Three Exhibitions at Sale, Waterside

Twenty of us travelled to Sale in Trafford to visit the Waterside Arts Centre. There were three important exhibitions as part of Trafford Pride.

Thank you to Waterside Arts Centre for the complimentary teas and coffees.

Before We Were Proud

Before We Were Proud is an exhibition of portraits and interviews by photographer Steve Reeves, highlighting the personal histories of older members of the LGBTQ+ community with lived experience before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967.

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community before this time, there was not only the risk of physical and verbal abuse, but there was also the risk of arrest and imprisonment. Every year, the Pride March has become a celebration of LGBTQ+ culture, but many people don’t realise that it started as a protest, and those brave enough to attend back in the 1970s took considerable risks. Before We Were Proud is an ongoing project aiming to tell the stories of the courageous people who lived through these times.

There are many common aspects within the lives of those who shared their stories for the project – many were unable to acknowledge their feelings, fearful of what they had to lose. Steve has been sensitive to the fact that the accounts do not solely belong to the people whose portraits are on display. The attitudes of society meant that many of the participants got married, some had children and grandchildren. It has been important to be mindful that these are their experiences too.

We hope that visitors will take time to read these stories – the project created a safe space for the participants to share their lived experiences.

Though Britain is slowly becoming a more open-minded country, members of the LGBTQ+ community still endure prejudice. These oral histories show the impact that societal attitudes had and continue to have – an important reminder to ensure that progress continues and history is never repeated.

The exhibition of photographs with interviews can be seen by following this link.

The Pansy Project

Three experiences of homophobia in one day were the catalyst for The Pansy Project. Although Paul had grown accustomed to this behaviour, he realised how shocking it remained to those around him; prompting him to consider the nature of these attacks and their effect on his life, exploring how he felt at these locations.

Paul noticed the significance of roadside floral memorials, but initially did not want to equate his experience of verbal abuse with a death or tragedy. Instead, he chose to plant a small, unmarked living plant at each site. A plant grows as he has through these experiences. The act felt positive: a quiet comment on the abuse, a potential remedy. With each planting the locations have shifted from sites of hatred to places of resistance.

Kneeling on pavements, in hedgerows, at the edges of roads draws attention. People pass, stare, ask questions, or depending on the location, ignore Paul entirely. Sometimes he is even mistaken for someone unwell. These moments of urban disruption have also become part of the performative nature of the work.

The species of plant was, of course, vitally important and the pansy instantly seemed perfect – a term historically used against effeminate or gay men, but also derived from the French verb “penser”, meaning “to think.” The pansy’s bowed head suggests reflection, and its subtle, elegiac quality suited the project’s intent.

Transitions in Thread

A solo exhibition of the work of artist weaver, Jenny Waterson, whose recent projects reflect her experience as the mother of a young adult changing their gender identity.

Throughout her distinct collections of work Jenny has created her own vocabulary of symbols in weave around themes of ambiguity, generational geographies and human experience. She weaves transitional pattern and colour sequences to explore an evolving narrative of identity, belonging and motherhood. Through weaving Jenny questions her assumptions and certainties about her child and her mothering, unpicking what she thought she knew and what she took for granted. She unlearns reflexes and slowly creates new neural pathways as a new narrative takes shape. Her weaving holds love and discovery and hope, side by side.

With her weaving Jenny is developing a supplementary weft technique, replacing traditional geometrics with her own figurative motifs. With this technique she can weave complex symbols on a hand loom, maximising placement and scale. She weaves layered meanings into her motifs with a complex use of colour, by creating her own composite yarns from blends of wool, rayon and metallic threads.

Jenny’s weaving explores the interplay of her woven symbols in a sampler format. For example, her Becoming series combines traditional Swedish folk motifs with iconography of identity politics, connecting both to her roots and to her child now. Her Transversing series brings together X marks, with multi-layered references to love, our chromosomes, the unknown, and treasure to be discovered; and loop motifs referencing unlimited potential, eternal bonds, endless love and protection.

Jenny is a member of the Textile Study Group of artists and tutors sharing ideas, imagination and skills. Alongside her weaving practice, she runs creative textile workshops in her studio in Altrincham. She also leads creative textile workshops for arts, community and heritage organisations.

More photos can be seen here.

The 2026 Pride Season starts!

It’s that time again, when UK pride events start. This year there are over 220 Prides across the whole of the UK. Here are the Pride events in the north west.

List of North West Prides

16 May – Trafford Pride (Sale)

23 May – Bolton Pride

23 May – Pride on the Range (Whalley Range)

30 May – Bury Pride

6 June – Blackpool Pride

13 June – Salford Pride (Pink Picnic)

26 – 28 June – Sparkle Weekend (Manchester)

11 July – Weaste Pride

25 July – Liverpool Pride

25 July – Oldham Pride

26 July – Stockport Pride

1 August – Trans Pride Manchester

8 August – Prestwich Pride

14 – 16 August – Levenshulme Pride

16 August – Wigan Pride

28 – 31 August – Manchester Village Pride

30 August – Didsbury Pride

“Am I too bold, Eve – tell me?”: This lesbian first lady’s steamy love letters were way too hot for 1890

Rose Cleveland was a brilliant and unusual first lady for a few reasons. Most notably, she wasn’t actually married to the president during her time as First Lady, for the very good reason that he was her brother. Also, she was a lesbian.

Grover Cleveland would go on to marry a woman who would take over the role of First Lady later on, but for the first year of Cleveland’s first term, he counted on his sister Rose, a sophisticated woman of letters, suffragette, and education advocate, to fill the post. And she did so, remarkably well.

As a First Lady, Cleveland advanced progressive causes and fought for women’s rights, managing to publish several highbrow works during her time assisting her brother in the Oval Office.

But was she … you know … a fan of George Eliot?

She sure was. Cleveland wrote an entire book on Eliot’s work during her residency in the White House. She also wrote some other things that were less fit for print during the buttoned-up climax of the Victorian era, namely love letters to a woman who shared her progressive views and academic passions.

“My Eve! Ah, how I love you! It paralyses me,” Cleveland wrote to her lady love Evangeline Marrs Whipple (later Simpson Whipple) during a period of separation in 1890. “Oh Eve, Eve, surely you cannot realise what you are to me. What you must be. Yes, I dare it, now, I will no longer fear to claim you. You are mine by every sign in Earth & Heaven, by every sign in soul & spirit & body – and you cannot escape me.”

This was a common sentiment between the women, with Rose later declaring: “You are mine, and I am yours, and we are one, and our lives are one henceforth, please God, who can alone separate us. I am bold to say this, to pray & to live by it. Am I too bold, Eve – tell me?”

She was not too bold. Steamy as that sounds, Evangeline’s reply was even randier. “My Clevy, my Viking, My … Everything,” Whipple wrote, imploring Cleveland to “come to me this night.”

During another term of separation, Cleveland swore that: “whatever comes I know you love me and are true to me and will never be the cause of any sorrow to me, and oh, it is only this cruel outrageous time and distance – that is all!”

The communications between these women are as hot as it gets, and surprisingly, they’re not as anachronistic as they might seem at first. Just consider how raunchy Emily Dickinson’s own love letters were! There’s no doubt that “Clevy” and “Wingy”- sometimes “Granny”- were deeply in love, and for a time, didn’t care who knew it, even to the point of Evangeline’s mother meeting the loving pair early on in their courtship.

Long before Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, Rose Cleveland was romancing a woman passionately while using her powerful position to fight for the rights of less privileged women in America. The love between Cleveland and Whipple, like Hick and Eleanor, was longstanding. In 1901, Rose told Evangeline that “all the languages in the world, you darling, could not possibly express my sympathy – the perfect love which I feel for you.”

The women were also living through a surprising moment in American history, when “women loving women” relationships, if not accepted, were at least in evidence on college campuses and in elite Boston society. As Lizzie Ehrenhalt tells us in her introduction to Precious and Adored, the collected letters between Cleveland and Whipple, “the first uses of the word crush to mean a romantic infatuation come from this era, when female students openly courted one another and fused into couples.”

Women still had to be discreet, of course, and as Ehrenhalt notes, the letters between Clevy and Wingy, like other passionate communications between lesbians of the time, “draw their power from ambiguity.” If women couldn’t state their love openly, they could use their correspondence to say the quiet part … well … quietly.

Both Cleveland and Simpson Whipple were educated women of means. They met in the orange groves of Florida in 1889, and while their romance was cut short by the widowed Simpson Whipple’s decision to remarry, they spent a number of years living, working, and travelling together, seemingly without any interest in hiding their relationship.

It wasn’t uncommon for Boston marriages of this type to thrive in this era, but as scholar Lillian Faderman points out in her foreword to Precious and Adored, choosing not to remarry could mean being shut out of professional opportunities. This is most likely the reason why Evangeline chose to marry a man 30 years her senior despite a clearly passionate (and obviously sexual) relationship with Rose.

As you can imagine, the breakup, however temporary, didn’t sit well with Rose. She begged Evangeline to reconsider – but ultimately, the marriage went through.

But there’s a happy ending to this story: Evangeline’s new husband died only four years after the remarriage, and she reconnected with Rose that same year. Perhaps the romantic part of the relationship had expired, but a passionate friendship remained. The letters continued until Rose’s death in 1918. Considering how explicit many of them are, it’s a miracle they’ve survived in the first place. First donated in 1969 – the year of the Stonewall Riots – the full tranche of letters didn’t see publication until 2019, with the release of Precious and Adored.

When Evangeline died, her final request was to be laid next to Rose Cleveland. She got her wish: In a plot in Bagni di Luccam, Clevy and Wing still rest alongside each other.

Sunday, 14 June – 7.30pm – 10.00pm – Penny Magpie Theatre Company Presents: Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche – £18 + booking fee

Hebden Bridge Town Hall, St George’s Street, Hebden Bridge HX7 7BY

It’s 1956 and The Susan B Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein are having their annual quiche breakfast. As the assembled ‘widows’ await the announcement of the society’s prize-winning quiche, the atomic bomb sirens sound! Has the Communist threat come to pass? How will the ‘widows’ respond as their idyllic town and lifestyle faces attacks? 

Winner of a national ‘Best Amateur Production’ award after a sell-out run at Theatre@41 in York in 2024, The Penny Magpie Theatre Company bring ‘5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche’ to Hebden Bridge in a tasty recipe of hysterical laughs, sexual innuendoes, unsuccessful repressions, and delicious discoveries.

1853 Restaurant

Thirty six of us enjoyed a lunch time meal at the 1853 Restaurant.

In a friendly and relaxed environment, the food is crafted and served by students from The Manchester College City Centre Campus. This is a hidden gem offering a delightful dining experience, where the quality of the food and service is exceptional.

More photos can be seen here.

Bigots hounded me out of Bolton as a young man. I won’t let it happen again.

Ahead of Tip Toe – a new Russell T Davies drama about rising homophobia – the author turned LGBTQ+ publisher Matt Cain explains why the fight against hatred never ends.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading: “They’ve been pushing this sick agenda for 100 years”, “More paedophiles in schools” and “Nobody is homophobic – we are homo-fatigued”. These are just some of the comments that appeared under a recent Bolton News article about me when it was posted on Facebook. The comments flung me back to a painful time in the past – and they threatened to disrupt my reconciliation with my hometown.

I’ve always had a fractious relationship with Bolton. Growing up in the 1980s as a sensitive and obviously gay child, I was the victim of savage homophobic bullying. At school, I was called “poof”, “queer” and “pansy”. Kids refused to sit next to me in case they caught AIDS, and I was punched in the face in the middle of a PE lesson. Outside school, I was spat at in the street and my effeminacy was mocked by the family milkman and by tradesmen working in our home. I fled Bolton to find my tribe among fellow creatives and outsiders, first in Manchester and then in London.

But I was drawn back to Bolton by family events, especially the births of nephews and nieces. As the children grew up, I saw the town through their eyes and realised there was a lot to love: the beautiful Lancashire moors, the warmth of the people and the strong sense of community.

When I started writing novels, I set them in Lancashire and Greater Manchester. I was influenced by the region’s tradition of storytelling with humour and heart, from the character-based comedy of Victoria Wood and Peter Kay to classic Coronation Street. I found it was the perfect setting for stories celebrating human connection. As my books featured gay characters and themes, when they became bestsellers it felt like acceptance.

In 2015, Bolton held its first ever Pride event and I went back to stand on the steps of the town hall – lit up in the colours of the Pride flag – and make an emotional speech about my reconciliation with my hometown. When I looked out at the crowd, I tried not to wonder if it included any of my school bullies. I tried to ignore the fact that the catalyst for the event was the 135% rise in reported hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people in the town. I told myself that, even if things weren’t perfect, they were moving in the right direction. “For the first time in my life,” I declared, “I’m not just proud to be gay but also proud to be from Bolton.”

But when an article about me, my latest novel and the LGBTQ+ publisher I’ve set up appeared in the Bolton News, its post on Facebook was greeted by insults that have jolted me back to the school playground. “Deviant perverts,” the Facebook comments read, “We don’t want queer stories” and “More paper for bonfire night”.

It’s a startling change. The Bolton News has always been supportive of my career, just last year running an article on the MBE I was awarded for services to LGBTQ+ culture – and that didn’t generate any online backlash. I can only assume it’s because I launched a queer publisher during a local election campaign, with Reform UK pledging to take down Pride flags and cancel initiatives aimed at diversity and inclusion. As one Facebook user commented: “He’s probably going to vote for the greens or labour.” The fact that Reform has made significant gains across the country – including in Bolton – I find truly chilling.

It does make me wonder if, more generally, homophobia is on the rise. This is the premise of Russell T Davies’s new drama Tip Toe, screening on Channel 4 and is about the feud between a gay bar-owner (played by Alan Cumming) and his neighbour (David Morrissey). Davies has described it as his “angriest and darkest” series yet. I certainly agree with him that, online, some media outlets (and I don’t include the Bolton News) deliberately post articles with clickbait headlines to stir up hatred and boost engagement, and although there are laws regarding hate speech on social media, there doesn’t seem to be any policing. But the threats are sometimes terrifying. Responding to a Facebook user who defended me, one person wrote: “You’d best never leave your home because we are everywhere.”

Although I was upset by this barrage of homophobia, I wasn’t entirely surprised. Throughout history, when the rights and visibility of minority groups have improved, there’s often been a backlash. There’s no giving up the fight: and that applies to any form of bigotry. 

But at the age of 51, I’m exhausted by the battle. It’s lucky, then, that I have a new weapon in my LGBTQ+ publisher. And what did we choose to call it? Pansy, to reappropriate a homophobic slur. And, despite the local election results, when I launch Pansy with my next book, I’ll be doing it from Bolton.

Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”

The biggest song in Billy Joel’s catalogue has been hiding a gay secret for 50 years – and even he had to admit it makes sense.

“Piano Man,” released in 1973, has long been a fan favourite among gay audiences who believe the song is set in a gay bar.

The theory goes that the narrator is a clueless straight man playing piano while the regulars around him – Paul who “never had time for a wife,” Davy who’s “probably in the Navy for life” – are closeted gay men finding refuge in the only place they felt safe. The line “Man, what are you doing here?” takes on a whole new meaning.

When Billy was asked about it directly in 2024, he didn’t dismiss it. “I see how that could be,” he said. “It’s a whole theory – it’s very funny, actually!” He even sang “In the Navy” at shows, clearly in on the joke by then.

Happy 77th Birthday, Billy Joel (born 9 May 1949)!

“I gave The Repair Shop a broken book – I got back a piece of history”

There are few episodes of The Repair Shop that could be more important than the one that aired last week.

Lisa Power is a prominent LGBT+ activist who, through volunteering at the first LGBT+ helpline, Gay Switchboard, has been at the centre of the most significant moments in queer history of the last 50 years.

Founded in 1974, Switchboard became an essential lifeline for LGBT+ people.

It was created when there were no legal protections for gay people and the world was actively fighting against them – they needed someone on the end of the line to tell them they are loved, they are wonderful, and most importantly, they are not alone.

There is next to no documentation of the LGBT+ experience before the 1980s, when the gay community was being obliterated by AIDS and demonised by politicians and the media.

Letters, books and documents were usually burned for discretion, making Switchboard’s early logbooks one of the only points of reference to provide an authentic understanding of what was really happening on the ground to LGBT+ people in the 1970s and beyond.

The books have become an essential part of modern queer culture. They were essential research materials for Russell T Davies when he created the blistering Channel 4 drama It’s A Sin, and have been used for several LGBT+ television shows and movies too.

Power brought the very first book to restorers Chris Shaw and Sonnaz Nooranvary to salvage what is one of the most important artefacts of modern British history, which has been neglected for decades.

‘It was in a terrible state,’ Lisa said. ‘It wasn’t even a book at all – it became a collection of papers with a couple of pieces of cardboard bracketing it.’

This is the first time the books have been given some TLC since they were discovered gathering dust in an attic, when one of Lisa’s colleagues found them and realised their importance.

‘”The first one, this one, was in an appalling state, and of course it’s the one everyone wants to read. Until now, they’d been preserved in plastic, but it had become so delicate it couldn’t easily be handled anymore.”

‘The Repair Shop was a godsend.’

Watching Chris work his magic on the book is remarkable – the pages, alive with the stories of volunteers, the beginnings of ideas that became reality, sewn back together and then attached with a new spine.

“Working on the Switchboard logbook was an amazing thing to be a part of. I grew up in the 1970s, so for me it was a real social comment and an insight into what was really happening at the time. It was fascinating that they had discovered them, and the comments that were in them were enlightening to the situation at the time,” he stated.

“It was also fascinating to see whose hands had touched them and amazing to be a part of restoring social history at such a crucial time. To highlight an artefact that shows real people’s lives at such an important point in history.”

“I was gobsmacked,” Lisa says, recalling the moment she saw the book restored in all its glory for the first time. “I can’t believe what Chris has managed to do with it, it was so different – it’s a brand new book.”

“We overuse the word iconic, but this book is iconic. It’s in Bishopsgate archives now, so people can take a look at it. I’m also a trustee of Queer Britain museum, and I very much hope that at some point it will go on display there, but that’s up to Switchboard and Queer Britain.”

After all these years, Switchboard LGBT is still such an integral part of keeping the LGBT+ community safe and heard. In 2024, it answered more than 14,000 calls from people who needed its vital help – from people living in the closet to those discreetly getting sexual health advice they’re too scared to seek elsewhere.

It’s not lost on Lisa quite how special a moment it is that they’ll now be displayed in front of millions on The Repair Shop, because so rarely does LGBT+ history get such a significant spotlight.

“We are starting to see a lot of people being emboldened to be unpleasant, particularly to trans people, but on a sliding scale to the rest of our community too,” she says.

“For us to keep having those really clear positive images of respect for our past and our current existence is really important.

I used to be the press officer for Switchboard, and we understood incredibly strongly that one mention on a soap opera or a family programme on TV was worth any amount of demonstrations or documentaries to show us as just part of everyday life with the same rights to exist and to celebrate as everybody else is. It’s as important now as it was then.

I’m just very grateful to The Repair Shop for celebrating our history, our existence and giving us back something that will be of immense use to researchers, but also just as an iconic object.

I’ve stood next to Oscar Wilde’s prison door and almost burst into tears, and this carries as much symbolic weight.

All of these items show that we exist, that we’ve been around and that we can fight for our rights and to be alongside everybody else.”

The Repair Shop is available to watch now on BBCiPlayer.

Section 28 Justice Coalition

Their petition for a public inquiry into the impact of Section 28 is continuing. They now have over 2,800 signatures but they desperately need your help to get more, and to reach the 10,000 threshold to get a response from the Government. The petition is a crucial part of their campaign to stop LGBT+ censorship and get justice for all those who lived through Section 28.

Sign the petition here.

We’ve Always Been Here

Trans+ History Week is a trans+ led nonprofit, social enterprise that exists to popularise the global awareness week: Trans+ History Week from 4 – 10 May 2026.

It is a week-long reflective period to learn and celebrate the momentous and millennia-old history of transgender, non-binary, gender-diverse and Intersex people.

Trans+ History Day is held on 6 May – the anniversary of the 1933 Nazi raid on the world’s first Trans+ clinic in Berlin, Germany.

Days later, the clinic’s library was raided, and over 20,000 books and much precious research were desecrated in what would become one of the first large public book burnings by the Nazi regime.

Book burnings are a historic image many of us recognise. But the connection to the transgender community is little known.

We are seeing increasing hostility toward the trans+ community in our media, politics and institutions. There are even campaigns to ban LGBT+ books. It’s all a terrifying echo of how past horrors began.

There was a 56% increase in anti-Trans+ hate crimes recorded last year.

In the last six years, there’s been a 348% rise in LGBT+ hate crimes.

Attacking the trans+ community leaves you on the wrong side of history. Change is possible but we need to continue to fight for inclusion and dignity for all.

Out On The Radio

Show 6 of Out On The Radio is now available to listen to here.

Tony and Norman play tunes and chat about the Manchester Pride Parade Theme, other Pride events in May and Alan Turing and Artificial Intelligence. They also mention a few famous LGBT+ people who have birthdays in May.

Hope you enjoy!

Live at Lunchtime

All the following events are in the Stalls Foyer, Bridgewater Hall, Lower Mosley Street, Manchester M2 3WS.

All the concerts are from 12.45pm to 1.30pm and are FREE – no ticket required.

Friday, 15 May – Coruja Jones

Dreamy Indie-folk. Beautiful songs with soaring high notes, combined with intricate, delicate guitar work into cavernous reverbs, which take aim at your heart. Join this Manchester-based songsmith for a special preview of songs from his upcoming album. This trio performance features Jake Stentiford on acoustic guitars, and Alex Pearson on bass and synth.

Friday, 22 May – Chetham’s School of Music

Chetham’s School of Music, in the heart of Manchester, is the largest specialist music school in the UK, and the only one in the north of England. It is made up of 330 students aged between 8 and 18 and the campus is a melting pot of different perspectives and ideas – but everyone is bonded by a passion for music. This makes Chetham’s a truly unique and inspirational place to live, learn and make connections.

Friday, 5 June – Zoe Gilby

Winner of Parliamentary Jazz Awards “Jazz Vocalist of the Year 2019” Zoe Gilby’s  “Aurora” album is out now. Inspired by the instrumental compositions of award winning, Grammy nominated US trumpeter Tom Harrell. This melodic, sharply conceived music has been augmented with lyrical interpretations written by Zoë.

Friday, 12 June – Milap – Kaviraj Singh & Kousic Sen

Take a perfect break from your busy day and relax to the soothing sounds of the one hundred stringed Indian Santoor along with the tabla, performed by Kaviraj Singh and Kousic Sen.

Friday, 19 June – KairosDuo

One of the UK’s leading young chamber duos KairosDuo, is a dynamic small ensemble for percussion and saxophone showcasing their vivacious performance style and artistry through modern classical and contemporary repertoire, as they strive to reimagine the traditional chamber music concert experience.

Friday, 3 July – Denise Morgan

Born and raised in Manchester, by Irish parents, Denise’s music was inspired by her Irish roots. Coupled with her love of 60’s Soul, these influences were soon heard in her songwriting and singing style which has became known as, Celtic Soul.

Friday, 10 July – Black Creative Trailblazers

Join Black Creative Trailblazers at Live at Lunchtime for a vibrant musical showcase celebrating Mancunian talent, connection and creativity.

This special lunchtime performance features three outstanding artists. Sinead D’Abreu-Hayling is a Trinidadian British soprano currently completing a Masters in Vocal Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Also taking to the stage is Rumbi Tauro, a Zimbabwean-born R&B powerhouse known for her soulful melodies and captivating live performances.

Completing the lineup are The Divines, a Manchester-based soul duo blending playful harmonies and rich tones across neo-soul, R&B and 90s/2000s classics. 

Friday, 28 August – Neeve Zahra

Manchester born singer/songwriter, Neeve Zahra is captivating audiences with her unique voice and beautiful lyrics which are far beyond her years. Championed by the likes of Bob Harris on BBC Radio 2 and CountryLine Radio’s Tim Prottey-Jones, Neeve Zahra is already taking the UK country music scene by storm.

Friday, 4 September – Nirse Gonzalez (Instituto Cervantes)

Join us for an exceptional guitar recital by Nirse González, presenting a programme that explores the expressive breadth of the classical guitar. 

Friday, 18 September – Heard Storytelling – “It Happened Here”

A live true storytelling event to celebrate the start of The Bridgewater Hall’s 30th season. Enjoy a curated line up of people sharing their lived experience of the transformative impact of the Hall’s history, accompanied by live music. Heard Storytelling specialise in creating safe, fun and empowering opportunities to tell true stories out loud.

Friday, 25 September – So Many Beauties

Bridgewater Hall regulars So Many Beauties present a performance of new music shaped through creative collaboration across Greater Manchester. This award winning Collective brings together some of the region’s finest intercultural musicians, featuring instruments and musical traditions from around the world.

The Scandal that Shook the German Empire

Germany’s last emperor, a gilded porcelain vase and a general who had a heart attack in a pink tutu: The Eulenburg Affair shook the German Empire to its core and paved the way for the downfall of the monarchy.

Embellished with a gilded iguana and a bouquet of fruits topped with a pineapple, an ostentatious piece of queer history was sold on 24 April 2026 for €300,000 (£260,000) at the Berlin branch of Germany’s Lempertz auction house. The just over 116-centimeter-tall porcelain vase is thought to have been made as a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last emperor of Germany, to his friend Prince Philipp of Eulenburg-Hertefeld.

Little known about today, the relationship between the Kaiser and the prince was at the centre of a scandal, the so-called Eulenburg Affair, that shook all of Europe to the core and transformed public opinion on the monarchy.

Wilhelm II ascended to the German throne in 1888. As Kaiser, Wilhelm had a reputation as a feckless, insecure and erratic leader obsessed with his own press coverage, who developed increasingly authoritarian tendencies. 

Eulenburg was a diplomat who quickly rose to become the Kaiser’s most important extra-parliamentary advisor. He often hosted hunting and artistic retreats for a close circle of friends at Liebenberg castle, north of Berlin. As would later be revealed in court, members of that circle would refer to Eulenburg as “Phili” or “Philine” and Kaiser Wilhelm as “Liebchen” (“sweetheart”).

It also became clear that they cultivated a cult of neo-romantic male friendship, and their correspondence was filled with seemingly homoerotic attestations of friendship.

Scandalous plot to bring down the monarchy 

The Liebenberg group of friends was despised by the Kaiser’s many critics who framed them as sycophants who abused their proximity to the Kaiser to influence policymaking. 

Those critics included influential Berlin journalist Maximilian Harden, an ardent German nationalist. He was convinced that the German threat to go to war with France over Morocco during the First Moroccan Crisis (1905-06) had been brushed aside as a bluff by the French based on information leaked to the French ambassador at a Liebenberg hunting party. 

Harden thought there needed to be a way to implement change and he was quite cynical in that he thought that the only option he had, as a journalist and publisher, was to scandalise these people with the aim of bringing them down.

On 17 November 1906, Harden published an article entitled “Prelude” in which he accused the Kaiser’s entourage of having “spun threads from invisible quarters, threads that make it difficult for the German Reich to breathe.” He singled out Eulenburg in particular as a corrupting influence. They “don’t dream of a world in flames, they are warm enough already,” wrote Harden in his widely read and very influential weekly journal Die Zukunft. “Warm” was common slang for homosexual at the time.

Eulenburg promptly left Berlin for Switzerland, supposedly for “health reasons.” But he could not keep away for long and returned to Berlin in 1907, infuriating Harden.

What followed was a series of court martials and public trials that drew worldwide attention and resulted in a scandal with an impact comparable to the 1895 trial of Oscar Wilde in England for “gross indecency” and the Dreyfus affair, which began in 1894 and which came to symbolise injustice and antisemitism, in France.

The scandal divided German society. The German Empire, which was outwardly so pompous and ostentatious, inwardly was such a weak and unstable entity, with huge differences between north and south, east and west. The scandal cracked those divides wide open.

One of the most sensational trials of the Eulenburg affair involved General Kuno von Moltke, who would eventually resign from his role as city commandant, responsible for Berlin’s military security, and sue Harden for libel. In the Berlin courtroom, Harden said von Moltke, who was apparently known as “Tutu” among the Liebenberg circle, liked to wear rouge and “striking costumes” such as kimonos and long skirts at home.

During the trial von Moltke’s ex-wife, Lili von Elbe, sensationally blamed the commandant’s close friendship with Eulenburg for the failure of her marriage and claimed von Moltke refused to share a bed with her. 

Harden also brought in sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld to give expert testimony on the issue of Moltke’s sexuality. In 1897, Hirschfeld had founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in Berlin, the world’s first homosexual rights organisation. His assessment, based on his observations in the courtroom, was that von Moltke had a feminine side and displayed “unconscious homosexuality.” Harden was acquitted. 

Hirschfeld’s theories about gender and sexuality, brought to wider public attention by the trial, were groundbreaking at the time. For him, sexual orientation was an innate, natural biological trait and not a lifestyle choice, an illness or a crime. In a sense it’s an early version of the ‘born this way’ concept, as various emancipatory movements have since asserted. 

Important part of queer history 

Long before its Weimar heyday, Berlin had already garnered a reputation as the party capital of Europe with a vibrant queer scene. At a time when sexual acts between men were criminalised under Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code, the city even had a special police unit – not to prevent homosexual activity, but to protect high-ranking members of society from potential blackmailers.

The Eulenburg Affair had unintended consequences for Berlin’s gay scene. It ultimately led to more homophobia, the pervasive idea of ‘degeneracy’ of homosexuals defined as effeminate men and debates about the tightening of Paragraph 175 – which the Nazis decades later in 1935 implemented – and ultimately on gay men’s freedom to live their sexuality. 

Homosexuality also became associated with a lack of patriotism and even treason. In 1908, the New Yorker Staatszeitung, an important voice for Germans in the US, even recommended a “bright and cheery little war” to rid Germany of homosexuality.

In a grim foreshadowing of Nazi Germany, the press also spewed antisemitic invective against Harden, his lawyer Max Bernstein and Hirschfeld. “We cannot allow this German man [von Moltke] to be dragged through the mud by Jewish fellows,” raged German daily newspaper Die Staatsbürgerzeitung.

The scandal destroyed Eulenburg’s reputation and he was later the subject of a defamation case brought by Harden. During that trial, an elderly fisherman and a petty criminal testified to having had sexual relations with the prince in their youth. After he collapsed in court in 1909, Eulenburg was regularly found by court physicians to be too ill to stand trial. He was shunned by friends until his death in 1921.

The Liebenberg circle of friends continued to gather around Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was never far from a scandal. 

During a hunting dinner at Donaueschingen palace in 1908, a Prussian general, Dietrich Graf von Hülsen-Haeseler, the head of the Kaiser’s military cabinet, dropped dead of a heart attack while waltzing. By some accounts, he was dressed in the hostess’ ballgown and a hat adorned with peacock feathers, by others, in a pink tutu and a crown of roses.

The incident caused the Kaiser, who was already under pressure after the publication of very undiplomatic comments about the British, to suffer a nervous breakdown. 

He was ultimately sidelined by the military during World War I and abdicated the throne in 1918. The last emperor of Germany, he died in exile in the Netherlands in 1941.

European Parliament backs EU-wide conversion therapy ban

On 29 April the European Parliament voted in favour of banning so-called conversion therapy across the European Union.

Conversion therapy is a broad term which refers to several practices (eg talk therapy, physical abuse or aversion therapy) that attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

ACT (Against Conversion Therapy) LGBT launched a campaign in 2024 in support of the ban through the EU’s European Citizens Initiative framework. More than 1.2 million people ultimately signed it.

The proposed ban had the support of 405 MEPs. The European Commission, the EU’s main executive body that can introduce the legislation, is expected to formally respond by 18 May.

Seven EU countries – Belgium, Cyprus, France, Malta, Norway, Portugal and Spain – have banned conversion therapy outright.

In 2022 Greece banned the practice for minors. In 2020 German lawmakers passed a law that prohibits conversion therapy for minors and for adults who have not consented to undergoing the widely discredited practice.

The UK failed to bring forward a ban ahead of the end of the Parliamentary session  as promised in the Kings Speech.

Pride in Trafford (12 – 17 May 2026)

Pride in Trafford explores and celebrates both identity and LGBTQ+ life in Trafford. The work aims to challenge and entertain, taking a queer art focus over a more traditional pride format.

The inaugural Pride in Trafford took place in 2019, with a strong commitment to diversity, telling stories and celebrating artists many of which are often under-represented and has since grown and developed into an important festival for Trafford and Greater Manchester attracting over 4,000 people annually.

The festival has become a driver for the creation of new work by LGBTQ+ artists and has supported artists such as Sam Danson’s BI-TOPIA, Hunter King’s A Northern Tr*nny Hootenanny and Holly Redford-Jones’ I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar, Violet Blonde and Cheddar Gorgeous.

For a day-by-day list of events, see here.

Out In The City will be visiting three exhibitions on Wednesday, 13 May. If you want to join us, please contact us here.

Pride on the Range (Whalley Range Pride) (21 – 24 May 2026)

Out On The Radio

Tuesday, 5 May – 2.00pm – 3.00pm – Out On The Radio

Show 6 on 96.9fm

Live and available on Mixcloud to listen again.

Norman and Tony are chatting and playing tunes.

Saltaire

Saltaire is a remarkably preserved Victorian industrial village in West Yorkshire, not far from Bradford, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We travelled from Manchester to Leeds and then changed trains to Saltaire. We had booked a table at The Boathouse Inn, before visiting Salts Mill.

Salts Mill operated from 1853 until 1986 and gave employment to thousands of workers. The mill was converted into a multifunctional location with shops, places to eat and wonderful architecture. The main mill building features several large rooms given over to the works of the Bradford-born artist David Hockney.

The village of Saltaire was founded in 1851 by Sir Titus Salt on the river Aire. It was designed as a model community to provide high-quality housing and amenities for textile workers, featuring the massive Salts Mill and, notably for the time, no public houses. 

More photos can be seen here.

The evolution of LGBT+ media worldwide

For most of modern history, LGBT+ people have been either ignored by the mainstream press or portrayed through the lens of scandal, pathology and crime – enduring erasure and inaccurate depictions which created lasting stereotypes and stigmas that continue to impact the LGBT+ community.

In response, LGBT+ people learned to build their own media systems – with newsletters and pamphlets, then magazines and newspapers and now digital outlets that document real lives, challenge problematic narratives and fight for visibility.

Long before the acronym LGBT+ existed, pamphlets printed by and for LGBT+ people emerged as avenues for discreet communication and information sharing in Germany – a major hub for queer research in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries.

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who published booklets containing essays and ponderings about gay and bisexual love as well as gender variance in the 1860s, published Uranus, a more formal journal focused on the early queer rights movement – aimed at legalising gay relationships and challenging misinformation about LGBT+ experiences. He planned for the journal, which is named after a vintage term for gay men, to be a periodical but never published a second issue.

Another German, Adolf Brand, published Der Eigene, which ran from 1886 to 1932. The journal – which was estimated to reach about 1500 subscribers per issue – featured cultural, artistic and political commentary as well as poetry, fiction and photography. It existed quietly through a private readership until it was shut down by the Nazi regime.

Other writing from Germany and Europe – including various LGBT+ publications of scholarly and social intent – found great success but met a similar fate when fascists rose to power. This includes what is likely the world’s first lesbian magazine, Die Freundin, which published short stories and novellas, created buzz about nightlife hotspots and hosted discussions, readings and performances.

In the United States, postal laws and obscenity statutes imposed limitations for publishing.

Henry Gerber and the Society for Human Rights in Chicago borrowed the name of their publication, Friendship and Freedom, from another German publication. Friendship and Freedom, the first known American newsletter about gay topics, published just two issues in 1924 before police forced the operation to shut down.

The LGBT+ media landscape remained shrouded for the next few decades, with very few efforts to create and circulate publications surviving for today’s archives. But that changed with an explosion of resources during the mid-20th century.

The first known American periodical published specifically for lesbians was founded by Lisa Ben in 1947. Vice Versa produced nine issues but had a tiny following due to limited printing. It’s one of countless zines often circulated within individual communities.

In the early 1950s, a fitness and muscle magazine, Physique Pictorial, often avoided language that explicitly outed itself, but was developed for a gay male audience by Bob Mizer, a photographer who featured semi-nude portraits in the periodical with editorials about political topics and censorship.

At the same time, explicitly gay and lesbian magazines emerged. ONE Magazine – founded in 1953 by members of the Mattachine Society – became the first nationally distributed LGBT+ publication in the United States. Its creators won a landmark obscenity case in 1958, and the Supreme Court victory set a new precedent for LGBT+ media.

The Ladder, launched in 1956 by the Daughters of Bilitis, focused on sapphics. It initially had a conservative tone and emphasised respectability politics until editor Barbara Gittings pushed the content into feminist territory in the mid-60s. DRUM, a magazine launched by the Janus Society in 1964, centred on ideas of sexual liberation – a contrast to The Ladder.

Trans community members also created media hubs. Transvestic, founded in 1960 by Virginia Prince, is believed to be the first widely distributed resource for gender nonconforming people – but it quickly became one of many. Turnabout, He-She and New Trenns magazines catered specifically to trans and gender nonconforming audiences in the 1960s – and many thrived for decades. They not only raised visibility but helped trans and gender-nonconforming people find affirming places to shop, access health care and find emotional support.

The 1969 Stonewall uprising marked a turning point not only for activism but for LGBT+ journalism. Queer news outlets proliferated across cities and college campuses, often featuring activist-driven and locally focused content.

The Advocate – which evolved from a small, Los Angeles-focused newsletter that launched in 1967, shifted its focus to cover national protests, police harassment, culture and internal debates within the LGBT+ rights movement by 1968. It solidified its identity as a national magazine when it dropped “Los Angeles” from the name in 1970 and is now the oldest, continuously publishing LGBT+ news source in the United States. It is also the only surviving publication to have launched before the Stonewall rebellion.

The Washington Blade – previously The Gay Blade – was born as a community newsletter in 1969, four months after Stonewall. The Bay Area Reporter came to life in 1971. Philadelphia Gay News launched in 1976. All three still serve their local LGBT+ communities.

Since Stonewall a core principle of LGBT+ media was about telling stories ignored or distorted by mainstream outlets. These papers broke critical stories, including early reporting on HIV/AIDS and in-depth investigative pieces.

Celebrity profiles and lifestyle coverage took hold in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s with monthly glossies. BLK became the first widely-circulated publication for the Black LGBT+ community in 1988. It closed in 1994. Curve came onto the scene (as Deneuve) in 1990, covering sapphic culture. Out – known for its Out 100, a list of influential and inspiring openly LGBT+ leaders – has shared the list since its inception in 1992.

By the end of the decade, mainstream media began to cover stories about lesbian and gay people but tended to focus on more “palatable” presentations of LGBT+ life or focused on the community’s biggest tragedies. LGBT+ publications continued to push boundaries – ensuring that radical voices and marginalised perspectives were not erased, even if more commercial spaces weren’t amplifying them.

The digital market shifted approaches in the early and mid-2000s, with various online entertainment and lifestyle brands that still exist today emerging during this time. The digital world also made publishing news more accessible.

Today, independent websites are often the first place LGBT+ people turn to for up-to-date information because it’s produced by and for their own communities. 

LGBT+ journalism still finds its way to the people who need it – often because followers help to amplify its reach. It’s powered by audiences who understand what’s at stake and actively help stories travel farther than platforms might allow on their own. Through reposts, screenshots, group chats, newsletters and old-fashioned word-of-mouth, followers become an informal distribution system – ensuring vital reporting circulates even when visibility is restricted.