enquiries from external sources. Since we published the first guidebook for LGBT students on campus in 2012, the number of enquiries into the way ICU deals with and supports LGBT students has shot up. There are enquiries from media outlets and local municipal offices. The majority of the enquiries are, however, from educational institutions such as high schools and other universities, which attests to the gradual rise in the visibility of LGBT students, whose existence has not been recognized until now. ICU in this case has drawn attention as "a leading model," but there is still much that remains to be done.
Currently, CGS functions as an office to deal with issues related to gender and sexuality, but this does not directly result in the university as a whole becoming more aware of these issues. There are many more challenges ahead for CGS to tackle in order to realize a campus where everyone's rights and dignity are cherished. Thank you for your continuing support and guidance. We appreciate you all very much.