“Gay Shame”

In this LGB-minus-T “sex realist” book Gareth Roberts says accepting trans people is “Gay Shame”.

Review by Tucker Lieberman, originally published in Prism & Pen

Gay Shame: The Rise of Gender Ideology and the New Homophobia was released on 25 April 2024 by Forum, which publishes other anti-trans books too.

Another ‘spiked’ Writer Has an Anti-Trans Book

This time, it’s the London-based Gareth Roberts.

Doctor Who fans may recognise him as a writer for that show, although due to 2017 tweets that disrespected several trans women, he was dropped from a 2019 Doctor Who anthology. He also wrote for the soap opera Emmerdale and writes for the Spectator and UnHerd. In his new book, he brings up the soap opera Coronation Street, for which he also wrote.

Roberts is gay. He prefers the word “homosexual” as he perceives it to de-emphasise identities (which are cultural) and re-centre genitalia (which are biological). He’s cis, though the word appears only three times in his book, and only in quotations of others’ words; once, he appends a Latin “sic” to show he doesn’t like the term. He’s not trans, that’s all I mean.

Scan the headlines of his spiked columns over the past couple years (To hell with Pride Month / Your sexuality doesn’t make you special / Joan of Arc was not ‘nonbinary’ / No, Jesus was not trans / There’s nothing ‘homophobic’ about the word ‘homosexual’ / Meet the mean boys of trans activism) for a sense of how he feels about being gay and about other people being trans.

In his sparse endnotes and his recommended reading are some names I recognise, including: MP Rosie Duffield, Hadley Freeman, Suzanne Moore, Sonia Sodha, Abigail Shrier, Hannah Barnes, Helen Staniland, and Kellie-Jay Keen. Also, Jonathan Haidt, who always seems to come up in these contexts. In the acknowledgments, he lists Helen Joyce, Kathleen Stock, and Graham Linehan. Of course, he counts J K Rowling among “the most reasonable and rational people.”

He mentions Judith Butler only to say they’ve “elevated bullshit to something higher than an art form.”

Roberts defines “genderism” as “the ideology that advocates the misty concept of gender identity” over “the reality and importance of sex.” What some call “gender identity” is, to him, “the mysterious sexed soul of a person.” His position, which he calls “sex realism” (preferring that term to “gender-critical”), rejects any such thing as “gender identity.”

What’s his tone? His glossary ends with: “Woman: An adult human female. So there.” He acknowledges that everyone resists some gender stereotypes, and wants to let queer people know we’re not special: “Declaring yourself ‘non-binary’ is like demanding to be recognised as noteworthy because you’ve got a bumhole.”

Roberts refuses to engage the academic work or even the mere existence of trans people; he briefly name-drops only a couple prominent trans women, while the only trans man he names is a deceased murderer. Meanwhile, gay trans men, he assures his readers (stage whispering in the presence of this one who’s a gay trans man), are “very little discussed” and “much less known.”

In short, this is an ordinary “sex-realist” book: deliberately insulting, repetitive, and hanging on very few facts about anything. One thing I’d like to note about Gay Shame, though, is the timeline he’s more or less borrowed from the other “sex-realist” writers. To learn why the “sex-realist” narrative is shallow and false, take a look at this illustrative timeline.

Why the Timelines of “Sex Realists” Interest Me

“Sex realists,” also known as “gender criticals,” like Roberts, generally believe that trans identities are delusional and that trans people‘s genders are fake. A major problem for their position is that trans people exist and live alongside everyone else in ways that are demonstrably coherent.

The way the sex realists bridge this narratively is by claiming that transsexuals were once an infinitesimally small and medically pathologised segment of the population – hidden from view, kept within safe parameters, and leading lives of no importance – until one day c. 2012–2015 when large numbers of people suddenly became inappropriately trans, posing a threat to humanity. The pre-2012 history tends to be exaggerated into the idea that no one had ever heard of trans people, which in turn is fallaciously reduced to therefore, trans people did not exist.

This timeline always fascinates me for three reasons:

• I transitioned in the late 1990s. I have memories of doing so and of the many other trans people I met at that time. Is the sex-realist claim that no trans people existed in any interesting or meaningful way until I was 15 years post-transition? That’s plainly false. They aren’t merely disputing a fact or two; they’re committing outright historical denialism of my life.
• Any narrative that says trans people didn’t exist before 2012 is going to trip over the fact that we did. The narrative will work hard to minimise our existence or to contextualise it away. Then, it will struggle to account for the spontaneous generation of trans people post-2012. Furthermore, if trans people are understood to be fake, the narrative will struggle to explain how everyone else is able to perceive us and talk about us. In general terms, this is the problem of writing history and criticism on a subject you believe is inauthentic or nonexistent.
• These days, more people are transitioning at younger ages, yes. The “sex-realist” narrative anticipates that most of these children and young adults will change their minds and profoundly lament their choices. The “sex realists” are banking on many making noise for the anti-trans side when they turn 18. A few years ago, “sex realists” set up a deadline for this. Unfortunately for them, it’s coming due right about now and it’s not proving their point. The thousands of angry, regretful young transitioners they prophesied for the mid-2020s have yet to materialise.

The ‘Genderism’ Timeline, According to Gareth Roberts

1970s and 1980s

Once, there was “playful, productive gender-bending of the 1970s and ’80s.” There was “gay low culture,” which he found more interesting than “gay high culture,” with its “ring of truth,” as long as it was not put “on a pedestal.” He liked comedic drag, a “fun” sort of “disguising” and “gender-bending, etc.” that assumes it’s impossible to change sex, but he wants nothing to do with glamorous drag that’s more “trans” and appeals to a feminine ideal that, in his opinion, isn’t based in reality.

1988

Roberts claims that the UK’s anti-gay law Section 28, though it was “a bad thing” that no gay men supported, wasn’t that big a deal. After it passed in 1988, “nothing happened.” It was law for 16 years and “was never used. Not once.” Gay culture and politics thrived, so it had no “chilling effect.” “Section 28 barely registered at all,” he says, though he quickly undermines his own position with this anecdote: In 1995, another columnist for Doctor Who Magazine “mentioned his boyfriend” in print, and fellow contributors fretted that “this will get us banned from WHSmith!”

2004

Then, “in the noughties in the UK,” he says, “transsexuals were doing very well.” He gives just two examples, both from television: “Nadia (Almada) won Big Brother in 2004; Hayley was a firm Coronation Street favourite.” Nadia is a trans woman who appeared on one season of a reality show; Hayley is fictional.

Regarding the latter, Roberts is mostly eager to remind us that he wrote for the British soap opera Coronation Street, where he had “a small hand in creating” the long-term character of Hayley Cropper, a trans woman who married the character Roy Cropper and was on-air 1998–2014.

Anyway, the UK 2004 Gender Recognition Act seemed reasonable at the time, according to Roberts, maybe for him while he was writing a nice trans woman for television, but in retrospect he says it “was like a bomb left behind by a fleeing army of occupation, timed to go off many years later releasing a shrapnel cloud of unintended consequences.” Where the public once felt “goodwill” to “transsexuals,” “the rise of genderism has undone” it. (Of course he doesn’t acknowledge his own role in undoing it.)

2007

At a London nightclub in 2007, he briefly felt as though being gay had become normal, “just like having blue eyes or ginger hair,” but:

“How naïve I was in The Yard back in 2007: to think that everything was OK because gay men walked hand-in-hand through the city streets … At best this was the lightning flash-brief period of homosexuality being acceptable before the gender bomb went off.”

He’s blaming the existence and inclusion of trans people for the perpetuation of homophobia. He laments that homosexuality has been defined out of existence insofar as it is reinterpreted to mean “sexually attracted to the same ‘gender’, not sex.” Many gay men were happy to embrace the “TQ+,” he speculates, “because it gave them an out from homosexuality. Another place to hide. Another closet.”

2011

He believes that nonbinary identity “was literally invented on Tumblr in 2011.”

2012

He questions the inclusion of Marsha P Johnson as an important part of the 1969 Stonewall riot. He pinpoints 2012 as the beginning of all trans political history: “If ‘transgender’ activists were so key, and so very constant a presence, in the fight for gay and lesbian rights, why did they never pipe up about ‘trans rights’ until about 2012?”

2013

“Speak to anyone in the gay world before 2013 about there being more than two sexes and they would’ve laughed in your face,” he assures us.

Nonetheless, “one day in the early 2010s,” he says, he began adding the T to LGBT, as he’d noticed “everyone else seems to be doing that now.” As he did so, he thought of a trans person: not a real one, but his own fictional “lovely Hayley Cropper of Coronation Street,” one of the “old-fashioned unmanned transsexuals.”

Let’s pause here so I can give just one example for a more complete, accurate picture:

In 1990, the Gender Identity Project formed at the New York City Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center. There’s a print ad for it in a newsletter called “FTM” in September 1998. Incidentally, that’s the month I started college, post-transition. I remember this newsletter. This is the kind of language I personally remember seeing.

In 2001, the New York City organisation officially changed its name to The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. It did this not because bi and trans people materialised out of nowhere but rather because they’d always been part of the community.

Given this example among countless others we might find, it’s plain that queer organisations did not discover the word “transgender” in the “early 2010s,” regardless of what Roberts would like to recall.

2014

And, in Roberts’s narrative, “every gay institution fell for genderism at roughly the same time, 2014/2015.” Genderism also caused the fall of the British gay press “in about 2014,” he says, though his memory of “rough paper, often typeset eccentrically” suggests to me that the rise of internet may have had more to do with the gay press’s disappearance. There is, of course, Pink News, but it “fell to genderism,” so to him, it doesn’t count.

Today there are just men who claim to “know what it ‘feels like’ to be a woman,” which is “openly insulting male behaviour,” since they “can only imagine” womanhood. He sees “the rise of genderism in the 2010s” as enabled by social media, as in his view “it’s very hard to imagine an idea such as ‘trans women are women’ surviving contact with, and spreading through, the ‘meat space’ of tangible reality.”

2015

“We,” he says, referring to gay “sex-realists” like himself, “only noticed gender in 2015.” Since then, the UK has become “a society reordered so as not to hurt the feelings of a tiny minority of the delusional.”

His narrative seems to be crumbling. If he didn’t notice gender until 2015, after fictional Hayley Cropper’s fictional funeral had aired, I suspect the hand he had in Hayley was a very small hand indeed.

The New Homophobia

Roberts, like his spiked colleague Brendan O’Neill, uses his book to applaud a group called the LGB Alliance. Their premise is that being trans inherently threatens the concept of sexual orientation; they believe the latter is properly about genitalia and is based on a binary at which trans people’s very existence supposedly chips away, even when we’re not saying or doing anything to intentionally chip it away.

Fearing that the existence of the T could cause the LGB to reassess what sexual orientation is and how they’d like to identify themselves, they say the ‘T’ is “homophobic” and must be stripped from the acronym.

To describe this general dynamic, Roberts uses the term “new homophobia” in his book’s subtitle. I recognise the term from a two-year-old Newsweek article by Ben Appel, another spiked contributor. Nowhere in Roberts’s book does he credit his colleague for coining or promoting the anti-trans use of this term, a lapse I find curious, though it’s not my relationship to manage, nor is it my anti-trans ball to keep in fair play.

I find myself strangely attracted to the details of anti-trans narratives that deliberately erase my existence, but it’s OK for me, and for all of us, to let that deflated ball hit the floor. We cannot make it make sense.

Open Community Dinner and Choir Performance

Twelve of us from Out In The City joined the Proud Trust for a free community dinner to kick off Manchester’s Pride Month.

There was a range of delicious veggie and vegan hot and cold food supplied by Oak Street Kitchen including cauliflower korma, tofu pad thai, and roast vegetable lasagne.

After dinner there was a special performance from Lesbian Boy Band Choir which included songs by boy bands McFly and Busted.

There was a brilliant atmosphere and we all had a great time.

Pride In Ageing: A Celebration of Five Years

By Pauline Smith

Launched by Sir Ian McKellen and the LGBT Foundation in June 2019, the Pride in Ageing programme was set up to address concerns that too many lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people over the age of 50 are living in isolation and facing discrimination as a direct result of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

They celebrate five years of Pride in Ageing

5 years ago Pride in Ageing was launched
On Radio Manchester at 10.10am
5 June 2019
By Lawrie, Lucia and Pauline
Later at Barclays in Albert Square
Sir Ian McKellen was the keynote speaker
Talking about inclusivity, tolerance and support 

Here we are 5 Years later
Celebrating our Lustrum
As the Romans called it
In a marriage the 5th anniversary
Is represented by wood or silver 

For us in June 2024
Our celebration is one of reflection
A time to look back
At what we have achieved
In the last 5 years 

The differences and programmes
that Pride in Ageing has created
Thanks to the sponsorship of Barclays
with several successful fund raising dinners
And the videos in which many of us volunteers
have appeared to promote
Pride in Ageing’s activities 

Pride in Ageing has set up
A permanent archive
of older LGBTQ+ people’s
stories about their lives
at Manchester Central Library 

The Rainbow Buddy programme
designed to help lonely and vulnerable
people of all ages
who are part of the LGBTQ+ community 

The Derek Jarman Pocket Park
at Manchester Art Gallery
created a living garden
out of an area of concrete
and weeds 

Showing the love and nurturing skills
of the volunteers who created it
and maintain it
with advice and support from the RHS
A lasting living memorial 

The Box of Me project
An idea created by 3 of our volunteers
Mindy, Pam and Pauline 
To help older LGBTQ+ers
Plan the last part of our journey 

Giving empathy and sympathy
to show older LGBTQ+ers
the steps to having a will
power of attorney, funeral plan
And how to celebrate 

With St Ann’s Hospice support
and Pride in Ageing volunteers
this programme has been rolled out
to groups of older LGBTQ+ people
across Greater Manchester 

The Skills for Care project
A co-operation between Strathclyde University
Pride in Ageing and Skills for Care
has created a programme to train
health and care professionals on
how to look after older LGBTQ+ people
In care homes, hospices and hospitals
with dignity and respect 

This programme is being implemented across
England and has been adopted
by Brighton and Hove health care authority
And its still a new idea
with training manuals and videos 

And of course there are ongoing programmes
which will come to fruition in the near future
the joint project between PIA and the Proud Trust
with young teenage and older LGBTQ+ers
working together on a cabaret evening in 2023
photography and plays in 2024 

Lastly the Whalley Range Housing Project
Creating a safe environment
for older LGBTQ+ers
to live in their own units
with joint facilities for the site 

There will be other projects in the future
Lawrie and the volunteers are creative
And all work together as a team 

On the 17 March 2024
Sir Ian McKellen spent time
with us volunteers as
We chatted with Pride and Joy 

And started the celebrations for
5 Years of Pride in Ageing

James Baldwin

James Baldwin, one of the most influential writers and thinkers of the 20th century, is remembered this year as the world commemorates the centennial birthday of The Icon – prolific author, poet, playwright, cultural critic, thought leader and activist.

Baldwin’s profound contributions to literature, social criticism and civil rights have left an indelible mark on the culture and political landscape. As we celebrate this milestone, we reflect on his enduring legacy and the relevance of his work today. 

Born on 2 August 1924, in Harlem, New York, Baldwin emerged from a challenging childhood marked by poverty and systemic racism. Despite hardships, he found solace and inspiration in the written word – and so did his audiences. Baldwin’s writings have influenced generations of readers globally and continue to be foundational for navigating history, race and politics.

Baldwin’s literary achievements were only a portion of the man’s greatness. He was a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement and used his platform to advocate for racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights and human dignity.

Baldwin fought on behalf of all – even when those Baldwin included in his vision for freedom failed to return the favour. His was Black queer politics, and for Baldwin, there was no winning for all if some are forced by the many to lose along the way. The sooner we learn that lesson, the sooner we may collectively build a global community of people liberated from the desire to devour one another. That was his vision.

In short, Baldwin was the quintessential Renaissance man, and there are celebrations worldwide paying tribute to 100 years of the man, the myth and the legend.

Esther Roper was born on 3 August 1868, near Chorley. She never really knew her parents, as they went to Africa to do missionary work, and left Esther with grandparents in London. They put her in a children’s home at the age of four.

When she was 18, Esther came to Manchester to study at Owens College. This was a trial scheme to see if young women were up to studying at the college level on a par with male students. Esther graduated with a 1st Class honours degree in Latin, English and Politics.

She stayed on at university, teaching and supporting female students. Esther also helped set up the Manchester University Settlement in Ancoats to give educational and cultural opportunities to local working people.

From 1893 to 1905, she was secretary of the Manchester National Society for Women’s Suffrage. She was a skilled organiser, administrator and fund-raiser, leaving the speech-making to others, but always busy working behind the scenes. She is credited with steering the movement away from focusing on middle-class women, and instead tried to get working-class women involved as well.

In 1896, she fell poorly and took a cure / holiday in Italy. There she met Irish aristocrat and poet, Eva Gore-Booth. They fell in love. Eva gave up her life of comfort and privilege to come to Manchester, where she lived with Esther in a terraced house in Rusholme.

Together, Esther and Eva worked tirelessly for women’s rights. They helped to organise groups of female flower-sellers, barmaids and coal pit-brow workers whose jobs were under attack from moral crusaders, who said such work wasn’t “appropriate” for women and would encourage “loose morals”. Esther argued that these women didn’t have a choice; they needed to keep their jobs simply to help pay the rent and feed their families. She arranged public meetings, demonstrations and delegations to lobby parliament.

Although Esther and Eva campaigned strongly for the vote for women, they didn’t support the Pankhurst’s militant tactics. They also felt Emmeline wasn’t sufficiently interested in working-class women. They were, however, very close to Christabel, who adored them.

Esther and Eva moved to London in 1913. They were pacifists who spoke out against the senselessness of the First World War, setting up the Women’s Peace Crusade to call for a negotiated peace.

In 1926, Eva fell ill with cancer. Esther was at her bedside and later wrote: “At the end, she [Eva] looked up with that exquisite smile that always lighted up her face when she saw one she loved, then closed her eyes and was at peace.“

Esther worked to preserve Eva’s memory. She edited and published a book of her poetry and had a stained-glass window celebrating Eva’s life put in at the University Settlement Roundhouse in Ancoats (the Roundhouse was demolished in 1986, by which time the window had been smashed or stolen).

Esther was campaigning for women’s rights and social justice to the end. She died in 1938, aged 69 and was laid to rest with Eva.

(Thanks to John Davies / We Grew Up in Manchester for the information)

Edinburgh’s ‘underground’ gay nightclub that a notorious cop shut down

An Edinburgh nightclub known as a meeting place for men in the city was shut down by a “decorated” policeman, after he launched what was described as a “war on homosexuality” back in the ’30s.

Nowadays, we’ve got a lot to be thankful for when it comes to LGBT+rights – though it hasn’t always been that way.

With Pride celebrations happening all summer, many will be flocking to the streets to celebrate being their authentic selves.

However in 1930s Edinburgh, people didn’t have such an opportunity and had to find other ways to meet up with like-minded people.

One dancehall had a “reputation” for serving as a meeting place for many. Maximes Dancehall, which stood on West Tollcross, was one of the many spots in the city at the time where men looking to meet up with other men would visit. It was owned by businessman Peter Ogg, who was thought to be involved in the organisation of “homosexual life in the city”.

At the time not only was participating in the sex trade illegal, but sex between men was a crime in itself.

Edinburgh copper William Merrilees, a decorated policeman at the time, found out Peter’s name through his enquiries and made it his mission to take him down. Merrilees had climbed up the ranks of the police rapidly, after joining in 1924 at the age of 26.

The then-procurator fiscal James Adair alerted Merrilees (also known as Wee Willie due to his height) to a ‘worrying’ increase in homosexual ‘offences’ which kicked off his self-described ‘war on homosexuality’. He investigated the Rosebery Boys where a small group of gay male sex workers operated out of the Rosebery Hotel in Haymarket.

He imprisoned multiple men through his search, supposedly using the “threat of prosecution of other forms of coercion”. Merrilees was satisfied by his role in the Rosebery Boys case but had now gained an appetite for rooting out homosexuals.

It was from here that he moved on to Maximes Dancehall and Peter Ogg. According to his autobiography, Ogg’s name would appear often during Merrilees’ investigations and he was led to assume Ogg was one of the “organisers of homosexual life in the city”.

Willie believes the powerful members of Edinburgh society were providing “bodies and opportunities for illicit pleasure”, with one of the meeting spots being Maximes. Apparently, Wee Willie had done extensive research and took pride in his ‘ability to affect the mannerisms of a homosexual’.

He would adopt a certain walk and a lisp, and says in his autobiography that he would convince men he was pursuing a ‘sexual adventure’. Through these techniques, he managed to get confessions from soldiers who were stationed at Redford Barracks about their involvement with “homosexual lifestyles” in the city as well as links to Peter Ogg and Maximes.

Ogg was arrested, found guilty of multiple counts of ‘sodomy’ and sentenced to two years in prison. Maximes was shut down and ultimately turned into another one of the many iterations that the West Tollcross venue has seen.

Wee Willie went on to continue his decorated career, receive an OBE, have a comic book done in his honour, and even feature in a TV special based around his life.

Queen by Magnus Hastings

This week we took the train to Liverpool Lime Street and had lunch in the adjoining Wetherspoon’s pub – The North Western. It was then only a couple of minutes walk to the Walker Art Gallery.

The Walker’s collection includes the late Renaissance Gallery, the Pre-Raphaelite Gallery and Sculpture Gallery, but we had travelled primarily to see a temporary exhibition “Queen by Magnus Hastings”.

British photographer Magnus Hastings, renowned for his internationally acclaimed work, has photographed an array of drag superstars, celebrities and personalities from the LGBTQ+ communities, representing the ever-expanding spectrum of LGBT+ identity and visibility.

He has shot celebrity covers for the biggest gay magazines including Attitude, Boyz and QX International.

This exhibition is a specially curated selection of Magnus’s most famous photographs and portraits of renowned drag queens from across the globe, including newly commissioned never-before-seen photographs spotlighting Liverpool’s legendary drag artists, captured in the city’s vibrant Pride Quarter. In Hastings’ own words: “This show is an exploration of drag’s roots and its continual evolution, and I’m really thrilled to have all these incredible subjects I’ve photographed gathered in one place. It’s an amazing showcase of talent and it feels very fitting to present Queen … in Liverpool.”

Lots of great photos can be seen here.

Pride Season – Dates for the Diary

Greater Manchester’s Pride Season continues and the following Prides are scheduled during August:

Saturday, 3 August – 11.00am – 1.00pm – Trans Pride Manchester

Castlefield Urban Heritage Park, Manchester, M3 4JN

Join us in support for and celebration of the trans and non-binary community of Greater Manchester at this year’s Trans Pride!

We will assemble at 11.00am at Castlefield Urban Heritage Park in Manchester. There will be speeches and a march starting at 12.00 noon finishing about 1.00pm. The march ends at the Vimto Park.

Trans Pride Mcr have more events planned after the march which you may wish to attend: https://www.transpridemcr.org/transpride2024

Levenshulme Pride – Friday, 9 – Sunday, 11 August

A celebration for everyone – Levenshulme Pride: No Barriers

Wigan Pride – Saturday, 10 August

As always, the event will start with a colourful community march.

The parade helps celebrate the diverse borough, gives everyone in the local LGBTQ+ community and allies the chance to be proud of who we are, and acknowledges the first ever Pride event; a march that marked one year since the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York.

The march will start around 11.00am on Saturday 10 August, and finish around 12 noon when the action will begin on the main Unity Stage and Believe Square stage.

Prestwich Pride – Saturday, 10 and Sunday, 11 August

Prestwich Pride will take place from Friday, 9 to Sunday, 11 August.
 
This year’s festivities promise an array of events, showcasing the diverse and inclusive spirit of the LGBTQ+ community, with some new faces as part of the line-up as well as some Prestwich Pride favourites.

Manchester Pride – Friday, 23 to Monday, 26 August

The Manchester Pride Parade 2024 will take place on Saturday 24 August and starts at midday.

Manchester Pride is one of the UK’s leading LGBTQ+ charities. Our vision is a world where LGBTQ+ people are free to live and love without prejudice and our culture is universally celebrated. We’re part of a global Pride movement celebrating LGBTQ+ equality and challenging discrimination.

This year’s theme is Buzzin’ to be Queer – A Hive of Progress. The bee is symbolic of queer progress in Manchester, but it’s also a vital symbol within Hidayah, representing unity and collaboration as a true collective.

See here for more details.

Didsbury Pride – Saturday, 31 August

Emmanuel Church, 6 Barlow Moor Road

Didsbury Pride aims to promote visibility of our LGBTQIA+ community in Didsbury and education and awareness of the spaces and services available.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” has just finished an extended run at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. The new production was a vibrant and humorous update of Wilde’s classic.

The comedy about mistaken identities and finding one’s true identity is still relevant today.

Here is a timeline:

1533 The Buggery Act criminalised sex between men.

1884 Oscar Wilde married Constance Lloyd and they had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan.

1885 The Criminal Amendment Act criminalised wider activities associated to homosexuality, terming this “gross Indecency”.

1891 Wilde began an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, a young British poet and aristocrat 16 years his junior. Outraged, Douglas’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, sought to expose Wilde’s sexuality.

1895 (14 February) On the opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest, the Marquess of Queensberry planned to throw rotten vegetables at the stage. Forewarned, Wilde was able to deny him access to the theatre.

1895 (April) The feud between the Marquess of Queensberry and Oscar Wilde came to a climax in court when Wilde sued for libel. The proceedings provided enough evidence for Wilde’s arrest, trial, and conviction on charges of ‘gross indecency’. Wilde’s homosexuality was revealed to the Victorian public, and he was sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour. Despite the play’s early success, Wilde’s notoriety caused it to be closed after 86 performances. After his release from prison, he published the play from exile in Paris, but he wrote no more comic or dramatic works.

2002 A star-studded adaptation of Wilde’s comedy of mistaken identities is available on the BBC iPlayer (but only for about two weeks). Watch here.

2017 Oscar Wilde was pardoned under “Turing’s Law”, named after Alan Turing who was also convicted of gross indecency.

Nancy Valverde Defied the Los Angeles Police Department – and Won!

From the age of 17, Nancy Valverde was repeatedly arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department for wearing masculine clothing. By the time she died, at age 92, the city had named a square in her honour, its first public monument to a lesbian.

Valverde, a proud Chicana butch lesbian, had refused to conform to social norms, even in the 1940s and 50s, when the city’s racist and homophobic police force frequently arrested people under anti-“masquerading” laws that criminalised them for wearing clothes officers judged to be unsuited to their gender.

“They wanted me to be someone else. I could not be someone else. This is me,” Valverde said in a short documentary film about her life.

As states across the US pass laws criminalising drag performances and banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth, Valverde’s battle against police harassment feels deeply relevant, said the director Gregorio Davila, who featured Valverde in his documentary LA: a Queer History, and also created an award-winning documentary short about her.

Valverde became a queer Los Angeles icon for her early resistance efforts and her refusal to hide who she was, even at a time when many people were afraid to be gay in public. For decades, butch lesbians and other gender-nonconforming people could be arrested for their clothing choices not only in Los Angeles, but across the country.

Frustrated by being repeatedly arrested and jailed under anti-crossdressing laws that dated back to the 19th century, Valverde went to the county law library in 1959 and found that the courts had actually decided in 1950 that a woman was not breaking the law simply for wearing masculine clothing. Valverde was able to use this legal precedent to stop the LAPD from arresting her, though officers continued to harass her.

With LGBT+ people in the US facing a renewed wave of political attacks, Los Angeles has made a public monument to Valverde’s fight against police harassment.

In June 2023, less than a year before Valverde’s death, city officials renamed a downtown intersection the Cooper Do-nuts / Nancy Valverde Square. The name pays tribute to both Valverde, who attended school and was arrested there, and the site of a donut shop popular with gay and trans people, which is believed to be the location of a pre-Stonewall battle against police harassment in 1958 or 1959.

At the dedication ceremony, the LAPD made a formal apology, with Ruby Flores, the department’s first Latina deputy chief, saying: “This mistreatment of our citizens was wrong and should never have happened.”

Valverde was too frail to attend in person, but her reaction to the honour, according to Marisol Sanchez, the resident services coordinator for the LGBT+ senior apartments where Valverde lived, was: “I never thought I was going to get this, but it’s about time.”

Clashes with police

People who knew Valverde describe her charm and sense of humour, as well as her fighting spirit. “Everybody knew Nancy,” Sanchez said. “And if you didn’t know Nancy, she would make herself known.”

Even in Valverde’s later years, when she had less energy, “that didn’t take the sass away from her”, Sanchez added.

While Valverde is sometimes referred to now as an example of an early LGBT+ activist, that wasn’t how she would describe herself. “She wasn’t trying to make a political statement,” Davila, the documentary director, said. “She made a difference just by being who she was.”

Valverde was born in 1932 in New Mexico and moved with her family to East Los Angeles as a child. She started working at age 11, first picking apricots and cotton, then working for a restaurant, then delivering pastries for a bakery. She experienced discrimination both as a Chicana, during years when the city was razing a Mexican American neighbourhood and forcing out families in order to build Dodger Stadium, and also as a lesbian.

During the second world war, many women had taken on new roles in the workplace while men were fighting overseas. But after the war, “there was a real push to drive women back to the home and back to their ‘normal’ position,” Faderman, the historian, said. “Lesbianism became particularly threatening to that drive.”

The LAPD chief William H Parker, who was well known for his racist views of Black and Latino communities, became a champion of that effort, Faderman said, using police power to raid gay bars and crack down on any public sign of homosexuality.

The result was a police department empowered to harass, detain and even arrest people “at will, just for the hell of it”, said Faderman, one of the authors of Gay LA: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians. Being arrested for homosexual behaviour could have severe social and professional consequences: women even risked losing custody of their children.

Still, within the shelter of gay bars, butches and “hard dressers”, as they were called in the Black community, tried to find ways to express their identities.

In San Francisco, one woman recalled rolling up her trouser cuffs and wearing a long feminine coat, so that on her way to and from the gay bar she would look like she was wearing a skirt, said Kate Redburn, a legal historian at Columbia Law School. Another butch “thought she was safe because she sewed lace on her socks”, Faderman said.

While there were many butch lesbians in the 1950s, most of them “were scared to really challenge the police if they were harassed or arrested”, Faderman said. “Nancy was different.”

Valverde had known from an early age that she was not exactly like other girls. “I just knew I was comfortable in pants, men’s attire,” she told Davila. She said she had not learned the word “lesbian” until she went to jail.

For years after her first arrest, at age 17, Valverde recalled, she faced harsh treatment in public, in court, and in jail, where she recalled once serving a three-month sentence for masquerading. Throughout it all, she fought back.

When police officers used to tell her, “I want to see you in a dress,” she would tell them: “Sit down and wait ’cause you’re gonna get tired,” Valverde told Faderman. Officers would bring the clothes she had been wearing to display in court as evidence, and say things like: “Better not fuck around with my wife.”

When she was attending school in downtown Los Angeles to become a barber, Valverde said, the police would arrest her on Friday and not let her out until Monday morning. The head of the school demanded to know why she was always late, and she had to explain that it was not because she was partying, but because she was in jail.

At one point, Valverde was put in a men’s section of a jail, and a male police officer tried to grope her, she said in Davila’s documentary. Valverde started drumming on the bench in her cell and demanding to see a female cop. When the man in the cell next to her complained, she introduced herself as Nancy from East Los Angeles and explained what had happened. The men in the cells around her were also Chicano, she said, and soon they were all drumming on their cells in solidarity.

Valverde did not always get this kind of support. “The gay community didn’t want me around,” she told Davila. “They said I was too out. Everybody was passing for straight, and the only place they came out was at the bars. On the streets they wouldn’t talk with me … (afraid) I would make them guilty by association.”

A potent legacy

Valverde, who raised several adopted children, stayed an active member of LA’s gay communities throughout her life. She recalls participating in one of the city’s early Dyke Marches, “when it was only about 75 of us. I thought, ‘At last, justice has arrived,’” she told Davila, wryly.

Some younger gay Angelenos remember her barbershop as a place of refuge. One now elderly man once got his first haircut with Valverde, Sanchez said, and the man recalled: “I knew she was different. I knew she was a safe space, when I hadn’t even admitted to myself that I was a gay man.”

In the last decades of her life, Valverde moved into the Triangle Square Apartments, the first affordable housing development for LGBT+ seniors in the US. Valverde loved the community and felt very defensive of it, Sanchez said. There, she found love again in her 80s, meeting her partner, Andi Segal, who also moved into the apartment building.

Valverde also became an important queer Latina elder for younger generations of artists, writers and film-makers, who have shared her story through documentaries, academic research, essays and even a play, Raquel Gutiérrez’s The Barber of East LA.

Today, Valverde’s story is taking on fresh urgency as Republican legislators pass new laws targeting transgender and queer people. In 2023, the year Nancy Valverde Square was dedicated, more than a dozen states introduced laws banning drag performances, and Tennessee, Montana, Florida and Texas passed them.

Though the “literal legal language” of the new drag bans is not the same as the century-old laws banning masquerading, “it comes from the same sort of panic over gender and sexuality and other norms being challenged”, said Redburn, the legal historian.

While many of the drag bans are tied up in legal challenges, the legislation has had a “chilling effect”, according to Joshua Block, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, that has left LGBT+ people feeling “under assault and under surveillance”. In her later years, Valverde said she was proud of the “youngsters who are working to open up society” but was sceptical of big talk and posturing, especially in a fight that was far from over.

Her message for people fighting for gay rights today: “Put your ass on the fire the way we did – risk your ass.”

Malvern Pride: Hundreds defy rain to spread colour and love

It had been a wet start to Malvern Pride today (Saturday, 27 July), but that had not deterred visitors, who came in droves to celebrate love and inclusivity in Priory Park. 

The fun got underway at noon with entertainment like live music from the bandstand, face painting and aerial performances. 

When the rain started, visitors put up umbrellas, popped on ponchos or moved under trees so they could not miss out on the festivities. 

Mary Marsh, one of the event organisers, said: “Once it started raining, many people got up, and I was thinking, oh no, but they just all moved under the trees.

The way I describe (Malvern Pride) to people is it is a bit like if Pooh and Piglet do pride – it is Malvern, and Malvern would not put up with pride like in London and Birmingham because that’s not us.”

“So it has to be warm and fuzzy, so we have always marketed it as a family-friendly event where everyone is welcome. They all come because it’s great fun and inclusive in the true sense of the word.”

“People throw around words like diversity and inclusivity, but Malvern Pride is also warm.”

Malvern Town Council also made their first appearance at one of the Malvern Pride events today.

“It is great – it is really bright and vibrant and everyone has really enjoyed themselves,” said councillor Jude Green. “For us as town councillors, it has been really good to engage with the community and get all sorts of feedback.”

Councillor Melanie Jones said when she moved from London to Malvern, she was nervous that she would receive hostility for being gay.

She said: “I am quite new to Malvern and new to the council as well.

There are people from different backgrounds and different sexualities, and that does not make you feel uncomfortable here. “I do not mind saying that I am gay, and I came from London and expected there to be hostility, and I never have received that here personally. That has been amazing and to get a place on the council as an outsider is really fantastic.”

Canal and River Cruise

After meeting at Deansgate / Castlefield tram stop, we took the tram to Media City in Salford Quays – home to the BBC and ITV television studios as well as The Lowry Theatre.

Media City has a burgeoning social scene, and we lunched at The Harvester, which turned out to be brilliant value.

There were 29 of us this week, and the weather was perfect for the next stage of our day out – a one hour canal and river cruise. We boarded at Salford Quays and travelled along the Ship Canal and River Irwell, some people inside, and some on the open top deck.

We discovered the industrial heartland around Salford and Manchester seeing sights from the modern Media City to the imposing Old Trafford football stadium and George Stephenson’s railway bridge from 1830.

On the commentary we heard the history of the Manchester Ship Canal, about the industries that made the city one of the powerhouses of Europe and also about the exciting future that’s currently being built.

Lots of photos can be seen here.

Loneliness is killing men – and without proper support and intervention nothing will change

In his book Of Boys and Men Richard Reeves outlines various factors leading to boys and men feeling excluded from society and failed by various systems, whether it be education or the workforce. One section states how men struggle after divorce or relationships ending, especially if they do not find a new partner.

Many men are socialised to prioritise strength, independence and stoicism, making it difficult for them to open up and form emotional connections. Many ageing men experience loneliness due to the loss of a partner and friendships.

Mental health services are trying to engage lonely men with various strategies. We know that most men do not phone helplines when they are in crisis, many struggle with individual therapy and men’s-only group therapy is not readily available. There are discussions on policies to have interventions aimed at boys in schools. Holistic practices such as exercise (gym, running or sports), a healthy diet and good sleep hygiene also help, but it is not enough.

Research shows that older LGBT people are especially vulnerable to loneliness as they are more likely to be single, live alone, and have lower levels of contact with relatives.

They are also less likely to engage with local services, with recent findings showing that over four fifths of older LGBT people do not trust professionals to understand their culture or lifestyle.

The creation of a safe space can provide opportunities for older LGBT people to build confidence and engage with activities that enable them to meet with likeminded people.

Why are Gay men over 50 so lonely?

In this video, two gay men (Tom and Michael) have an open and honest discussion about the loneliness epidemic; why and how it’s affecting our aging gay community. This is an important conversation for us to have because at some point, we have or will experience loneliness.
 
They share ways you can cope and overcome loneliness, as well as how you can help others who might be suffering.

Are You A Lesbian?

She was in her bedroom, not properly dressed, just sprawling and thinking her own private thoughts when her mother came in – she didn’t knock, she just came in.

You could see she had a determined look, as if resolved to do something and was set on doing it. No preamble – out came the question – “Are you a Lesbian?”

This was a continuation of an earlier conversation. They had talked about boys and the mother mentioned boys who had shown an interest. The girl hooted with laughter at her mother’s cringy suggestions. She choked with snorting derision.

So the mother had been pondering a certain thread of thought. Hence the question – which was asked with that concerned, pained, but creepy expression that mothers use.

The girl was shocked – real jaw-sagging incredulity – a mixture of astonishment and annoyance – she looked so alarmed that the mother backed off immediately, mumbling apologies – but at the same time pleased.

Alone again, the girl stared at the ceiling and then grabbed her mobile to text her girlfriend.

Thanks to David Astbury for this short story

Manchester Day

Manchester Day will return on 27 July with even more fun-filled free activities for all the family.

Between 12.00 noon and 6.00pm on Saturday 27 July, the city centre will turn into Manchester’s biggest-ever playground this summer when Manchester Day: Let the Games Begin! rolls into town.

Inspired by an international summer of sport, join them for a day of free family-friendly fun. They’re taking pop-up performances, astounding acrobatics and have-a-go activities to the streets.

Here’s what to expect for 2024:

– Take part in a Hip Hop wrestling ring for breakdancing, wrestling, a spot of opera and a dash of drag.

– Hook a duck and challenge your mates to a round of darts at the vintage fairground.

– Immerse yourself in larger-than-life console games in Manchester Day’s actual reality arcade.

– Enjoy the freshest beats from DJs across the city. And take a whistle stop tour around the world with the Global Grooves procession.

– Award winning dance company Motionhouse will be perfoming their hit show ‘Wild’. Watch them fly through the city on a forest of poles in a daring production.

– No Fit State Circus will be defying the laws of gravity. Watch them bend, flex and build a towering series of bamboo sculptures. It’s a stunning feat of human strength, trust and harmony with nature.

– Mimbre acrobatic theatre will perform ‘Look Mum, No Hands!’. It’s a family-friendly, inclusive tale of friendship, growing up and what it means to explore each other’s boundaries.

– Enjoy music and performance from some of Manchester’s finest groups including:

* The Bridgewater Hall Choir
* A Filipino fashion show
* Irish, Bhangra and Lithuanian Dancers

– Be transported to Copacabana beach by the sounds of Jubacana. They combine percussion, guitars and a whole lot of sequins to create a big sound and an even bigger show.

There will also be sporting events taking place across the day including:

– Taekwondo classes.

– Get your blood pumping at the 60m, pop up athletic track supplied by GLL.

– A tennis mini rally and a basketball shoot out.

And you could even get a medal! 

Visit Manchester Day: Let the Games Begin! for more information.