It has taken me until today to fully grasp the meaning of Charlton’s age-old adage, “nothing about us without us”. Since the end of the last millennium, disability and later other oppressed minority groups have demanded a place at the …

In support of the blind leading the blindfolded Read more »

Some of our greatest thinkers and authors have been LGBTQ+. They have offered refreshingly different perspectives on everyday life and many wrote stories and essays that shared their intersectional lived experience as LGBTQ+ women and or people of the global …

Taking pride in LGBTQ+ authors Read more »

Today, we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings that marked the beginning of the end for the Nazi regime and the turning point of the Second World War, LGBTQ+ Pride Month celebrating sexual and gender diversity around the world, and Gypsy, Roma, Traveller History Month celebrating the rich cultural diversity and history of this marginalised community.

D-Day was the start of the overthrow of the Nazi killing machine. The D-Day invasion represented a major turning point in the Allied battle against the Nazis that had systematically isolated and exterminated millions in an attempt to purge Nazi occupied territories of Jews, Roma, the disabled, LGBTQ+ people and other marginalised groups by forces including many LGBTQ+ people who were forced to conceal their sexual orientation from their own comrades.

Lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex and asexual and other sexually and gender diverse people people have survived persecution and having their identities criminalised throughout history and continue to experience prejudice and discrimination around the world. Many LGBTQ+ people also experience intersectional oppression as a result of also their neurodivergent, PGM, and have other oppressed and other marginalised identities. This post begins to explore how you can help make the world a better place for everyone, including LGBTQ+ people.

We all share a need to deliver a future world that the Earth can continue to sustain and that future generations will inherit. The choices we make now will have a long-lasting impact on future generations. The impact of climate change is now undeniable and felt by everyone. It will also be felt particularly heavily by those children and young people who have done little or nothing to contribute to the climate crisis, yet will bear the full force of climate change impacts. Environmental conservation and sustainability are intrinsically linked with social justice and equality, with the most egalitarian societies enjoying the lowest pollution levels and best health.

Are you a PGM student? The Library and UPSU would love to hear from you. As part of the Lasting Change initiative, we’re committed to improving the experience of all our PGM students. You can make a massive difference to this by taking part in an upcoming PGM student focus group and telling us your lived experiences. As a thank you for taking part, UPSU are offering a number of £25 vouchers for those taking part.

With more elections coming up and racial inequality still rife in the UK and worldwide, this begs the question of what can be done to create a fairer society. We have resources that directly address these social issues, from checklists and bite-sized explorations of white privilege to reports recommending authoritative evidence-based interventions. Here are some highly readable resources to help you explore the causes and counters to racial injustice in the UK.

We are always looking for new ways to make learning more fun and interesting. To that end, one of our resident sci-fi enthusiasts has pulled together a reading list of science fiction books we have in stock that were all written by People of the Global Majority.