OutStories Bristol

Continuing the posts about our headline speakers for the 2016 National Festival of LGBT History, we have a key figure in the UK’s trans community.

Sarah Savage was one of the stars of the TV series, My Transsexual Summer, which was instrumental in paving the way for broad acceptance of trans people in British society.

Since then Sarah has gone on to become one of the founders of Brighton’s Trans Pride, an event that has grown exponentially over the first few years of its life.

Last year Sarah co-wrote a children’s book, Are You A Boy or Are You A Girl?. This tells the story of Tiny, a young person whose gender is never mentioned, and who feels free to play in all sorts of ways, free of gender stereotypes.

Sarah will be speaking as part of the full day of events at M Shed on Saturday Feb. 20th.

It is time to meet our headline speakers for the 2016 National Festival of LGBT History. Our Guest activist for the Civic Launch will be Phyll Opoku-Gyimah.

As the co-founder and Executive Director of UK Black Pride, it is safe to say that she is one of the leading lights behind the amazing celebration of Black LGBT communities. She has been named in the Independent Rainbow List as one of the top 100 most influential LGBT people.

She has worked tirelessly to bring together LGBT activists, artists, volunteers and supporters from within the LGBT community and beyond to support UK Black Pride and other such events. She was nominated as Woman of the Year at the Black LGBT Community Awards 2007.

A Civil Servant by profession, she took a job in the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Trade Union where she started off trailblazing as the only Black female lead negotiator within Law and Justice bargaining area, then was promoted to Head of Equality, Health & Safety. She went on to be the Head of Campaigns and Parliamentary Affairs.

In 2014, Phyll served one year on the Pride London Community Advisory Board (CAB) and currently sits on the TUC LGBT Committee, TUC Race Relations Committee, board member of Justice for Gay Africans which focuses on Human Rights, Equal Rights, challenging racism and discrimination. She is a newly appointed Trustee for Stonewall, and this yeat was one of the judged for the Independent Rainbow List.

In addition to speaking at the Civic Launch, Phyll will be giving a public talk as part of the events at M Shed on Saturday Feb. 20th.

The Saturday of Bristol’s contribution to the 2016 National Festival of LGBT History will see a range of speakers from all of the UK, and one from the USA, presenting free talks at M Shed.

When: Saturday, 20 February 2016 from 11:00 to 16:30

Where: Studio Rooms, M Shed – Wapping Road Bristol BS1 4RN

The programme of talks is as follows:

IMPORTANT – Schedule changes: Stuart Milk now 12:20, Bisi Alimi cancelled. See below.

Studio Two:

• 11:00 UK Black Pride: How far we have come? – Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, UK Black Pride
• 11:40 LGBT Rights in the Workplace – Now & Then – Julia Beasley, QualitySolicitors Boroughs Day
• 12:20: Stuart Milk
• 13:20 Bisexuals of Colour: The Past Influencing the Present and Shaping the Future – Jacq Applebee
• 14:00 Pride of Place: ‘Gay Buildings’ and England’s LGBTQ Heritage – Sandra Stancliffe, Historic England
• 14:40 LGBT History: is it all one shade? – Travis Alabanza
• 15:20 Creating Trans Pride – Sarah Savage

Studio One:

• 11:00 Educating OUT prejudice – Em Williams
• 11:40 Sources for LGBT history: an archivist’s perspective – Allie Dillon, Bristol Records Office
• 12:20 Break
• 13:20 Beyond The Well of Loneliness: Radclyffe Hall in the Archive – Jana Funke, Exeter University
• 14:00 Forgotten Histories: Trans Activists of Colour – Sabah Choudrey
• 14:40 Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution & Radical Queens – Stuart Feather
• 15:20 Out and Proud in Trade unions – Darienne Flemington & Mark Kelly, UNISON

Harvey Milk’s Enduring Legacy on LGBT Rights – a global perspective accompanied by the full a screening of the 90 minute Academy Award winning documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk.

Harvey Milk was an openly gay man who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was assassinated after just 11 months in office, but his death sparked a wave a gay rights activism across the USA.

Robert Epstein’s documentary film, The Times of Harvey Milk, chronicles Milk’s story. It won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1984.

Stuart Milk is Harvey’s nephew. After his uncle’s death, Stuart helped found the Milk Foundation which campaigns globally for LGBT rights. Stuart will introduce the screening, and answer questions about the film and his work afterwards.

When: Wednesday, 17 February 2016 from 18:45 to 21:00
Where: Queens Building 1.15 Small Lecture Theatre, University Walk, Bristol, BS8 1TR

To ensure a place at this free event, please register here.

Continuing our series of posts introducing the many speakers who will be giving talks during the LGBT History Festival at M Shed next February. Darienne Flemington and Mark Kelly will be presenting “Out and Proud in Trade unions” as part of the National History Day on Saturday, February 20th.

Inspired by her personal experiences of border agencies, alien courts and deportation, Darienne has worked as an international activist for LGBT rights for over 20 years and was recently elected to sit on the ILGA Europe’s executive board. As a committed trade unionist she is also the Co-Chair of UNISON’s National LGBT Committee, and represents LGBT workers interests on UNISON’s National Women’s Committee. She works in local government where she is committed to fighting discrimination in all of its forms, as well as negotiating and organising for equality at work.

Mark Kelly runs a company which provides specialist support for University students who experience mental health issues. Previously he worked for 10 years at a Further Education College where he managed innovative and groundbreaking projects which engaged with socially excluded groups of young people and adults and won national praise from the Learning & Skills Council and NIACE. Mark’s role in the college also involved him managing a curriculum area, developing and delivering specialist staff training and facilitating an LGBT youth support group.

Mark has been an active trade unionist with UNISON for over 20 years and works at a local, regional and national level. He is a previous co-chair of UNISON’s National LGBT Committee and is a senior activist in UNISON’s South West Region.

Mark also works with Devon & Cornwall Police as an independent LGBT / Diversity advisor and is a trained Critical Incident Advisor.

UNISON is also sponsoring the Festival at a national level.

Continuing our series of posts introducing the many speakers who will be giving talks during the LGBT History Festival at M Shed next February. Members of the Bath Gender Equality Network will be talking about the campaign they ran last year on behalf of the imprisoned Bath trans woman, Tara Hudson.

The Bath Gender Equality Network (BGEN) is a group for intersectional, sex-positive feminists and their allies to discuss topics around equality, support local activism, and look after each other in the Bath and Bristol area. After the success of the recent Tara Hudson campaign, BGEN has built a diverse range of members from all walks of life, enjoying a strong presence (online and offline), socials, and forum discussions, including male mental health, trans representation, the wage gap, sex work, and even comic writing.

As part of furthering the reach and effectiveness of BGEN, plans are in place to host the first ‘public’ event in April, when we will be hosting an evening of ‘lightning talks’, inviting members of the community, and others, to speak for five minutes on the topic of gender equality. This event has received local corporate sponsorship, as well as interest from BANES council, and looks to be the first of many other exciting projects for the group.

More recently, BGEN has been asked to enter into the running for a ‘Bath Life Award’ for its work in local events, community work and education. It is hoped that this visibility will allow the group to expand and continue its work.

Continuing our series of posts introducing the many speakers who will be giving talks during the LGBT History Festival at M Shed next February. Sabah Choudrey will be presenting Forgotten Histories: Trans Activists of Colour, as part of the National History Day on Saturday, February 20th.

Sabah is a Pakistani trans activist with a passion for his communities. His tiny head is full of big ideas, having co-founded Trans Pride Brighton in 2012: the first trans march and celebration in the UK, and started online social and support spaces for queer, trans, and intersex people of colour in Brighton (QTIPOC Brighton), and for LGBT and queer desi people in London and the South East (desiQ).

He spent his rebellious years living in Brighton where he fell into LGBT youth work and development in LGBT BME/faith communities. He moved back to West London in 2015, where he is currently a trans youth worker for Gendered Intelligence, mentoring and facilitating groups for trans young people and trans young people of colour.

Sabah likes talking about his feelings and he likes to write about them even more; He spoke at TEDx Brixton 2015, and has been published on The Huffington Post. He shares his experiences of being a hairy brown girl, an angry brown man and a queer brown person and writes regularly on www.sabahchoudrey.com.

Continuing our series of posts introducing the many speakers who will be giving talks during the LGBT History Festival at M Shed next February.

Sandra Stancliffe will be presenting Pride of Place: ‘Gay Buildings’ and England’s LGBTQ Heritage, as part of the National History Day on Saturday, February 20th.

Sandra has worked in the area of public engagement and heritage for 23 years. She has worked at museums in Derby and Carlisle and was at Bristol Museums Galleries and Archives for 12 years. She was then employed by English Heritage as Education Director and Head of Education and Interpretation. Since April 2015 she has worked for Historic England where her role as Head of Education and Inclusion includes overall responsibility for the Pride of Place project. She speaks regularly on the theme of increasing participation in heritage through learning and engagement programmes and is constantly striving to ensure the organisations she works far are inclusive in their approach. She is particularly interested in the role of heritage in shaping sense of place and identity.

Sandra has lived in Knowle for 15 years. She is also a trustee of the Bristol Architecture centre and a Governor at Victoria Park Primary School.

Continuing our series of posts introducing the many speakers who will be giving talks during the LGBT History Festival at M Shed next February.

Rosa Fanti & Lori Streich will be telling us all about the 20 year history of Freedom Youth, as part of the Local History Day on Sunday, February 21st.

Rosa Fanti is a member of Freedom Youth Bristol. When she realised that the group would be 20 in 2015, she had the idea of capturing its history through this project. Rosa’s interests include LGBT history and the social contexts in which it develops and changes.

Lori Streich is managing the project on behalf of Off the Record Bristol, and guiding and supporting the Freedom Youth researchers. Lori has a background in project development and management and a passion for enabling heritage projects that tell untold (and often difficult to find) stories about histories that are too often overlooked or left out of the mainstream. She has compiled an oral history of Westmoreland House in Stokes Croft, and was a Trustee and Chair of Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust in Bristol.

Continuing our series of posts introducing the many speakers who will be giving talks during the LGBT History Festival at M Shed next February.

What’s Law got to do with it?

Discrimination expert Julia Beasley will be speaking on the History of LGBT Rights in the Workplace as part of the National History Day on Saturday, February 20th. In particular, she will look at how LGBT rights at work have changed over time and the current legal protections against discrimination at work.

Julia heads up the Employment Team at local law firm QualitySolicitors Burroughs Day. She is an acknowledged expert in complex discrimination and whistleblowing in the workplace and has a lot of experience in advising LGBT clients.

A strong advocate for the employment rights of the individual, Julia has built strong relationships with local organisations including Action on Disability at Work UK, Age UK and the Bristol & Avon Law Centre. As a Partner and practising lawyer, she is recommended by the Legal 500 and Chambers legal directories.