Section 28

On 23 May 1988, four lesbians, including Booan Temple, burst into a BBC news studio during a live broadcast and called out: “Stop Section 28!” The protest was against the new anti-gay law, Section 28, that was about to go into effect at midnight and had received little if any critical news coverage. The news readers were Sue Lawley and Nicholas Witchell, who restrained one of the protestors.

Twenty thousand Mancunians took to the city streets to march against it. Ian McKellen came out as gay to fight it. It inspired songs by Boy George and Chumbawamba, and an apology from David Cameron. You would be hard pressed to find a recent British law more controversial and more reviled than Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.

Pushed by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, Section 28 sought to prohibit the “promotion” or “acceptability” of homosexuality in local authorities and schools. At a time when gay people were struggling to cope with the Aids epidemic, it was a callous attempt to suppress an already marginalised group.

While the four women were arrested, they were never charged, likely due to the BBC not wanting to give the protest any further attention.

The protest inspired many LGBT+ people, especially younger folk, to keep up the fight. The law would be in place until 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales.

Toilets

Following the recent UK Supreme Court decision, many trans people have said the ruling could now make it dangerous for trans people to use bathrooms and public spaces. On the other side of things, people have used the opportunity to stress that trans people are not welcome in such public spaces.

To address this, trans advocacy organisation TransActual UK recently unveiled an eye-catching installation outside the UK Supreme Court: a “third toilet”.

The installation is a direct response to comments made by Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who suggested that trans rights groups should push for a separate “third space”.

The toilet – placed prominently outside the UK’s highest court – reflects the exposure, isolation and risk trans people face when excluded from public life and legal recognition. It also aims to challenge the notion that safety and dignity can be optional.

Olivia Campbell Cavendish, a Founder & Executive Director of the Trans Legal Clinic, said: “We need to move the conversation on from ridiculous things like bathrooms and onto the things that matter. And that is the safety of trans people everywhere.”

Camila Gurgel and Ieva Paulina, Associate Creative Directors at advertising company BBH London, who was part of the installation, added: “We can’t call it a victory when so much has been lost. The trans community was left out of a decision that directly impacted their lives. So we set out to create something that will help their voices be heard and their demands recognised. Our hope is that the “third toilet” installation sparks awareness, conversation, solidarity and inspires more people to stand with the trans community.”

Queer Treasures at Manchester Central Library

‘The Invert’ by Anomaly (1927)

(This is the seventh in a series of articles about queer treasures that are currently found in the Archives held at Manchester Central Library.)

‘Invert’, is a word that was popularly used in the late 19^th and the early-to-mid-20^th centuries to refer to homosexuals, in this case the work deals entirely with male homosexuals. Its rarity lies in the fact that the unnamed author, behind the pseudonym of ‘Anomaly’, claims himself to be an invert. When we look at this book more closely though the word ‘treasure’ might not be the first one that springs to mind. The writer is clearly earnest in his endeavour to explain the ‘invert’ to his early readers. But to modern eyes the book is a specious, self-denigrating and wholly unhelpful work, if not a downright dangerous one, that uncritically reinforces archaic sexual stereotypes and fosters the self-oppression of its subjects.

The book was widely circulated when it first appeared in 1927. Numerous contemporary reviews of the book were published across the UK and USA, and it was even featured in the Indian Medical Gazette of May 1928. By and large it was well received by reviewers, which serves to explain why it became so influential.

The writer did attract some criticism for being ‘very inadequately informed on the scientific subject’, by at least one reviewer, but, nonetheless, the author also had the reviewer’s ‘cordial good wishes’ for the book (1*). Anomaly’s work though had already garnered some protection against would-be ‘scientific’ critics, as it was issued with a special Introduction written by R H Thouless, MA, PhD, a, then, well-respected English psychiatrist (who lectured at both Glasgow and Manchester Universities).

Thouless gave Anomaly’s confessions a medical seal of approval, albeit from Thouless’s own ideological ivory tower. The psychiatrist showed a distinct distain for the advances in sexological knowledge made on the Continent, mainly by German researchers, whose works had challenged scientific orthodoxy and showed the way for ‘inverts’ to free themselves from medical straightjacketing. Thouless specifically takes a swipe at Ulrich’s use of the term ‘Urning’ to refer to gay men –

There are many books on inversion written from a medical and scientific point of view. There are other works which sentimentally glorify the condition of inversion. These use the term “Urning” for the invert, implying that his love belongs to heaven rather than to earth. Such terminology has clearly no better right to scientific consideration than the “moral degenerate” of popular prejudice. (pxi)

A special reissue of the work in 1948 showed its longevity, and in a ‘Sequel’ added to that edition the unnamed author records the worldwide influence his work had generated.

Don’ts !!!

Perhaps the overall tenor of the work can best be demonstrated by Anomaly’s request to those who counsel inverts, to pass on his advice to those young men who have just become aware of their ‘condition’. The advice, which he refers to as ‘the fruits of practical experience’ (p135), counsels the following –

• Don’t commit to writing any admissions as to your inclinations:      
• don’t masquerade – on any occasion whatsoever – in women’s clothes, take female parts in theatrical performances, or use make-up;
• don’t be too meticulous in the matter of your clothes, or effect extremes in colour or cut;
• don’t wear conspicuous rings, watches, cuff-links, or other jewellery;
• don’t allow your voice or intonation to display feminine inflection – cultivate a masculine tone and method of expression;
• don’t stand with your hand on your hip, or walk mincingly;
• don’t become identified with the group of inverts which form in every city;
• don’t let it be noticed that you are bored by female society;
• don’t persuade yourself into believing that love is the same thing as friendship;
• don’t become involved in marked intimacies with men who are not of your own age or set;
• don’t let your enthusiasm for particular male friends make you conspicuous in their eyes, or in the eyes of society;
• don’t occupy yourself with work or pastimes which are distinctly feminine;
• don’t, under any circumstances, compromise yourself by word or action with strangers (p135/6).

Anomaly’s insistence on rigid self-policing and self-denial was commented on with concern in a contemporary review in ‘New Blackfriars’ (2*), a Roman Catholic journal. The unnamed reviewer asked, ‘… is it not possible that Anomaly somewhat exaggerates the importance of the advice he gives about camouflage and protective colouring?’  and warns that –

If every innocent outlet is to be denied, if every natural self-expression in speech, gesture, dress and the rest must be checked, the results may be disastrous and the last state worse than the first. The effort would prove too much for most human beings, and prepare the way for possible explosions (p2).

Do’s !

Anomaly’s advice for what an invert should do however, is given succinctly –

Positive advice may be summarised as follows: Hold frank conversations with suitable persons, thereby avoiding mental repression; encourage every symptom of sexual normalisation; cultivate self-esteem; become deeply engrossed in a congenial occupation or hobby; observe discretion and practise self-restraint (p137)

In short, sublimate all your forbidden desires and do anything except accept yourself as you are. ‘Suitable persons’ to confide in are not easily to be found as the writer especially warns others like him to avoid ‘the group of inverts which form in every city’ (including, no doubt, that Out in the City lot?) and gives no direction as to where one might look. Is it any wonder then that so many gay men experienced isolation for much of their lives and were profoundly afraid of coming out or of being outed, if this work were their only source of knowledge on the subject. The author clearly speaks with sincerity, but his work is comprised by his own self-repression and by his acceptance of being defined by others, in this instance, by a reactionary medical scientific establishment.

Reading the work the impression is given that the invert’s life will inevitably be lonely and miserable and the author rejects any suggestion that two inverts may live happily together as ‘impracticable’, decrying the romantic ‘happy solution of “love in a cottage”’ (p99).

Having witnessed numerous attempts, on the part of well-intentioned inverts, to find happiness in an attachment the sacred permanence of which was to be assured by a setting of approximate domesticity. I am forced, regretfully, to the conclusion that the idea is impracticable (p99).

Heaven only knows how many lives were curtailed and profoundly impoverished by the reading of this book. Those yearning to find others like themselves were counselled to avoid close friendships lest their secret sexual inversion become evident and their life and those of their family and friends be open to the deepest suspicions. Inverts were advised that their lives would be lonely and that the prospect of finding a long-term partner was unachievable.

Come Out Of The Closet?

Having counselled a life of public non-existence, in Anomaly’s later work, Sequel, which was added to the 1948 second edition of the book, the writer urged older gay men to, effectively, ‘Come out’!

I am come to the conclusion that invert men who have nearly rounded out the period of their terrestrial usefulness and have escaped criminal prosecution, have a chance to die real heroes. … I suggest that ordinary invert men, of social probity and usefulness, dedicate, and even sacrifice, their reputations in their more or less harmless penultimate years to the discreet communication to as many decent people as possible of the truth about inversion. Something like a blood-bank, or the willing of one’s eyes to the blind! (p245/6)

Much of this book is risible to us today, the wording is pompous and laboured, and its advice would prove catastrophic to younger readers and/or to those who are struggling to come to terms with self-acceptance. Nonetheless, its value to a queer historian is not insignificant, for the work effectively catalogues the ideological oppressions of gay men primarily in the Anglo-Saxon world in the earlier half of the 20^th century and beyond. It was a world where the advances in sexology on the Continent (by Ulrichs, Hirschfeld, Krafft-Ebing etc) were arrogantly dismissed and one where the notion that inversion was a cross to be nobly, and singly, borne to the grave is given prominence.

•  The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, London Vol 8 (Jan 1^st 1927) 431

•  New Blackfriars, London, 1927 Vol 8 (90) p579-588

© Arthur Martland 2025

Pride Season Has Started!

Pride on The Range (Whalley Range – Saturday, 24 May)

Bolton Pride (Saturday, 24 May)

Coming Up:

Stockport – Sunday, 1 June

Bury – Saturday, 7 June

Salford Pink Picnic – Saturday, 21 June

Rochdale – Sunday, 22 June

Sparkle – Friday, 27 June to Sunday, 29 June

Birthdays

The John Rylands Library

The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a late-Victorian neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her husband, John Rylands.

Out in the City members visited the Library as it is celebrating its 125th anniversary. The Library is ranked second in the UK for its special collections.

Gutenberg Bible

We attribute the invention of printing with movable type in Europe to Johann Gutenberg in the early 1450s. This technological revolution was based on pieces of metal type, produced from moulds, which could be used repeatedly to print multiple texts. This copy was purchased by Earl Spencer in 1790. It was previously owned by a monastery in Colmar, north-eastern France.

Gifts for the Queen

Some of the archival documents are associated with major figures in history, including royalty. Elizabeth I signed her name on this list of gifts she received and gave at New Year 1559. The long parchment roll names over one thousand people, about a third are women. The first in the list was the Duchess of Suffolk. She gave the Queen an embroidered cushion and a velvet-bound book with silver clasps.

The First Folio

One of the most famous books ever produced. Shakespeare’s friends John Heminge and Henry Condell immortalised his dramatic output in a single luxury volume., seven years after he died. The title page has one of the very few portraits of Shakespeare that is considered authentic. It was approved by those who knew him well.

Early fragment of John’s Gospel

This small piece of papyrus contains incomplete lines from the Gospel of John. Written in Greek, the original language of the Gospel, it is important evidence of early Christianity in Egypt. The scholar Bernard P Grenfell sold the fragment to the Rylands in 1920 in a batch of unidentified papyri. Because he bought it from an Egyptian dealer, we don’t know where the fragment was found.

Illuminated Hebrew Bible This Jewish Bible from late medieval Spain was an early manuscript purchase. Rylands bought it in June 1892. It is written on animal skin and contains beautiful French and Italian style decorations. The first word of each Bible book is highlighted in gold. The manuscript had travelled to Greece and Amsterdam before coming to Manchester.

However, the current exhibition celebrates LGBTQ pop and its wider influence. 

The Secret Public: LGBTQ Pop 1955 – 1985

The landmark exhibition examines the profound influence of LGBTQ performers, artists and activists on mainstream pop culture. Based on Jon Savage’s book The Secret Public – How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture 1955 – 1979 this new exhibition presents key pieces from the extensive archive collected by the author and University of Manchester Professor of Popular Culture, which is now part of the Library’s British Pop Archive.  

The exhibition takes a thematic and chronological journey through posters, magazines, books, promotional photographs and record sleeves, tracing the extraordinary contribution LGBTQ performers have made throughout those years, enhanced by audio and video providing an evocative soundtrack to this story. 

Encounter pop and film stars from the 1950s and 60s like Little Richard and James Dean and learn about the queer managers and record producers behind the stars, such as Larry Parnes, Joe Meek and Brian Epstein.  

Female artists and the lesbian story is explored through materials on Norma Tanega, Lesley Gore and Dusty Springfield and in magazines such as The Ladder.  

A key moment in the exhibition is David Bowie’s frank 1972 admission that he was gay. Exhibition items then take visitors from the late 1970’s disco scene of Sylvester and Saturday Night Fever into the1980s when gay pop stars like Boy George and Marilyn were pushing creative aesthetic norms. 

LGBTQ pop was solidly positioned in the music press and the charts with an established large fan base, both straight and queer. For many LGBTQ people during these decades, ‘pop’ was one of the few places where they might see their lives represented and reflected or even envisage an idea of how their world could be in a more tolerant, accepting future.

For more photos see here.

Stanley Baxter: Happy 99^th Birthday!

Stanley Livingstone Baxter is a retired Scottish actor, comedian, impressionist and author. Baxter began his career as a child actor on BBC Scotland and later became known for his British television comedy shows The Stanley Baxter Show, The Stanley Baxter Picture Show, The Stanley Baxter Series and Mr Majeika.

Baxter was brought up in the West End of Glasgow, in a tenement. He lived there from the age of five until he married actress Moira Robertson at 26 years of age. He later lived in Highgate, North London. He was married for 46 years until his wife’s death of an overdose in 1997. He was overseas at the time.

In August 2020 at the age of 94, Baxter came out as gay, following the release of his authorised biography. His biography described how Baxter had told Moira that he was gay before they married, with Baxter having sought to end their relationship as a result, but that she had threatened suicide, causing him to relent. Moira accepted that he was gay and allowed him to bring men home for sex, despite homosexual acts being illegal until the passing of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, 16 years after their marriage. Five years before then, Baxter had been arrested for cottaging and contemplated suicide for fear of scandal causing an end to his career. The soliciting charges were subsequently dropped.

Baxter sought to maintain the secrecy around his sexual orientation, with his biography describing how he had taken legal action over the posthumous publication of Kenneth Williams’ diaries after Williams, a long-time friend, died in 1988. In his biography, Baxter describes his discomfort with his homosexuality: “Anybody would be insane to choose to live such a very difficult life. There are many gay people these days who are fairly comfortable with their sexuality, fairly happy with who they are. I’m not. I never wanted to be gay. I still don’t.”

I remember watching the “Stanley Baxter Show” as a teenager and found his comedy specials hilarious. Let’s hope he enjoys his 99^th birthday on 24 May 2025.

Pride on The Range

It’s Whalley Range Pride this weekend. See the itinerary below.

Come and show off your dazzling dogs at the Divine Dog Show!

Meet Mark at the dog show stand for sign up, treats, poo-bags and water dishes. The show starts at 3.10 with a doggy runway and judging will be around 3.40!

There arer 3 categories including:

• Campest walk
• Best dressed
• Practically perfect pooch.

There are rosettes to be won for each category and an overall winner for King or Queen of Pride.

Birthdays

Detention at The Lowry

Detention is the third and final part of a trilogy of dance theatre works following the multi award winning Coal and critically acclaimed Wasteland.

What unites this trilogy is 1980s Britain, a time when we were governed by Margaret Thatcher and how different marginalised communities fought for their human rights, their livelihoods and their existence.

Detention features violence, shame, isolation and suicide, but also incredible solidarity, community, heroism, activism, unlikely allies, protest and truly remarkable individuals and organisations of the time.

It’s a political, urgent, angry call to action and an attempt to honour a past that shaped our resilient and courageous community forever.

Frank Kameny

Franklin Edward Kameny (21 May 1925 – 11 October 2011) was an American gay rights activist. He would have been 100 years old on 21 May.

During the Lavender scare, in 1957, Kameny was dismissed from his position as an astronomer in the US Army’s Map Service in Washington DC, because of his homosexuality. This led him to begin a struggle with the American establishment that would spearhead a new period of militancy in the homosexual rights movement of the early 1960s.

Kameny formally appealed his firing by the US Civil Service Commission. Although unsuccessful, the proceeding was notable as the first known civil rights claim based on sexual orientation pursued in a US court.

Kameny organised the first demonstration by a homophile organisation. The 10-person protest took place outside the white house. Signs included the organisation’s demands: “WE WANT FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT, HONORABLE DISCHARGES, SECURITY CLEARANCES.” Kameny had strict standards for those participating. His requirements for picketers included men wearing suits and women wearing dresses, each sign measuring twenty-two by twenty-eight inches, and the message on the sign being the same on both sides. These efforts contributed to portraying a nonviolent and respectful protest.

Kameny coined the phrase “GAY IS GOOD,” in the 1960s to inspire pride and challenge societal prejudice.  He was one of the most significant figures in the American gay rights movement.

Global LGBT+ rights crackdown overshadows this year’s IDAHOBIT

Activists around the world marked the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia against the backdrop of efforts to curtail LGBT+ rights that are gaining traction in the US, UK and elsewhere.

The Trump-Vance administration since it took office in January has issued a number of executive orders that have specifically targeted transgender and nonbinary people.

ILGA-Europe (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) released its annual update to its Rainbow Map, which documents LGBT+ rights in European countries.

The UK has dropped to its lowest position ever (22nd) on the ILGA Europe ranking of the best and worst places to be LGBTQ+ in Europe.

Ten years ago, it ranked in first place. Here’s how the UK fared over the last 12 years.

The ILGA-Europe press release notes Hungary’s “prohibition of Pride events and criminalisation of participants” and the UK Supreme Court ruling last month that restricts “the legal recognition of trans people.” The European advocacy group also highlighted a “sweeping ban on all forms of LGBTI representation and assembly” that Georgian lawmakers passed last year.

“They are merely the most striking examples of a broader trend in which LGBTI human rights are being systematically dismantled under the guise of preserving public order,” said ILGA-Europe. “In reality, such measures pave the way for sweeping restrictions on fundamental freedoms, including the rights to protest and to political dissent.”

Argentine President Javier Milei in February issued a decree that restricts minors’ access to gender-affirming surgeries and hormone treatments. An appeals court in Trinidad and Tobago in March recriminalised consensual same-sex sexual relations in the Caribbean country.

The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to suspend most foreign aid has forced several LGBT+ rights groups and HIV/AIDS service organisations in South Africa, Kenya, and other African countries that received US funding to curtail operations or shut down. Lawmakers in Vanuatu are considering an amendment to the country’s constitution that would recognise only two sexes: male and female.

IDAHOBIT commemorates the World Health Organisation’s declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder on 17 May 1990.

This year’s IDAHOBiT theme was “the power of communities.” We are stronger together.

Our government must reverse, not further, this shocking decline in LGBT+ rights.

Man raged at NatWest bank over its Pride flag

When a client of the NatWest bank saw Pride flags at a local branch, he said the flags caused him emotional distress because of his disabilities and religious beliefs. He asked the bank to remove the decorations. The bank told him that the services he needed that day could have been completed online without visiting the branch in person.

The man, identified only as “Mr J,” complained last year after seeing the rainbow-coloured decorations in the bank. Apparently dissatisfied with the bank’s response compelled him to escalate the matter.

He complained to the Financial Ombudsman Service, a national group that settles complaints between consumers and financial services businesses. The man said that the decorations and the bank’s refusal to remove them violated his rights under the Equality Act 2010, a law which forbids discrimination based on personal characteristics.

The ombudsman decided in favour of the bank.

In her judgement, ombudsman Danielle Padden wrote, “NatWest is a bank that has chosen to display Pride materials along with other paraphernalia at certain times of the year. As a service, we wouldn’t be able to tell them not to do that, as they are entitled to celebrate and raise awareness to the communities they service.”

Padden said that, if the physical branch caused him so much discomfort, that the man could try “alternative methods of banking,” such as online banking, ATMs or the post office.

When the man said he needed to visit the bank in-person, Padden said he could legally appoint a third party representative to handle his bank business in a physical branch.

The bank’s website states, “We aim to continue to deliver a better LGBT+ colleague and customer experience through continuously challenging the status quo … We have worked hard to understand the issues our LGBT+ colleagues and customers face and engage with them regularly to demonstrate that NatWest Group is a welcoming place, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

This is a lesson for all bigots. Please leave LGBT+ people alone. To NatWest – thank you for flying the flag for the LGBT+ community.

Birthdays

Rewind My Selecta!

Alyson Malach has remixed our last blog. She has altered or contorted the articles from their original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the blog. For those old enough to recognise the analogy she has edited our 7 inch version to a new improved 12 inch extended remix. Thanks, Alyson!

Now Is the Time: Remembering, Resisting and Rising Together

Introduction: The Weight of Now

In 2025, we stand at a pivotal moment in the ongoing struggle for equality and dignity for all LGBTQ+ people. Around the world, rights once won are under threat, and in the UK, recent legal and political decisions are stirring urgent debate about identity, inclusion and the meaning of freedom.

This blog is a call to remembrance, reflection, and radical hope. Through powerful stories – from Holocaust Centre North to Gad Beck’s resistance, from Making Gay History to Pride in Trafford – we are reminded that queerness is not new. LGBTQ+ people have always existed, fought, survived, loved, and led.

But we also name today’s injustices. A recent UK Supreme Court ruling in April 2025 determined that “sex” in parts of the Equality Act 2010 should be interpreted only as biological sex – a judgment that, while legally limited in scope, is being misused in the public discourse to justify exclusion of trans people, especially trans women, from single-sex spaces. This ruling has emboldened anti-trans rhetoric in the press, schools, and even some public services.

Meanwhile, conversion practices remain legal in the UK, LGBTQ+ hate crimes are rising, and intersectional communities – especially LGBTQ+ people of colour, disabled queer people, and those of faith – are facing disproportionate levels of harm, poverty, and social exclusion.

In this climate, remembering queer history is not indulgent – it is resistance. Sharing inclusive stories is not optional – it is survival. And Pride is not a party – it is protest, joy, and radical self-affirmation.

Now Is the Time – A poem by Alyson Malach

Now is the time to lift the weight,
Of silence, judgement, fear and hate.
To speak the names we’ve pushed aside,
To hold a space, to turn the tide.

Now is the time to name what’s wrong,
To right the past, to make all strong.
To see each soul, each heart, each face,
And build a world of equal place.

Now is the time to change our speech,
To think, reflect, to learn, to teach.
To catch the slip, to shift the phrase,
And honour all in what we say.

Now is the time to share your truth,
To lead with hope, to teach the youth.
To pledge a way, to own your part,
And hold inclusion at the heart.

The Stories That Shape Us: Holocaust Centre North & Gad Beck

The Holocaust Centre North is home to the lived histories of Jewish survivors who rebuilt their lives in northern England. Their testimonies are vivid reminders of what happens when hatred is institutionalised, and people are dehumanised for being who they are.

Among those silenced by history are LGBTQ+ Holocaust victims – people like Gad Beck, a defiant gay teenager who led resistance efforts in Nazi Berlin and risked everything to rescue his Jewish lover. His courage was not only political, but it was also profoundly personal – a kind of love-led defiance we must still emulate today.

Making Gay History: Unearthing Queer Resistance

The podcast Making Gay History restores voices of LGBTQ+ individuals who resisted, survived, and saved others during the Nazi era. Trans woman Lucy Salani, lesbian resistance fighter Frieda Belinfante, and teenage lover Stefan Kosinski each remind us that queerness and resistance have always walked hand-in-hand.

These histories challenge the erasure of LGBTQ+ identities from narratives of war, bravery, and victimhood.

Pride in Trafford: Celebration as a Form of Resistance

The Pride in Trafford festival showcases the dynamism of queer arts and community. With cabaret, neurodiverse performers, drag workshops, and LGBTQ+ youth events, it carves out joyful, reflective, and creative spaces for everyone.

This matters, especially when young queer people are facing rising mental health needs, bullying, and cuts to LGBTQ+ youth services.

UK LGBTQ+ Issues in 2025: Progress Undermined

Supreme Court Ruling on Sex and Gender (April 2025):
While legally focused on specific exemptions in the Equality Act, this ruling has been weaponised to challenge trans inclusion in sport, education, and healthcare. Some schools have removed inclusive language policies or restricted trans students’ access to toilets and pronoun use.

Hate Crime and Fear:
LGBTQ+ hate crimes in England and Wales increased by over 150% between 2014 and 2023, with transphobic abuse seeing some of the sharpest rises. The absence of robust government strategy has left communities feeling unsafe and unsupported.

Conversion Practices Still Legal:
Despite years of campaigning, the UK still has not passed a full ban on conversion therapy. This disproportionately harms young queer people, particularly those from religious backgrounds or ethnically diverse families.

Media Hostility and Misinformation:
Public discourse has grown increasingly hostile, with trans people, especially trans women, being vilified in mainstream press. This drives isolation, anxiety, and policy regression.

Intersectionality: When LGBTQ+ Identity Meets Race, Religion, Disability and More

The impact of these issues is not equal.

Black and racially minoritised LGBTQ+ people often face racism within queer spaces and queerphobia in their racial communities.
Muslim and Christian LGBTQ+ individuals are frequently caught in cultural and theological tensions – their existence treated as a contradiction.
Disabled LGBTQ+ people face inaccessible events, support services, and often invisibility in LGBTQ+ representation.
LGBTQ+ asylum seekers are at risk of deportation to hostile countries, while facing dehumanising treatment in UK detention centres.

Key message: Queer liberation cannot be achieved without racial, religious, disability and migrant justice too.

Action: Use an intersectional lens in your EDI work, network events and Pride planning. Invite people with layered identities to speak and lead. Ensure accessibility, safety, and relevance for all.

Share and Amplify: How to Use This Blog

Share with your networks:

• Include in Pride Month or Holocaust Memorial Day communications
• Post in LGBTQ+ staff network groups and diversity newsletters
• Use in schools and universities as a learning resource

Use in practice:

• Pair Gad Beck’s story with a discussion on allyship and courage
• Use the full poem in team meetings, classrooms, or leadership forums
• Host a Making Gay History listening circle followed by a reflective session

Pledge your part:
In your workplace, classroom, community group – ask, what can we do differently so that everyone is included, seen, and safe?

Final Word: The Time is Now

We inherit the legacy of those who fought, danced, resisted and loved in the shadows. Today, we rise in their memory, with boldness, intersectionality, and joy.

Not tomorrow.
Not after another headline.
Not when it’s safe.
Now. Is. The. Time.

Gender policing does not ‘protect’ butch women and lesbians – it actively punishes them

Article by Sophie Perry

When the Supreme Court issued its 88-page long judgement that the legal definition of ‘sex’ is based on ‘biology’, gender critical lobbying group and controversially registered charity LGB Alliance declared it was a “landmark for lesbian rights in the UK”. 

“This matters greatly to LGB people,” CEO Kate Barker said of the ruling. “It is especially important to lesbians, because the definition of lesbian is directly linked to the definition of woman.” 

Barker – who once claimed a singular drag queen carrying the Olympic torch demonstrated the “erasure of woman in all spheres of public life” – went on to say the ruling “marks a watershed for women and, in particular, lesbians who have seen their rights and identities undermined over the last decade.”

Despite Supreme Court judge Lord Hodge specifically counselling against certain factions “reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another,” gender critical activists view the outcome of the Supreme Court case as a decisive victory for all women over so-called ‘gender ideology’. 

However, in the days and weeks that have followed the Supreme Court ruling, it has quickly become clear that many women who are not trans will likely be disadvantaged by the court’s decision because they do not fit into narrow, often white and western, definitions of what constitutes as ‘woman’. 

Sparked by a trans-inclusive definition of womanhood in Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 – which sought to diversify the number of women on public boards in the devolved nation – the Supreme Court decision was the culmination of a years-long legal battle between gender critical Scottish group For Women Scotland (FWS) and the Scottish government about how the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ is defined and applied in the 2010 Equality Act. 

After traversing many different appeal processes, the case finally ended at the UK’s highest court and concluded the definition does not include trans people. 

“The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex,” Lord Hodge said in his oral reading of the ruling. 

The decision is expected to have wide-ranging implications for the trans community, as well as organisations, public bodies and services who may be forced to update their policies on single-sex spaces, inclusion and discrimination. Some, including the Football Association and the England and Wales Cricket Board, have already taken steps to bar trans women from taking part in female matches. 

In the wake of the ruling, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – the UK’s equalities watchdog – issued interim guidance which said single-sex spaces must be based on biology whereby a trans woman must not be allowed to use a female toilet and a trans man not allowed to use a male one. However, the guidance also adds that, in “some circumstances,” trans women should also be banned from the men’s facilities and trans men from women’s facilities.

When asked to clarify this point by the BBC, the EHRC directed the broadcaster to a section of the Supreme Court ruling which states trans men could be excluded from women’s facilities “where reasonable objection is taken to their presence, for example because the gender reassignment process has given them a masculine appearance or attributes to which reasonable objection might be taken” in the context of a female-only space, such as a toilet. 

In essence, when a trans man looks, well, too much like a man (because he is one) or when a trans woman looks, well, too much like a woman (because she is one), they can be totally excluded from gendered spaces and be forced to only use a unisex facility – assuming one is available.

If the circumstances which would see trans men – who are defined by the court ruling as ‘biologically female’ – banned from female toilets is all about ‘masculine appearance’, then where does this leave masculine, cis women? 

Whilst the Supreme Court case is supposedly about ‘protecting’ the interests of all women, this exception – in itself – shows there is only interest in protecting certain kinds of women. Namely, women who ‘look’ like women: traditionally feminine women with long hair, hips and visible breasts, who dress and talk and walk in a way that is ‘expected’ of women and who have no trouble moving through the world as one. 

By contrast, there are plenty of other women out there who constantly have their gender and presentation policed by strangers for not fitting into the narrow and misogynistic definitions of what a woman should be. Women who are tall, have short hair, broad shoulders and square jawlines. Women who wear clothes from the men’s section and have deep voices and body hair. 

Such slim definitions of what is correct or incorrect womanhood rooted in patriarchal beauty standards are – ironically enough – what feminists have actually spent decades fighting against, so that women have the choice about whether or not they want to shave their legs, wear make-up or put on dresses or *gasp* trousers. 

The Supreme Court ruling will, very likely, cause butch and masculine lesbians to face increased harassment in single-sex female spaces simply because of how they present themselves. This is not a fictitious, dystopian musing by one dyke about the rights of others in her community, this is something we have already seen – and are continuing to see – when it comes to women do not fit into the confines of traditional femininity and gender. 

For Lesbian Visibility Week, which came a week after the Supreme Court’s decision, Labour MP Kate Osborne said she is “frequently misgendered” because of how she looks and expressed concern it will only get worse going forward. 

“I note that Ministers said yesterday that there will be guidance regarding the Supreme Court verdict. That decision will have a huge impact on my life, on many other cis lesbians and, indeed, on heterosexual women,” Osborne told fellow MPs. “I suspect that I will get challenged even more now when accessing facilities. The impact on my life will be problematic, but the impact on my trans siblings’ lives will be significantly worse.”

Just this week in the United States, a number of headlines were dedicated to an incident involving lesbian woman Ansley Baker who was removed from a female toilet in a Boston hotel by a male security guard after being accused of being ‘a man’ by other women in the facility. The irony that it was a male security guard who banged on the cubicle door and removed her when her shorts were not fully done up has not been lost on most in the LGBT+ community, it must be noted. 

Baker is certainly not the first, nor will she likely be the last, lesbian to face such treatment.

But, tight confines and strict parameters of what constitutes correct womanliness and the social punishments inflicted when broken are not solely restricted to masculine lesbians, straight women too are subject to such policing. 

In 2023, the pregnant girlfriend of Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe,  actor Erin Darke, was transvestigated by anti-trans pundits on social media because she happens to be taller than Radcliffe and have certain facial features. Transvesigation refers to conspiracy theories that falsely claim individuals, typically women, are transgender and are hiding their “true” gender identity, with Darke accused of ‘secretly being trans’. Transvesitigations are entirely rooted in warped, deeply misogynistic and racist views of femininity and gender.

Similarly, Olympic boxer Imane Khelif – who was thrust into the centre of a gender storm during the Paris Games – was accused of ‘being a man’ despite the fact she, and Olympic bosses, clarified she is not nor has ever identified as trans. In fact in Algeria, where Khelif hails from, gender-affirming care is banned and public gender non-conformity has the potential to be prosecuted as “indecent” under the 1966 penal code. However, the conspiracy persisted because, according to the wisdom of users on X / Twitter, Khelif has a strong nose, muscles, is tall and has hairs on her knuckles, so must be male. 

Other cis women who are seemingly not woman enough according to transphobes include rugby icon Ilona Maher, tennis legend Serena Williams and former first lady Michelle Obama. Why? Again, because their bodies have dared to exist outside of patriarchal beauty standards, defined and controlled by the male gaze. 

As organisations, public bodies and services across the UK look set to draw up fresh guidelines in response to the Supreme Court ruling we will all do well to remember that gender policing does far, far more harm than ever does any good. At best it can be an irritant for women who move through the world everyday in a more masculine presentation, at its worst it poses an inherent threat to the people such an ill-thought out ruling is supposed to protect; putting woman who do not conform at risk of harassment, abuse and vigilante justice. 

At its heart gender policing just proves – just like their views on the beautiful diversity of gender are narrow – the views of bigots on womanhood are equally as restrictive. 

IDAHOBIT 2025

The theme for the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (IDAHOBIT) 2025 will be “The power of communities”.

IDAHOBIT 2025, celebrated on 17 May, will bring together individuals, organisations, and institutions to amplify the voices of those who have been marginalised and to foster a culture of compassion and understanding.

In the years since its inception in 2004, IDAHOBIT has grown into an international movement, with events taking place across more than 130 countries, including those where LGBTQIA+ rights are still criminalised or under threat.

IDAHOBIT 2025 will take place in a world where LGBTQIA+ rights remain a deeply polarising issue. While many countries have made significant strides in recognising same-sex marriages, enacting anti-discrimination laws, and providing protections for transgender individuals, others have moved in the opposite direction, enacting regressive policies that endanger and marginalise LGBTQIA+ people.

The day serves as a reminder of these disparities and the ongoing need for advocacy.

The day is a call to action for individuals, communities, and institutions to work together to create a world where everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, can live with dignity and freedom.

Out In The City is celebrating our 20th Anniversary with a Party on Thursday, 19 June from 2.00pm to 4.00pm at Cross Street Chapel, 29 Cross Street, Manchester M2 1NL.

We will Celebrate Ageing and Challenge Ageism with great entertainment from Jennifer, Mindy, Pauline and the boys from Wolf. Buffet and raffle. 

RSVP for catering purposes. Please contact us here to confirm attendance or to send apologies.

Birthdays

Holocaust Centre North

Between 1933 and 1945 the German Nazi regime and its collaborators persecuted Jewish men, women and children across Europe. By the end of the Second World War in 1945 the regime had murdered six million of them. This genocide is known as the Holocaust.

The Nazis also targeted Roma people and those with disabilities. They persecuted and murdered millions of other people across Europe including Polish citizens, Soviet prisoners of war, political and religious opponents, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Some Jewish people who escaped or survived the genocide made their lives in the north of England. Their stories are told in the Holocaust Centre North.

The Holocaust Centre North’s Archive is a precious time capsule. It is one that tells life-affirming stories of survivors of Nazi persecution starting fresh lives in the north of England but also one that reminds us of the horrors of war. The eyewitness experiences are moving and ensure that the legacy of the Nazi genocide is not denied or forgotten.

More photos can be seen here.

Gerhard “Gad” Beck

You’ve probably never heard of Gad Beck, but he was an LGBT+ hero. Beck and his twin sister Margot was born in Berlin on 30 June 1923 to a “mixed” marriage: his father was Jewish, and his mother was legally Christian (though she converted in order to get married).

He also showed very early that he was gay: he was the kind of boy who likes to dress up as a girl and play with dolls. He started having sex with other guys – lots of sex – just after puberty. And Beck was never in the closet about any of this. He was only half-Jewish, which could offer you some protection in the Nazi period, but he always identified with Jews, and although his family was middle class and didn’t live in the old “ghetto” neighbourhood in the centre of Berlin, he insisted on going to a Jewish school in the ghetto. He was remarkably open about his sexuality as well, both intentionally – he told his mother about his first sexual experience right afterward – and unintentionally, because he was the kind of “queeny” gay guy whose sexuality is no secret.

The point of this story is: Beck ended up running the largest Jewish resistance organisation in Nazi Berlin, funnelling fake food coupons and sometimes fake ID papers to hidden Jews in the city. This job fell on him because (although not very educated – he had to drop out of school as the Nazis ramped up persecution and impoverished his family) he was very clever, and also because he had something we can only call “balls”. He ran circles around the Gestapo.

The best story about Beck tells you everything about him. In 1941, he fell in love with a boy called Manfred Lewin (pronounced Levine). Manfred was 100% Jewish, and eventually he and his family were rounded up for deportation. So what did Beck do? Well, he freaked out, of course. But he didn’t just give up, as anyone else would. Instead, he dressed up in a borrowed Hitler Youth uniform (pinned up because it was 3 sizes too big), went down to the deportation centre, Heil Hitler-ed his way through the door, and made up a ridiculous story that got the commandant to release Lewin into his custody! The story doesn’t end well: this was early in the war, so people didn’t realise (or weren’t sure) that deportation meant death, and Lewin felt he couldn’t abandon his parents and siblings as they were going to a work camp. So he went back in and died with his family in Auschwitz.

“Gad, I can’t go with you. My family needs me. If I abandon them now, I could never be free.” No smile, no sadness. He had made his decision. We didn’t even say goodbye. He turned around and went back. In those seconds, watching him go, I grew up.

Gad Beck describing the moment his lover Manfred Lewin chose to return to his family, to be deported to their deaths at Auschwitz

Beck never got over it (of course). I always think it’s amazing that somehow, despite being arrested by the Gestapo twice and buried alive during a bombing, he managed to keep a little book of drawings and poems that Lewin made for him (and which he donated to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC). But it was also the moment where he decided to fight the Nazis with all of his might – all the might that courage and wit gave this short, gay, Jewish super-hero!

Gad Beck died aged 88 in 2012.

Signed portrait of Manfred Lewin, a member of the Hehalutz Zionist youth movement in Berlin, who was deported to Auschwitz in November 1942. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jizchak Schwersenz.

Making Gay History

Making Gay History is an award-winning podcast featuring intimate, personal portraits of both known and long forgotten champions, heroes and witnesses to history.

Season 14 is titled “Voices from the Shadows: LGBTQ Experiences During the Nazi Era” and has 12 episodes on the experiences of LGBTQ people during the rise of the Nazi regime, World War II and the Holocaust.

The podcasts include archival interviews that bring this painful, often hidden history to life through the voices of the people who lived it.

Polish teenager Stefan Kosinski was beaten, tortured and sent to prison. His crime? He fell in love with a Viennese soldier serving in the German army. When the soldier was sent to the Eastern Front, Stefan sent him a love letter, which was intercepted by the Nazis.

When the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Frieda Belinfante dedicated herself to helping others. She forged IDs to save Jews from deportation and joined a resistance group that carried out a daring act of sabotage.

Lucy Salani was assigned male at birth, so when she came of age she was conscripted into the Italian army. She soon deserted – the first of several daring escapes that eventually landed her in Dachau. She’s one of the few trans people to testify about their experiences in Nazi concentration camps.

Pride in Trafford

Pride in Trafford returns with a vibrant celebration of LGBT+ arts, creativity and community across the borough.

Trafford has unveiled the programme for its seventh annual Pride in Trafford festival. This year they’ve expanded the celebration beyond Sale to include events in Altrincham, making it the most exciting and inclusive year yet.

Festival Highlights:   Official Festival Launch: Join them for speeches, poetry and song as we raise the Pride Flag on Waterside Plaza. Youth Pride: Creative activities with a focus on the youth voice at Gorse Hill Studios. A Northern Tr*nny Hootenanny: Presented by Hunter King, an uplifting queer parody musical and the story of Hunter’s transition. The Wheel of Nouns: The Gender Fairy is loose in this new cabaret, interactive comedy! The Queer Creatives Assembly: A chance to connect, collaborate and celebrate with LGBTQ+ creatives. Buff: A funny yet poignant body-positive solo theatre show. Jay Farley – A (Cupboard) Full of Tomboys: Step into the surreal world of Jay Farley, a neurodiverse filmmaker and poet. I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar: This cabaret show is a sonic love letter to Lesbian Bars of a bygone era. Block Party: An exciting afternoon of free outdoor activities on Waterside Plaza, featuring specially curated activities for children and young people and their families, followed by live performances on The Bandstand. Drag and Draw: OYEZ Arts will be delivering a two-hour guided art workshop at Altrincham Town Hall, featuring a fabulous drag model and an atmosphere filled with DJ-spun beats.

From powerful performances and artistic showcases to moments of reflection and fun-filled gatherings, Pride in Trafford offers a dynamic space where everyone can come together to celebrate love, identity and diversity.

For more information and bookings, see here.

Now is the Time

Let’s show the world that Now is the Time for equity, dignity, justice and joy:

Now is the time to lift the weight,
Of silence, judgement, fear and hate.
To speak the names we’ve pushed aside,
To hold a space, to turn the tide.

Now is the time to name what’s wrong,
To right the past, to make all strong.
To see each soul, each heart, each face,
And build a world of equal place.

Now is the time to change our speech,
To think, reflect, to learn, to teach.
To catch the slip, to shift the phrase,
And honour all in what we say.

Now is the time to share your truth,
To lead with hope, to teach the youth.
To pledge a way, to own your part,
And hold inclusion at the heart.

By Alyson Malach

Director Equality and Diversity UK Ltd