Party

There ain’t no party like an Out In The City party!

The party was a great success and thanks go out to:

the volunteers – Jaz, Kai and Millie (Manchester Pride) and Jim;

the performers – Ken and Lynn (as Larry Grayson and Isla St Clair), Norman, David and headliners Wolf (Derek, Gary and Will);

photographs taken by Cliff;

raffle prizes donated by Ecclesiastical Insurance Group, Lynn, Norman and Peter. Thanks to Carl for drawing the tickets; and

YOU for making such a great atmosphere. It was a memorable day and the photos speak for themselves.

Pride themes – Choose Love over Hate

Love is powerful! Acts of love and kindness, for ourselves and one another, has the power to resist hate against our communities and drive real change as we strive for LGBT+ liberation.

New York: The theme of this year’s march, which will take place on 25 June, says it all: “Trans & Queer: Forever Here.” 

London: Pride in London has unveiled its 2023 campaign entitled “Never March Alone” which emphasises supporting members of the transgender community. The march is on 1 July.

Manchester: Manchester Pride on 26 August is leading with love this year for the 2023 parade theme: “Queerly Beloved”. Love for ourselves and love for LGBT+ communities.

Estonia Becomes First Ex-Soviet State to Legalise Same-Sex Marriage

On 20 June Estonia’s parliament passed a law legalising same-sex marriage, becoming the first ex-Soviet country to do so.

Two adults will be able to marry “regardless of their gender,” after the parliament approved amendments to the country’s Family Law Act.

The amended act will go into effect from 1 January 2024.

The amendments to the Family Law Act also mean that same-sex couples can now adopt children. In Estonia, only a married couple can adopt a child, although single gay, lesbian, and bisexual people can also petition to adopt.

“Everyone should have the right to marry the person they love and want to commit to,” Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said. “With this decision we are finally stepping among other Nordic countries as well as all the rest of the democratic countries in the world where marriage equality has been granted.

This is a decision that does not take anything away from anyone but gives something important to many,” she continued. “It also shows that our society is caring and respectful towards each other. I am proud of Estonia.”

Same-sex relationships have been legally recognised in Estonia since 2016, when the Registered Partnership Act took effect. But while this act recognised couples regardless of their sex, marriage was only allowed to take place between members of the opposite sex.

A survey undertaken by the Estonian Human Rights Centre in April 2023 found that 53% of Estonians believe that “same-sex partners should have the right to marry each other.”

This is the highest percentage recorded since the survey began in 2012. Then, 60% of people surveyed were against marriage equality.

“I am genuinely very grateful for the patience and understanding the LGBT+ community has shown for all these years,” said Signe Riisalo, Estonia’s Minister of Social Protection. “I hope that, in time, those opposed to marriage equality come to see that we don’t lose anything from taking such steps, but rather that we all gain from them,” Riisalo added. “I am delighted that the decision has now been taken for a more forward-looking Estonia that cares for all.”

Superbia Cinema: Exploring Transmasculine Identities

Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 6.00pm – Free – at Cultplex, 50 Red Bank, Manchester M4 4HF

Calling all film enthusiasts!

Superbia Cinema is a joyful celebration of queer filmmaking that aims to uplift the work of talented LGBTQ+ creatives.

Superbia Cinema is a great way for those interested in LGBTQ+ arts to come together and immerse themselves in queer culture, plus you’ll get the opportunity to learn more about each film’s production process, directors, actors, filmmakers and more.

We want to make sure that LGBTQ+ arts & culture is accessible to all – that’s why all of the Superbia Cinema events are completely FREE to attend.

Join us on Thursday 20 July as we present a series of shorts exploring Transmasculine identities and filmmaking.

With Sparkle Weekend just around the corner, we’re spotlighting Transmasculine identities in this month’s series of short films. Quite often, heteronormative discourse leaves trans men and Transmasculine identities out of the conversation, and through July’s Superbia Cinema programme, we aim to recognise and platform their experiences, artistry and filmmaking expertise.

SCHEDULE:

6.00pm: Join us at Cultplex and socialise before the screening begins

7.00pm – 8.20pm: Series of short films, curated by Joshua Hubbard:

Who Am I Now / Juniper / Bouba & Kiki / Eyelash / The Floating World / Lewis Hancox comedy sketches / I’m The Only Person Here I’ve Never Heard Of

8.30pm – 9.00pm: Q&A with Jack Goessens

PLEASE NOTE:

Food and drink will be available to buy at the venue

Tickets are limited to 1 per order – each attendee must register for their own ticket here.

Letters Against Transphobia

Letters Against Transphobia is a project which aims to uplift trans voices through the medium of anonymous notes, messages and letters.

The government is set to release guidance to schools to force them to ‘out’ children to parents if they question their gender.

Teachers will be required to disclose the information even when pupils object. Young LGBT people are feeling scared, angry or uncertain and have expressed worries about their future.

Is anyone interested in writing an anonymous letter, perhaps detailing personal experiences, reassuring young LGBT kids and teenagers, or expressing solidarity with the younger generation?

You do not have to be transgender to contribute to the project; anyone who would like to send in a message can.

If you would like to contribute you can go to this link or handwrite something, take a picture of it and email to lettersagainsttransphobia@gmail.com

“Greetings,

I know, things are scary right now. There’s just so much going on, so fast. I feel it too. These are scary times, no doubt. 

I’ll tell you a secret, though: you know who is scared more? The people making these laws.  

Okay, that is pretty obvious, I’m sure, but it’s not that they’re scared of us in bathrooms, or in sports, or whatever else they’re saying: that’s just their excuse. 

No, they’re scared of what we represent. They look at us and see something special, and rare, and wonderful. We represent possibilities they can’t even fathom. We express freedoms they are utterly terrified by.  

You contain magic, and that magic is amazing and powerful — and all your own. They can never take it from you, just like they’ve never been able to take mine. They can try, but they cannot ever truly hold back souls like ours.

Be unfettered, be free, and let your magic shine like nothing that ever came before. 

Cheers”

Exhibitions at School of Digital Arts

Every year students from the School of Art and School of Digital Arts (SODA) prepare for their Degree Show in the form of an exhibition. Earlier this year Charlie, a final year university student studying photography contacted Out In The City.

She came to a couple of meetings in Manchester and met us when the group visited the town of Bakewell. Her work revolves around the idea of building relationships with the people in the photos.

Members of Out In The City met in Manchester city centre and travelled by bus to On The Eighth Day Shop & Café – a workers’ cooperative established in 1970 – selling hearty, healthy, homemade vegetarian and vegan food. After lunch we walked to the SODA building.

Charlie wanted to get to know us before taking photographs, and it was a two-way process. So, let’s dish the dirt on Charlie: she uses the word “queer” to describe herself, drinks coffee rather than tea and dances like a wally. Her work won an award under the category of Social Change.

Although it was the longest day of the year (21 June) Stephen had to dash off home before it got dark.

More photos can be seen here.

Happy Birthday Alan Turing!

If you have visited Sackville Gardens in Manchester you will know that Alan Turing was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist.

On what would have been his 111th birthday (on 23 June) here are some “fun facts” that you may not know:

• Turing reportedly had an IQ of 185 but in many ways he was a typical teenager. Turing’s report card from Sherborne School in Dorset notes his weakness in English and French studies.

• Like many geniuses, Turing was not without his eccentricities. He wore a gas mask while riding his bike to combat his allergies. Instead of fixing his bike’s faulty chain, he learned exactly when to dismount to secure it in place before it slipped off. He was known around Bletchley Park for chaining his tea mug to a radiator to prevent it from being taken by other staff members.

• Alan Turing created the first-ever computer chess programme, although at that time, there was no computer to try it out on! He created an algorithm for an early version of computer chess with pencil and paper. The Turochamp programme was designed to think two moves ahead, picking out the best moves possible.

• The Benedict Cumberbatch film about his life, The Imitation Game, received eight Oscar nominations.

• He almost became an Olympic athlete. He came in fifth place at a qualifying marathon for the 1948 Olympics with a 2-hour, 46-minute finish (11 minutes slower than the 1948 Olympic marathon winner). However, a leg injury held back his athletic ambitions that year.

• In 2009, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a public apology to Turing on behalf of the British government. His conviction for  “gross indecency” under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 was not actually pardoned, though, until 2013, when he received a rare royal pardon from the Queen.

George Michael to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

George Michael talks about his sexuality (1998)

George Michael, who would have been 60 this week (born 25 June 1963), will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year. It’s the first year the late British musician has been eligible, according to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame rules.

Michael was the most-played artist on British radio between 1984 and 2004, the organisation said.

“George Michael possessed extraordinary talent as a songwriter, vocalist and producer,” the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame said in announcing Michael as an inductee.

Michael formed the pop duo Wham! with schoolmate Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. They achieved teen idol status with the hits “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and the timeless holiday megahit “Last Christmas”.

Michael’s foray into the solo spotlight with the introspective hits “Careless Whisper” and “A Different Corner” eventually spelled the end of Wham! in 1986.

Michael went on to release his debut solo album “Faith” in 1987.

“With well-crafted hooks, mature lyrics, and funk and Motown influences, ‘Faith’ was a Number One smash boasting four hit singles, including the title track and ‘Father Figure’,” hall of fame organisers said. “Echoes can be heard in the impassioned vocals and personal lyrics of artists from Adele to Lady Gaga to Mary J Blige.”

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame called George Michael’s “Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1” a “masterpiece” that “alludes to Michael’s struggle as a closeted gay man during the height of the AIDS epidemic. However, after coming out in 1998, Michael refused to shy away from honesty again,” the group said.

Michael died in 2016 of heart and liver disease. He was 53.

Other artists who will be inducted this year who hadn’t been nominated before include Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliot, Willie Nelson, and Rage Against the Machine.

The Spinners, who had been nominated in previous years, also will be inducted.

George Michael won the fan vote ahead of the official announcement of inductees with more than 1 million votes. Cyndi Lauper came in second with 928,113. The 38th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will take place on 3 November at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY.

Date for the diary – Macclesfield Pride

Cheddar Gorgeous rejects LGBT Awards

Cheddar Gorgeous has pulled out of the British LGBT Awards after climate campaigners said they would protest outside over its sponsorship deals with Shell and BP.

Cheddar joins a host of other stars who have publicly withdrawn from the event over its fossil fuel links.

The awards ceremony honours LGBT celebrities, role models and organisations. But nominees began pulling out after campaigners warned them it had become an exercise in corporate “pinkwashing” for oil and gas companies.

Cheddar Gorgeous, who found fame after appearances on RuPaul’s Drag Race, said it was “with sadness but necessary resolve” that they were rejecting a nomination for “TV moment of the year”.

Writing on Instagram, they said: “The event unfortunately has a number of sponsors with questionable track records on climate change, racism and inequality, including BP and Shell. These two in particular have consistently failed to back up rhetoric of low carbon transition with actions to that effect. Given the nomination was offered for an act of creative advocacy, it wouldn’t feel right to be part of the event knowing the damage these companies are still doing to the environment and communities most affected by climate change.”

Llangollen

On Thursday 15 June, Out In The City members visited Plas Newydd at Llangollen.

It was a really enjoyable trip to the fascinating home of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby – the two Ladies of Llangollen.

They were two upper-class Irish women who lived together as a couple. Their relationship scandalised and fascinated their contemporaries. The pair moved to Llangollen, North Wales, in 1780 after leaving Ireland to escape the social pressures of conventional marriages. Plas Newydd was originally a five-roomed stone cottage, but over the years it was enlarged to include many Gothic features. The elaborately carved oak features were amazing.

Over the years, numerous distinguished visitors called upon them. Guests included Percy Bysshe Shelley, the Duke of Wellington and William Wordsworth, the latter of whom wrote a sonnet about them.

Anne Lister, dubbed “the first modern lesbian” also visited the couple, and was possibly inspired by their relationship to informally marry her own lover.

Butler and Ponsonby lived together for 50 years. There is nothing in their extensive correspondence or diaries that indicates a sexual relationship, but a succession of their pet dogs were named “Sappho”.

We also had time to visit the town and lots of photos can be seen here.

Pride in Wythenshawe

Pride in Wythenshawe is a celebration of LGBTQ+ people with fun activities for all.

It is held at Woodhouse Park Lifestyle Centre, 206 Portway, Wythenshawe, Manchester M22 1QW on Saturday, 24 June from 1.00pm to 5.00pm.

Get your FREE tickets now, using this link.

Publishing Queer Berlin

Berlin in the 1920s was ablaze with sexual and gender freedom. Magazines at news stands boasted covers featuring people who were transgender and clad scantily. Their headlines touted stories on “Homosexual Women and the Upcoming Legislative Elections,” and offered, on occasion, homoerotic fiction inside its pages.

Publications like Die Freundin (The Girlfriend); Frauenliebe (Women Love, which later became Garçonne); and Das 3. Geschlecht (The Third Sex, which included writers who might identify as transgender today), found dedicated audiences who read their takes on culture and nightlife as well as the social and political issues of the day. The relaxed censorship rules under the Weimar Republic enabled lesbian writers to establish themselves professionally while also giving them an opportunity to legitimise an identity that only a few years later would be under threat.

A growing group of academics are focusing on this oft-forgotten moment in German history. The primary source documents that miraculously survived the period of the Third Reich and subsequent and repressive Cold War years provide a rich and complicated picture.

There were some twenty-five to thirty queer publications in Berlin between 1919 and 1933, most of which published around eight pages of articles on a bi-weekly basis. Of these, at least six were specifically oriented toward lesbians. What made them unique is the space they made for lesbians, who had traditionally been marginalised on account of both gender and sexuality, to grapple with their role in a rapidly changing society.

In these interwar years in Germany, queer and transgender identity became more accepted, in large part thanks to the work of Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish doctor whose Institut für Sexualwissenschaft focused on issues of gender, sex, and sexuality. At the same time, women in Germany were making strides toward greater independence and equity; they gained the right to vote in 1918, and feminist organisations like Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine cultivated space for women in public spheres, encouraging their advancement in politics. The German Communist Party created the Red Women and Girls’ League in 1925 to attract more women and working-class people, particularly through organising factory workers.

More generally, German women were becoming increasingly empowered. Queer people—including women—rallied around the abolishment of contemporary sodomy laws. This struggle “created a wider climate of publication, activism, and social organisation that was much more embracing of different types of queer and trans lives,” according to Katie Sutton, an associate professor of German and gender studies at the Australian National University.

Sutton came upon the Weimar-era lesbian publications in Berlin and was surprised that there wasn’t more engagement with these magazines or with the queer history of the Weimar Republic more broadly on the part of academics in the English-speaking world.

Magazine fiction of the time challenged some of the restrictions of class and race in its love stories. These publications also created a space for readers to assert themselves in the real world through personal ads and event listings. There included cream puff eating contests, ladies and trans balls, and lake excursions on paddle steamers. In fact, aspects of lesbian culture also seeped into the mainstream, particularly when it came to fashion, with a rise in the popularity of short haircuts, straight skirts, and pantsuits. There was little difference between the imagery in mainstream fashion magazines and the masculinised aesthetic eroticised in the queer ones. The “hint of queerness” in the mainstream, Sutton said, was “sexy and fascinating, but also a bit scary and potentially off putting.” A popular element in lesbian publications, the monocle was similarly charged, and, Sutton says, “a queerly coded, quite masculine symbol of owning the gaze.”

Such sartorial choices were in keeping with debates in the lesbian magazines of the time around the “extent that masculinity might be seen as hierarchically superior to that of the feminine lesbian women,” according to Sutton. Moreover, these debates foreshadowed the butch/femme debates of the 1980s and 1990s.

Style was particularly significant for trans women and men who in the Weimar Republic defined themselves with a variety of terms: both as transvestites and masculine women who wore men’s clothes but identified as women. Trans people were given space in both their own magazines and even in some of the lesbian ones, highlighting a sense of cross-identity camaraderie. Die Freundin had a regular trans supplement highlighting these voices.

In a 1929 issue, a writer named Elly R criticised the treatment of trans people in mainstream media, referencing sensational coverage of men wearing their wives’ wedding dresses. “Everywhere in nature we find transitional forms, in the physical and chemical bodies, in the plants and the animals,” she wrote. “Everywhere one form passes into another, and everywhere there is a connection. Nowhere in nature is there a delimited, fixed type. Is it only in man that this transition should be missing? As there is no fixed form in nature, a strict separation between the sexes is also impossible.”

These magazines were resilient, a testament to the strength of the communities they served. Still, they faced challenges. The 1926 Harmful Publications Act was intended to impose moral censorship on the widespread pulp literature sold at kiosks and news stands, including the queer publications, which often featured nude photographs.

The Catholic and Protestant Churches as well as public morality organisations and conservative politicians led the fight against what they called “trash and filth literature.” As Klaus Petersen explains in a German Studies Review article, the list of materials, which included at least seventy works on sexology and “filth literature,” could still be sold, just not to those under age eighteen. While “the instrument was blunt and [its] impact minimal,” the restriction was boosted by members of religious and youth groups that checked up on news stands to see what material was visible or advertised to children. (This is not a far cry from the Nazi book burnings that would occur just a few years later.) But the law also spurred a counter-campaign by writers, publishers, intellectuals, and leftist political activists who objected to these limitations, as Petersen explains.

“This coalition of protest groups against infringements of the freedom of expression considered the Index a simplistic and entirely ineffective means to avoid an honest discussion of the fast change in social attitudes and moral values and campaigned against it as an unconstitutional instrument of suppression.”

Despite their relative progressivism, these publications also represented a rather narrow, bourgeois segment of the German population. Even if women had greater access to education and publishing opportunities, the women who enjoyed this greater access were largely urban elites. Little if no space was given to proletarian struggles.

It’s also important to note that whatever sexual liberation the LGBT+ community enjoyed was at the discretion of the state, whose goal was to control its members. This was seen in the Transvestitenscheine (“transvestite certificates”) handed out by the German police to protect against the arrest of those cross-dressing in public. Between 1908-1933, dozens of such passes were distributed. They also guarded against arrests for sodomy law violations and played a role in a 1927 battle over legalising prostitution, largely aimed at preventing the spread of venereal diseases.

More notably, these magazines gave precious little foresight into what was to come in Germany: the attempted extermination of all who did not fit the Aryan ideal. That, of course, included lesbians, some of whom perhaps took steps to save their own skin. Ruth Roellig, who wrote for Frauenliebe and published Berlins lesbische Frauen (Berlin’s Lesbian Women) in 1928, a first-of-its-kind travel guide to queer Berlin, published a second book in 1937. Soldaten, Tod, Tänzerin (Soldiers, Death, Dancer), an anti-Semitic screed, proved to be Roellig’s last book, though she lived until 1969. Selli Engler, a lesbian editor who founded the magazine Die BIF – Blätter Idealer Frauenfreundschaften (Papers on Ideal Women Friendships), wrote Heil Hitler, a play she sent directly to the führer.

As feminist and queer activism grew in Germany in the 1970s, so too did interest in the Weimar period. In 1973, Homosexual Action West Berlin began to collect flyers, posters, and press releases in an effort to create a comprehensive archive of lesbian history. The group eventually morphed into Spinnboden, Europe’s largest and oldest lesbian archive, with more than 50 thousand items in its holdings, magazines among them. Katja Koblitz, who runs the archive, says the existence of these lesbian periodicals is invaluable. “These magazines were in one part a sign of the blossoming and of the richness of the lesbian subculture in these days,” she said. “Reading these magazines was a form of reassurance: here we are, we exist.”

The definition of “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 debated by MPs

On Monday 12 June, MPs debated two petitions relating to the definition of “sex”.

MPs debated the following petitions:

“Update the Equality Act to make clear the characteristic “sex” is biological sex”

This petition, which had 109,463 signatures, states: “The Government must exercise its power under s.23 of the Gender Recognition Act to modify the operation of the Equality Act 2010 by specifying the terms sex, male, female, man & woman, in the operation of that law, mean biological sex and not ‘sex as modified by a Gender Recognition Certificate’.”

In its response to the petition, provided on 26 January 2023, the Government said: “Under the Equality Act 2010, providers are already able to restrict the use of spaces/services on the basis of sex and/or gender reassignment where justified. Further clarification is not necessary.”

“Commit to not amending the Equality Act’s definition of sex”

This petition, which had 138,886 signatures, states: “It has been reported that the Government may amend the Equality Act to ‘make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender.’ The Government has previously committed to not remove legal protections for trans people, an already marginalised group, but this change would do so.”

In its response to the petition, provided on 25 January 2023, the Government said: “This Government believes in individual liberty. There are processes with appropriate checks to allow for those who wish to legally change their gender. Changes to the Equality Act are not necessary.”

What are petitions debates?

Petitions debates are ‘general’ debates which allow MPs from all parties to discuss the important issues raised by one or more petitions, and put their concerns to Government Ministers.

Petition debates don’t end with a vote to implement the request of a petition. This means MPs will not vote on the requests of the petitions at the end of the debate.

Miriam Margolyes says she “never had any shame about being gay” as she makes her British Vogue cover debut aged 82.

The award-winning actress, known for her foul mouth and lovable eccentricity, said gay people are “not conventional” and she “wouldn’t want to be straight for anything”.

She has been with her partner – academic Heather Sutherland – for 54 years.

Rainbow Lottery – Bring the magic of the big screen into your home!

This June we’ve got another blockbuster prize to thank you for supporting Out In The City …

If you’re in the draw on Saturday 24 June, you could win this amazing Sony Home Theatre Bundle – a 4k 55” smart TV, and a wireless home theatre 5.1 sound system! Bring the magic of the big screen into your home – watch blockbuster movies, enjoy gaming, or catch the big cup final the way they’re meant to be seen!

The special prize draw will take place on Saturday 24 June. There’s no need to buy separate tickets, you will be automatically entered into this prize draw. Of course, you are welcome to buy additional tickets. Every ticket you buy is an extra chance to win, and an extra fundraising boost for Out In The City. All this for just £1 a week.

Thank you and good luck!

Buy tickets here.

Danny Beard Podcast On Same Sex Love and Marriage

On this podcast Danny Beard meets the first same-sex couple in the UK to get married.

Danny sits down for a chat with two trailblazers, Peter McGraith and David Cabreza, the first same-sex couple to marry in the United Kingdom.

We hear why the couple decided to get hitched, why being the first was important for them and how they feel 10 years on.

It’s a conversation that takes Danny into territory Danny hadn’t thought of before!

Listen here

Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.

Founded in 1998 and held every year around World Refugee Day on the 20 June, Refugee Week, celebrated from 19 June to 25 June, is also a growing global movement.

In many parts of the world people who are LGBT+ cannot live an open life. In the province of South Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) violence has been unleashed.

Recent cases include the suicide of two lesbian women, the attempted murder of a gay man and cases of persecution and “corrective rape” of trans and lesbian women.

All this is happening in a country in which homosexuality is not even a crime.

This is why Jérémie Safari has launched a petition calling on the DRC authorities to punish offenders, rescue victims and recognise the fundamental rights of LGBT+ people.

Join Jérémie in standing up to hate and protecting the rights of the LGBT+ community. 

Sign His Petition Now!

Rock Hudson Documentary Gets Stirring New Trailer

Legendary gay leading man Rock Hudson is the subject of a new documentary from HBO, Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed.

On 9 June, HBO debuted an emotional trailer for the film, which puts a spotlight on the star’s life in the Hollywood closet, as well as his tragic death from AIDS-related complications in 1985.

Though his friends and colleagues in the film industry knew he was gay, Hudson kept his sexual identity a secret throughout his life. He was one of the premiere leading men in Hollywood in the ’50s and ’60s, known especially for his work with director Douglas Sirk on The Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, and Written on the Wind.

He also starred opposite James Dean in the 1956 film Giant, a role that earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

Hudson was the first major celebrity to die from an AIDS-related illness. His passing rocked the world and helped bring the HIV/AIDS crisis into the public eye.

“He was seen as the all-American boy, and the all-American boy gets AIDS. It’s really changed a lot of people’s attitudes,” says one of the interviewees in the trailer.

“He pretty much did change the course of history around AIDS,” says another. “He didn’t intentionally do it, but there was no other star that made that kind of impact before. There hasn’t been one since, really.”

The documentary’s world premiere is set for Sunday, 11 June at the 2023 Tribeca Festival in New York. Later in the month, it will screen at Frameline47, a prominent LGBTQ+ film festival in San Francisco.

Check out the new trailer below:

Transparency by Jaden Adams

“Transparency” is a solo theatre performance at 53Two, Arch 19, Watson Street, Manchester M3 4LP on Friday, 7 July 2023 at 7.30pm.

Tickets from £5 – £10 + booking fee.

Dive into the everyday life of a transgender male through the relatable, hilarious and brutally honest lens of a northern working class family.

Whilst Jack navigates the hurdles of transition, the old family dynamics are shaken up. ‘Transparency’ is a transformational solo theatre performance that moves through hard-hitting issues in a way that is at the same time vulnerable, jarring and heart warming. It carries us through the uncomfortable, sobering and intriguing journey of a fully human transgender life, breaking down the barriers between us.

Jaden Adams is a 29 year old trans-male actor. He brings you this grounded, real, yet radically expressive performance – one an audience won’t forget. Transparency is supported by an amazing team including actress and director Olwen May, writer Mary Cooper, theatre producers and LGBTQ+ community.

RHS Garden Bridgewater

Pride in Nature is returning to the RHS Garden Bridgewater.

Taking place during Pride month on Saturday 24 June, the event will celebrate and share the stories and history of the LGBT+ community in horticulture, nature and botany.

Look out for further programme info coming soon and book here.

Manchester Royal Infirmary Patient Survey

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust are being reaccredited on the NHS National Rainbow Badge Accreditation Scheme. The scheme was created to demonstrate that NHS colleagues are aware of the issues that LGBTQ+ people can face when accessing healthcare.

Patients are being asked to take part in a short online survey. The survey is designed to ask patients how LGBTQ+ friendly the healthcare services are, and is open to ALL Manchester Royal Infirmary patients or visitors.

The survey is open until 21 July 2023.