Saddleworth Museum and Art Gallery

A group of us travelled eleven miles by bus from Manchester to Saddleworth, an area primarily known for its textile industry heritage, picturesque moorland scenery and charming villages.

After a lovely lunch at The Caffe Grande Abaco, we headed for the Museum and Art Gallery. Founded in 1962, the museum is housed in the remains of the 19^th century Victoria Mill. Saddleworth was a major centre for cotton spinning and weaving during the Industrial Revolution.

Annie Kenney was born in Springhead in Saddleworth and became a prominent figure in the suffragette movement.

She left school at age 13 to work in the cotton mill. Annie was the first local woman trade union representative, and inspired by Christabel Pankhurst she joined the Women’s Social and Political Union. This group was the first to use militant tactics to bring attention to the rights of women.

The militant campaign began in Manchester in 1905, when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie were arrested at The Free Trade Hall. Annie was an excellent speaker and her working class background meant that she was understood by many working women. She was regularly put in prison and in 1913 was sentenced for three years. Annie was released because she was on hunger strike but was not allowed to speak at meetings. She refused to accept this and attended meetings in disguise and was often re-arrested.

It was a very hot day – 28 degrees – and a mint chocolate chip ice cream was in order before heading back to sunny Manchester. More photos can be seen here.

Seafront statue of Benjamin Britten given approval

A life-sized statue of Benjamin Britten will soon be unveiled after plans for the seafront project were given approval.

The bronze sculpture of the composer as a boy will be installed opposite 21 Kirkley Cliff Road, Lowestoft, where he was born on 22 November 1913.

The Britten as a Boy project was co-founded by teacher and artist Ruth Wharrier, who has been granted permission by East Suffolk Council to move forward with the creation.

“The project has always been about promoting aspiration for generations of children of Lowestoft to dream big just as Benjamin Britten did 100 years ago,” she said.

“Our simple message of looking ahead has also inspired many adults within our community, including those recovering from domestic and substance abuse.”

The possibility of a statue being made became a reality after members of East Suffolk Council, Lowestoft Town Council and Kirkley People’s Forum raised £110,000.

It was designed by sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley, who has described Britten – who died in 1976 – as a “genius”.

‘Successful children of Lowestoft’

“It’s really important we recognise people of our town who succeeded, councillor Peter Byatt said.

“I hope this is going to be the beginning of revisiting those successful children of Lowestoft.”

Zeb Soanes, vice chairman of the project, has previously said he, too, hoped the piece would act as an inspiration for young people in the town.

“Our idea of depicting [Britten as a child] is to really inspire children that whatever you want, if you work hard, it is achievable,” he said.

The Hidden Case of Sir Ewan Forbes, the Transgender Baronet

In 1968, a new name was placed on the United Kingdom’s Official Roll of the Baronetage: Sir Ewan Forbes, the 11th Baronet Forbes of Craigievar. A quintessential Scottish gentleman, Ewan was a perfect fit for his new role. He was a caring country doctor, a doting husband, a sportsman who excelled in riding, shooting, fishing, and Scottish dance, and whose ancient, rather eccentric aristocratic clan had deep ties to the British royal family.

“His grandfather had been an intimate friend of Queen Victoria; his mother was a close friend of Queen Mary; his father was aide-de-camp to King George V. And their castle, Craigievar Castle (now owned by the National Trust for Scotland), is only 30 miles away from Balmoral,” says Zoë Playdon, emeritus professor of medical humanities at the University of London and author of The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience.

As outlined in academic Zoë Playdon’s 2021 book – soon to become a TV mini series – Forbes was born into a deeply privileged family with ties to the British royals. Evidence points to the fact that Ewan himself entertained the royal family, who shared his deep love of horses and the country.

But despite his deep privilege, Ewan’s journey was not an easy one. “Like most trans people, Ewan learned from an early age to be resilient, imaginative, and courageous in facing the challenges that the world threw at him. He’s really very inspirational,” Playdon says. Ewan’s biggest battle would lead to an invasive court case which led to his ascendence as Baronet Forbes of Craigievar. The case would be shrouded in secrecy for years, and Playdon believes its implications set trans rights back decades.

Ewan was born on 6 September, 1912, and christened Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill. Elizabeth was the third child and second daughter of John Forbes-Sempill, 18th Lord Sempill and 9th Baronet of Craigievar, and Gwendolen, Lady Sempill. From an early age, the compassionate, open-minded Gwendolen knew that her third child, who she called Benjie, was different. Ewan eschewed stereotypically girlish pursuits and clothing, loved tramping through the Highlands at Craigievar Castle, and worshipped his elder brother, William, an aviation pioneer. She had Ewan homeschooled and let him live as his authentic self on the family’s massive estates.

“Gwendolen, the Lady Sempill, was remarkable for her time, and I think a real inspiration to parents today with trans children,” says Playdon. “Like them, she recognised the insistence, persistence, and consistence of Ewan’s understanding of himself as a boy, in spite of his birth-assigned sex. She supported his social transition … and she found him affirmative medical support as soon as it became available.”

In an intolerant time, options were limited. “Everyone realised my difficulties,” Ewan once recalled, per The Daily Telegraph. “But it was hard in those days to know what to do.”

But Gwendolen would not be deterred. According to Playdon, Gwendolen took a teenage Ewan to visit experts across Europe, disguising their adventures as a grand tour. Ewan was given treatments, almost certainly including testosterone. “I found it necessary to shave,” Ewan recalled, “because I had quite a lusty growth of hair on my chin and cheeks.”

There is no doubt these visits to doctors working with intersex and transgender patients were not only a result of Gwendolen’s tireless efforts, but also the family’s immense privilege. “Ewan’s family had the wealth and connections required to access the new affirmative trans medical support that was being developed in Europe in the 1920s,” Playdon shares.

However, the family’s illustrious connections and high profile also had downsides.

“His father was a stickler for social form, so that whenever they were in the public eye, Ewan was obliged to dress up as a girl for society photographs – including being required, as a matter of family honour, to dress up as a debutante to be presented to the queen,” Playdon notes. “This must have been horribly embarrassing for him, but he saw it as his duty and somehow got through it.”

Indeed, Ewan later recalled these events as making him feel “like a bird that had had its wings clipped.” After being presented to his mother’s good friend Queen Mary in 1930, he went to London debutante balls “under protest and duress.” Afterwards, he recalled, “I made my escape and I never went back.”

Instead, Ewan threw himself into Scottish culture, forming the popular “Dancers of Don” dance troupe, in which he often took the male leads. After his father died in 1934, Ewan almost exclusively wore the male Scottish kilt and worked the family’s extensive estates. In 1939, he started medical school at the University of Aberdeen. A year after his beloved mother died in 1944, he began work as a family doctor in the Scottish village of Alford, near the family seat of Craigievar Castle.

Jovial and kindly, with a special knack with children, Dr Forbes-Sempill was known to go to any lengths to help his patients. In 1947, he bought the 3000-acre Brux Lodge and settled into his role as a beloved villager who could be found judging country dances and reciting ancient Doric poems.

But in 1952, Ewan’s insular, protected life would be thrust into the national news. Ewan had fallen in love with his kind and gentle housekeeper Isabella “Patty” Mitchell and wanted to marry her, despite the fact that gay marriage was illegal. “I felt the right to have my own wife and my own house, and take my place as other ordinary individuals,” Ewan recalled.

Ewan decided to take the brave step of having his birth certificate amended to the gender he had always known he was. Though surprising to modern readers, residents of the United Kingdom at the time could amend their birth certificates, as long as doctors agreed the initial assignment had been a mistake. As a respected member of the Scottish medical community, Ewan was easily able to obtain the necessary permissions. Legally, he was now a man, and free to marry Patty.

“It was very confusing to us children,” Ewan’s great-niece later said. “Suddenly Auntie Elizabeth was Uncle Ewan. But we all adored him.”

The townspeople of Alford reacted in much the same way. “The doctor has been telling us for some time of his intended announcement. We admire his courage in taking this step.”

The national press took a more sensational view, aware that Ewan now could inherit the Forbes baronetcy, which passed to the next male heir. “It has been a ghastly mistake,” Ewan told one reporter. “I was carelessly registered as a girl in the first place … The doctors in those days were mistaken … I have been sacrificed to prudery, and the horror which our parents had about sex.”

According to Playdon, Ewan was unable to make his daily rounds on foot because of reporters blocking his way. In an effort to avoid the press, Ewan bought a Land Rover, after Princess Margaret told him that her father had acquired one.

On 12 October, 1952, Ewan and Patty were married in a secretive nighttime ceremony at Brux, with members of both their families present. “It seems likely, too, that at least one member of the Royal Family was at Ewan’s wedding to Patty, since the wedding was held very privately,” Playdon says. “Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, in their 20s, were both on holiday at Balmoral. Still today, those who know will not say precisely who all the guests were!”

The village of Alford was not as shy in celebrating the new couple. “His patients had clubbed together to buy him and Patty handsome wedding gifts,” Playdon writes in The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes. “A special dance had been composed in honour of Ewan and Patty, called ‘The Doctor’s Waddin,’ to celebrate the occasion … Finally, the minister who had married them gave Ewan an encomium: ‘No matter how deep the snow, no matter how high the river or wind, the doctor is always there when we need him.’”

Ewan and Patty settled into a quiet, contented life. In 1955, Ewan quit his practice to focus on running his estate, where he raised prize-winning cattle and entertained neighbourhood children. But this peaceful idyll was shattered in December 1965, when his brother William, 19th Lord Sempill and 10th Baronet Forbes, died. Although the barony went to William’s daughter Anne, the baronetcy was to be passed to the next male heir, Ewan.

Well aware of Ewan’s history, his cousin John Forbes-Sempill, a film producer, put in a claim for the baronetcy, and would declare Ewan “of the female sex in the physical, anatomical, physiological, and genetic meanings of that term.”

According to Playdon, Ewan, terrified that a court case would destroy his life and invalidate his marriage, struck a deal with his cousin, giving him what was left of the family estates. In return, John reportedly agreed to not pursue the baronetcy.

But John had no interest in giving up his claim, and he soon enlisted Ewan’s estranged older sister Margaret to strengthen his claim. Margaret was a strong-willed eccentric who ran a successful pony stud from her home of Druminnor Castle, alongside her life partner, Joan.

According to Playdon, Margaret was heavily in debt, and John agreed to pay her debts if she went against her brother. On 8 March, 1966, she wrote a letter to John’s lawyer, outing Ewan:

“I always regarded Dr Ewan as my sister … She went through the phase (as I did myself and so many girls do) of wanting to be a boy,” she wrote. “She went to parties, dances, etc., and was presented at Court in 1929 or 1930. She had her periods regularly just the same as any other girl … That will show her on whose side I am on.”

After emotional conversations with Ewan and his doctor, Margaret soon regretted her betrayal, and agreed to testify in court that she had been mistaken. But that was never to be. On 28 October, 1966, Margaret was killed in a car crash. Ewan now had to rely solely on his own wits and the help of the medical community to fight John.

What followed was a flurry of claims, counter claims, analyst reports and a demeaning medical examination meant to prove or disprove Ewan’s manhood. After a medical test proclaimed Ewan a female with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (probably due to his longtime use of hormones), the doctor took matters into his own hands. Ewan claimed to have biopsied a recently descended testicle and provided a tissue sample that was, indeed, someone’s testicular tissue, which he submitted to the court.

On 15 May, 1967, the opposing sides assembled for a four-day hearing presided over by Lord Jack Hunter of the Scottish Court of Sessions. Experts, friends, and colleagues were examined – as were Ewan and Patty, who were subject to an extremely demeaning line of sexual questions. Unable to discredit the bogus testicular sample, and swayed by the tests determining Ewan’s psychological sex to be male, in early 1968, Hunter ruled narrowly in favour of Ewan, writing he was “a true hermaphrodite in whom male sexual characteristics predominate”.

The proceeding received little media attention, due to Ewan’s powerful connections. “Undoubtedly, Ewan’s aristocratic background kept his case out of the press. Cecil King, (chairman of several prominent newspaper groups), had an estate that shared boundaries with the Craigievar estate, and Ewan’s sister-in-law, Cecilia, Lady Sempill, asked King to keep the case out of the newspapers,” Playdon says.

But the Home Secretary’s decision to officially grant Ewan the title in late 1968 did make the news. Headlines like “Former Girl Now N S Peer” and “‘Elizabeth’ becomes baronet” titillated the public, leading Ewan and Patty to retreat further into their sheltered life at Brux.

Playdon also believes (though some dispute her conclusions) that Ewan’s case influenced the outcome of 1970’s Corbett v Corbett. This was a divorce case where aristocrat Arthur Corbett sought to annul his marriage to transgender model April Ashley (covered extensively in the fascinating 2025 documentary Enigma). Dismissing the phycological factors that Hunter prioritised, this case established that sex was defined by chromosomal, gonadal, and genital factors, and since gay marriage was illegal, the marriage was annulled.

With this devastating decision, transgender rights, including trans people’s ability to correct their birth certificates, were swept away (in 2004, the UK granted transgender people full legal recognition). Playdon believes this was an overcorrection of Ewan’s case, enacted to protect the interest of primogeniture, where noble titles (and until 2013, the monarchy) are inherited by the eldest male heir.

“I’d known how trans lives had changed through April’s case,” Playdon said. “But I’d never known why that change had happened – what the motive had been for removing trans civil liberties and consigning trans people to the outermost fringes of society. It was very shocking to see the evidence that it was done to protect the political interest of a tiny minority of royal and aristocratic men whose inheritances were (and except for the King, still are) regulated by primogeniture.”

Ewan’s case, which could have upset the precedent set by Corbett v. Corbett, was also successfully hidden from public view. According to Playdon, after she learned of the case’s existence, it took two years – and direct pressure from the Home Secretary – for the Scottish Records Office to reveal the case and send over a transcript.

As anti-trans hate intensified in the coming decades, Ewan continued his quiet life at Brux. An elder at the Presbyterian Church, he became more old fashioned and dogmatic in his older years, but never lost his sense of humour. Ewan rarely discussed or even acknowledged his transgender status. Instead, he became a keeper of memories, publishing his idyllic memoir The Aul’ Days in 1984 and a book about the “Dancers of the Don” in 1989. “He truly was an unforgettably gentle, kind, and charming man,” journalist Moreen Simpson, who interviewed him in the 1980s, recalled, “parts of whose life had been the stuff of nightmares.”

Sir Ewan Forbes, the 11th Baronet Forbes of Craigievar, died on 12 September, 1991. His beloved Patty followed in 2002. Their insistence on living an authentic life reverberates today in a world of increasing anti-trans rhetoric. “There is a view, propagated by anti-trans voices, that trans people are new to this decade,” says Playdon. “And as Ewan’s story tells us, nothing could be further from the truth.”

Being a Champion Against Ageism

Pauline is a passionate advocate for LGBT+ and older people’s rights in Bury, Greater Manchester, and beyond. Since retiring, Pauline’s creativity has flourished through powerful poetry that challenges ageism and inspires change. Watch and listen to the latest poem, ‘Being a Champion Against Ageism’.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service Training and Safety Centre

Twelve of us met at Bury Interchange and made the short journey by bus and foot to the Training and Safety Centre. The site is tucked away under an old railway bridge, and is the largest Fire-Fighter training facility in the UK.

The “visit that could save our lives” introduced us to the work of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and allowed us to experience their impressive immersive centre, which provoked our senses with the smell of smoke, the heat of fire and the sound of sirens putting us at the heart of the action.

We watched short films, listened to emergency calls and checked for hazards in a family living room and kitchen.

Here is a living room before and after a fire:

It was a very interesting, informative and enjoyable day.

More photos can be seen here.

Indian Airport Will Not Change Its “GAY” Code

Despite consternation from a member of India’s conservative Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the international airport code for Gaya International Airport is still very GAY.

Bhim Singh, a legislator in India’s upper parliamentary house Rajya Sabha, recently submitted a written inquiry to the government asking to change Gaya International Airport’s three-letter code from GAY.

“People consider the code socially and culturally offensive and uncomfortable,” Singh claimed in his inquiry, asking if the government had considered moving “to a more respectful and culturally appropriate code.”

In a written response issued 4 August, Minister of Civil Aviation Shri Murlidhar Mohol confirmed that the ministry had received similar requests in the past, but that there were no plans to change the code. Three-letter airport codes are not set by countries’ governments but are rather unique identifiers issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

IATA has conveyed that assigned three-letter codes are considered permanent and are altered only under exceptional circumstances, usually involving air safety concerns. In other words, Gaya International Airport won’t be getting less GAY any time soon.

(Other notably fun codes include Poços de Caldas Airport in Brazil, ignobly designated POO.)

FaithFULL Collective Callout

The Faith & Belief Forum, a national interfaith charity, are currently recruiting 25 individuals from a wide range of faith and belief backgrounds based in London, Birmingham and Manchester to join the LGBTQ+ FaithFULL Collective, dedicated to improving the wellbeing of LGBTQ+ people of faith.

Running from Autumn 2025 to Autumn 2026, Collective members will receive expert training, mentoring and skills building, then will work together to design and run social action projects in their local communities. 

More information is here.

Any questions, please email: sophie.mitchell@Faithbeliefforum.org

Birthdays

Southport Model Railway Village

I remember Southport’s Merrivale Model Village, known as the “Land of the Little People,” which was a popular attraction in the 1960s. It was a two-acre site featuring a miniature English town with various scenes, including a castle, lake, airport and farms. The village, built on the former Winter Gardens site, was known for its meticulous landscaping and detailed models.

The Model Village quickly proved a very popular family attraction – noted for the very high standard of workmanship and maintenance – with about 100,000 visitors every season; between 1957 and 1962 there were over one million visitors.

Sadly, The Land of the Little People eventually faced closure and demolition in 1987 due to redevelopment plans for the site.

 However, the legacy continued. In 1995, Southport residents Ray and Jean Jones were granted permission to design and build a new model village at King’s Gardens, Southport.

Together with their team of craftsmen they transformed an area within the seafront into a miniature landscape. This became the first model railway village in the United Kingdom, due to the focus of the attraction on the miniature railway. When it opened to the public in 1996 it was the largest outdoor display of G gauge railway in the United Kingdom.

Movement is generated in the model railway village by one of the largest 45 mm garden railway systems in the United Kingdom. It has five LGB trains continuously running on 500 metres of track. By the way, LGB stands for Lehmann Gross Bahn!

The Jones family still run Southport Model Railway Village today.

Pride protest pioneer honoured

LGBT rights champion Ted Brown, who helped organise the UK’s first Pride march 53 years ago, has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Brighton.

Ted, 75, was honoured at the university’s summer graduation before leading Brighton’s Pride parade.

The activist, who joined the Gay Liberation Front at the age of 20, was recognised for campaign work spanning more than half a century.

He said: “I never imagined that standing up for who I am and for what I believe in would become what it is today”.

He added that being recognised “not just for the march or the moments people remember, but for the long road it took to get here, means everything to me”.

Born in New York to Jamaican parents, Mr Brown’s campaigning efforts with the GLF saw him help stage the now-iconic “kiss-in” protest in London in 1972.

He later co-founded Black Lesbians and Gays Against Media Homophobia in 1990 as a direct response to the treatment of the world’s first openly gay footballer, Justin Fashanu.

Mr Brown also successfully campaigned against the violent homophobia in reggae artist Buju Banton’s controversial song, Boom Bye Bye.

The university’s vice chancellor, Prof Donna Whitehead, said: “Ted has not just shaped British civil rights history, he has helped to write it. As our city prepares for Brighton Pride this weekend, it’s clear that Ted has changed this country for the better.”

Mr Brown was made an honorary Doctor of Letters on the final day of the University of Brighton’s summer graduation ceremonies, where more than 3,000 students from 97 countries were recognised.

Canada celebrates with four beautiful LGBT+ postage stamps

The designation for the community used by the Canadian government is 2SLGBTQI+, or Two Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex+.

Canada Post, Canada’s postal service, issued the new stamps called “Places of Pride”.

One stamp celebrates Hanlan’s Point Beach, a beach that has been a meeting point for nearly 100 years. Located on Centre Island in the Toronto Islands (in Lake Ontario), the beach was known as a gay gathering place since the 1930s, since it was close enough to Toronto to be accessible to residents of that city but required taking a boat to get there, reducing but not eliminating police harassment. In 1971 it hosted the Gay Day Picnic.

The other stamps celebrate Club Carousel in Calgary, the city’s first gay bar; Truxx in Montreal, a bar that was raided by police in 1977, leading to mass protests; and the 3rd North American Native Gay & Lesbian Gathering in Beausejour, Manitoba, where the term “Two Spirit” was introduced as a term for a gender variant or queer social role in Native American tribal life.

NHS begins rollout of world-first gonorrhoea vaccine programme

• Vaccination against gonorrhoea now available in sexual health clinics in England for those at greatest risk of infection
• Vaccine will protect thousands of people and save the NHS over £7.9 million over next decade
• Rollout is part of shift from sickness to prevention under government’s Plan for Change

People at highest risk of infection with gonorrhoea will now be better protected from the disease, as the NHS and local authorities begin the rollout of a world-first vaccination programme in England.

From Monday 4 August, sexual health clinics will be able to offer a free vaccine to patients at highest risk of the sexually transmitted infection (STI), including gay and bisexual men who have a recent history of multiple sexual partners and a bacterial STI in the previous 12 months.

The 4CMenB vaccine will help shield those most at risk of gonorrhoea – potentially averting up to 100,000 cases of the disease, while easing pressure on vital NHS services.

It will play a key role in the government’s shift from sickness to prevention as it makes the NHS fit for the future as part of its Plan for Change.  

Minister for Public Health and Prevention Ashley Dalton said:

“Rolling out this world-leading gonorrhoea vaccination programme in sexual health clinics in England represents a major breakthrough in preventing an infection that has reached record levels.

This government’s world-first vaccination programme will help turn the tide on infections, as well as tackling head-on the growing threat of antibiotic resistance.

I strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to come forward for vaccination, to protect not only yourselves but also your sexual partners”.

The groundbreaking vaccination programme comes at a critical time, with diagnoses of gonorrhoea reaching their highest levels since records began. In 2023, a record 85,000 cases of the disease were reported in England – three times higher than in 2012.

This vaccine will protect thousands of people and save the NHS more than £7.9 million over the next decade. It will also help combat increasing levels of antibiotic-resistant strains of the disease.  

The rollout is part of this government’s commitment to keep people healthier via an array of prevention and community health initiatives. This includes the Department of Health and Social Care’s National HIV Prevention Programme delivered by the Terrence Higgins Trust, which has worked with local activation partners to deliver National HIV Testing Week and the summer campaign for the past 4 years.

Consultant Epidemiologist at the UK Health Security Agency, Dr Sema Mandal said:

“This roll out is hugely welcome as we’re currently seeing very concerning numbers of gonorrhoea, including even more worryingly antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea. The vaccine will give much needed protection to those that need it most – making the UK a world leader in the fight against gonorrhoea.

And it’s excellent to see that at the same time other important vaccines will continue to be offered in sexual health services to those eligible, protecting against mpox, hepatitis A and B, and HPV. Sexually transmitted infections aren’t just an inconvenience – they can have a major impact on your health and your sexual partners, so if offered I strongly urge you to get these jabs, you’ll be protecting yourself as well as others. Don’t put it off and regret it later”.

Guncle’s Day

Guncles’ Day, also known as Gay Uncles Day, is celebrated on the second Sunday in August. In 2025, this falls on 10 August. It’s a day to celebrate the special role that gay uncles play in families.

Out In The City Party!

It’s our 20^th Anniversary Year – It’s Manchester Pride Month – That can only mean one thing:

P A R T Y !

Thursday, 21 August from 2.00pm to 4.00pm

Cross Street Chapel, 29 Cross Street, Manchester M2 1NL

Entertainment from Wolf – Buffet – Raffle (prize donated by Morrisons, Whitefield)

RSVP for catering purposes

Please contact us here or text 07434 485 000

Harvey Fierstein is sitting here bleeding to death, he announces. “I got taken down by a rose bush earlier,” the playwright, actor and activist explains in his gloriously gravelly voice. “It could have been a raspberry bush. Gardening is much more dangerous than quilting.”

It is one aside among many during a discursive interview with the Guardian that includes his fears of fascism in America, why heterosexual men are a “bunch of assholes” and the time he sat with Donald Trump at a gay wedding.

But first there is quilting. Fierstein began about 20 years ago, inspired by craft shows on the HGTV channel that he fondly recalls as “hot glue heaven”, and made about a quilt a year. Then came the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and, with “nobody else to talk to”, he turned to his sewing machine in earnest and found a new community in a local quilt shop. He is now up to about 80 or 90 quilts.

“I started experimenting more and more and found that people like quilts a lot better than paintings,” Fierstein, 73, observes from his home in Ridgefield, Connecticut. “If you give somebody a painting they have to hang it on the wall if you come over for dinner. But at least the dog can sleep on the quilt.”

The fruit of his labour is his first exhibition of handmade quilts, You Made That? The Quilting Adventures of Harvey Fierstein, at the Keeler Tavern Museum & History Center in Ridgefield.

Fierstein was one of the first out gay celebrities in the US and is best known for his Tony award-winning stage work on Hairspray, La Cage Aux Folles, Newsies, Kinky Boots and Torch Song Trilogy as well as various film roles. But quilting represents a return to his roots in the visual arts: he graduated from the High School of Art and Design and received a degree in painting from the Pratt Institute.

“That’s what I was supposed to be doing,” he says. “This theatre thing is like a side gig: it’s what I do when I can’t get work as an artist. As a child I went to Disney studios and saw the artists working. That’s what I thought I was going to do and this whole writing thing was sort of a mistake.”

Fierstein views the upcoming public display in a tiny museum in what he dubs “a small fictional town in Connecticut” as an opportunity to “figure out whether, besides keeping the dog warm, this is something that’s worth doing. It’s also very American as we try and cling to America as we’re being killed by that soulless piece of crap. We have to hang on.”

This is a reference to the current occupant of the White House. One of Fierstein’s deceptively beautiful quilts is a condemnation of fascism, featuring two black skeletons giving Nazi salutes above a kneeling figure in striped pyjamas, against a backdrop of yellow stars and pink triangles like those that Jews and gay people were forced to wear during the Holocaust.

Growing up Jewish in Brooklyn, with acquaintances who had concentration camp tattoos on their arms, he developed a deep awareness of intolerance. “Antisemitism was something that I was used to but, having lived through the 60s with the civil rights struggle and then the 70s with the gay struggle, you keep thinking we’ve moved past this.

But it’s in us. Prejudice is somewhere in us. It’s built into us for safety. All animals see another of their kind and find safety in that and it’s something we have to fight. It’s always been an undercurrent. I wanted to make an expression of that. If you look at the quilt, I did the background, the Jewish stars and the pink triangles, in very pretty colours. It doesn’t announce itself in an ugly way.”

Fierstein moves up a few gears as he contemplates the toxic stew of Trump’s America: draconian crackdowns on undocumented immigrants, rising antisemitism and political violence, a primal desire to revel in ignorance and turn back the clock.

“There are people that actually think that what’s going on, arresting people and pulling them out of their jobs, is something good. I am shocked when I see people on television saying, ‘Well, he promised to clean up the swamp and that’s what he’s doing.’ It’s all so frightening if you have any idea of history.

This war against the left: I believe there’s something very dark there. I believe its people being too lazy to want to do the work. They love Donald Trump because he has no idea about anything. He’s your Uncle Paul who comes over for dinner and you just have to listen to him and bite your tongue because he knows absolutely nothing. That’s why these people love him; he’s an idiot; he’s just like them.”

Fierstein wishes Trump supporters would come to their senses. “When people tell me they’re pro-Trump, I say, do you know him? Because I do. I’ve been to a gay wedding and sat with him at a table in a gay wedding. Have you? I’ve had business meetings with the man. Have you? I know him. I’m telling you, he’s nothing but a thief and a fraud.”

The gay wedding in question was talent manager Richie Jackson’s marriage to theatre producer Jordan Roth in Manhattan in 2012. Roth’s father, Steven, was a friend of Trump. Fierstein recalls: “Donald was there looking absolutely miserable, didn’t even bring any of the 15 wives or girlfriends or underage children with him.

When they tell me they’re pro-him, I say, if you met him, you wouldn’t be. The ones who are so weak want to be hugged by somebody strong, just get into his circle and love that. It’s that papa thing. Hitler had it. All those guys have.”

Fierstein made waves in March when he denounced Trump’s takeover of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, which included a declared intention to ban drag shows. Fierstein noted this would mean La Cage aux Folles and many of his other shows could not be performed there.

He says: “I love the Kennedy Center – I’ve performed there – but no, I won’t go near anything of Trump. He went to see Les Mis, saying this was his favourite musical, and didn’t know the difference between the hero and the villain. How stupid do you have to be to say this is my favourite musical? At least tell the truth.”

Trump installed a loyalist, Ric Grenell, an out gay man, as president of the Kennedy Center. “He proudly says, ‘I am a gay, married man.’ Who got you those rights, you piece of shit, you lowlife little creep … Who got you the right to get married, you fuckface?”

Fierstein sees LGBT+ rights under siege once more. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order mandating that federal agencies recognise only two sexes – male and female – based on biological classification at birth, rejecting gender identity as a separate concept. Another order was aimed at cutting federal support for gender-affirming care for minors.

Again Fierstein does not mince words: “The president of the United States announces there are only two sexes in the world! Well, you better call that God you say you believe in because there’s hermaphrodites, there’s all sorts of things in the end, not just in human beings but in all species. How stupid can you be? Sit down before you make a statement like that and look it up.

On Facebook I put up a picture of a statue from ancient Rome of a hermaphrodite. What are you talking about, you asshole? They’ve been around forever. Homosexuals have been around forever. This is a natural part of who we are.

But no, they have this Bible: he can sell them but he’s never read one. What’s your favourite quote of the Bible? ‘Oh, I love it all. I love it all. I read it every day.’ You don’t even read your own briefings every day. They had to simplify it for you, you piece of crap.”

Fierstein is dismayed by the law firms and media companies bending the knee to Trump because of selfishness and desire to make more money. He unleashes his frustrations at one group in particular.

“I am not an incredibly prejudiced person but, when it comes to heterosexual men, I don’t get them. They’re a bunch of assholes. There are so few heterosexual men that I know that I look up to. You can’t count on them for anything other than their own self-interest. There are some good ones – I mean, I’m not that prejudiced – but if we took all the heterosexual men out of Congress for two years and see what happens … or the ones who pretend to be heterosexual.”

And does Fierstein expect to live to see America’s first out gay president? “I’m very old,” he muses. “I’ve lived through Ronald Reagan never saying the word Aids. When Obama first raised his hand, I didn’t think – so you never know. You live in hope.

PROTEST! – ON THE SCENE

A One-Night-Only Immersive Event That Merges Queer Club Night, Historical Re-Enactment and Filmmaking​ ​ Wednesday, 20 August 2025 – 7.30pm – 10.00pm Fairfield Social Club, Irk Street, Manchester M4 4JT   ​ A One-Night-Only Queer Party x Live Film Set Experience. Step into February 1988. You’ve just marched through the streets of Manchester in the UK’s largest-ever LGBT+ protest. Now? It’s time to dance, defy – and make history.

ON THE SCENE is a one-off immersive queer party, part of the SCENE festival – and also a working film set. You’ll be transported to a lovingly recreated 1988 gay bar, where you’ll party like it’s ’88, guided by our fierce resident drag queen and surrounded by the iconic sounds and fashion of the era. ​ But this is more than a party. ​ You’ll also be part of the set for a brand-new short film about Section 28 – capturing your joy, defiance, and best moves in the background (or maybe even the foreground) of this vital story of queer protest. Cost £3.50 – Tickets here.

Older Queer Voices Podcast

Older Queer Voices is a bold, podcast that centres the lives, struggles, wisdom and resilience of older LGBTQIA+ people. Hosted by writer, speaker and activist, Raga D’silva, each episode amplifies voices too often sidelined in mainstream conversations; people who have lived through silence, resistance and change, and who still have so much to say.

Through raw, heartfelt conversations with queer elders, activists, artists, legal experts and survivors, this podcast confronts ageism from both within and outside the LGBTQIA+ community. It explores themes of identity, love, loss, legacy, invisibility and joy, while offering listeners practical insight into the realities of ageing as a queer person.

Importantly, Older Queer Voices also creates space for intergenerational dialogue, inviting younger queer listeners to listen, learn and connect. Together, these conversations weave a living archive of queer life across time, one that honours the past while inspiring a more inclusive and compassionate future.

Whether you are part of the older LGBTQIA+ generation or someone learning how to better show up for them, this podcast is a space for truth-telling, bridge-building and unapologetic celebration.

Because our stories don’t fade with age, they deepen.

There are currently four episodes:

Episode 1 – Act Your Age

Episode 2 – Legal Matters – Legal Planning for Queer Elders

Episode 3 – Gay Men – Queer Journeys

Episode 4 – Unspoken Realities: Queer, South Asian & Growing Older

Available on You Tube here.

Frequently Asked Questions About Cisgender People

Cisgender people are just like you and me, except they believe their “assigned sex at birth” matches up with their “gender identity”.

How do they know they are cis?

Many cis people feel they “know” their gender internally. They feel they were “born in the right body”, even if others don’t understand.

Who is going to date them?

Though cisgender people can have a hard time meeting partners, they are still able to have healthy relationships. Often, cis people will date other cis people.

How do they have sex?

Cisgender people can be very inventive with their bodies.

But they don’t look cis!

Cisgender people are everywhere. They might not look the way that you expect!

Birthday

Esholt (Original Emmerdale village)

Esholt is a village situated seven miles north of Bradford city centre. The name Esholt is said to take its name from the nature which is found in the area: Esche or Ash and Holt or wood: Ash Wood.

Sadly, Esholt railway station closed in 1940, so instead we made our way by train from Manchester Victoria to Bradford Interchange and then took bus A3 to Hollins Hill. It was a half mile walk down Station Road to the village.

Esholt has one public house, The Woolpack, a listed building in Main Street. There we enjoyed sandwiches (crispy beer battered haddock served with handcut chips and salad was particularly popular) and jacket potatoes.

The manor house, Esholt Old Hall at Upper Esholt is medieval in origin, probably 16th century, and possibly once had a moat. It is well-preserved and has Grade II* listed building status.

The Church of Saint Paul was built at a cost of £800 in 1839 by William Rookes Crompton-Stansfield for use as a private family chapel.

From 1976 to 1996, Esholt was used for the location of Beckindale for the Yorkshire Television drama series Emmerdale Farm (later Emmerdale). The series relocated to a purpose-built set based on the layout of Esholt in Leeds.

More photos can be seen here.

“Nobody told me”: Military vet learns she had a criminal record for 56 years for “perceived same-sex sexual activity”

Liz Stead was 22 when she was booted from the Royal Air Force. The year was 1969. Supervisors discovered romantic letters from her then-girlfriend, spurring the discharge.

As traumatic as that was, it gets worse. 56 years later, Stead has just discovered she also received a criminal conviction for “perceived same-sex sexual activity.”

Stead had already been fighting the government for reparations in response to the ban on homosexuality in the armed forces, which was lifted in 2000. This latest development came as a shock.

“I can think of one job where it might have been the reason I didn’t get it. I can’t think how it is on my records and I’ve never known about it, but I can’t be the only one, they can’t have just pinpointed me.”

“Liz’s experience shows how important it is that justice is properly done to all LGBT+ veterans who suffered under the cruel ban,” said Peter Gibson, CEO of LGBT+ military charity Fighting With Pride. “Lives and careers were ruined under that ‘gay ban.’ ”

To live unknowingly branded a criminal for loving someone is heartbreaking. The government must speed up justice for all LGBT+ veterans!

A history of LGBT+ discrimination

Between 1967 and 2000, the British military discharged upwards of 250 people per year. Officials approved a £75 million compensation fund (up to £70,000 per individual). While the financial support is positive for those affected, time does not heal all wounds, particularly for those who endured even greater consequences. 

The Royal Air Force investigated David Bonney for two years after discovering a copy of The Gay Times. Court-martialled in 1993 and sentenced to incarceration for six months, including one month of solitary confinement (he was released early for good behaviour), Bonney is still picking up the pieces. 

Bonney’s record has haunted his entire adult life, despite a successful post-military career as a psychiatric nurse. 

I’ve still got a criminal record, and it’s robbed me – continues to rob me – of a right to a private life. Every job I went for as a nurse, I had to tell them. You’re supposed to have a right not to tell your employer your sexual orientation. I don’t.”

Like Stead, Bonney continues the uphill battle through bureaucratic red tape. A request to receive his complete military records yielded a redacted report that scrubbed any mention of the investigation. 

A monumental apology

“Open Letter,” the winning design for a memorial for UK LGBT+ service members. Illustration by the artist collective at Abraxis Academy.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the ban’s lifting. While many former service members still face discrimination, criminal records, and financial loss, a large sculpture at Staffordshire’s National Memorial Arboretum scheduled for reveal this August will mark the UK’s first memorial to LGBT+ service people.

An artist collective from Abrax Academy won the competition by designing a large-scale bronze sculpture in the form of a freestanding letter, its words gathered from collected evidence of those persecuted. 

Nina Bilbey, one of the sculpture’s designers, said, “We hope this memorial will help ease some of the distrust and pain experienced by LGBTQ+ veterans and become a beacon of hope for future generations who will witness this work and be reminded of the healing power of reconciliation and the public acknowledgement of historic discrimination.”

Concessionary pass trial

In August 2025, concessionary pass holders can travel for free before 9.30am.

Throughout August, Bee Network are running a trial so concessionary pass holders can travel before 9.30am for free.

What you need to know:

· Available from 1 – 31 August

· Valid for TfGM issued older person’s or disabled person’s travel passes only

· Available on Bee Network buses (not trams).

Rainbow Lottery

On Saturday, 2 August at 8.00pm I will be revealing the winning numbers of the Rainbow Lottery on Facebook!

I’ve made a simple video and the Rainbow Lottery will add all the subtitles, bells and whistles, and of course the winning numbers. So, please watch, ‘Like’ and ‘Share’. You can also buy tickets to support us.

Come and join us to make a real difference and have the chance of winning great prizes.

Rainbow hugs,

Tony Openshaw

Co-ordinator / Out In The City

Birthdays