Bury Pride

Last Saturday, 29 April, Bury Pride was back – bigger and better than ever! The event took place at the Elizabethan Suite at Bury Town Hall with lots of stalls and indoor entertainment. There was also the Walking Rainbow Parade and an outdoor stage with multiple acts and drag queens. The occasion was a joyous celebration to unite people through diversity and equality.

More than twenty members of Out In The City attended including David and Patrick who line-danced on stage as part of the Prairie Dogs and Derek and Gary who performed as Wolf – the oldest boy band.

We had a fantastic time including an excellent coffee and cake in Tina’s Tea Room within Bury Art Gallery.

More photos can be seen here.

Long-term care home unveils ‘Rainbow Wing’ for LGBT+ residents in Toronto

In June 2022 a long-term care home operator unveiled a ‘Rainbow Wing’ at one of its facilities to address the need for a dedicated space for LGBT+ seniors.

Rekai Centres opened the 25-bed wing with residents, staff and community members gathered to celebrate the opening.

Barbara Michalik, executive director, said she believes the space is the first in North America dedicated to the LGBT+ senior community.

“We have family members who may not feel comfortable coming into a long-term care home because of their gender or their preference in life, and it’s very important that we foster that and foster our staff who are from the community,” Michalik said.

“We can’t just slap a sticker on a door. We can’t just do one education during the month of June for pride. It’s continuous. It’s a feeling of culture when you come into that home [and] safety. It’s really constant reinforcement of welcoming.”

Currently. The Rekai Centres, have more than 20 per cent of residents who identify as LGBT+ at two of their long-term care homes.

‘Seniors often looked over’ during pride celebrations

Barry Van Buskirk, a resident, said he was thrilled to be there not only for the opening of the wing, but to also be able to participate in Pride.

“I think it’s very exciting. It’s very comforting and very loving,” Van Buskirk said.

“Seniors are often looked over because they’re considered too old to participate. I’ve been in many, many Pride parades because I just love people [and] I want to spread that love.”

Sue Graham-Nutter, CEO of the Rekai Centres, said the new wing has been a long time in the making.

“The launch of the Rainbow Wing is the result of over a decade of work with the LGBT+ community,” said Graham-Nutter.

“What makes us most proud and emotional are the hugs and the tears that flow from our residents, and families saying simply ‘I belong, and I am accepted here. Thank you.’  Everyone needs a home where they are safe and loved.”

They should not have to go back into the closet

Sherwin Modeste, executive director of Pride Toronto, said he hopes to see more of these types of spaces in the future.

“Seniors are part of society, they have contributed, they have paid taxes and they should be able to enjoy their lives,” Modeste said. “They should not have to go back into the closet at their retirement age.”

Toronto Mayor, John Tory, attended the event to celebrate the opening of the wing. He said the wing will allow people to be themselves.

“We benefit from people being able to be their authentic selves,” Tory said.

Staff to provide ‘culturally competent’ care

In 2018, the Rekai Centres commissioned a market research firm to solicit community input through surveys and focus groups. The research gathered by the firm was a key factor in the opening of the dedicated wing.

A survey was conducted that year that targeted people 50 and over who identify as LGBT+. The survey found that 94 per cent of respondents indicated that they were in favour of opening the space.

Projections show that there are more than 65,000 people in Toronto who identify as being part of the LGBT+ community over the age of 65. That number is expected to grow as the population ages.

The focus groups highlighted the need for culturally sensitive staff who are allies or members of the community. They also stressed a need for the revision of the admission process to break down systematic barriers that persist in health care.

Rekai Centres says the new wing will have staff who are “culturally competent” in providing care for residents, programming that meets the needs of residents and a gender sexuality alliance that will provide a platform for residents, families, staff and community partners.

Michalik said staff need to be well trained to ensure that residents feel safe within the home. “There’s a sense of culture that the residents from the community need and feel, especially when they’re suffering from dementia. There is an extra level of education that our staff need,” she said.

Loren Cameron, 63, Dies; His Camera Brought Transgender Men to Light

Mr Cameron’s groundbreaking portraits of himself and others, collected in his book, “Body Alchemy,” inspired a generation of transgender people.

Loren Cameron was in his early 30s when he bought his first suit, walking nervously into a haberdashery for short men. Size was a delicate subject for him. He was 5-foot-3 and wanted so much to be bigger, equating masculinity with heft – which is why he was also a dedicated body builder.

The salesman sized him up “as a regular working-class Joe,” as Mr Cameron put it, who was entering unfamiliar territory, and set out to teach him the rituals of fine dressing. He fitted Mr Cameron into a double-breasted Italian-made suit, taught him the difference between a half and a full Windsor tie knot and showed him four variations on folding a pocket square.

He even offered dating advice: Never give a woman a rose on a first date. Offer carnations instead.

Mr Cameron took a self-portrait in that snappy suit, handsome, bearded and brandishing a bunch of carnations, creating one of many tender and lovely photographs of transgender men like himself that he collected in “Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits,” published in 1996.

“I felt at least two inches taller when I walked out of there,” Mr Cameron wrote of his suit-shopping adventure, “and it wasn’t because of the elevator shoes.”

Mr Cameron, a photographer and activist whose depictions of transgender people – and documentation of his own experience – inspired a generation, died on 18 November 2022 at his home in Berkeley, California. He was 63.

The cause was suicide, his sister Susan Tarleton said, adding that he had suffered from congestive heart failure. He had been isolated from friends and family for many years, and his death was not widely reported at the time.

When “Body Alchemy” appeared, it was a revelation. At the time it was groundbreaking, even radical, to photograph transgender people as regular folk, rather than as exotics or freaks or medical specimens, and rarer still for the lensman to be transgender.

Images of transgender women were more familiar than those of transgender men, and they were often famous figures, like Christine Jorgensen, the American actress whose transition surgery in the 1950s was front-page news, and Jan Morris, the British journalist and travel writer who wrote of her own transition in her 1974 memoir, “Conundrum.”

Over the decades, fine artists like Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe and Diane Arbus “have all trained their lenses on the transgendered figure,” Kate Bornstein, the gender theorist and author, wrote in The Bay Area Reporter in reviewing “Body Alchemy” upon its release. “Never have the transgendered seriously photographed their own. Not until Loren Cameron, that is.”

In “Body Alchemy”, for perhaps the first time, transgender men could see representations of themselves outside of the pages of medical texts.

There was Jeffrey, a Jewish man who had yearned to have a bar mitzvah, affirming his heritage, and was able to do so. Mr Cameron photographed him in a prayer shawl and yarmulke.

Brynne, a rangy surfer, was shown in the back of his van pulling on his wet suit, short board at the ready. Stephan, a police sergeant honoured for his valour who transitioned while on the job, was framed against his squad car.

There were nudes, too, the most potent of which was a photo of Mr Cameron in a classic bodybuilder pose, back arched, muscles rippling, his body emblazoned with flame-shaped tattoos, injecting his buttock with a syringe of testosterone.

Mr Cameron wrote eloquently and honestly of the challenges of therapies like his biweekly testosterone shot, which played havoc with his mood, escalating his temper and often making him emotionally distant from his partner, Kayt, a lesbian.

He framed a pair of portraits of himself with the typical responses his body often provoked, rendered in a bold typeface: “You’re so exotic! May I take your photograph?” “You must be some kind of freak.” “You don’t belong here.”

Despite such bigotry and stigma, Patricia Holt wrote in her review for The San Francisco Examiner in 1997, Mr Cameron’s observations reflect “a kind of innocence and awe of the body.” She called the book a “poignant yet matter-of-fact study” of transgender people that was both “sensitive and insightful.”

Mr Cameron’s work was exhibited all over the country, in galleries and universities like Cornell, where he donated his papers in the early 2000s, when he was in his early 40s. Among his papers is his high school yearbook, showing a young woman as class president. “I was cute, huh?” Mr Cameron wrote in the margin before he sent it to Cornell.

“He wasn’t invested in hiding that he had been a woman,” said Brenda Marston, curator of Cornell’s Human Sexuality Collection. “He put his whole body and soul out there.”

Mr Cameron was sensitive about his size – he stood 5 foot 3 – equating heft with masculinity, which is why he was such a dedicated body builder.

Loren Rex Cameron was born on 13 March 1959, in Pasadena, California. His mother, Barbara (Chambers) Cameron, was an office manager at Sears. After her death in 1968, he moved to Dover, Arkansas, to live with his father, Robert, a nuclear engineer and nuclear plant manager.

Robert Cameron had a farm and raised horses, and Loren worked alongside him, building fences and taking care of the horses. He was daring and adventurous as a teenager, as he wrote in “Body Alchemy,” drag racing and rafting swollen rivers. He dressed in overalls and work boots and learned to swear like a trucker.

He was deeply uncomfortable in his female body, and at age 12 he wrote away for information on sex changes. When a friend suggested he might be a lesbian, he thought, “Why not?” But classmates began to treat him as an outcast, and he quit school and ran away from home, travelling the country by bus. He found work picking fruit and cleaning construction sites.

He ran a truck-stop fuel station and joined a youth conservation-corps crew, where he met a group of lesbians who suggested he might find a like-minded community in San Francisco.

He lived as a lesbian for nine years before addressing his discomfort with his gender. He was 26 and had recently quit smoking pot and cigarettes. “For the first time in my life, I wasn’t numb,” he wrote.

As he began to transition, he took snapshots of the process, sending them to family and friends so they could get used to his new body and also see how happy he was. “What was initially a crude documentation of my personal journey became an impassioned mission,” he wrote. He took a basic photography class, bought a simple Pentax K1000 and began photographing other transgender people and learning their stories.

“I wanted the world to see us,” he wrote, “I mean, really see us.”

Mr Cameron often said his aesthetic was influenced by the photography books his parents had at home, work by Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange that made vivid the stories his father had told of growing up poor during the Depression. His work ethic was inspired by his father, who taught him to mend fences and bale hay – to honour manual labour. “The last time I saw him, he told me that I had a lot of guts to move to California with only a duffel bag and a hundred bucks in my pocket,” Mr Cameron wrote. “I think if he could see me now, he would be proud to call me his son.”

Golden Mummies Exhibition

A group of us met at Piccadilly Gardens Bus Station and travelled to the University Green, a vibrant area within the Oxford Road Corridor neighbourhood of Manchester. There we met a few others. After burgers and fries at Five Guys, we walked the short distance to the Manchester Museum.

The current exhibition Golden Mummies of Egypt explores expectations of a life after death during the relatively little-known ‘Graeco-Roman’ Period of Egyptian history – when Egypt was ruled first by a Greek royal family, ending with Queen Cleopatra VII, then by Roman emperors. Wealthy members of this multicultural society made elaborate preparations for the afterlife, combining Egyptian, Greek, and Roman ideals of eternal beauty.

The funeral was an important opportunity to display wealth and status. Coffins, masks and mummy decorations were bright and eye-catching, involving costly materials for the wealthy. These show the deceased as alive and awake, at the moment of rebirth – magically assuring that this would be the case. People are depicted as perfect versions of themselves; even those who died as children appear as if they had grown up, so they could enjoy the afterlife to the full.

It was an interesting exhibition, and more photos can be seen here.

Groundbreaking moments in lesbian herstory

This week is Lesbian Visibility Week, which raises awareness about the issues facing lesbians and celebrates their achievements. 

Knowing your LGBT+ history is not only important, but it can provide great comfort and reassurance for members of the community. What’s more, it opens our eyes to the fact that, yes, we have always been here!

In honour of Lesbian Visibility Week, here are some key moments in lesbian herstory, from the first arrest for lesbian activity to the first televised kiss between two women.

The first conviction for lesbian activity

In March 1649, there was the first known conviction for lesbian activity in North America.

Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon were charged with “lewd behaviour with each other upon a bed” in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Hammon was under 16 and not prosecuted.

The first lesbian marriage

Same-sex marriage wasn’t legalised in the UK until 2014, but that doesn’t mean lesbian weddings only started happening then.

In fact, the very first marriage between two women actually happened in the 1800s.

Anne Lister was dubbed “the first modern lesbian,” and she married Ann Walker at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York in 1834.

Of course, their union was without legal recognition. However, they took communion together on Easter Sunday and thereafter considered themselves married.

In years since, the church has been described as “an icon for what is interpreted as the site of the first lesbian marriage to be held in Britain,” and the building now hosts a commemorative blue plaque in their honour.

The word “lesbian” is used

The word “lesbian” is part of many people’s everyday vocabulary now, but do you know when it was first used?

Well, the word “lesbianism” to describe erotic relationships between women had been documented way back in 1732.

The term was first used by William King in his book, The Toast, published in England, which meant women who loved women.

The book has become notable for providing proof that the term “lesbians” was used in a sexual sense as early as the 1700s, in exactly the same way that it is used today. 

Before this, the word lesbian meant “of Lesbos”, such as “Lesbian wine” or “Lesbian culture.”

The term “lesbian” is used in a medical dictionary

Then, in 1890, the term lesbian was used in a medical dictionary as an adjective to describe tribadism (as “lesbian love”).

The terms lesbian, invert, and homosexual were then interchangeable with sapphist and sapphism around the turn of the 20th century.

Arrest for lesbian partying

Singer Ma Rainey – the so-called Mother of the Blues – was arrested in her house in Harlem for having a lesbian party in 1925.

Her protégé, Bessie Smith, bailed her out of jail the following morning.

Both Rainey and Smith were part of an extensive circle of lesbian and bisexual African‐American women in Harlem, and the Blues scene of the Harlem Renaissance provided Black women with a space to explore their sexuality and gender. It gave them the freedom to be themselves without the white supremacist gaze, which sexualised and criminalised Black women. 

Rainey wrote about speculation regarding her sexuality three years later in the song “Prove it On Me Blues,” with lyrics including: “Ain’t nobody caught me, you sure got to prove it on me.”

Publication of a groundbreaking lesbian novel

In 1928, author Radclyffe Hall published what many consider today a groundbreaking lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness. It follows the life of Stephen Gordon, a woman from an upper-class family whose “sexual inversion” is apparent from an early age.

The book’s release caused the topic of homosexuality to be a topic of public conversation in both England and the United States.

The formation of the first known lesbian rights organisation

In September 1955, the first known lesbian rights organisation in the United States was formed in San Francisco.

Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) hosted private social functions until it was dissolved in 1995. It was conceived as a social alternative to lesbian bars and clubs, which were subject to raids and police harassment, as well as general discrimination.

Throughout its 40 years, Daughters of Bilitis became an educational resource for lesbians, gay men, researchers, and mental health professionals.

LA Law aired the first televised lesbian kiss

While representation is well on its way now, there was a time when TV shows didn’t want to touch lesbianism with a bargepole, making the first on-screen kiss between two women all the more monumental.

Although it might surprise you to learn that it wasn’t until the nineties that two women first locked lips on TV.

The kiss in question aired in a 1990 episode of 21 Jump Street, but the camera cut off their actual lips, meaning the actual kiss wasn’t really shown at all.

So, unofficially, the first lesbian kiss on TV is often attributed to a 1991 episode of legal drama LA Law, in which bisexual lawyer C J briefly kissed her female colleague Abby Perkins on the lips.

Sadly, romance never blossomed between the two characters, as Abby left the show and C J ended up with a boyfriend, not to mention the network received major backlash for the scene.

Still, we’ve come a long way.

Audre Lorde is named State Poet of New York

In 1991, self-described “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde became the State Poet of New York. She dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing various injustices, whether it be classism, homophobia, racism or sexism.

The critically acclaimed novelist, poet, and essayist was also a co-founder of The Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, and an editor of the lesbian journal Chrysalis.

Ellen DeGeneres comes out

In April 1997, comedian Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian on the cover of Time magazine, stating: “Yep, I’m Gay.”

The cover coincided with the broadcast of “The Puppy Episode,” a two-part episode of the American situation comedy series Ellen.

The episode details lead character Ellen Morgan’s realisation that she is a lesbian and her coming out, with the title initially used as a code name for Ellen’s coming out so as to keep the episode under wraps.

To say the moment was groundbreaking for lesbian history would probably be an understatement, as not only did it win multiple awards, Ellen became a cultural icon. DeGeneres’s career, though, suffered as the network stopped promoting her sitcom until it was ultimately cancelled.

Lesbian herstory is still in the making

Looking back at these groundbreaking moments, we can see how far the LGBT+ community has come in the fight for equality and acceptance.

There is still much work to be done in terms of combating discrimination and bigotry and ensuring that all members of the community are treated with dignity and respect. Let us honour the brave pioneers who paved the way for us and continue to fight for a better future for all members of the LGBT+ community.

Bury Pride is back and bigger than ever on Saturday, 29 April from 10.00am to 6.00pm!

This year’s event is going to be bigger and better than any previous year so come on down to The Elizabethan Suite, Bury Town Hall, Knowsley Street, Bury BL9 0SW.

The fabulous Prairie Dogs will be there, dancing indoors from 12.00 noon to 12.45pm.

Our favourite band Wolf will also be performing on the main stage from 1.45pm to 2.30pm.

This is a ticket only event. You will need to present your ticket to gain entry. Tickets are free – reserve a spot here.

Lesbian Visibility Week 2023

Lesbian Visibility Week (related to Lesbian Visibility Day) is an annual observance in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries dedicated to increasing the awareness of lesbian women and their issues. It was originally celebrated in July in 1990 in California, and more recently in April. This year the celebration of lesbian love, culture and life is from 24 to 30 April.

International Lesbian Visibility Day is a day (26 April) to recognise and celebrate the contributions of lesbian women around the world. The day was created in 2008 to raise awareness of the issues faced by lesbians, and to encourage them to live authentically.

To celebrate International Lesbian Visibility Day, events and activities are held in cities and towns around the world, including marches, rallies, and other public events. Organisations such as the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) also hold events to raise awareness and celebrate the day. Additionally, many individuals take part in online initiatives such as social media campaigns, online forums, and blogs.

International Lesbian Visibility Day is a day to recognise and celebrate the achievements, contributions, and unique experiences of lesbian women. It is also a day to reflect on the challenges faced by these women, and to promote a greater understanding of the LGBT+ community. By celebrating International Lesbian Visibility Day, we can create a culture of acceptance and inclusion, and help to create a more equal and just society for all.

How did International Lesbian Visibility Day first start off? 

International Lesbian Visibility Day was first celebrated in 2008 to bring attention to the issues that lesbian women face around the world. The day was started in order to bring visibility to the struggles and successes of these women in the fight for equality. International Lesbian Visibility Day also serves to create a safe space for lesbians and bisexual women to celebrate and express themselves. 

The day was created after a group of activists and allies, working with the ILGA and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Youth and Student Organization (IGLYO) realised the need for a day to celebrate and bring visibility to the issues of lesbians and bisexual women. The day was created to celebrate the diversity of the lesbian, bisexual and queer community and to emphasize the importance of visibility for these women, and since its inception, International Lesbian Visibility Day has grown in popularity. 

What is the significance of International Lesbian Visibility Day? 

International Lesbian Visibility Day is an important event in the LGBTQ+ community, to recognise the contributions and accomplishments of lesbians, and to raise awareness about the challenges they face. 

This day marks an important step in the fight for lesbian rights and recognition, and it is an opportunity to honour and acknowledge the accomplishments of lesbians around the world, and unique contributions in culture, politics, and science. 

International Lesbian Visibility Day is an important event in the LGBTQ+ community, and it serves as a reminder that lesbians are an integral part of the LGBTQ+ movement. 

Australia is on track to become one of the first countries in the world to eliminate HIV

A 10-year study has found that Australia could become one of the first countries to “virtually eliminate” HIV transmissions, with new infections decreasing dramatically. 

The findings, published in Lancet HIV, showed that HIV infections decreased by 66 per cent between 2010 and 2019 in New South Wales and Victoria, while there was a 27 per cent rise in people accessing effective HIV treatment. 

Increased access to HIV treatment and PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) – the medication that prevents a person from contracting HIV – was cited as a key reason for decreased transmissions. 

The journal also endorsed the public health strategy “treatment as prevention”, explaining that HIV treatment “results in virally suppressing the HIV virus”, which reduces a person’s risk of transmitting HIV to another person to zero. 

“We examined 10 years of clinical data from over 100,000 gay and bisexual men in New South Wales and Victoria,” said Dr Denton Callander, who led the research at the University of New South Wale’s Kirby Institute.

“We found that over time, as viral suppression increased, HIV incidence decreased. Indeed, every percentage point increase in successfully treated HIV saw a fivefold decrease in new infections, thus establishing treatment as prevention as a powerful public health strategy.”

Dr Callander also underlined the importance of access to HIV testing, as well as the “widespread availability” of PrEP.

Professor Mark Stoové from the Burnet Institute, co-senior author on the paper, added that the success of Australian measures such as education on HIV and reduced patient treatment costs could see the country “virtually eliminate” new HIV transmissions.

HIV experts have explained how medical breakthroughs have transformed the treatment and prevention of the virus.

The U=U (undetectable = untransmittable) slogan aims to tackle the misconception that people with HIV can pass the virus on even if they are receiving effective treatment.

In fact, U=U means that if a HIV-positive person has been taking effective HIV treatment, and their viral load has been undetectable for six months or more, they cannot pass the virus on through sex. 

In the UK, former health secretary Matt Hancock committed to ending new HIV transmissions by 2030, however, charities and activists have warned this won’t happen without better utilisation of all the tools to prevent HIV transmission. 

Richard Angell, chief executive at Terrence Higgins Trust, said it’s “possible but not probable” that the UK will reach the 2030 goal. It’s new campaign – HIV, time’s up – has been launched to ensure Hancock’s target is achieved on schedule.

It is calling for the expansion of opt-out HIV testing in A&Es to all areas with high HIV prevalence and for prevention pill PrEP to be made available outside of sexual health clinics.

Some “huge successes” were praised in terms of UK HIV prevention, but experts explained that inequality and stigma, as well as a lack of resources, were still hurdles to overcome in order to meet Hancock’s aim.

Staircase House

Staircase House was our destination this week. It’s a Grade II* listed medieval building dating from around 1460 situated in Stockport. The house is famous for its rare Jacobean cage newel staircase.

After a lovely meal sitting outside in The Courtyard at the Arden Arms – an old marketplace pub in Stockport – we walked up the hill to Staircase House. This is a real hidden gem. You can walk past it and not know it was there.

Very little is known of the property’s early history, though it is thought that it may have been the home of William Dodge who, in 1483, was the Mayor of Stockport.

The first residents of whom there is certainty were the Shallcross family who owned the House from 1605 to 1730. Members of the landed gentry, with their seat just across the county boundary, in Derbyshire, it was they who in 1618 installed the distinctive Jacobean cage newel staircase, from which the house takes its modern name.

The House, including the staircase, was painstaking restored using traditional materials, tools and techniques, following a major fire in 1995, the second of two arson attacks on the semi-derelict building.

There are lots of amazing photos to be seen here.

Elon Musk’s Twitter No Longer Shields LGBT+ People from Abuse

In October 2022 Elon Musk closed his deal to buy Twitter. He emphasised that he will allow for looser rules over what people can say on the platform. Immediately, far-right users started to celebrate the ability to freely use homophobic and transphobic rhetoric and make threats on the social media platform.

One person posted a photo of a drag queen smiling at a young drag performer with the caption, “This is a groomer.” The word “grooming” has long been associated with mischaracterising LGBT+ people, particularly gay men and transgender women, as child sex abusers.

LGBT+ people already face disproportionate rates of online harassment. Roughly 1.5 million, or 15 percent, of 10 million online posts analyzed between 2016 to 2019 were transphobic, according to a 2019 report by anti-bullying organisation Ditch the Label.

Researchers from the Anti-Defamation League found that throughout 2020 and 2021, 64 percent of LGBT+ respondents said they experienced online hate and harassment, compared to 46 percent of Muslims, 36 percent of Jews and about a third of Black and Asian respondents.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk got rid of Twitter’s protections for transgender people.

It’s now totally okay for people online to bully and abuse trans folks by deadnaming and misgendering them without consequence.

As part of its policy, Twitter quietly altered a section dealing with transgender people. The section considers a policy violation if a user repeatedly uses slurs, tropes, or other content that reinforces negative stereotypes about a protected category.

In particular on 8 April 2023, Twitter removed a phrase that described “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”

Targeted misgendering and deadnaming are explicitly prohibited in TikTok and Pinterest’s hate and harassment policies, while Meta has stated the same for Facebook and Instagram.

Boys in Dresses: The Tradition

It’s difficult to read the gender of children in many old photos. That’s because coding children via clothing didn’t begin until the 1920s.

Exploring the biographies of men as disparate as Tsar Nicholas II (born 1868), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (born 1882), and Ernest Hemingway (born 1899), you’re apt to come across pictures of them as young boys looking indistinguishable from young girls. Their hair is long and they’re wearing dresses.

Scholar Jo B Paoletti examines the changing fashions in children’s wear at the turn of the twentieth century, as a long tradition transitioned to more overtly gender-coded clothing. As she notes, “Until World War I, little boys were dressed in skirts and had long hair. Sexual “colour coding” in the form of pink or blue clothing for infants was not common until the 1920s; before that time male and female infants were dressed in identical white dresses.”

Paoletti writes that young children’s clothing became more “sex-typed” as “adult women’s clothing was beginning to look more androgynous.” Before that transition, clothing styles for children followed a predictable progression.

“Infants of both sexes wore long white dresses until they began to walk,” while toddlers “wore short loose-fitting dresses until the age of two or three years.” After that, boys and girls wore dresses or suits with short skirts to the ages of five or six.

“Differences in colour, material, and trim” were used to separate boys and girls at the latter stage, although such details may be hard to read in old photos today. Paoletti quotes from an 1895 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal to give one example of differences: “little boys’ dresses button up the front, those of their sisters fasten in back.”

The reasoning behind boys in dresses has been attributed to several motivations. There were the necessities of toilet training but also just plain practicality, since sewing and fitting smock-like dresses was easier than making miniature suits. Paoletti points to another: “it was not considered important to differentiate boys and girls at such an early age.” But “it seems to have been very important to distinguish between children and adults.”

“A child’s maturation was noted by gradual adoption of adult dress,” Paoletti writes, “a process usually regarded as marking important milestones in her or his development. These stages became more distinct and more celebrated for boys than girls only after the age of five.”

The timing of “breeching” – putting on breeches, short pants, knickerbockers or shorts – was left to the mother’s discretion. “Advice columns very commonly included queries from mothers wondering if their sons were ready to put away dresses,” she notes. By 1900, however, little boys in dresses beyond the age of two or three became rarer. Mothers started being advised “not to keep their boys in skirts too long.”

Boys from five to twelve could be dressed in “costume style” outfits, including sailor suits and the “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” The enormously popular 1886 Frances Hodgson Burnett novel inspired this later outfit, made of velvet and trimmed with lace. Stage and screen versions of Burnett’s work sometimes featured girls in the title role.

By 1936, “Little Lord Fauntleroy” could be a taunt akin to “sissy,” and the popular movie version that year starred a boy without the suit (and the curls).

The Daily Mail published 115 articles on trans issues in January 2023

In 2018, then-Prime Minister Theresa May published an LGBT action plan that included the protection and expansion of transgender rights. “We can be proud that the UK is a world leader in advancing LGBT rights,” she said, as she promised to make the gender recognition process less intrusive, acknowledged the existence of non-binary people and condemned transphobic bullying in schools. “Everyone in this country should feel safe and happy to be who they are,” added Penny Mordaunt, the equalities minister at the time, “and to love who they love, without judgement or fear.”

Just four years later, their action plan reads like something from a parallel universe. Hate crime against trans people is up dramatically and public attitudes have hardened against trans rights. This rising tide of hate has not occurred in a vacuum. Increasingly, politicians have, at worst, used trans people as scapegoats and, at best, chosen to look the other way as the mainstream media has churned out stories opposing trans rights. 

Anti-trans hate crime was already high when May’s plan was published, with 1,700 cases reported in 2018. But since then its skyrocketed, increasing by an eye watering 156% in four years to hit 4,300 in 2022.

Hate crime has been on the up across the board in the last decade, with the total number of reported cases rising from 44k in 2012 to 119k in 2022 (+271%). But trans people have fared by far the worst, with cases rising from 300 in 2012 to over 4,300 in 2022. That’s an increase of nearly 1300%.

Research by trans rights activist MimmyMum suggests that UK media has published an average of 154 articles on trans issues every single month over the past seven years. That’s a total of 13,500 articles focusing on a minority group that makes up just 0.1% of the population.

Britain’s most-read newspaper, the Daily Mail, has certainly dramatically increased its coverage over the past few years. Comparing the first month of each year shows a rise from six articles in January 2013 to a jaw-dropping 115 articles in January 2023 (+1817%).

It’s not just the volume of coverage that has affected the national mood towards trans rights, however – it’s the negative slant of the articles. While neutral and positive coverage has remained largely flat since 2013, the Mail and others have begun to publish a large number of critical pieces. Of the 115 Mail articles on trans issues in January 2023, 100 of them (87%) could reasonably be categorised as negative, in comparison to zero negative articles in January 2013.

Negative articles published by the Daily Mail last month include: “Now Aretha Franklin’s song Natural Woman is deemed OFFENSIVE to trans women”, “Labour again in hock to extreme ideology” and “Show sense on gender”. With a press this opposed to trans rights, it isn’t really surprising that the general public is turning against trans people.

So how do we reverse hardening attitudes and growing hate crime?

Something must give, that much is clear. In 2021 there was still some evidence that the public was inclusive towards trans people despite their poor political leaders – this is no longer the case. Public opinion has become far more sceptical of trans rights, hate crime is rising exponentially, and even notionally supportive politicians are now generally hesitant to stand up for trans people.

As a driving force behind the problem, the media must also be part of any solution. Making the mainstream media listen often feels impossible. In the past staff at the Guardian have coordinated demand that the paper improves its coverage of trans people. Perhaps now is the time to try again?

Vintage postage stamps of male wrestlers

Once upon a time, long before the age of texting and emailing, human beings would communicate by letter, which they sent through the mail using something called a postage stamp.

Commemorative stamps have long been used by countries to mark a historic date such as an anniversary, or to honour an event, place, person, or object. Unlike definitive stamps, commemorative stamps are usually made in limited quantities and sold for a temporary period of time before going out of print.

For whatever reason, male wrestlers have long been a popular subject for commemorative stamps in countries all across the globe. Interestingly, many of the countries that printed them don’t have particularly friendly histories when it comes to gay people such as Russia, Cuba, Turkey or Poland.

While the governments of these places might’ve had (and, in some cases, still have) serious issues with two men loving one another in the privacy of their own homes, when it came to licking the backs of stamps depicting images of half naked bodies, they were totally fine with it.

Here are some of the very best totally-not-gay vintage postage stamps of male wrestlers from over the years, with some dating as far back as the 1940s: