Rosanna Steele, the incoming LGBQ+ Officer for 2025/26, shares her experience of activism. You can find out more about Rosanna's plans for her time as the LGBQ+ Officer here.
What motivates people to do activism?
The question of what motivates people to fight for a specific community or cause hinges on the question of why anyone is motivated to fight for anything.
I am a philosophy student, so to answer this question, I decided to turn to David Hume.
Hume was a Scottish philosopher who became famous for pioneering the moral theory of sentimentalism. Central to his philosophy is the idea that reason alone (which can be understood as empirical facts) are not sufficient to motivate us.
This may seem a bit strange. For instance, if someone told me that there is cake in the room next door, I may feel like this is enough motivation for me to go to that room. But Hume would say that there is nothing motivating in facts alone. Hume thinks instead that we are motivated by passions, that is, emotions and feelings. This means not only do you need to know the fact that there is cake next door, but Hume also thinks it is necessary for you to have the desire for the cake to be motivated to go to the room.
This seems to fit with my understanding of what motivates people to engage in activism.
When someone sees statistics like over half of the LGBTQ+ community will experience clinical depression this year or the average life expectancy for a black trans women is 35, I don’t believe they are motivated to act based on any property in the numbers themselves. Action comes instead from the feelings of horror they get when they contemplate the lives behind these statistics. It is the emotion that motivates them, not the fact itself.
So which emotions specifically motivate activism?
It’s interesting when you ask people why they fight, people in the army for instance, they do not often suggest they are fighting for an ideology or even for their country. People tend to say they are fighting for each other: their friends, family and community.
I believe that what motivates people to fight for communities is largely love. Love is an immensely powerful emotion.
I believe that what motivates people to fight for communities is largely love.
In my case, it is ultimately my love for my sister which makes me passionate about trans rights. This motivates me because it hurts quite profoundly to see her and other incredibly brave and kind queer people not getting the support that they need.
Trans and queer people are targeted by inept court rulings. Healthcare for trans people effectively doesn’t exist on the NHS due to the extent of the waiting lists. Mental health services for gay people fail repeatedly to care for the LGBTQ+ community, are tragically underfunded, and in intense demand.
This whole situation is exacerbated as the LGBTQ+ community is the target for political scapegoating. This is impactful for me because politicians use the lives of my family and of my friends, causing them real suffering and putting them in the way of real harm for something as trivial as political scapegoating. Staying silent in this farce of injustice is simply not an option.
This pride month I suggest we should use our emotions to fight for a better world.
Using our emotions during Pride
I think if it is emotions that motivate us, they are incredibly important. It’s vital to note, Hume doesn’t just say passions are what motivate us, he says they are what ought to motivate us. Since the enlightenment, emotion in debate has often been demonized, particularly in educational environments.
I am not ashamed and nor do I think that we should be ashamed that our motivation comes from emotion. Not only do I think that we don’t really have a choice about this, but, emotions make us strong. They make us fight against injustice. This pride month I suggest we should use our emotions to fight for a better world.