Pride on The Range

Pride on The Range celebrates LGBT+ life in Whalley Range and takes place from 25 to 29 May.

The programme included events at The Carlton Club and The Nip and Tipple including the ‘Proud Hearts’ Art Exhibition, various singers and spoken word performers, Big Gay Quiz and a queer film night.

The main event on Saturday was the Parade and Garden Party, which included a Vogue dance workshop with the House of Apex, Bhangra Band, yoga, cabaret, music and a dog show.

Categories for the dog show were campest dog, waggiest tail and best dressed dog!

There were lots of stalls including UNISON North West LGBT+ Group, Village Bakers and The LGBT Foundation. The Foundation stall featured their new branding and information about the LGBTQ+ Majority Extra Care Housing Scheme.

LGBT Foundation, Great Places Housing Group and Manchester City Council are developing the UK’s first purpose built LGBTQ+ majority older person’s scheme on Russell Road in Whalley Range.

The volunteers on the stall had some great conversations about the development and handed out flyers with more information, and there was also a mention of the scheme in the Lord Mayor’s speech!

The Russell Road scheme will be a flagship, first-of-its-kind scheme and the ambition is that it will serve as a model that other cities and communities can look to as they seek to create more inclusive and supportive environments for their older LGBTQ+ communities. The details of the scheme will be developed with the input of the Russell Road Community Steering Group, building on the expertise, knowledge and experience of older LGBTQ+ people and local residents to design a ground-breaking scheme and Centre of Excellence.

It was a very enjoyable day with a great positive atmosphere. More photos can be seen here.

Same-Sex Couple Marries In The First Wedding Ever Held At The RHS Chelsea Flower Show

After more than a century of garden shows, the Royal Horticultural Society’s annual Chelsea Flower Show hosted its first wedding this week, when award-winning garden designer Manoj Malde married his partner of 33 years, Clive Gillmor, in a garden Malde created.

“Isn’t it a glorious idea?” says James Alexander-Sinclair, an RHS judge who introduced the ceremony. “Somebody who actually designs this garden about bringing people together, and then gets married [in] it. It’s just a really nice way to connect the whole thing together.”

Malde, who is the RHS Ambassador for inclusivity and diversity, and Gillmor wed in a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony, surrounded by a variety of spiritually significant plants that Malde incorporated into his design of the Eastern Eye Garden of Unity: Japanese cherry blossoms, cardoon and oregano. The garden also contains Asian fruits and vegetables, celebrating Asian household cooking.

One of Malde’s missions in designing the space is to make gardening accessible to people who have been historically excluded from it, noting that “planting food and highlighting diverse stories helps attract a greater variety of people.” In another Chelsea Flower Show first, the Eastern Eye garden is home to posts with messages in Braille so that blind and visually impaired patrons can enjoy the garden more fully.

For Malde and Gillmor’s wedding ceremony, pink, orange, red, and green flowers were strung with beads around the centre of the garden as mandaps, which are a Hindu tradition. Sitar and flute music played as the couple donned white floral garlands and exchanged their vows in front of family, friends, fellow RHS judges and onlooking flower show attendees. “It took us 18 years to get engaged,” says Malde, “but in our minds we’ve always been married to each other. Today we’re making it more official.” 

Salford Pride

Salford Pride presents: ‘The Pink Picnic 2023’ returning to Peel Park, Salford M5 4WU on Saturday 17 June 2022 from 1.00pm to 8.00pm.

The Pink Picnic is Salford’s annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Non-binary plus (LGBT+) pride event and is back again in 2023 for it’s twelfth year.

The grass roots event personifies the true essence of what pride means and what it originally stood for. With the community at it’s heart, the event brings the local community, groups, organisations, charities, and businesses together to showcase Salford’s diverse communities.

The day will host an array of live entertainment on the main stage, showcasing a roster of local diverse LGBT+ talent and headline artists including Nadine Coyle, Black Peppa, Big Brovaz & Booty Luv, Nimmo, Bailey J Mills and more. Expect to see drag, musicians, dancers, DJ’s and powerful words from prominent voices in the community, including Salford Pride patron and trans activist Annie Wallace (Hollyoaks).

As well as the main stage the event will host community stalls promoting local groups, organisations and charities, activities and entertainment for families, children, and LGBT+ youth, inflatables, a bar tent, food and drink vendors and much more.

Free tickets are limited to 2 per person.

If you are able to, please support by selecting a donation ticket of your choice to help keep the event free. PinkPLUS tickets are also available for purchase with prices starting at £25.00.

Bridgewater Hall

The Bridgewater Hall is a concert venue in Manchester city centre. It cost around £42 million to build in the 1990s, and hosts over 250 performances a year.

We were there to listen to a concert organised by the Hallé. The Hallé welcomed, for the first time, German conductor Kevin John Edusei whose career is well established on the concert platform and in opera as former Chief Conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra and the Bern Opera House.

He’s joined by a pianist long admired by Hallé audiences, Nelson Goerner, whom BBC Music Magazine dubbed ‘an artist of a very high order’. He plays the concerto with which Rachmaninov, as composer and virtuoso pianist, swept the world.

The second piece was by American composer Missy Mazzoli who wrote her animated Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) in ‘the shape of a solar system’, elaborating that ‘it’s a piece that churns and rolls, that inches close to the listener, only to leap away at breakneck speed’.

To conclude, the third piece of music was Dvořák’s genial, sunny Eighth Symphony, bursting with the beguiling folk tunes of Bohemia.

Thanks to The Hallé for such an enjoyable afternoon.

French Soccer Clubs Exclude Players After They Refuse to Participate in Anti-Homophobia Campaign

Players in the country’s top two divisions were asked to don rainbow-coloured numbers.

French soccer team Toulouse did not select several players for its Ligue 1 game against Nantes on Sunday, 14 May after they refused to participate in a league-wide anti-homophobia campaign.

“Some players of the professional squad have expressed their disagreement regarding the association of their image with the rainbow colours representing the LGBT movement,” Toulouse FC said in a statement.

“Although respecting the individual choices of its players, and after numerous exchanges, the Toulouse Football Club has chosen to exclude these players from the game,” the Ligue 1 club added.

French teams playing in the country’s top two divisions were asked to don rainbow-coloured numbers and hold banners as a way of raising attention for International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

Toulouse FC did not name the players they had excluded but Moroccan international Zakaria Aboukhlal confirmed on social media that he “made the decision not to take part in the game.”

“First and foremost, I want to emphasise that I hold the highest regard for every individual regardless of their personal preferences, gender, religion or background. This is a principle that cannot be emphasised enough,” Aboukhlal said.

The “molly houses” of the Regency era were basically just sophisticated 19th century gay sex clubs

Most of us are familiar with the Regency period, the decade between 1811 and 1820 when the wealthy English aristocracy ruled. Yet in most of the modern stories set in the Regency, we see hardly any gay characters at the balls and tea parties. It makes you wonder: in the actual Regency era, where did all the gay men go? 

History’s got an answer: they went to the molly house!

Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, molly meant a gay man. “Mollies” would meet in taverns, alehouses, or coffee-houses for discreet encounters of the racy kind. Some came to meet new prospects, others brought men they’d met elsewhere, and one could hire live-in male prostitutes at the richer establishments. All found booze, dancing, and the freedom to experiment with feminine fashion without judgment. 

We first hear of molly houses in 1700, mostly through court transcripts and the hysterical articles of investigative journalists. In the 18th century, the molly house that attracted the most attention was Mother Clap’s Molly House in the Holborn borough of London.

Though a married couple co-owned the place, it was the wife, Margaret Clap, who held court in the main room. Up to forty or fifty men gathered there, drinking, dancing and kissing. It’s all fun, indecent times until the police raid your bar, which happened to Mother Clap’s in 1725.

Secrecy was the name of the game for these molly houses. Engaging in penetrative sex between men could land you a conviction of sodomy, which meant facing enraged crowds throwing dead animals, rotten veggies, and even potatoes at you while you’re stuck in the pillory. The unluckiest ones ended up in prison or even on the gallows.

Molly houses protected themselves by posting lookouts, vetting newcomers, and demanding passwords at the door (one of them was “sister”). Sources guess that about forty molly houses existed in London alone through the early 1700s, at a time when the city’s population numbered about 630,000.

Why take the risk of opening a molly house? It could make its owner rich – or so a would-be entrepreneur named Yardley claimed in 1810, when he convinced James Cook to open a molly house with him. They opened their coffee-house on Vere Street and dubbed it the White Swan Inn. The money rolled in for six months before the police showed up, arresting over twenty patrons and staff. 

If Cook didn’t become a molly house millionaire, at least he could afford a lawyer. That legal champion, Robert Halloway, took it upon himself to publish The Phoenix of Sodom in 1813. It’s a defence of Cook’s reputation that just happens to describe the Swan’s operations in juicy detail.

Holloway uses approximately five hundred euphemisms for “gay sex”, such as “unnatural sin” or “pile of diabolism”.

The clientele seemed to include both “men of rank” and “wretches of the lowest description,” many with a taste for petticoats and bonnets. We hear assumed names like Miss Sweet Lips, Black-Eyed Lenora, the Duchess of Devonshire, and the Countess of Camomile. Holloway notes both “effeminate delicate beings” and burly coal-shovellers. 

Holloway was most interested in the Swan’s upstairs rooms. One was decorated like a lady’s dressing room with an array of perfume and makeup for customers. Another held a chapel where male-male couples would be “married” in a faux ceremony and then consummate their nuptials on one of several beds, sometimes in sight of other couples.

The Swan’s wedding ceremonies were officiated by an actual clergyman, the Reverend John Church. He was accused several times of sodomy but never convicted.

According to historian Rictor Norton, “all the evidence indicates that John Church was a sincere, perhaps even pious, man who believed that gay love was congruent with the Christian way of life.”

While the raid resulted in eight convictions and the Vere Street Coterie became the objects of loathing and hatred, times were changing. Death sentences became rarer, and the year 1835 marked the last execution for sodomy in England.

At the same time, gay men found a new gathering space: public baths. England’s first salt-water bath opened in Liverpool in 1828. By 1839, we see mentions of gay sex occurring in bathhouses. With the Baths and Washhouses Act of 1846 helping parishes build more public baths, it’s no wonder that molly houses disappear from the historical record by the mid-nineteenth century. 

Research on Sexual Health pre 1980

Dr Claire Martin is a historian at the University of Birmingham currently working on a research project that explores the history of sexual health in Britain between 1918 and 1980.

A big part of this project involves the collection of oral history interviews with people who accessed or staffed sexual health services in Britain before 1980.

As this research aims to tackle ongoing challenges and inequalities in sexual health today, we are committed to ensure that the voices and experiences of LGBT+ people are reflected in the project.

If you are interested in participating or would like more information about this project, please contact Dr Claire Martin: c.martin.6@bham.ac.uk

‘We / Us’ Exhibition Celebrates UK’s Working Class Butches and Studs

Roman Manfredi’s We / Us is an art exhibition celebrating “Butches and Studs from working-class backgrounds within the British landscape.” Co-curated by Ingrid Pollard, We / Us is the UK’s first visual art project representing gender non-conforming working-class lesbians in this way. 

The solo exhibition features lens-based artist Manfredi and will be on show in East London at Space Station Sixty-Five, until 3 June 2023. The artist-run and led space has featured lesbian-focused exhibitions before, including The Rebel Dykes Art & Archive Show in 2021. 

We / Us is an intergenerational photography and oral history project that explores the experience of female masculinity through the structures of class and race all over the UK, capturing diversity as well as commonality.

When searching for images of butches and studs online, most that come up are from a bygone era, or from the US. Conversations around gender and identity today are often academic and London-centric, sometimes forgetting that identities are informed by every day lived experiences.

We/Us combats the lack of lesbian representation, especially gender-nonconforming lesbians, in art and cultural spaces. In the exhibition, Manfredi presents 41 framed photographs with an audio installation from interviews with the participants. 

“No one else is gonna do it so I’m going to do it myself,” Manfredi wrote on Instagram. “I’m incredibly proud of myself for the commitment and hard work that’s gone into creating and delivering this project to a high standard and for managing the whole project pretty much single handedly apart from the last 2 months.”

Manfredi’s work challenges problems in the art world. “I have delivered a carefully executed body of work, taking great consideration to de-colonise art institutions, challenging classism and racism and making sure everybody has been credited for their work.”

The artist advocates for the acknowledgement of working-class labour, including in art, including her own. “Now it’s time to credit myself as well and own my work. Yes my friends I am REALLY PROUD of myself and the fruits that have come from the tireless commitment and hard graft that I have put in 24/7 for over a year. It is really important that working class artists are acknowledged for their labour. Big up to US.”

We/Us is on show at Space Station Sixty-Five until 3 June 2023.

Opening hours: 12.00 noon – 6.00pm, Wednesday to Saturdays only.

The Manchester Flower Festival 2023 and Derek Jarman Pocket Park

Pop-in to see the Derek Jarman Pocket Park at Manchester Art Gallery at its blooming best for The Manchester Flower Festival 2023.

The park will be open from 10.00am to 5.00pm every day during the show (26 – 29 May) and is free to visit.

The space, which opened in July 2022, takes inspiration from artist, gay rights activist and gardener Derek Jarman’s celebrated garden in Dungeness. It has been designed, planted and is looked after by a group of Pride In Ageing (50+) volunteer gardeners, and provides a vibrant space at the entrance to the gallery for the people of Manchester and the wider world to come together, relax, share ideas and enjoy a taste of “immersive nature” in the centre of the City.

David’s gardening story and a plant from his garden will also be featured as part of the In Our Nature ‘Putting People and Plants on a Podium’ display on King’s Street. 

King Lear Prizes

The King Lear Prizes is the national creative arts competition for people over 60 years of age.

At a Glance

• Categories: Art, Poetry, Short Story
• Separate categories for beginners and experienced amateurs
• Over £3,000 of cash prizes for winners and shortlistees, and certificates for Highly Commended entries
• £5 per entry, to cover costs
• Enter online or by post
• Deadline: Friday 14 July 2023

New this year

• King’s Coronation themed works encouraged (but not required)
• Group prizes (announcement coming soon!)
• New ways to get feedback on your work (announcement coming soon!)
• Anthology of the best works sent to Buckingham Palace for the King and Queen

Register for free to find out how to take part in the King Lear Prizes here.

Advocates battle to publish West Africa’s first LGBT magazine

From a correspondent in Abidjan – The publication of the first magazine dedicated to West Africa’s LGBT community, originally set to hit shelves on 12 May, has been delayed due to difficulties finding gay-friendly printers in the Ivory Coast.

“Meleagbo” would be French-speaking West Africa’s first LGBT publication. Launched by the NGO Gromo, which advocates LGBT rights in Abidjan, the magazine promotes gay icons and highlights the community’s culture, history and victories.

The magazine’s publication would represent a step forward for a continent where some 33 countries still have laws on the books criminalising same-sex relations. 

Gay rights in Africa came under renewed scrutiny earlier this year after Uganda’s parliament approved the first reading of a bill in March criminalising merely identifying as LGBT, outraging human and civil rights advocates worldwide. The bill called on members of the public to report people in same-sex relationships and imposed a 20-year sentence for promoting homosexuality, which activists said could be used to criminalise any type of advocacy. 

And the path forward is full of pitfalls. Chief editor Emmanuel Niamien and his team are still fighting to get the first issue of “Meleagbo” printed.

“Every day, homophobia is the first difficulty that we encounter. We are faced with printers who do not want to be associated with the LGBT community. If we had launched a fashion magazine, we wouldn’t have had this kind of problem. So we [must] go at the pace of those who are willing to help us,” Niamien said between calls to the printer, who had promised a delivery several days ago. 

The magazine is financed by the NGO Gromo – which is one of the few associations fighting for LGBT rights in Ivory Coast – and personal funds from members, including Niamien. The magazine itself is about 40 pages, but they are difficult to fill: despite plenty of ideas coming in, few are willing to put their faces or names to the stories for fear of retaliation.        

“We wanted to picture the team behind the magazine to show the people who contributed, but we rejected this idea because some were afraid and wanted to remain anonymous because of the current environment,” explained Brice Dibahi, Gromo’s founder, during the third annual Awawale Festival, which celebrates the LGBT community in Abidjan.  

The magazine’s zero issue, a mock-up of the magazine to promote it to the community, was launched at the two-day festival, held on May 12-13.  

The 30-something Ivorians say they launched “Meleagbo” to address a lack of representation of the LGBT community in mainstream media. “We realised that magazines here in Africa were not addressing issues affecting our community, and even when such topics are addressed there is a sense of exclusion. So we wanted to control our own narrative.”   

“We hope to change people’s mindsets with this magazine,” said Niamien. “To make people see that we are here, we have always been here, and that we are part of the people who are making changes to the system.” According to research by Gromo, 70 to 83 percent of LGBT people are still victims of homophobia and continue to face death threats, assaults and rapes in Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast. 

At first glance, Ivory Coast does relatively well among African countries by not outlawing homosexuality. Ghana, which borders Ivory Coast, is currently reviewing a law that would establish heavy penalties – including up to 10 years in prison for homosexuality, which is already illegal. Four African nations even impose the death penalty for crimes linked to same-sex relations.

Nevertheless, Ivory Coast is one of 40 countries on the continent where LGBT people’s rights are also not protected by the law. Moreover, Ivory Coast’s Constitutional Council amended the Ivorian penal code in November 2021 to remove sexual orientation from the list of prohibited motives for discrimination – a move seen by the community as a major setback for LGBT rights. 

“The good news is that there is no law that condemns homosexuality outright,” said Cedric, one of the Awawale Festival organisers. “But society condemns [it].”

“We live in constant fear. So we live hidden, we don’t express ourselves enough, we don’t have the opportunities to express ourselves fully.” 

Widespread discrimination even penalises LGBT people professionally. According to a survey conducted by Gromo in 2021, 70 percent of LGBT people are unemployed in Ivory Coast. According to the National Institute of Statistics in 2019, the national unemployment rate is 21.3 percent.

To address this, some sections of Meleagbo are dedicated to job offers, professional advice and lists of queer-friendly companies. 

According to sociologist Brice-Stéphane Djédjé, a specialist in LGBT studies, employment is a major issue for this community.

“It is difficult to be gay and poor, because the strongest always oppress the weakest and this is also done through economics,” said Djédjé, who authored the book, “How to Love Yourself as a Gay Man in Africa”.

“Gays from poor families pay the price for the laws that discriminate against queer people. A financially stable person will live more freely than someone who lives with his parents – without family pressure, seeing his partners freely and taking care of his mental health.” 

Djédjé also stressed that religion – and in particular Christianity, which is deeply rooted in Ivorian society – contributes to the stigmatisation of the LGBT community. Although the public in many West African countries regard homosexuality as a phenomenon imported from the West, he considers the homophobia in Ivory Coast as having roots in the colonial era. “Colonisation came with the churches here in Ivory Coast. (…) And the churches today spread hateful and violent messages against the LGBT community.”

Ten years of gay marriage in France: Same-sex couples reflect on a decade of change

May 17 was the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. It also marked exactly 10 years since gay marriage became legal in France. Since then, around 7,000 such marriages have taken place each year in the country. Back in 2013, reporters Pauline Godart and Claire Paccalin met several same-sex couples who were bringing up children together in France. Ten years later, they caught up with two of these couples to find out how having the right to get married has changed their lives.

Remake of “How Green Was My Valley”?

Original Cast and Extras

National Coal Mining Museum

Out In The City members travelled by coach arriving at the National Coal Mining Museum in time for lunch. The museum, based at the site of Caphouse Colliery in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, has a café serving homemade food at reasonable prices.

Coal mining boomed and at the beginning of the 20th century the mines had more than one million employees, most of them in Yorkshire. Now all coalmines are closed and renewable sources, nuclear power plants and especially gas generate electricity.

Caphouse Colliery began operating in the 1770s or 1780s, but closed in 1985. It was established as a museum in 1988.

There is plenty to see on the surface but the museum also offers guided underground tours. Visitors can experience the conditions miners worked in and see the tools and machines they used as the industry and the mine developed through the years.

We split into two groups to go down the 140-metre mine. For comparison Blackpool Tower is 158 metres tall. I don’t know about the first group, but our guide was an ex-miner with a strong Yorkshire accent. Before getting into the cage lift we had to wear hard hats and a torch pack and leave behind all our belongings containing a battery (phones, cameras, car keys and watches) as coal emits methane, which is highly inflammatory, as well as poisonous.

Our guide led us through narrow passages as he gave us a talk through 180 years of mining, explaining the origin of the expression ‘shut tha’ trap’ when families (including women and children) worked in the pitch black mines for twelve hour shifts and the only schooling was on Sunday.

The Mines and Collieries Act 1842 barred women and girls of any age to work underground and introduced a minimum age of ten for boys employed in underground work, leading to the widespread use of horses and ponies in mining in England. Sadly, the pit ponies often went down the pits for life. Also girls sometimes cut their hair and presented as boys to continue working.

As heavy machinery was introduced miners endured deafening noise and extreme heat – more than 45 degrees centigrade. They worked only in their underpants! However, they organised in trade unions and through strikes and other pressure they eventually improved their working conditions.

The museum is open from Wednesday to Sunday and a visit is highly recommended.

More photos can be seen here.

Vote for Out Together to help Older LGBT+ in Yorkshire

The National Lottery People’s Choice Awards have shortlisted 80 charities and groups for funding in 2023.

Out Together is the only group representing the LGBT+ community and they could win up to £70,000 to help older members in Yorkshire keep well, have fun and stay connected.

The project connects people from the LGBT+ community through social activities. The funding will help build connections between older and younger LGBT+ communities to create an understanding of the experiences the older generation has faced, reduce loneliness and ensure people feel part of their community.

For more information – see http://www.outtogether.lgbt

Voting is open until 12.00 noon on Friday, 26 May and you can vote here.

Don’t Say Gay

Don’t Say Gay is a documentary film about Section 28, which is currently being financed.

Here is a creative teaser, which is a way of showing what the film might look and feel like.

The next stage of filming will be interviews including with the founders of Stonewall, Scottish protestors who challenged libraries to include the Pink Paper, and the founders of LGBTQ+ history month.  There will also be a teacher who wasn’t out during Section 28 and a couple of people who went to school under the law to talk about their experiences.

The world continues to repeat the mistakes of Section 28. The law in Florida dubbed ‘Don’t Say Gay’ impacts young people who have reported books being removed from library shelves whilst teachers are being reprimanded who want to continue to be out and teach their classes about LGBT+ themes and topics.

More countries and states bring in anti-LGBT+ laws from Uganda to Tennessee and many of them use similar approaches that Section 28 used.

The film is a human rights film that wants to highlight what state sponsored silence looks like and the devastating impact it can have on the minorities it targets. It’s more important than ever before. Please share the teaser online, use tag @section28film on Instagram or Twitter or direct people to section28film.com to build anticipation of the film.

Any sharing helps with the fundraising to finance the next stage of filming and archive and music clearance.

AIDS: The Unheard Tapes

This 3-part series featured audio interviews with gay men recorded throughout the 1980s and 90s and archived at the British Library.

“AIDS: The Unheard Tapes”was nominated for a BAFTA in the Specialist Factual category announced on 14 May 2023.

“Russia 1985-1999: Traumazone” won the award, but for “AIDS: The Unheard Tapes” to have been nominated is of course a huge honour. By the way the photo is George Ure playing me!

The three programmes are still available on BBC iPlayer.

IDAHOBIT is celebrated on 17 May 2023

We are happy and proud to announce that the theme for the 2023 edition of the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOBIT) will be “Together Always: United in Diversity”.

Decided during a large consultation with LGBT+ organisations from across the world, the theme will allow for advocacy and celebrations in many forms – from human rights defenders, LGBT+ voluntary and community groups, millions of people in our communities and our allies.

At a time when hard-won advances for our LGBT+ communities around the globe are increasingly under threat, the power of solidarity, allyship and community across identities, borders, and movements has never been more necessary.

When we unite, in all our beautiful diversity, we can really bring about change!

When it comes to transgender human rights, there should be no debate

The vast majority of the LGBT+ community believe framing the discussion of transgender rights as a ‘debate’ is harmful, a Gay Times survey has found.

The findings come as the UK media puts topics like self-identification and using the spaces that align with someone’s gender identity in the spotlight, despite trans and non-binary people being estimated to make up just 1 per cent of the population in Britain.

This is often framed as the so-called ‘trans debate’, which frequently sees human rights issues tossed around as if they are a trivial matter and are used to fuel a wider anti-trans agenda.

On 29 March 2023, two days before Trans Day of Visibility, talkRADIO ran Twitter polls asking if a woman can have a penis and whether or not a man can get pregnant.

“Equalities watchdog launches study aiming to ‘reduce distress’ in trans debate,” wrote The Telegraph a week earlier, referencing alleged “fears” that trans activists are “harming freedom of expression” and abusing feminist academics.

Four years earlier, the same outlet ran a think-piece titled: “The tyranny of the transgender minority has got to be stopped.”

“Stonewall should stay out of trans rights war,” read another headline on 22 May 2022, this time in The Times.

The list of examples could go on, as a quick Google search of “trans debate” returns 137,000,000 results.

Despite how frequent this characterisation is becoming, the Gay Times’ survey has revealed that framing the discussion in this way is not welcomed by the LGBT+ community.

Of the 996 respondents, more than three quarters (77.5 per cent) have seen trans rights described as a ‘debate’ in the UK media.

96.4 per cent said they believe this framing to be harmful, a figure which rises to 96.6 per cent when looking solely at LGBT+ people who took the survey.

“We know how detrimental anti-trans rhetoric in the media is, particularly when framed as a ‘hot topic’ for ‘debate’,” said Bex Shorunke, the PR & Media Engagement Manager at trans charity Mermaids. “Since when did a human being’s fundamental rights, and access to spaces, become something up for discussion?”

There are also serious concerns in the way trans issues are portrayed by the UK media, with just 0.9 per cent of respondents believing it to be a ‘completely accurate’ depiction and 6.2 per cent viewing it as ‘somewhat accurate’.

Almost 9 in 10 (86.4 per cent) believe trans issues are ‘somewhat’ or ‘completely’ inaccurately reported on, and just 6.5 per cent believe it to be ‘fair’.

Peter Tatchell, one of the UK’s most prominent human rights campaigners, said the Gay Times “survey result is a damning indictment of transphobia in much of the UK media.”

“Trans voices are routinely ignored, demonised and ridiculed,” he continued. “In contrast, inflammatory, inaccurate and bigoted anti-trans views are given ceaseless coverage. Most journalists would never dare publicise similar abusive opinions about disabled, Black or LGBT+ people, but many seem to think that trans people are fair game.”

Only 2.8 per cent of respondents said they ‘never’ see transphobic reporting in the UK media, a stark contrast to the 44.9 per cent who see it ‘often’ and the 27.3 per cent who see it ‘sometimes’.

A further 14.9 per cent stated that they see it ‘all the time’, with just 1 in 10 (10 per cent) ‘very rarely’ encountering it.

“The press watchdog has failed completely to uphold fair, impartial reporting,” Tatchell added. “It is unfit for purpose and should be disbanded.”

A lot of the UK’s print media is regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) in order to hold outlets to account and ensure high standards are being met.

Gay Times contacted IPSO to ask if there were any plans to update its guidelines on trans reporting, particularly when it comes to the depiction of these issues as a ‘culture war’ that is up for debate.

“IPSO periodically updates all its guidance and plans to refresh its guidance on the reporting of transgender issues towards the end of this year,” a spokesperson stated. “As with all IPSO guidance, it is designed to explain how the Editors’ Code applies to the reporting of particular topics. It aims to support editors and journalists to uphold high editorial standards, but does not supersede or replace the Editors’ Code itself.”

Trans Media Watch is an organisation that exists to help the media report on trans issues with accuracy, dignity and respect.

jane fae, Chair of Trans Media Watch, who stylises her name in lowercase, told Gay Times that the findings “are disappointing but not at all surprising.”

“One constant in our work representing trans people to the UK media is the enormous toll that this sort of constant transphobic presence in the press is wreaking on the trans community,” fae stated.

She further explained that this reporting often worsens the mental health of trans people and makes them “more likely to hide at home and not go out”.

“For their part, the UK press and media are utterly shameless,” fae continued. “They twist. They sensationalise. They are more than happy to lead with stories that are simply untrue, even where these stories can have significant negative consequences for trans people.”

Trans Day of Visibility takes place on 31 March each year in order to celebrate the trans community and raise awareness of the discrimination they continue to face.

Gay Times ran its survey for 24 hours from the morning of 15 March through to the following day, with a total of 996 respondents having their say.

This ‘60s soul songstress rocked the Toronto soul scene – and strict gender norms

Jackie Shane was born on 15 May 1940 and started her soul-singing career in her native Nashville, Tennessee, donning makeup and long hair even as a teen in the 1950s Jim Crow South.

She took to performing as part of the travelling Cetlin & Wilson carnival to make her name and live her truth on stage. In 1959, the carnival found its way to Ontario, and she knew she’d found where she was supposed to be.

“I never felt that good before. I felt so free,” she later recounted to Toronto musicologist Rob Bowman. “I just loved it.”

Moving to Quebec for a short time, she came to collaborate with Frank Motley and his Motley Crew as their lead vocalist. Her new gig led her back to Ontario, with Toronto becoming her home base as she travelled around recording and performing.

Shane started cutting singles, like her 1962 cover of William Bell’s “Any Other Way”, along with Motley. That song in particular caught fire in her new Toronto scene, making its way up the local charts and earning her a top two hit in the area.

Despite her foundational impact on the Toronto Sound in the ’60s, Shane came to shun away from the spotlight in the ’70s. She wouldn’t be seen much by the public eye until 2017, when reissue label Numero Group worked with her on a double-LP compilation of her work. Her star shone once again, earning her a well-deserved “Historical Album” Grammy nomination.

For decades, Shane was identified as a gay man or drag queen in the press. She herself identified a number of different ways before publicly settling on “trans woman” in an interview that same year, just a couple of years before her passing in early 2019. Such is the nature of queer identity and terminology over decades, of course. What matters most is that she was Jackie, and she was ferocious.

To quote a bit from a live performance of her song “Money“: “When I’m walkin’ down Yonge Street — you won’t believe this — but you know, some of them funny people have the nerve to point the finger at me and grin and smile and whisper. But you know, that don’t worry Jackie, because I know I look good. And every Monday morning, I laugh and grin on my way to the bank because I’ve got mine.”

Check out Jackie Shane’s scene-stealing cover of “Any Other Way”:

Dates for the diary – Greater Manchester Pride Events Taking Place

Bury Pride	Saturday 29 April
Pride in Trafford	Wednesday 17 – Saturday 20 May
Pride on the Range (Whalley Range)	Saturday 27 May
Salford Pink Picnic	Saturday 17 June
Pride in Wythenshawe	Saturday 24 June
Sparkle (Transgender Festival)	Friday 7 – Sunday 9 July
Tameside Pride	Saturday 15 July
Rochdale in Rainbows	Sunday 16 July
Oldham Pride	Friday 21 – Sunday 23 July
Pride in Bolton	Friday 28 – Sunday 30 July
Stockport Pride	Sunday 30 July
Levenshulme Pride	Friday 11 – Sunday 13 August
Wigan Pride	Saturday 12 August
Prestwich Pride	Saturday 12 – Monday 14 August
Manchester Pride	Friday 25 – Monday 28 August
Didsbury Pride	Saturday 2 September
Chorlton Pride	Saturday 16 September
Happy Valley Pride (Hebden Bridge)	Monday 24 July – Sunday 30 July