“Look into their eyes”: new portrait exhibit presents real people behind the letters LGBT+

Around 1979, Dr Nancey Johnson Bookstein was outed by a fellow faculty member on the quad of the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The woman asked her “Well, how’s it like to be gay?” 

“We weren’t alone, and I hadn’t told her. And I was mortified. And I was actually afraid of losing my job,” Johnson Bookstein said at the opening reception of Eye to Eye: Portraits of Pride, Strength, Beauty at the same school where she went on to work as an associate professor of physical therapy for 38 years. 

She and others spoke of the many ways they and others in the LGBT+ community were stigmatised and ostracised. They were separated from their partners at the emergency room in the middle of a crisis, asked humiliating questions and often had to hide their identities to keep their jobs and reputations. 

Carey Candrian, an associate professor at the School of Medicine, is the mind behind the portrait series. She studies how communication shapes — and is shaped by — perception, attitudes and biases in the LGBT+ community. She’s interviewed dozens of older adults from the community about their experiences with palliative care, hospital visits and living in assisted living or skilled nursing facilities. 

One goal of her research is to improve the care at facilities and educate staff on how to create an inclusive environment for LGBT+ residents. Once, when she was presenting some of her work at an assisted living facility, she was asked questions from the crowd that shocked her. 

“One of the first comments was someone asked me: Will there be less gay people now that we’re eating more organic? So we have less hormones,” she said at the opening reception. “And another comment was, you know, if we allow LGBT residents to come in, will they all have HIV?” 

There was a lot to unpack in each question, but what occurred to her was how little the people asking knew about LGBT+ people. She guessed that they probably didn’t know anyone, or didn’t think they knew someone, who was LGBT+. 

It’s one thing to publish academic articles, speak at conferences for medical professionals or to lecture students, Candrian explained, and it’s another to use art to convey the humanity of the people behind the research. 

Candrian decided to photograph 27 of the older LGBT+ women she’s interviewed over the last five years and then display those photos with quotes describing some of their thoughts and experiences. 

“They’ve been whispered about, shouted at, insulted, rejected, isolated. But here they are, strong and brave. Look into their eyes,” the exhibit’s description reads.

Johnson Bookstein is photographed alongside her wife, Joan, with the quote: “Our life wish is that there would be retirement communities for us (LGBT people). We don’t want to die with a bag over our heads.” 

Many seniors go back in the closet when they enter assisted living facilities. During the Q&A portion of the opening event, people in the crowd brought up similar concerns. Estelle, who was photographed for the event, said she hasn’t told anyone she’s gay at the facility she lives at. She shrugged about it and said she has lots of girlfriends who visit, but she also has kids and grandkids. Other residents and staff haven’t thought to ask about it. 

The black and white portraits are up close and personal. They’re at eye level and show a careful attention to detail. Some are smiling, others look serious or contemplative. 

“I sure have a lot of wrinkles,” laughed Jude Gassaway who wore a cowboy hat and leather vest to the opening reception. “She was careful to get that kind of topography.” 

Gassaway is “the block lesbian over on Harlem Street in Edgewater”, as she describes herself. She’s 81-years-old and came out when she was 40. Under her photograph reads: “I denied myself for 40 years. The next 40 years I became who I am and now I have a life to live.” 

For Agnes Callwood, who wore black leather boots with eagles and has purple hair, the portrait series presented her an opportunity to come out to the people she works with. She wasn’t in the closet, per se, she said, she just didn’t explicitly tell anyone. She’s been a nurse for more than 20 years. 

“There’s a thing about being forthright and a thing about being passive — and so I’ve been passive. Maybe I don’t need to be passive. Maybe there are other people out there that are passive that want to be forthright,” Callwood said. “Somebody needs to lead the way, maybe that might be me.”

“I think that the LGBT community, like most marginalised communities they’re always talked about from a deficit. So you hear all of these horrific statistics and it’s easy to lose the person,” Candrian said. “I do think when you see someone and hear their story, it does make you think differently and doesn’t make it as easy to look away. And that was one of the things I hope people would do with this exhibit is have it stay with them.”

More portraits can be viewed here.

How and when to intervene if you witness a homophobic attack

What should you do if you witness a homophobic or transphobic attack?

Here’s five things you can do to help:

Report the incident

The most important thing you can do in the moment is to report the attack to the police immediately.

You can contact the police directly or use an online reporting facility such as True Vision.

It’s important to report all incidents to the police no matter how trivial the offence, as the more evidence they get, the need for additional policing and resources in that area becomes clearer and it justifies them freeing up resources.

Most hate crimes are verbal abuse and threats.

Don’t confront the attacker

It is important, when you witness a hate crime, to keep yourself safe too. It is vital to help the victims, rather than confronting the attacker.

Make sure you are safe, don’t risk your own safety because it can really be counterproductive

Ask others around you for help

Bystanders have “a lot of power” when they witness a homophobic attack. It is unreasonable to believe the police will be able to do everything – we can’t have police outside every pub and nightclub.

Victims are perceived – and judged – differently because of their characteristics. LGBT+ people as victims of crimes receive less empathy than other victims, are less likely to get help from bystanders, and the homophobic or transphobic motivation of a crime is less often seen as an aggravating circumstance deserving a top-up in penalty.

Transgender people seem to be the most disadvantaged – not just in terms of empathy, but also in support for gender identity being treated as a protected characteristic in hate crime laws.

Film for evidence – not social media

There has been some recent push back to the idea of people filming crime scenes and emergencies. It is wrong to post the suffering of others online, but filming a crime scene can be a very important tool in gathering evidence to help the police in their investigation.

Be an active ally

Perhaps the most important thing you can do in the aftermath of an attack is to be an active ally and call out homophobia or transphobia when you come across it. People are not just one characteristic, we are not just LGBT+ or black or religious, we are a number of different things. Hate crime attacks the society as a whole by attacking individuals.

Queer Family Tea

Manchester grassroots organisation Queer Family Tea announces relaunch event. 

On 28 October, Queer Family Tea (QFT), a volunteer-led organisation that provides a sober space for LGBTQIA+ individuals in Greater Manchester, will be hosting an event to celebrate the relaunch of the organisation’s in-person engagements.

QFT meets once a week to engage in diverse and engaging programming like cooking classes, as well as hosting regular cabaret events with guest performers and entertainers. All members of the LGBTQIA+ community and their allies are welcomed and encouraged to attend. 

The relaunch event, a cabaret night, will feature multiple local entertainers, including comedians and poets. The event will be hosted at the historic Victoria Baths and will kick off at 5.00pm with a tour of the building and a homemade meal in the cafe. At 7.30pm, the cabaret will begin in the old swimming pool at the Baths, and guests can expect music, spoken word, drag kings and queens, dance, and comedy. The event will be a sober space and guests are asked to respect that. 

QFT’s founder, Karl Olsen, said: “We are so excited to be back in-person again for our events. The Manchester community deserves a safe, sober space for queer individuals of all kinds to gather and interact. After a difficult year apart, we are so grateful to be able to gather with each other again and celebrate the Manchester LGBTQIA+ community that is so special.” 

Accessibility and inclusivity are vital to the organisation’s mission as well. The venue is accessible via wheelchair ramp and will include accessible restrooms as well. QFT will be resuming its weekly events and programming following the relaunch, with pay-as-you-can meals weekly, beginning at 7.00pm every Thursday, and often featuring free programming, such as arts, performance, and much more.

Out In The City members will be attending. If you would like to join us, please contact us here.

Lost during Nazi rule in Germany, one of the world’s first pro-gay films has finally been restored for modern viewers

In the early days of cinema, a German sexologist made one of the world’s first pro-gay films. Lost to history after the Nazis rose to power, Gesetze der Liebe (Laws of Love) has been found, restored and released to the acclaim it deserves – nearly a century after it was made.

Gesetze der Liebe was released in 1927 by the renowned German scientist and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. Although the film was never shown in its entirety in Hirschfeld’s hometown of Berlin at the time of its initial release, the film received a belated premiere in the German capital this summer to an audience of about 50 people after the city permitted open-air cinemas. The film, painstakingly restored to Hirschfeld’s original vision by the Munich Film Museum, is scheduled for eventual release on DVD this year.

Hirschfeld was an important scientist and activist who was a pioneer in the field of sexual science. In 1897, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (SHC), which deployed scientific theories of human sexuality to advocate for the recognition of LGBT+ people, and campaigned against their legal persecution. By some definitions, the SHC was the world’s first LGBT+ rights organisation. 

A couple of decades later, in 1919, Hirschfeld created his Berlin-based Institute of Sexual Science (ISS), which soon became known around the world for its groundbreaking research on gender and sexuality; its medical team performed some of the world’s first gender-affirming surgeries. Hirschfeld’s influence came to an abrupt end as Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany. In 1933, students in support of the Nazis set fire to the institute as part of a “celebration” of Hitler’s hundredth day as chancellor—a rally that destroyed, among many other “un-German” books, the archives of thousands of case studies and photographs documenting LGBT+ lives. Hirschfeld, who was not only homosexual but Jewish, moved to France that year. He died of a heart attack two years later in 1935, as Hitler’s Third Reich became increasingly authoritarian. Amidst all this, Gesetze der Liebe went missing.

Running 100 minutes, Gesetze der Liebe is structured as a series of lectures from Hirschfeld explaining sex and the reproductive system in the natural world. It’s considered to be an example of the “enlightenment film” trend that was popular throughout Weimar-era Germany. These enlightenment films aimed to educate audiences about topics such as drug and alcohol use, sex work, abortion, sexually transmitted infections and, in the case of Gesetze der Liebe, sexuality.

For Hirschfeld, the film was also an opportunity to draw attention to anti-gay laws in Germany at the time. In particular, he targeted Paragraph 175, a statute prohibiting sex between men (women were not mentioned) that was introduced in 1871 and was used to convict around 140,000 men until it was repealed in 1994. In its long history, the statute was at times poorly enforced and at times strictly enforced. The Nazis took a particular interest in it when they came to power in 1933. In 1935, after the institute had been destroyed and Hirschfeld had left the country, the Ministry of Justice amended the statute to make it even more strict, so that even words and gestures between men that could be construed as sexual were against the law; the Nazis also increased penalties for violating Paragraph 175.

In his day, Hirschfeld was “very aware” of the way film could be used to inform audiences and influence public opinion.

Gesetze der Liebe is divided into five chapters, of which the first three appear to be fairly innocuous explanations of mating behaviours in different plant, insect and animal species—explanations that might not look out of place in a school biology lecture. In the first chapter, “Searching for and Finding the Sexes,” viewers witness the courtship patterns of various frogs, crickets, birds, fish and snakes, including the day-long copulations of European adders. The second chapter, “To the Light of the World,” follows the creation of life from fertilisation to birth, demonstrating the diverse ways reproduction takes place, from bees and other insects fertilising flowers to eggs laid underwater by fish and amphibians to the more familiar mammalian reproduction in animals such as the common house cat. The third chapter, “Mother’s Love,” tells viewers about the maternal instinct of different species, such as birds tending to their nests and the watchful eye of a kangaroo looking after her joey, before arriving at the role of a mother’s love in humans. 

Many of the scenes in these chapters were captured by Hirschfeld and his colleagues at the ISS. This footage provides viewers with an extremely intimate and scientific view into these diverse expressions of sexuality in nature. The chapters are interspersed with scenes of Hirschfeld himself as he lectures about the content of the film, frequently drawing attention to the fact that non-heteronormative behaviour is common throughout the natural world.

The final two sections discuss Hirschfeld’s more controversial theories of sexuality. In the penultimate section, he details his theory of “intermediate sexes,” meaning that not only are there men and women, but also men who have “female traits” and women who have “male traits.” One example he employs from the “animal world” is the hermaphroditic slug, which has both male and female reproductive organs. 

This view is not quite the spectrum of sexuality we think of today, but rather was looking at what the body, rather than a person’s identity, suggests about gender identity and sexual orientation.

Hirschfeld’s view, though out of date now, was advanced for the time. This is a similar line of thinking that, for example, led the American Psychiatric Association to list homosexuality as a disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), leading to harmful attempts to “cure” homosexuality; the definition was removed from the DSM in 1973.

The fifth and final section of Gesetze der Liebe is dedicated to homosexuality, and is actually an abridged and restructured version of a feature-length film Hirschfeld had co-written with Richard Oswald (who was also its director and producer) about eight years earlier. Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others), released in 1919, is considered to be the first pro-gay film in the world.

Likely running between 60 and 80 minutes when it was originally released, Anders als die Andern is a drama about a concert violinist who falls in love with his male student. Soon, their budding romance is disrupted by the prejudices of family members and a male sex worker who blackmails the musician. The central message of the film is the ways that Paragraph 175—and the stigma and prejudice it bred about homosexuality—destroyed the lives of gay and bisexual men in Germany at the time.

Authorities immediately censored the parts of Gesetze der Liebe on “sexual intermediacy” and homosexuality. However, Hirschfeld continued to try to get around the laws. The prohibition against “homosexual propaganda” only applied to moving images, so Hirschfeld hosted viewings of the first three uncensored chapters of the film, followed by a lecture with slides of stills from the more controversial final two chapters. Hirschfeld’s new part film / part lecture presentation was a huge success. The sexologist repeated these presentations weekly in a major Berlin cinema that seated a couple of thousand people, and even travelled beyond the capital to present the film in Hamburg. 

After Nazi supporters committed arson against Hirschfeld’s institute in 1933, it was believed that both the feature-length version of Anders als die Andern and the entirety of Gesetze der Liebe had been lost forever. However, the abridged and restructured version of Hirschfeld and Oswald’s 1919 drama was preserved in a Russian archive and resurfaced decades after the war.

The first four reels of Gesetze der Liebe were discovered in the German Federal Archive. Now, about a century after this saga began, both films will finally be released for a general audience. The Munich Film Museum will release both Gesetze der Liebe (Laws of Love) and Anders als die Andern (Different From The Others), along with Geschlecht in Fesseln (Sex in Chains), a film from 1928 that also addresses themes of homosexuality, on DVD.

About a century after the release of these films, similar arguments about “homosexual propaganda” are being used to suppress the expression and organising of LGBT+ people in several European countries. In the past few years, dozens of towns in Poland have declared themselves “LGBT-free zones” with support of the federal government, and this summer, Hungary’s parliament passed a law banning LGBT+ content in schools. Approximately 100 years later, the same argumentation is now guiding the Hungarian parliament, like in Germany in 1921. It’s a repetition of the past.

News From Around The World

Here are some recent stories from Ghana, Uganda, Botswana, China, Japan, Spain and Holland:

Ghana Church Leaders Intensify Pressure on Parliament to Pass Anti-Gay Bill

BBC (Pidgin English version) – Dis move dey follow from recent calls by some academics and lawyers who start dey criticize de anti-LGBTQ Bill. Pentecost, Anglican Church state dema position. House of Bishops of de Anglican Church inside statement dem release say “aside Christianity, de Ghanaian tradition and culture no dey allow such act.” Apart from de Anglican Church, Christian groups like de Pentecost Church of Ghana also register dema displeasure over de recent calls for rejection of anti-gay bill. 

Uganda Recognises Its First Transgender Citizen, Cleopatra Kambugu

Star Observer – Cleopatra Kambugu, a Ugandan activist who advocates for sexual and gender minorities, has made history as the first transgender person in Uganda to have their new gender recognised by the government. Kambugu has received her new passport and government-issued photo ID card, which identifies her as female. The process of getting official ID recognising her as female was a “difficult” and “intrusive” process, and is a milestone for the African nation, where the LGBT+ community is heavily maligned and marginalised. “Everything my country does is surprising.”

Botswana Appeals Ruling Allowing Gay Sex, Court Delays Judgement

Reuters – Botswanan judges postponed ruling on a case in which the government is seeking to overturn a 2019 ruling that decriminalised gay sex, saying the matter needed more research and debate. The case was initially brought by a university student, Letsweletse Motshidiemang, whose representatives argued then that the government should do away with the law in light of a changed society where homosexuality was more widely accepted. Gay sex has been punishable by up to seven years in prison. Representing the state, Sydney Pilane told the Court of Appeal there was no evidence that people’s attitudes had changed.

China’s LGBT Community Caught Up In Xi Jinping’s Widening Crackdowns on Big Tech, Education and Celebrities 

South China Morning Post – On 13 August, the organisers of Shanghai’s long-running LGBT pride festival abruptly announced the event was being cancelled indefinitely without explanation. The news came as a shock to many as the event had run successfully, albeit quietly, for eleven years. In a brief statement on its website titled “the end of the rainbow” the organisation said: “ShanghaiPRIDE regrets to announce that we are cancelling all upcoming activities and taking a break from scheduling any future events. We love our community, and we are grateful for the experiences we’ve shared together.” 

Trans Man Fights Japan’s Sterilisation Requirement

Human Rights Watch – A Japanese transgender man, Gen Suzuki, 46, has filed a court request to have his legal gender recognised as male without undergoing sterilisation surgery as prescribed by national law. His case highlights the urgent need for Japan to revise its outdated and harmful transgender legislation. In Japan, transgender people who want to legally change their gender must appeal to a family court. Under the “Gender Identity Disorder Special Cases Act,” applicants must undergo a psychiatric evaluation and be surgically sterilised. They also must be single and without children younger than 20. 

Outrage After Gay Woman Diagnosed at Spanish Hospital With ‘Homosexuality’ 

Yucatan Times – A family and an LGBT+ collective in south-east Spain are demanding answers and an apology after a 19-year-old lesbian woman who visited a gynaecologist over a menstrual condition was diagnosed with “homosexuality”. On Monday the woman went to an appointment at the Reina Sofía hospital in the city of Murcia. After being examined she was given a piece of paper that included the line: “Current illness: homosexual.”

Dutch Crown Princess Could Marry Woman and Be Queen 

BBC – Caretaker Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, has made clear any king or queen could also marry a person of the same sex. The heir to the Dutch throne, Princess Amalia, turns 18 in December. Mr Rutte said it was all about “theoretical situations” but the next queen could marry a woman. “Therefore the cabinet does not see that an heir to the throne or the king should abdicate if he or she would like to marry a partner of the same sex,” he explained in a response to a written question in parliament from his own party.

London’s Black History and Black History Month event online

The book “Black London: History, Art & Culture in over 120 places” highlights the plaques and art that celebrate a neglected side of the capital’s culture.

She’s 10ft tall, barefoot, with a simple wrap dress stretching across her breasts and belly. She holds aloft an infant, gazing into its eyes. This is Bronze Woman, a statue on a busy traffic junction in Stockwell, south London. Unveiled in 2008, it was then the first public statue of a black mother and child on permanent display in England.

“I used to pass by but never knew what it was for many years. One day I found myself in front of it and I was truly blown away,” said Avril Nanton, who runs walking tours of London’s black history.

“I can see this woman being a member of my family. She represents Caribbean women’s contribution to British society. The baby will grow up as British, and it too will make its contribution to UK society. This is the link that has continued for black mothers for many generations.”

Bronze Woman is one of more than 120 monuments, plaques, murals, statues and artworks in a new pocket-size guidebook, Black London, compiled by Nanton and her co-author Jody Burton.

The oldest entry is Cleopatra’s Needle, an obelisk carved in Egypt more than 3,500 years ago and shipped to London in 1878 to be placed on the Embankment. Among the newest is the giant Black Lives Matter mural in Woolwich, south-east London, created last year in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

Some relate to famous people and well-known events: a mural of Michelle Obama in Brixton; a plaque to footballer Rio Ferdinand in Peckham; a Windrush memorial in Tottenham; the statue of Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square.

But many highlight less well-known figures and events in black history. Khadambi Asalache was a civil servant and poet who came from Kenya to London in 1960. Over almost two decades, he transformed the interior of a modest terraced house in Wandsworth into a work of art, with intricate hand-carved fretwork, wall paintings and a collection of unusual objects. It is now a National Trust property.

In Hornsey, north London, there is a plaque to Emma Clarke, a female footballer described in a 19th-century newspaper as “the fleet footed dark girl on the right wing”. In 1897, Clarke played in a team called “The New Woman and Ten of Her Lady Friends” against a male team known as “The Eleven Gentlemen”. The women won 3-1.

A plaque at Euston station commemorates Asquith Xavier, who arrived in the UK as part of the postwar Windrush generation to work as a station porter. In 1966, he applied to be a train guard at Euston but was told in a rejection letter that the station did not employ “coloured” men. He successfully challenged the policy, taking his case to Barbara Castle, then Labour’s transport minister. More than half a century later, Network Rail paid tribute to the “first black worker employed as a train guard” in the UK.

A 16th-century artwork, the Westminster Tournament Roll, depicts John Blanke, a “blacke trumpeter” at the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII. The roll was commissioned by Henry VIII to commemorate a two-day tournament to celebrate the birth of his short-lived son with Catherine of Aragon. The work – the earliest identifiable representation of a black person in British history – is held at the College of Arms and is too fragile to be viewed, but a plaque to Blanke at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich was unveiled in 2017.

Many of the sites in the book featured in walking tours conducted by Nanton, who came to London from Dominica in 1965. She also teaches black history courses with the historian and author Robin Walker. Since Floyd’s murder, she has been inundated with non-black people wanting to attend her online walks, talks and courses, “eager to learn”.

The interest sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement was an opportunity to educate the public about the long history of black people in the UK, and help them discover and celebrate individuals and stories missing from mainstream guides and history books.

Co-author Burton, who worked in adult education before switching to a career in libraries, said the aim of the guide was to stir interest, start conversations and make black history easily accessible. She hoped it would appeal to parents looking for activities they could do with children.

The book contains maps, photographs and a timeline of black history, which went through a painful edit to bring it down from about 75 pages to 11. It also includes a potted history of the HMT Empire Windrush, from its early incarnation as a German cruise ship to its sinking while sailing from Hong Kong to Britain in 1954.

One of Burton’s favourite sites – “although it’s like trying to choose a favourite child” – is the battle of Lewisham mural in south London, which commemorates a community anti-racist protest against a National Front march in the area in August 1977 that resulted in clashes. “My mother attended the counter-demonstration at Ladywell Fields – and unknown to her, two of my older sisters also joined the protesters,” she said. “It was the first time the NF was prevented from reaching their destination. I took part in one of the community art workshops that helped create the mural. It’s really personal to me.”

The Cavern Club

Out In The City headed to Liverpool to visit The Cavern Club – a nightclub on Mathew Street.

The club opened in 1957 as a jazz club, later becoming a centre of the rock and roll scene in Liverpool in the early 1960s. The club became closely associated with Merseybeat and regularly played host to the Beatles in their early years.

The Cavern Club closed and opened on a new site in 1973 and was filled in during construction work on the Merseyrail underground rail loop. It reopened in 1984 and now sits at a 90 degree angle to the original and covers 70% of the original Cavern footprint. The stage is not far from the original location, and the ‘Live Lounge’ is an exact replica of the original, using as many of the old bricks as possible.

From 1961 to 1963 the Beatles made 292 appearances at the club, with their last occurring on 3 August 1963.

A wide variety of popular acts appeared at the club, including The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Hollies, The Kinks, Elton John, Black Sabbath, Queen, The Who, Adele and John Lee Hooker. Before she became famous Cilla Black worked in the cloakroom.

The Cavern is also used as a tour warm-up venue with semi-secret gigs announced at the last moment. The Arctic Monkeys did this in October 2005, Jake Bugg in November 2013, as well as Travis and Oasis.

There’s a great atmosphere and we enjoyed our visit. We walked around the Albert Dock before making our way back to Manchester.

See more photos here.

An Evening with Armistead Maupin

Following a successful UK tour in 2019, bestselling, much-loved author and LGBT activist, Armistead Maupin, is back on the road.

We saw him in Manchester at HOME interviewed by Jack Guinness, founder and director of The Queer Bible, a website and now published essay collection, which celebrates the works and lives of the global queer community.

Maupin has been blazing a trail through US popular culture since the 1970’s, when his iconic and ground-breaking series Tales of the City was first published as a column in the San Francisco Chronicle. The novel series has been taking the literary world by storm ever since, and was adapted into a critically acclaimed series, starring Laura Linney, Olympia Dukakis and Elliot Page.

America’s ultimate storyteller recounted his favourite tales from the past four decades, offering his own engaging observations on society and the world we inhabit.

In the Q&A someone asked about the difference in the LGBT+ community now and back in the day. Maupin replied: “There is no community – just a large number of individuals. In our day we didn’t have apps. We had to walk twenty miles in the snow just to suck a cock!”

I recently went to see “Notes on Notes on Camp” in Bury starring Jez Dolan and “Double Ender” in Chorlton starring Jez Dolan. Both were excellent by the way. At this “Evening with Armistead Maupin“, I was sat literally in the next seat to Jez Dolan and his husband. Bloody hell! I’m sure that man is stalking me!

Astronaut Sally Ride will be the first LGBT+ person on the US quarter

Astronaut Sally Ride will become the first LGBT+ person to appear in US currency, as part of the new American Women Quarters Programme.

According to the United States Mint, the first five limited edition coins from the American Women Quarters Programme will be released next year.

The coins honour Ride, as well as Maya Angelou, Asian-American actress Anna May Wong, Cherokee Nation leader Wilma Mankiller, and suffragette Nina Otero-Warren.

Ride, an engineer, physicist, and astronaut, was the first American woman to travel to space.

She married NASA astronaut Steve Hawley in 1982, but they divorced five years later, and later entered into a 27-year relationship with science writer and emeritus professor of school psychology at San Diego State University, Tam O’Shaughnessy.

Although Ride spoke openly about her sexuality with those around her, she did not become widely known until after her death in 2012. The year after her death, Barack Obama awarded Ride a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Otero-Warren, who was born in 1881 and will also be the first Hispanic American to appear on the US currency, was also LGBT+.

The New Mexico politician was initially married to a man, but entered into a relationship with a woman named Mamie Meadors in the 1920s. They lived on the same farm, but in different houses, and were known as “The Two” or “The couple.”

Acting Director of the United States Mint Alison L Doone said in a statement: “These inspiring coin designs tell the stories of five extraordinary women whose contributions are indelibly etched in American culture. Generations to come will look at the coins with these designs and remember what can be achieved with vision, determination and the desire to enhance opportunities for all.”

International Lesbian Day

International Lesbian Day was celebrated on 8 October. It is an  annual day celebrating lesbian culture that originated in New Zealand and Australia, but is now celebrated internationally.

How a camp masquerade ball nearly 150 years ago in Salford paved the way for Manchester’s “drag explosion”

Seeing a drag queen waltz down the cobblestones of Manchester’s Gay Village is thankfully a common occurrence in 2021. But, it wasn’t really that long ago when the very art of drag was still considered to be a criminal offence.

While Manchester is often regarded by many as one of the most LGBT+ friendly cities in the world these days, it has not always been so welcoming.

In October 1874, three men dressed in female attire were brought out in front of a judge at Salford Borough Police Court.

Francis Mack, a professional dancer from Manchester, Joseph Hallas, a weaver from Stockport and Robert Fox, a jeweller’s apprentice from Hulme, had all been arrested while in a taxi.

Clutching invitations to a glitzy “masquerade ball”, the three men had paid one shilling and six pence each for a ticket to the elusive “Queen of Camp” event in Greengate, Salford.

The men never made their show-stopping arrival at the ball. They instead spent the night in a jail cell after being arrested under the Vagrancy Act of 1824. The men’s first appearance before the judge became a must-see event, with hundreds of locals queuing up for a prime seat in the courtroom. It was a spectacle like no other.

“People came to the court and saw this as a form of entertainment,” Dr Jacob Bloomfield, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Konstanz in Germany said. “Instead of being shocked and appalled at this case, there was lots of laughter and joking in the courtroom.

In one instance, the judge asked one of the defendants “what character were you to take?” to which they replied “a lady, as you can see me” and there was laughter from the crowds. Then the judge asks prisoner Hallas, who looked like he was in his fifties, how old he was, and he said he was 38, to which the courtroom again erupted in laughter.”

Dr Bloomfield, originally from Brooklyn, conducted his PhD at the University of Manchester. He believes the Manchester Evening News’ coverage of the court case on 22 October 1874 was the first published mention of ‘camp’ in Britain, a word now long-associated with the art of drag.

While the failed taxi ride to the “Queen of Camp” is unlikely to have been Manchester’s debut foray into drag performance, it was certainly one of its most high-profile ventures.

Four years later, in 1880, a patrol of police cars pulled up outside the Temperance Hall in Hulme to investigate why the Pawnbroker’s Assistant’s Association annual ball was taking place with the blinds drawn and windows covered.

When officers walked into the hall, the expected group of assistants was nowhere to be found. Instead, officers were met with a large number of men dressed head to toe in drag.

A total of 47 men, almost half of whom were in women’s clothing, were arrested that evening and charged with “having solicited and incited each other to commit an unnameable offence”.

It’s these early stories that Dr Bloomfield, who wrote a thesis on “Male Cross-Dressing Performance in Britain, 1918-1970”, says are evidence of a centuries-long relationship with drag in Manchester.

Despite the seriousness of the arrests and court cases, drag has since become a form of entertainment at the centre of popular culture.

“Drag has always been an intrinsic part of British popular culture,” Jacob explains. “There were various quarters who didn’t necessarily like drag performance, or they only liked drag in specific cases like comedy, but overall drag performers were consistently popular with the mainstream public. They were also some of the biggest entertainers of their time.”

Artists like Cheshire drag king Hetty King were able to make a successful living out of drag in the early 1900s. A regular performer in music halls across the UK, Hetty was even able to break records during a successful run abroad at the New York Theatre.

In 1917, Les Rouges et Noirs, a group made up of British Army soldiers in the First World War, would regularly entertain troops in the trenches of France and Belgium by dressing up as women. The troupe later appeared in the 1930 film Splinters, one of the very first feature-length British ‘talkies’, where they recreated their “Beauty Chorus” routine of sketches, songs and dances.

Whether it was the Hollywood success of Some Like It Hot in 1959, or the rising star of Danny La Rue in the 70s, drag continued to find its way into the spotlight.

Over the years, drag has continued to evolve from its early roots and has, subconsciously or not, become embedded into aspects of mainstream culture.

The final word from Cheddar Gorgeous:

“The future of drag is impossible to predict but drag will always wander wherever the hell it pleases. And there’s nothing I nor anyone else can do about it.”

This Is Us

We know that life doesn’t stop at 50 – so where are all our pictures?

This Is Us is a photography project conceptualised by Brighton and Hove LGBT Switchboard aiming to tackle the lack of representation for older LGBT+ people, and to show the full breadth of our experience, our love, our joy, our reality. Where cliché and ageism has failed us – these portraits hope to act as an antidote to misrepresentation.

Photography by Keith Burnstein. Copyright © 2021 Brighton & Hove LGBT Switchboard and Keith Burnstein.