I meet Hesham Mashhour about half an hour after a referendum by CUSU LGBT+ fails to remove him from his position as co-Editor of Get Real. magazine. The victory is marginal, and feelings surrounding the referendum have been emotional, but Hesham is no stranger to controversies in student politics of this kind.

I start though in more peaceable times, beginning with last summer when Hesham founded the magazine. It took the place of CUSU LGBT+'s previous publication, 'No Definition', but he insists Get Real. was “not originally intended to replace" it. It went “scarily quickly”, Hesham recalls, from being just a niche magazine to “having controversies just about every week”. Readership rocketed, and the team expanded from 4 to 14 people over the autumn. I ask what the original aims of the magazine were, and he replies that they are now still what they have always been, “[to give a] platform to LGBT+ people of all opinions”.

This seems a good point at which to bring up one of the allegations brought against Hesham's editorship of Get Real., namely that he was “alienating many LGBT+ people – often those from groups within the LGBT+ umbrella whose voices are least heard already” and “provid[ing] a platform for views which contribute to the marginalisation of certain groups”, in other words not fulfilling the aims of the magazine. “I refuse to address the letter” he states, calling it “ridiculous” and repeating several times that he has never turned down an article. “They say I've.... not addressed those that are most marginalised, but look at our website and you'll find that we represent every segment of LGBT people.”

Controversies surrounding Get Real. first hit the student press in a big way with the publication of Hesham's article, 'Feminism's Duty to Gay Men', and the piece in response to it published on Gender Agenda, 'Actually, Nah, Feminism Isn't About You At All'. In the original piece a number of issues surrounding homophobia and feminism are discussed, but Hesham says, “my point was that it would be far more easy for gay men to fight homophobia if it was under the guise of feminism”. The response argued, amongst other things, that his article had factual inaccuracies, omitted mention of misogyny and queer women and was being deliberately controversial.

I ask Hesham if he still stands by the arguments made in his article. “I stand by them fully”, he repeats a number of times, conceding that he “respects the fact that a lot of people disagree with that”. I mention some of the particulars of the critique of his article, and he tells me, “there were two things on the Gender Agenda piece that I didn't particularly like”. The first was that it was “not arguing with my piece rather arguing against me...saying I'm a horrible person therefore all my arguments must be wrong”, and the second that they “kept on misspelling my surname- it has two 'H's!”. “I have a lot of opinions”, he continues, “and I realise that a lot of them will be right and a lot of them will be wrong”. Moreover, he asserts that no one still has explained to him why he was wrong about some of the points made.

I point out that his editorship of an LGBT+ magazine may not sit well with having and publishing controversial opinions. He says he's tried very hard to separate these two; “my opinion is worth just as much about anyone else's”, but he “always has published opinions that [he doesn't] agree with”. His Twitter handle, and publications for student papers, are under his name, not that of the editor of Get Real., and yet, “I know if I publish anything tomorrow I'll be attacked... I know I'll be attacked for this!”.

We move on to the recent referendum, and the process that brought it about. I ask what, if anything, concerns him about the way that it was handled. He says he has “a lot of problems” with it.

Accepting the right to hold the referendum, and the democratic principles behind it, he still yet implies that some tact was required. “If 30 people are not happy with how I'm doing stuff, it's common decency to drop me a line, even if it's anonymous.” Slightly embarrassed, he confesses that he sees Get Real. as being his child, “more or less”, and thus is “not even happy about the fact that I've won because I'm not happy about the controversy that now surrounds Get Real. I'm not happy about the fact that nothing's been published for the last week because of this”. The whole referendum, he asserts, “was completely unnecessary”. He reminds me that his term ended in Michaelmas, thus was going to leave anyway. “If you were so unhappy about me staying then if you'd just waited a couple more weeks I would have been off”. He concludes that he sees the letter and referendum not as “wanting to get rid of someone that was unsafe” but “more an act of humiliation”.

In terms of the process, he admits feeling uncomfortable that the Chair of CUSU LGBT+ was the returning officer, and that decisions about how to handle the referendum were made by the committee, if many of them had signed the letter. It should be noted however, that CUSU committee members are not allowed to sign such petitions and did not in this instance. I ask if he accepts the decision to keep the names attached to the letter anonymous, and although he does he says he would “have like to have known who it was”. “I'm not going to go after them,” he jokes, “but would have liked to know where it was coming from”, though admits to having his suspicions.

So what now for Hesham? “If I'd lost it would have been very easy” he tells me. “I would have left”. But that was not the way the referendum turned out. He considered resigning if he didn't win a majority of 50%, which he did not, as it happened. Instead of this, though, he tells me “that I will not be resigning, mainly because I was campaigning for the last few days, asking people to go out of their way to vote for me... I would make their votes worthless if I decided to resign now.” Next year, he intends on continuing his plans for a new, “right of centre”, magazine, Blue Specs.

Hesham, and it seems many people in the LGBT+ and wider communities, have seen this issue as one of freedom of speech but also of welfare. Hesham himself tells me that his own welfare was certainly compromised during the proceedings around the referendum. In a statement on Facebook and to Varsity, the second co-Editor of Get Real., Em Travis, commented on the week's events: “Nobody's free speech, not even anyone's platform, would have been removed from them by removing Hesham as an officer. If there is an issue of free speech, it's the free speech of the 30+ people who signed a statement saying they felt personally unsafe. It's about the welfare of a large proportion of LGBT+ students who felt scared to speak out.”

Both Hesham and Em seem to agree on the bad publicity this has brought both Get Real. and CUSU LGBT+, with Em further commenting: “I hope Hesham's behaviour and this whole debâcle don't reflect badly on the other members of the team, who are in general lovely and great to work with”, though Hesham admits to having “lost faith” with CUSU LGBT+ and CUSU generally. Whatever conclusions are drawn about the personalities and events of this week, it seems that the way in which student political debate is conducted at Cambridge will inevitably have to be considered.

@speed_margot

*This article has been amended, the Chair of CUSU LGBT+ was the Returning Officer, not the President.