Pride events in 2026

Traditionally, June is considered Pride month in honour of the Stonewall Uprising on 28 June 1969, which is argued by some to be the birth of the gay rights movement.

However, there are over 270 Prides taking place in the UK in 2026 starting in February and continuing until the end of November.

In the north west, we’ve already seen the Bury Pride Rainbow Train, Trafford Pride, Bolton Pride, Pride on the Range (Whalley Range) and Bury Pride.

Coming up is:

Blackpool Pride (6 June),

the Pink Picnic (Salford Pride) (13 June),

Warrington Pride (13 June),

Sparkle Weekend, Manchester (26-28 June),

Macclesfield Pride (4 July),

Oldham Pride (11 July),

Weaste Pride (11 July),

Veteran’s Pride (24 July),

Liverpool Pride (25 July),

Stockport Pride (26 July).

From August onwards and a fully comprehensive list, please see here.

Mark Jennings

Please don’t think me malicious, but I have no hesitation in naming and shaming Mark Jennings. Hopefully, the previous article on “Pride Events” might have made him quite ill. Pride flags are not the problem, but bigotry dressed up as victimhood is.

A man who claims to have a “phobia” of Pride flags just lost his second big case – after demanding tens of thousands of pounds because rainbow imagery at work supposedly violated his Christian rights.

Mark Jennings, a Roman Catholic and evangelical Christian and former social work student, has spent years trying to turn his discomfort with LGBTQ+ visibility into a legal weapon. First he sued NatWest after seeing a Pride display in a Kent bank branch, saying it triggered “severe psychological distress” and clashed with his Catholic beliefs.

He wanted the bank to stop promoting Pride in that branch and pay him £35,000 in damages. Courts in Scotland threw the case out, noting that his pleadings relied on bogus, AI‑generated legal “precedents” and failed to show any actual unlawful discrimination.

Jennings accepted a role as a work coach with the Department for Work and Pensions in June 2024, but reportedly began making a series of demands after receiving the job offer by phone.

Those requests included not being exposed to Pride imagery in the workplace and not hearing colleagues “using different pronouns” while at work. After the DWP refused to meet those conditions, Jennings turned down the role and later brought legal action.

Now, Jennings has lost again – this time at an employment tribunal. He claimed his employer discriminated against him because they refused to remove Pride flags and rainbow imagery from the office and asked staff to respect LGBTQ+ colleagues.

He argued he had a diagnosable “phobia” of Pride materials that should be treated as a disability, and that as a Christian he should not be forced to see or work around symbols that, in his view, promote “social values contrary to his faith.”

The tribunal wasn’t buying it. Judges accepted that Jennings has real mental health conditions – autism, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, PTSD – but found no medical evidence that “Pride phobia” is a recognised condition, and no legal basis for treating LGBTQ+ visibility as an attack on religion.

They ruled that employers are allowed to display Pride imagery and foster an inclusive environment, and that asking everyone to respect LGBTQ+ colleagues is not discrimination against Christians. In plain terms: your right to believe what you want does not include a right to erase queer people, or their flags, out of public view.

What’s striking is how familiar this pattern is. Around the world, we’re seeing a new kind of backlash where people try to turn equality itself into persecution – arguing that rainbow lanyards, pronoun badges, and Pride posters are “hostile” to them.

Jennings pushed that argument as far as it could go, twice, and independent courts have now told him no.

That matters beyond one bank and one office. It’s a clear signal from the legal system: inclusion isn’t discrimination, and LGBTQ+ visibility is not an assault on anyone’s faith.

To all bigots: Please leave LGBT+ people alone. To the NatWest and the DWP – thank you for flying the flag for the LGBT+ community.

63 years ago, the Quakers stood up for gay dignity

Like most Protestant denominations, Quakers hold differing views of homosexuality within their ranks. But no other mainstream Protestant religion has embraced LGBT+ identity like the Quakers, known officially as the Religious Society of Friends.

The clearest example is a text promulgated over seven years in meetings by a group of Quaker writers, psychiatrists, psychologists and teachers, assembled to consider issues surrounding homosexuality.

Published in 1963, “Towards a Quaker View of Sex” asserted, “An act which expresses true affection between two individuals and gives pleasure to them both, does not seem to us to be sinful by reason alone of the fact that it is homosexual.”

The book sparked fierce debate among Quaker communities, with one member from the Friends Temperance and Moral Union calling its findings “poison.” But the book also set the Quakers on a path to forward-thinking policy on LGBT+ rights, at a time when other Christian denominations remained adamantly opposed to homosexuality.

Since the publication of “Towards a Quaker View of Sex,” the Friends have shared a compassionate embrace with LGBT+ people in the movement for equal rights.

In 1973, a group of Quakers established the Friends Homosexual Fellowship to promote dialogue over the rights of gay people in the wider Quaker community. 

In 1987, a Friends community considered same-sex marriage for the first time, and at their Yearly Meeting in 2009, Quakers in Britain became the first religious organisation to formally recognize same-sex marriage.

in 2025, British Quakers rejected the country’s Supreme Court ruling that prevents trans people from using single-sex spaces.

Said one friend at the meeting held to address the issue, “This is what love requires of us.”

Lil Lesbian Nan

Her granddaughter made her do it! Now she has 177,000 followers on Instagram.

Photographs chart 50 years of change across Salford for city’s centenary year

A new exhibition at Irlams o’th’ Height library is marking Salford’s centenary year by exploring how everyday life has evolved over the past five decades.

Steve Chapman and Phil Portus, in collaboration with A-level students Ella Fletcher and Reede Wallace, are exhibiting their work at Height Library, showcasing the evolution of Salford in the past 50 years.

The historical photographs of Salford by Portus and Chapman illustrate the streets of the 100-year-old city during a time of upheaval in the late 1970s. The photographs in the exhibition are mainly focused on Langworthy, Weaste, Ordsall and Adelphi.

The work of Pendleton Sixth Form College students showcases their up-to-date images of Salford.

The exhibition wraps around the entrance and rear wall of the library and takes you through the daily life of Salfordians in the 1970s.

Portus and Chapman present images from elderly people enjoying Salford pubs, to young boys playing in the city’s old streets.

Phil and Steve have exhibited their work in Salford and Manchester in the past. But a lot of these works by the pair were unseen until their separate exhibitions in Cornerstone Langworthy Library in 2024 and 2025.

Many of the images can be recognised by Salford residents, particularly those who lived to see the evolution of the city over the past 50 years.

A great feature of the exhibition is the personal accounts of ‘Then & Now’, which compare people from the 1970s images, to more recent years in a side-by-side format.

Neil Williams (in the middle) grew up in Alexandra Grove, Salford and was 11 years old in the photograph. After high school he started dj-ing when he was 16 years old. Neil went on to work in the film industry and was involved in producing many films such as “The King’s Speech”. Now he runs a holiday business with his husband in south west France.

More photos can be seen here.

That time Vincent Price performed for the troops … in full drag

Vincent Price, the king of campy horror, was born on 27 May 1911.

During the 40s, it was common for Hollywood stars to go all out for the army and navy, even flying overseas to perform stage shows for the soldiers. Vincent Price also showed up for the troops during WWII, before his horror career took off … and he did it in drag.

Price’s act was followed by a segment where Tallulah Bankhead, Gertrude Lawrence and others dressed up as men. Because in the past, drag wasn’t seen as an evil threat to gender values: it was seen as a fun time for everyone, including the guys fighting overseas.

For an appearance in the 70s show “The Snoop Sisters,” Price rocked full vampire drag and wore the colours of the trans pride flag on his face – totally unintentionally, we’re sure.

Vincent Price’s daughter confirms her famous father was totally bisexual.

In her 1998 book Vincent Price: A Daughter’s Biography, Victoria Price explored the many facets of her famous father. While Victoria addressed the persistent rumours surrounding her father’s sexuality, she refrained from offering a definitive opinion on the matter.

She is well aware of America’s fixation with celebrity and the salacious, news-driven, “who had sex with who?” culture in which we live. But she also realises as a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community that there remains a deeply rooted yearning for history and heroes and a personal connection to the past.

“Since I didn’t hear it from his mouth, I think that everything I hear comes with a measure of hearsay, right?” she said.

“But I would like to say something here because I might as well,” she continued. “I am as close to certain as I can be that my dad had physically intimate relationships with men. I know for 100 percent fact that my dad was completely loving and supportive of LGBT people.”

Growing up in their Hollywood Hills mansion, Victoria recalls the constant presence of LGBT+ folks at family gatherings.

“Now, we lived across the street from Rock Hudson and we had a lot of gay friends growing up,” she recalled. “I mean, “Uncle Rupert and Uncle Frank” came to every dinner party and it was very clear that they were together. And while the word gay was never mentioned, it was very much the norm.

I remember at nine-years-old going to drop something off at Rock Hudson’s house – of course, I was super excited because I was a huge Rock Hudson fan,” she continued. “So this absolutely beautiful man came to the door and in my nine-year-old mind, I thought, oh, that’s – I don’t know if I had a word for it – but that’s his ‘Uncle Frank or Uncle Rupert’, right?”

Victoria recalls her father’s 1977 one-man-show where he played the openly gay Oscar Wilde to great acclaim and rebuffed the antigay Anita Bryant efforts of the day. In television interviews, Vincent Price said Wilde had already written a play about Ms Bryant: A Woman of No Importance.

She remembers her father as an early advocate who joined PFLAG as an honorary board member and was one of the first celebrities to do public service announcements quelling public fears of AIDS.

Amnesty International

A major new report from Amnesty International has revealed the disproportionate scale of media coverage of trans people in the UK, despite trans communities representing just 0.5% of the population.

Analysing UK media coverage between January 2020 and April 2025, Amnesty found that four major UK news outlets produced almost 17,000 articles on trans-related issues, averaging 9 stories per day.

Researchers argue that the scale of reporting far outweighs both public interest and the actual influence trans people hold within British society.

Amnesty’s findings suggest that much of the coverage across the British press has been overwhelmingly negative, frequently framing trans people as controversial.

Researchers argue that this constant cycle of reporting has helped elevate debates around sex and gender into a defining political issue, despite evidence suggesting voters care far more about the cost of living, housing, and the NHS.

A Brief History of Lesbian Flags

The lesbian community has used several different pride flags over the years. While the orange-pink flag is the most widely recognised today, it was preceded by other designs that reflected different ideas about lesbian identity, visibility, and community.

1999: Labrys Lesbian Flag

The Labrys Lesbian Flag was introduced in 1999. It features a white labrys (double-headed axe) inside a black triangle on a purple background. The labrys had become a symbol of lesbian strength and empowerment. The black triangle references a symbol later reclaimed by some lesbians. Purple has long been associated with lesbian culture.

2010: Lipstick Lesbian Flag

The Lipstick Lesbian Flag was designed for feminine-presenting lesbians. It features shades of pink and red and included a lipstick kiss mark. The design became popular online in the early 2010s.

2010: Pink Lesbian Flag

A variation of the Lipstick Lesbian Flag.

The lipstick mark was removed while keeping the pink striped design. It continued to be used by some lesbians throughout the 2010s.

2018: Orange-Pink Lesbian Flag

The orange-pink lesbian flag was designed to represent a broader range of lesbian identities and experiences. The original seven-stripe version assigned meanings to each stripe:

• Dark orange: Gender non-conformity

• Orange: Independence

• Light orange: Community

• White: Unique relationships to womanhood

• Pink: Serenity and peace

• Dusty pink: Love and sex

• Dark rose: Femininity

This design became the most widely used lesbian pride flag during the late 2010s and 2020s.

It’s Pride Season: Play the Rainbow Lottery and support Out In The City

The Rainbow Lottery is the UK’s first and only lottery supporting LGBT+ good causes.

Welcome to the Rainbow Lottery, the exciting weekly lottery that raises money for over 200 LGBT+ good causes totally, openly and exclusively.

The hope is to make a difference to good causes so they can carry on their vital work – which helps us all. Play the lottery, support the community – it’s fun, it’s simple and everybody wins!

How the lottery works:

• £1 per ticket – that’s right, unlike many other lotteries, the lottery tickets are only £1 per week.

• For every ticket you play, 80% goes to good causes and prizes.

£25,000 jackpot prize

• Match all 6 numbers and you win the JACKPOT! There are also prizes of £2000, £250, £25 and 3 free tickets for following week.

• Every month there is a Super Draw. May’s Super Draw is a £1,000 IKEA Gift card (or £1,000 cash alternative or plant 1,000 trees).

Buy tickets here.

Legends Divas & Dreamers

On Saturday, 23 May we attended a concert celebrating more than 25 years of the Manchester Proud Chorus at The Contact Theatre in Manchester!

The Manchester Proud Chorus is an inclusive non-audition community choir, where all are welcome, whatever their sexual orientation or gender identity. They sing acapella, without instrumental accompaniment, and in eight different voice types.

A packed house was treated to a range of wonderful songs, backed up by music from the Proud Marys LGBT+ choir from Chester and a solo performance by Sam Buttery.

Meanwhile, over in the US

On Saturday, 16 May The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington held the annual Spring Affair Gala at the Ritz Carlton in Washington DC.  The theme for this year’s fete was “Sapphire & Sparkle” and the chorus celebrated 45 years in DC with musical performances, food, entertainment and an awards ceremony.

Monday, 25 May – Friday, 29 May – Sexuality Summer School 2026: On The Biological

The Sexuality Summer School (SSS) is a postgraduate summer school held annually in May at the University of Manchester. It explores current political and intellectual debates about how the ‘biological’ shapes current and historical understandings of sex, gender, sexuality and race.

During the same week the Summer School also hosts a series of public events including lectures, films and performances.

Public Events Programme:

Changes to the schedule may be unavoidable; please check the website for updates – https://sexualitysummerschool.wordpress.com/

Monday, 25 May, 4.30pm – 6.00pm
Plenary Lecture: Professor C Riley Snorton: ‘An Ambiguous Heterotopia, Or Some Informal Remarks on “Biology” After Samuel Delany, Judith Butler and Sylvia Wynter’
Venue: Anthony Burgess Centre, M1 5BY
No booking required, all welcome.

Tuesday, 26 May, 3.00pm – 4.30pm 
Plenary Lecture: Professor Sarah Richardson: ‘A Sceptical Empiricist’s Guide to Sex Difference Science’
Venue: John Casken Lecture Theatre, Martin Harris Centre, M13 9PL 
No booking required, all welcome.

Tuesday, 26 May, 5.45pm – 8.30pm
Film Screenings programmed with Club Des Femmes and introduced by So Mayer:
Laws of Love / Gesetze de Liebe (Magnus Hirschfeld, 1927); Sanctus (Barbara Hammer, 1990)
Venue: HOME Cinema, M15 4FN
Tickets required (book here)

Wednesday, 27 May, 4.00pm – 5.30pm
Plenary Lecture: Professor Kane Race: ‘Hijacking Neuroscience: Psychoactive Performatives’
Venue: C1.18, Ellen Wilkinson Building, M15 6JA
No booking required, all welcome.

Wednesday, 27 May, 7.00pm – 9.00pm
Performance Reading: All the Devils (written by Jonathan Larkin; produced by Jayne Compton, Switchflicker; funded by The National Lottery Community Fund)
Venue: Anthony Burgess Centre, M1 5BY
No booking required, all welcome.

Thursday, 28 May, 5.00pm – 6.30pm
Public Plenary: ‘Experimenting with Hormones’: Professor Celia Roberts in conversation with Professor Jackie Stacey 
Venue: John Rylands Library, M3 3EH
No booking required, all welcome.

Thursday, 28 May, 8.00pm
Performance: Second Trimester by Krishna Istha 
Venue: Aldridge Studio, The Lowry, M50 3AZ 
Tickets required. Click here to book. 

For any queries, please email sexualitysummerschool@gmail.com

Trans community responds to EHRC’s new code of practice

Stephen Whittle was visiting the Chelsea flower show as a birthday treat with his wife on Thursday afternoon. At around the same time, the updated code of practice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission was published. It confirmed, among myriad updates, that single-sex spaces such as toilets and changing rooms must be used on the basis of biological sex, and that transgender people may not access those that accord with their lived gender.

Among the floral displays, 70-year-old Whittle did not stray from habit. “Of course I used the male facilities, as I have done for the last 50 years. Can you imagine what the guy on security would have said if I’d gone to the ladies?”

Whittle, who spearheaded the campaign for gender recognition across the UK in the 1990s, has witnessed the significant advances, both legal and social, in the intervening years, and on Friday his focus was “trying to calm people down and say: ‘Stay cool; we’ll get through this’”.

Lush

The cosmetics brand Lush, which has been consistently pro-inclusion, said the guidance was “a significant setback for human rights in the UK”.

The brand’s campaign lead, Andrew Butler, said: “It puts frontline service providers, retail workers and many others in the position of policing people’s gender based on perception, with their organisations’ liability on the line for their judgment. The guidance is a mess because the legislation is a mess. Government needs to legislate to fix equalities law and include trans voices to do so equitably.”

Billy Bragg

With bitter irony, news that the Equality and Human Rights Commission had published it’s updated code of practice on trans rights began to filter through while I was playing a gig at the UK’s premiere venue for LGBTQ+ culture, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in south London on Thursday night.

The new code confirmed that single-sex spaces such as toilets and changing rooms must be used on the basis of biological sex, and that transgender people may not access those that accord with their lived gender.

The gig at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern was a celebration of the life of Mark Ashton, founder of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, whose story is told in the movie Pride. Mark died of AIDS in 1987, so there were many references to the political struggles of that decade, with Margaret Thatcher’s name being loudly booed whenever it came up. Had we been aware of the new EHRC code, it surely would have merited comparison to the notorious Section 28 anti-gay legislation which was referenced by several artists and speakers.

Section 28 of Thatcher’s 1988 Local Government Act prohibited local authorities from “promoting homosexuality” or teaching the acceptability of same-sex relationships. Its aim was to prevent local councils from funding LGBTQ+ positive initiatives, but its effect was to further marginalise the gay community at a time when they were in desperate need of public support due to the AIDS epidemic.

In seeking to dismiss the idea that they could be as fulfilling as heterosexual relationships, the legislation described same-sex couples as perpetrating “pretended family relationships”. This notion that gay and lesbian families were pretending to have fulfilling relationships was a spiteful slur. Despite Thatcher’s best efforts, same-sex relationships came be accepted by the public at large, to the extent that gay marriage became legal in the UK in 2013.

Section 28 was a ridiculous policy, a collection of impractical initiatives whose true aim was to deny the LGBTQ+ community the same respect accorded to other citizens and, worryingly, the new EHRC code seems to be cut from the same cloth. In their on-going campaign to eradicate the trans community from public spaces, anti-trans activists have badgered the EHRC into creating conundrums that, like those of Section 28, will defy practical application.

Determined to keep men out of women’s toilets, the demands of anti-trans activists have been met in the new code which declares that an individual must use the toilet that corresponds to the gender to which they were assigned at birth. So trans men are now banned by law from using the men’s toilets while women’s toilets must now be used by assigned female at birth individuals who present as male. Thus male predators, who previously had to dress in women’s clothing to gain access to female toilets, can now stroll in wearing their everyday male clothes.

The new code seeks to address this threat by stating that “a trans man may be excluded from women-only services if it’s decided that women may object to his presence.” Never mind the issue of who is going to decide if this criterion has been met – where is the guy supposed to piss? Banned from the men’s loos by law, excluded from the ladies by an arbitrary opinion based rule, what provision does the new code make for this situation?

My sense is that this new code will not withstand scrutiny under the European Convention of Human Rights. Faced with having to provide toilets for the trans community or be sued for discrimination, business will lobby the government to get real and recognise that the threat to women and girls – and to trans women too – comes from heterosexual men. The argument that recognising trans women as women undermines what it means to be female will come to be seen as being as ridiculous as the Section 28 argument that “promoting homosexuality” in schools will turn our kids gay.

Section 28 was finally repealed in 2003. It took fifteen years for people to recognise that it was a discriminatory policy concocted by homophobes. Hopefully, the government will recognise the transphobia implicit in the new EHRC code sooner than that, but in the meantime, our trans and non-binary siblings are going to be even more marginalised that they have been over the past decade.

The mood at the bar of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern after the show was one of anger and dismay at the existential threat posed by the new code. The LGBTQ+ community and their cishet allies need to come together as we did in the 1980s to campaign against this pernicious code and express our solidarity with the trans and non-binary communities whose continued presence in our society has become a form of resistance.

Urgent Action

We have 40 days to persuade a simple majority of MPs to reject the Code

That will only happen if trans people and their cis allies write to their MPs.

We really owe it to ourselves to make the effort and give ourselves a chance of having this segregationist nonsense thrown out.

• Find your MP – go to https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

• Send a personal email. If you are unsure what to write, please use or adapt the following letter:

Dear MP,

I am extremely concerned about the implications of the new EHRC guidance for trans people. I am not trans myself, but have many trans friends.

The issue concerns whether or not trans people can safely use ordinary public life; it is not an abstract legal issue. It means more trans people will be challenged in toilets and changing rooms. More people being outed in public. More women who do not look “feminine enough” being policed. More fear. More humiliation. More exclusion from ordinary life.

Cis women will also be caught by this. Any woman who is tall, broad, butch, visibly intersex, gender non-conforming, disabled, racialised, or just not someone else’s idea of “female enough” may find herself challenged in public.

Perhaps the most frightening part of this is how trans voices have been systematically ignored. Guidance is being written about them, without them – the people shaping it have treated trans people and trans advocacy groups as too “biased” to listen to, while giving influence to groups whose practical work is focused on excluding them.

That should horrify anyone who cares about fairness.

I therefore ask you to oppose this guidance., and demand that it is withdrawn and redrafted with proper consultation with trans people, trans advocacy groups, legal experts, women’s organisations, disabled people’s organisations, and service providers who actually understand inclusion.

This guidance will not protect women. It will normalise exclusion, increase public harassment, and make everyday life more dangerous for trans people. This is how rights are dismantled: first by making exceptions, then by normalising exclusion, then by punishing anyone who refuses to comply.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Collage and Badge Making

This week we headed to Mayes Gardens in New Islington for a collage workshop and to make badges.

Our facilitator, Gone Rogue, provided plenty of magazines, postcards, card, paper, scissors and glue to enable us to make artworks. It was Norman’s birthday and unfortunately he was unable to attend, so most of us made cards to cheer him up.

There’s no right way or wrong way to make collages – it’s simply a technique of art creation by assembling different items to make a new whole.

Thanks to the LGBT Foundation for loaning us the badge making machine. Here are some examples of our work:

Harvey Milk Day

Harvey Milk Day is a California state holiday observed annually on 22 May (Milk’s birthday). The day serves as a reminder of Harvey Milk and his legacy advocating for civil rights and the LGBTQ+ community.

Harvey Milk (born 22 May 1930, Woodmere, Long Island, New York – died 27 November 1978, San Francisco, California) was an American politician and visionary gay-rights activist.

In 1977 he became one of the first openly gay elected officials in US history when he won a seat on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. The following year Milk was assassinated, and he subsequently became a gay rights icon. One of his inspirational quotes is: “Coming out is the most political thing you can do.”

US Navy and activism

After graduating from the New York State College for Teachers in Albany (1951), Milk served in the US Navy during the Korean War and received an “other than honourable” discharge in 1955 for having engaged in sexual acts with other enlisted men.

He held several jobs before becoming a financial analyst in New York. In 1972 he moved to San Francisco, where he opened a camera store and soon gained a following as a leader in the gay community. His popularity grew when he challenged the city’s gay leadership, which he thought was too conservative in its attempts to gain greater political rights for homosexuals.

In 1973 Milk ran for a seat on the city’s Board of Supervisors but was defeated. After another unsuccessful bid in 1976, he was elected in 1977. The following year Milk and the city’s mayor, George Moscone, were shot and killed in City Hall by Dan White, a conservative former city supervisor.

At White’s murder trial, his attorneys successfully argued that his judgment had been impaired by a prolonged period of clinical depression, one symptom of which was the former health enthusiast’s consumption of junk food. The attorneys’ argument, mischaracterised as the claim that junk food had caused White’s diminished capacity, was derided as the “Twinkie defence” by the satirist Paul Krassner while reporting on the trial for the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

White’s conviction on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter sparked an uproar in the city that was subsequently termed the “White Night Riot.” White was sentence to seven years and eight months in prison, but he ultimately was released after about five years.

Legacy

Numerous books and films were made about Milk, including the 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, which earned an Academy Award; an opera, Harvey Milk (1995); and Milk (2008), a cinematic depiction of his political career that starred Sean Penn. In 2009 Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In November 2021 the US Navy launched the USNS Harvey Milk. It was the first US Navy vessel to be named for an openly gay person, and at the ship’s christening Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said, “For far too long, sailors like Lieutenant Junior Grade Milk were forced into the shadows or, worse yet, forced out of our beloved Navy.”

However, in June 2025, during Pride Month, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the ship to be renamed. In a statement explaining the move, the Pentagon referenced Hegseth’s goal of restoring “the warrior culture” in the US military.

Russell T Davies’s much-anticipated new drama “Tip Toe” finally gets air date confirmed

The air date for Russell T Davies’s much-anticipated new drama “Tip Toe” has finally been confirmed … and it’s coming much sooner than you’d think.

Starring Alan Cumming and David Morrissey as warring neighbours, “Tip Toe” heralds Davies’s return to Channel 4, following 2021’s BAFTA-nominated It’s A Sin, and his first original work since returning to helm Doctor Who as showrunner in 2023.

Now, it’s been confirmed that the five-part series will officially launch in May 2026, and will broadcast on Channel 4 and be available to stream via Channel 4 on demand.

The first two episodes of “Tip Toe” will air Sunday 31 May and Monday 1 June at 9.00pm on Channel 4, and become available to stream on the night of 31 May.

The final three episodes will follow on Sunday 7, Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 June at the same time, and became available to stream on the night of 7 June.

Precise details for “Tip Toe’s” plot are unknown at present, but we do know that it will centre on Cumming’s character Leo, a bar owner in Manchester’s gay district of Canal Street, who gets embroiled in a feud with his long-standing neighbour Clive, played by David Morrissey. The two have lived next door to each for a decade, always getting along, but then something major shifts, changing their relationship forever.

The series has been written by Davies as an exploration of the rise of homophobic rhetoric in society in the last few years, and how easy it is for people’s opinions to be radicalised on issues such as homophobia and transphobia. Given how It’s A Sin explored the intricacies of how wide-spread homophobia in British society contributed to public and private opinions of the AIDs crisis, “Tip Toe” looks to give credence to how, even in 2026, this same type of homophobia hasn’t gone away, yet simply evolved into another form.

The synopsis for “Tip Toe” reads: “Just as life should be settling down, the world around them is growing more tense. Words become weapons, opinions become radicalised, and gradually, two neighbours become deadly enemies in a tense, suburban thriller which challenges everything we consider to be safe.

The series, populated with a cast of vibrant characters and underscored with Davies’s trademark wit and deft humour, is an urgent tale that brings a spotlight to bear on the prejudices which are creeping back into our lives.”

HIV experts horrified as Trump ends CDC support for PEPFAR programmes

The Trump administration plans to end support from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) programmes in most countries starting later this year.

Global health experts say the move represents the final blow in the administration’s efforts to effectively dismantle PEPFAR, which, since its launch in 2003 under President George W Bush, is estimated to have saved tens of millions of lives by funding HIV prevention and treatment in low-income countries.

Earlier this month, the State Department released new guidance as part of the administration’s America First Global Health Strategy (AFGHS), which includes a restructuring of the CDC’s role in distributing funding for and overseeing HIV treatment and prevention programmes in countries around the world.

Prior to the restructuring, the CDC received roughly half of PEPFAR’s annual funding through the State Department, which it used to fund and help run programmes in 46 countries. But as part of the AFGHS goals to phase out US assistance and let recipient countries “own” their epidemic responses, the State Department will distribute PEPFAR funding directly to countries through bilateral financial agreements after 30 September.

Recipient countries will be required to sign a memorandum of understanding, which in some cases may require countries to grant the US access to assets like mineral resources, in exchange for five years of financial assistance.

The new plan does away with what made the programme so effective: the CDC working with recipient countries’ ministries of health and community organisations to implement and improve HIV treatment and prevention programmes. 

The administration’s plan undermines decades of global health work and trusted partnerships with ministries of health.

Effectively dismantling the CDC’s role in PEPFAR will have consequences beyond the fight against HIV/AIDS. The agency will not be on the ground to track the rise and prevent the spread of other diseases, as it did with mpox.

It will not support ending the HIV epidemic and it also compromises the national public health security.

Mark Ashton (19 May 1960 – 11 February 1987)

Mark Ashton was born in Oldham on 19 May 1960. He was a gay rights activist and co-founder (with Mike Jackson) of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) support group. He was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and general secretary of the Young Communist League.

Richard Coles, from the band Bronski Beat, wrote in his book Fathomless Riches: Or How I Went From Pop to Pulpit: “Mark also worked for a while as a barman at the Conservative Club in King’s Cross, or, rather, as a barmaid, in drag, with a blonde beehive wig. I was never sure if the patrons worked out that he was really a man”.

Diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, Mark was admitted to Guy’s Hospital on 30 January 1987 and died 12 days later of Pneumocystis pneumonia.

The Terrence Higgins Trust memorialised Ashton in May 2014 on a plaque at the entrance to its London headquarters.

Ashton is also remembered on a panel on the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. 

In 2017, on what would have been Ashton’s 57th birthday, a blue plaque was unveiled in his honour above the Gay’s The Word bookshop in Marchmont Street, London, the site where LGSM met and held meetings during the miners’ strike.

The LGSM’s activities were dramatised in Pride, a film released in September 2014.

New Books

“Girlfriend Material” by Rosie Turner

In her new book podcaster Rosie Turner talks about the challenges and joys of embracing your true self later in life, the freedom of letting go of labels and why living authentically is the ultimate act of self-love

Rosie Turner is used to telling stories. For more than a decade, she worked behind the scenes as a BBC producer, shaping narratives for other people. Now, with millions of followers on TikTok and a debut book, she’s become the subject of her own one – a story that speaks directly to a growing number of women who are quietly, and sometimes painfully, re-examining who they are.

“I basically started doing terrible dating stories,” she says, laughing. What began as humorous accounts of failed dates with women quickly evolved into something more meaningful.

I started noticing that there were these comments (on my social media) and this need for advice for women, newly out women, like ‘Could you do some advice videos on how to kiss a woman?’ and ‘Who pays on a date?’”

What Turner tapped into wasn’t just curiosity – it was a gap. A space where women, often later in life, were trying to piece together identities they’d long set aside. Her new book, Girlfriend Material (Green Tree, £18.99), is her response: a candid, compassionate guide through what she calls the “chronological timeline” of coming out, from self-recognition to relationships, sex and the murky territory of situationships.

But beneath the humour and practical advice lies a deeper question – one that resonates far beyond sexuality alone: what happens when we don’t allow ourselves to fully know who we are?

“John of John” by Douglas Stuart

From the Booker-winning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo comes a vivid, moving and beautifully crafted novel following a young man returning to his Hebridean island home, a portrait of a close-knit community and a fraying family, of a father’s expectations and a son’s desires.

Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the island of Harris to find that little has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal begrudgingly resumes his old life, stuck between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for several decades. Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As lambing season turns to shearing season, everything seems poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly knotted.

John of John is a singular novel about duty and patience and the transformative power of the truth. It is a magnificent literary work that shows Douglas Stuart working at an even higher level of artistic creation.

What are 5 early signs of prostate cancer?

Early-stage prostate cancer often presents no symptoms at all. When symptoms do appear, they frequently mimic non-cancerous conditions like an enlarged prostate or urinary tract infections.

The 5 most commonly reported warning signs include:

• Urinary Changes: Needing to urinate frequently (especially at night), a weak or interrupted urine flow, sudden urgency, or difficulty starting and stopping.
• Painful Urination or Ejaculation: A distinct burning sensation or pain while passing urine or during ejaculation.
• Blood in Urine or Semen: The presence of blood.
• Erectile Dysfunction: Sudden difficulty in getting or maintaining an erection.
• Pain or Discomfort in the Pelvic Area: A dull pain or stiffness in the lower back, hips, thighs or pelvic region. 

Other less common or advanced warning signs can include unexplained weight loss, persistent fatigue or swelling in the legs. 

Important note for men and trans women: Experiencing these symptoms does not automatically mean you have cancer, but they must be investigated by a medical professional. If you notice any of these changes, book an appointment with your GP immediately to discuss testing such as a Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) blood test or a physical examination. 

POEM: “Living with Mortality” by Pauline Smith

I am so lucky

Mann and Mann

Thomas Mann was not only the winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature but was also a closeted gay guy. He had a life-long sexual attraction to men and teenage boys as revealed in his diaries. This was frequently reflected in his work, most prominently through the obsession of the elderly Aschenbach for the 14-year old Polish boy Tadzio in the novella Death in Venice. In his diaries he even admits to being sexually attracted to his own son Klaus (who he refers to as Essi) several times.

Thomas Mann’s son, Klaus, was a remarkable author in his own right. He published the first openly gay novel in the German language at the age of nineteen. His novel The Pious Dance, Adventure Book of a Youth (1926) is openly set in Berlin’s homosexual milieu. He went on to have a dazzling career in letters, publishing dozens of novels, plays, short stories and essays.

After Hitler came to power, Klaus fled Germany along with the rest of his family, became a committed antifascist, and eventually joined the US Army in World War II.

Ultimately, he was something of a tragic hero. After the war, he didn’t see a place for himself in a world that rejected homosexuality and ultimately rejected him. He killed himself on 21 May 1949, in a hotel room in Cannes.