Jaime Prada (they/them) is the current Trans and Non-Binary Liberation Officer at Edinburgh University Students’ Association. They are running to be the next LGBT+ Officer. The Student interviewed Jaime about their campaign.
Why are you running to be the next LGBT+ Officer?
I am running to be the LGBT+ Liberation Officer because I believe our community needs to claim our space and celebrate our culture. We are strong. We are powerful. For the longest time, queer students have been tokenised and overlooked in academic settings. We often have not been invited to conversations behind closed doors regarding our wellbeing. I am here to defend that we are an integral part of this university. Our culture is beautiful, and I want to ensure everyone on campus celebrates it.
How is campaigning going so far?
This time around, I am so happy to interact with everyone on campus face to face. The support I have received since I announced my campaign is honestly heartwarming, and I cannot appreciate every person supporting me enough. Moreover, I am so delighted to see more and more queer students standing for office! Queer representation across all roles is something to celebrate, and I am so happy to put my grain of salt into this movement.
On a campaign post, you wrote that you’re particularly excited about ensuring ace representation. What do you have in mind for implementing this?
As a demisexual person, I want to ensure that every asexual person feels embraced in our community. There is so much misinformation about asexual experiences, and I want to ensure that our stories are adequately represented on campus. I want to create breathing spaces for members of our community to come together and discuss matters that are important to us and then create or update existing policies informed by those discussions to protect our needs accurately.
Do you have any collaboration plans with other liberation officers for LGBT+ students with intersecting identities?
Intersectionality is at the core of our roles as liberation officers. We all understand and live marginalisation differently, and we can all learn from our collaboration with other minorities. I am a genderqueer, neurodiverse, Spanish Traveller. I am so proud of who I am. I am so proud of every community I represent. But I also know that there are limits to my experience and ensuring that I provide a platform for sharing other stories is extremely important to me.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
I want to personally thank everyone for supporting queer candidates in these elections. One of the reasons I decided to run for LGBT+ liberation officer was to allow other trans students to take over my current role as Trans and Non-Binary Officer and increase the number of trans representatives elected to office. Witnessing the support we have gotten during this campaign has inspired me to give my all, and I cannot wait to put all this energy into good use as your LGBT+ liberation officer!
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Image Courtesy of Jaime Prada