Editor

3 July to 21 Sep 2025 – ‘Fierce: Bristol’ photo exhibition

 Events  Comments Off on 3 July to 21 Sep 2025 – ‘Fierce: Bristol’ photo exhibition
Jun 102025
 
Black and white photo showing the left side of the face of a young Black man with short, tightly-curled hair, his face glowing in light. He looks directly and confidently at the camera with a slight smile.

Myles-Jay Linton. ©Ajamu X

Since 2013, photographer Ajamu X has set up portrait studios in select cities to create celebratory, distinctive and aspirational images mapping contributions of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer individuals, who have often been overlooked within mainstream narratives and histories.

Last year the Martin Parr Foundation commissioned Ajamu to make ten new portraits, adding a Bristol chapter to the ever-evolving Fierce archive. This new work is presented alongside archival materials, exploring and providing more context to Black queer histories in Bristol.

Fierce: Bristol will be displayed alongside images from Fierce: London and Fierce: Toronto.

3rd July to 21st September 2025
Martin Parr Foundation, 316 Paintworks, Arno’s Vale, Bristol BS4 3AR
Getting there and accessibility

Gallery opening times: Thursdays to Sundays, 10am to 5pm (closed Monday to Wednesday).
Free entry.

https://www.martinparrfoundation.org/exhibitions-category/upcoming/

To 23 Nov 2025 – Bristol Pride x Martin Parr photo exhibition

 Events  Comments Off on To 23 Nov 2025 – Bristol Pride x Martin Parr photo exhibition
Jun 012025
 

Six smiling young people wearing brightly coloured clothes are holding large signs with slogans such as "love wins" and "stand proud". Behind them is a large crowd about to start a street parade.

Legendary photographer Martin Parr has teamed up with Bristol Pride and Bristol Museums to showcase a retrospective of his photos of the city’s annual Pride festival.

Images in the exhibition capture all the different walks of life that come to celebrate and protest at Bristol Pride.

Martin Parr explains that: “I have photographed over four Prides and it is always one of the best days for shooting in the Bristol calendar …. It is fantastic how Pride marches are now enjoyed by so many people. This would not have been the case when these marches started”.

27th May to 23rd November 2025. Daily (not Mondays), 10am to 5pm

Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Queens Road, Bristol BS8 1RL
Getting there     Access

For further details see the Bristol Museums webpage. The exhibition is free but donations to the museum welcome.

Logo with text "bristol museum and art gallery" on plain red background.Logo with words "Bristol Pride" on a red background

30 June – BLAST! workshop for Pride

 Events  Comments Off on 30 June – BLAST! workshop for Pride
Jun 012025
 

A flag banner with text "Bristol Lesbian Line" in red, and blue phone number "29085" on a black background.

Bristol Lesbian and Self Organised Tales – or BLAST! – are a collective of lesbians with a mission to capture the history of lesbian self-organised groups in Bristol.

We are running a workshop on 30th June from 11am at The Station in central Bristol.

The workshop will begin with a short introduction before we move into small groups to talk and share our history. These recorded histories, together with any memorabilia you can share, will become part of the BLAST! collection held at the Bristol Archives.

The workshop is open to all ages, but aimed at older lesbians who were members of self-organised lesbian groups in Bristol between 1970s – 2000s. Free, but please book to help us with planning.

For more information, and a booking link: https://bristolpride.co.uk/events/blast-from-the-past/

Monday 30th June 2025,  11am to 1pm
The Chill Out Room, The Station, Silver Street, Bristol BS1 2AG

Map     Accessibility

Logo with words "Bristol Pride" on a red backgroundBLAST! is supported by Bristol Pride Community Fund.

 

31 May to 12 Oct 2025 – Gender Stories exhibition

 Events  Comments Off on 31 May to 12 Oct 2025 – Gender Stories exhibition
Apr 292025
 
Modern art coloured line drawing of bright yellow head and upper body with raised laft arm on swirling cerise and blue background.

Credit: Mister Samo

Challenging rigid definitions and binary narratives, Gender Stories dives deep into the intricate connections between sex, gender, sexuality, and identity. Discover how these fluid, and multifaceted ideas have been mythologised, stereotyped, expressed – and sometimes concealed – through art, history, politics, and daily life over time.

Featuring works by Grayson Perry, David Hockney and Catherine Opie, this groundbreaking exhibition invites visitors to delve into the multifaceted world of gender, challenging traditional binary narratives and exploring how gender intersects with sex, identity, and sexuality across cultures and history.

31 May to 12 October 2025. Daily (not Mondays), 10am to 5pm

Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Queens Road, Bristol BS8 1RL
Getting there     Access

For full details and to pre-book a time slot, see the Bristol Museums Gender Stories webpage.
Choose what you pay – the suggested price is £6.

Logo with text "bristol museum and art gallery" on plain red background.

12 July 2025 – OutStories at Bristol Pride

 Events  Comments Off on 12 July 2025 – OutStories at Bristol Pride
Apr 242025
 

Logo with words "Bristol Pride" on a red backgroundBristol Pride Day is back! Not only is Bristol Pride one of the largest UK Pride events, it’s one of Bristol’s largest festivals.

OutStories will be there with a stall in the Community AreaCome and say hello!

Saturday 12th July 2025,  12pm onwards
The Downs, Westbury Park, Bristol
Map

It’s costing a whopping £740k+ to make Pride happen – approximately £20 for each person that attends. So buy your Pride Day Supporter Wristband now!  Bristol Pride is a not for profit charity and every penny helps.

See you there!

Table with OutStories posters and leaflets

6 July 2025 – LGBTQ+ Bristol history boat tour

 Events  Comments Off on 6 July 2025 – LGBTQ+ Bristol history boat tour
Apr 242025
 

Small bright yellow and blue ferry boat sailing along Bristol harbour with multi-coloured terraced houses in the background

Join Bristol Pride and Outstories Bristol for a special LGBTQ+ history tour on the water.

A Bristol Ferry Boat will take you across the historical harbourside of Bristol and Jonathan Rowe and Andrew Foyle of Outstories Bristol will give an insightful tour into Bristol’s LGBTQ+ history drawing on the surrounding areas and sights you will see during this one-hour tour. Two trips: 12:30pm and 1:45pm.

Sunday 6th July 2025. 12:30pm and 1:45pm
Tour starts from Prince Street ferry stop, near Arnolfini
Map

£11 + £2 booking fee. Booking is essential and spaces are limited. Book via Bristol Pride.

Our thanks to South Gloucestershire Council for supporting this event.

Logo with words "Bristol Pride" on a red background

OutStories Bristol and trans people – a statement

 Blog  Comments Off on OutStories Bristol and trans people – a statement
Apr 222025
 

OutStories Bristol wants to make it clear that we support trans people. Following a transphobic comment made by an audience member during a Q&A at the OutStories LGBT+ History Month event at MShed in February, we want to make it absolutely clear that OutStories as an organisation sees trans women as women, trans men as men, and nonbinary people as nonbinary.

We would like to apologise for not addressing this comment when it was made, as we are aware that leaving the comment unchallenged during the event caused distress to a number of audience members.

Going forward we will make sure that our events include an introduction that makes it clear that we are here to represent, celebrate, interrogate and explore the histories of all LGBTQ+ people in and around Bristol, and with the due respect that they deserve. Should transphobia be witnessed at future events, we will ensure it is challenged as soon as possible.

15 May 2025 – Gender & History Annual Lecture: Dr Onni Gust

 Old events posts  Comments Off on 15 May 2025 – Gender & History Annual Lecture: Dr Onni Gust
Apr 212025
 
Kin: transgender history with and beyond the human

Grainy art picture of a person, maybe South Asian, with male face and beard, grotesque oversized ears, and large female breasts.Join Dr Onni Gust, cultural and intellectual historian of the British Empire at the University of Nottingham, for the 2025 Gender & History lecture. Dr Gust will explore historical debates about species classification – from mermaids to ‘human monsters’ – and the role of sex, gender, and sexuality in constructing the boundaries of the ‘human’.

Thursday 15 May 2025, 3pm to 4:30pm
Lecture Theatre 2,  Arts Complex,  7 Woodland Road,  University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
Map

This free lecture takes place in-person and online via Zoom. For those attending online, a link will be sent out in advance to those who have registered.

Click here for further information and to register via Ticketpass.

All are welcome!

27 April 2025 – The Counterculture and the LGBT Press – Bristol and Beyond

 Old events posts  Comments Off on 27 April 2025 – The Counterculture and the LGBT Press – Bristol and Beyond
Apr 142025
 
Demonstrators carrying banners with "National Gay News Defence Committee" walk behind a flat-top lorry in a city street with a band playing steel drums made from 55-gallon oil barrels

Credit: Robert Howes

Reviewing the relationship between the Counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s and the LGBT movement, this talk concentrates on the origins of LGBT periodicals as part of the alternative press of the period.

It will cover such topics as the underground culture of gay men when male homosexuality was illegal, the repercussions of the decriminalisation of male homosexuality in 1967 and the campaign of legal discrimination to which both the early LGBT press and the alternative press were subjected in the late sixties and seventies. The talk will interweave national and international developments with examples of what was happening in Bristol and Bath, illustrated with slides.  Event webpage

The talk will be given by Robert Howes of OutStories Bristol and is one event of the Bristol Radical History Festival 2025.

The talk is free though a donation to the Bristol Radical History Group would be welcome!

Sunday 27th April 2025, 2:40pm to 3:20pm
The Cube Microplex, Dove Street South, Kingsdown, Bristol BS2 8JD
Map

50th Anniversary of Bristol Gay Switchboard!

 Blog  Comments Off on 50th Anniversary of Bristol Gay Switchboard!
Feb 012025
 

February 1st 2025 is the 50th Anniversary of Bristol Gay Switchboard’s first calls!

Andrew Foyle wrote the following article in 2012 about the Switchboard records donated to Bristol Archives.

“Today I collected a small cardboard box of tattered hardback notebooks. They don’t look like much. But these are the Day Books for Bristol Gay Switchboard, recording the beginnings of a helpline which was to last 37 years.

On February 1st 1975 Bristol Gay Switchboard (BGS) took its first call; Dale Wakefield spent 25 minutes dealing with a male transvestite worried that other TVs might be homosexual. Calls trickled in during the first few weeks but soon increased as the number became known. The service used Dale’s own house phone and operated from her back bedroom in Hill Street, Totterdown.

A young man sitting at a table is answering a telephone call. A board on the wall behind has many leaflets and posters.

Peter Dolman taking a switchboard call in 1983

The first Day Book covering February 1975 to May 1976 records nearly 3,500 phone calls. There were significant numbers of abusive and hoax calls – abuse, name-calling, whistling or playing loud music down the phone, and inevitably, sex callers. One regular was soon named Mr Gruntfuttock. Dale had a humorous way of despatching these, and of recording them in gritty fashion; “21.3.76 : Wanted a screw and offered me his cock”. Help Given – “I said we have no carpentry requirements and don’t keep hens”. Surprisingly, two requests for someone able to bless a gay marriage were referred to Angela Needham, minister of the first Metropolitan Community Church in Bristol. (23.5.75 and …).

On the weekend of 28th–29th February 1976 a national Lesbian Conference was held in Bristol. BGS was not just an information point but a lynchpin in the organisation. On the Thursday before Dale’s phone began ringing at 7.30am; calls arrived almost solidly throughout the day and evening, and on through the night, most of them about the conference. At 4.25 on Friday morning the last of 70 calls was taken, from a woman complaining that no-one was present at the conference venue to take her registration at 4 am! Calls began again at 7.22am.

The Sunday shift began with the optimistic comment “Looks like being a quiet night”. However “trouble at Moulie” followed, with a group of women thrown out of the Moulin Rouge club and beaten up at around 3am. Disturbing comments in the Day Book include “Police not being helpful, hassling them” and “Police nasty – 4 cars”. Two women were injured, one so badly she underwent surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary that night. The Switchboard staff formed an impromptu rescue centre, phoning all parties and eventually taking in the four remaining women at Dale’s house at about 7 am.

The books offer little glimpses of the depths of difficulty in which some people found themselves. In April 1975 a call arrived from B. of Keynsham – “isolated woman, suicidal”. Three BGS volunteers drove to her address immediately and talked with her for 2-3 hours, removed her pills and stayed with her for the night. It’s hard to imagine any helpline service doing that today, but it was well meant and effective. It’s also notable how often the help went beyond advice on the phone: “Lost at George and Railway – Dale fetched”; “Kevin – Rang Angela. Sleeping in haystack tonight. OK to stay and will run him to W-S-M.”

So to the first group of Bristol Switchboard volunteers we say thank you – to Adrian, Angela, Eddie, Tim, John, Steve, Stevie, Julia, Anne, Lindsay, Tony, Yvonne and of course, to Dale whose home and phone were given up with remarkable generosity to this operation.

Andrew Foyle, 2012

The records of Bristol Lesbian and Gay Switchboard are now deposited permanently with Bristol Archives, Cat. Ref. 45120. Because of the detailed and sensitive nature of the records in the early Day Books, that part of the archive is closed to public access.

Remembering Darryl Bullock

 Blog  Comments Off on Remembering Darryl Bullock
Feb 012025
 

Our thanks to Eugene Byrne for permission to reproduce this article first published in Bristol Times 7/1/2025.

BT was saddened to hear of the death just before Christmas of Darryl Bullock at the age of 60.

Middle-aged man with short beard and moustache, wearing spectacles, in front of a museum display case with wedding memorabilia including a photo of the couple and a "happy wedding day" card.

Darryl had – has! – a world-wide following as the author of a number of respected books on music and LGBT+ life and culture, including The World’s Worst Records (two volumes!), Florence Foster Jenkins: The Life of the World’s Worst Opera Singer (Duckworth-Overlook, 2016), David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music (Duckworth-Overlook, 2017), The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran the Swinging 60s (Omnibus Press, 2021) and a few others. His book about Gloucestershire record producer and songwriter Joe Meek, Love and Fury is due out later this year.

In Bristol he deserves a prominent place in local gay history. He grew up in Gloucester, later moving to Bath before coming to Bristol as a freelance journalist. For years in pre-internet times he covered local LGBT+ issues in local listings magazine Venue, playing an important role in creating a city that’s much more welcoming and tolerant than it used to be.

He and his then-partner were also the first couple in the region to enter a Civil Partnership, in December 2005.
“We had it in Bath, as we’d previously had a blessing there (Bath was years ahead of Bristol when it came to recognising and celebrating same-sex couples)” he told BT some years back. He later lodged some memorabilia from this historic event with M Shed.

He and his then-partner later became the first same-sex couple to have their partnership dissolved (“a difficult process as the court had never had to deal with one before”).

He had been with Niall since 2008; their Civil Partnership was upgraded to full marriage on the first day the law allowed it, in 2014. They later moved to Cumbria.

Darryl was a lovely man, easy company, and an editor’s dream to work with. His delight in many of the more absurd aspects of both popular culture and gay culture was infectious.

Our sympathies go out to his family, and to Niall. He will be greatly missed.

©Eugene Byrne

11 Jan 2025 – OutStories Bristol AGM

 Old events posts  Comments Off on 11 Jan 2025 – OutStories Bristol AGM
Dec 262024
 

OutStories logo. Letters 'O' 'S', and 'B' in a speech bubbleOutStories Bristol’s Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday 11th January at the Bristol Archives.  The meeting will be short (approx 30 minutes) and though primarily to conduct the formal business of the group, it is an opportunity to hear about our activities and plans for the coming year.

Everyone is welcome. We particularly encourage you to come if you are interested in getting involved in our projects. Just turn up and say hello!

Saturday 11th January 2025,  2pm
Bristol Archives, B Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol, BS1 6XN
Enter via Create Centre.  The AGM will be in the Bristol Archives Education Room.
Getting there      Accessibility

22 Feb 2025 – LGBTQ+ History Day at M Shed

 LGBT History Festival, Old events posts  Comments Off on 22 Feb 2025 – LGBTQ+ History Day at M Shed
Dec 042024
 
People parade a huge rainbow-coloured banner on a crowded street

Bristol Pride parade 2023

Celebrate and discover LGBTQ+ lives in Bristol from the past!

OutStories Bristol present a day of fascinating talks at Bristol’s M Shed Museum featuring stories of LGBTQ+ people in the Bristol region over the last 150 years.

Topics include a gay poet who was a military hero, a century of lesbian dress styles, a gender non-conforming Victorian, and the story of Bristol Gay Switchboard which took its first calls 50 years ago this month. We will also hear how to research LGBTQ+ history in the Bristol Archives.

Saturday 22nd February 2025,  10:45am to 4:30pm
M Shed,  Princes Wharf, Wapping Road, Bristol  BS1 4RN
Getting there      Access

The event will be held in the Studio Room on the first floor, upstairs from the main entrance.
Entry is free and open to everyone. Booking is not required – just come and go as you wish.

There will also be information stalls for various local LGBTQ+ community groups.

Programme

10:45am – 11:00am    Welcome   Andrew Foyle, OutStories Bristol

11am – 11:40am   Lori Wylot: Charley Wilson: Victorian Gender Rebel and the Changing Face of Media

11:40am – 11:50am  Announcement about a new project: “BLAST! from the Past”

11:50am – 12:30am  Jonathan Rowe: “A Crown of Friendship” –  Fabian Strachan Woodley

12:30pm – 1:30pm   Lunch break

1:30pm – 2:10pm   Lucy Bonner and Alec Temple: Bristol Archives – sources for researching LGBTQ+ history

2:20pm – 3pm  Kim Renfrew: What is she wearing? 20th-century lesbian dress in the press

3pm – 3:10pm  Announcement about a new Project “BLAST! from the Past”

3:10pm – 3:50pm  Andrew Foyle: Bristol Gay Switchboard – 50 Years On

3:50pm – 4pm       Closing thanks

4:30pm  Event closes.   Visitors must exit the building before 5pm.

 

About the talks

Charley Wilson: Victorian Gender Rebel and the Changing Face of Media

Line drawing of a male appearing person, maybe 50, wearing stiff-collar shirt, waistcoat and unbuttoned jacket. Text says "Catherine Coombes who lived for 40 years as Charley Wilson".Charley Wilson, a gender-nonconforming individual, defied societal norms in the Victorian era. This talk explores their fascinating life through the lens of 19th century media, contrasting it with mediated representations of queer identities today. By exposing the media’s shifting narratives, we’ll challenge the idea that queer identities are a modern phenomenon, uncover another unique example of allyship, and gain a deeper understanding of how the news continues to shape cultural perception.

Lori Wylot is a philosopher who loves circuses, mixed-media collage, and Judith Butler. They are currently researching 19th century ‘female-husbands’ with OutStories, and are more broadly interested in the relationship between power and identity.

“A Crown of Friendship” –  Fabian Strachan Woodley

Head and shoulders of a boy about 14 wearing a horizontally striped rugby shirt

Fabian at school

Fabian Strachan Woodley (1888-1957) was a Bristol born gay poet who was awarded the Military Cross for bravery in 1916. His work appeared in Men and Boys, the first anthology of homosexual poetry in the USA published in 1924.

Jonathan Rowe is a Bristol born and bred local historian who writes for OutStories Bristol and “Bristol Times” in the Bristol Post. He is Chairman of Brislington Conservation and History Society and Secretary of his local amateur drama group for whom he regularly writes plays and pantomimes.

.

Bristol Archives – sources for researching LGBTQ+ history

Document cover with picture of people carrying a 'Pride West' banner in a street parade.Bristol Archives preserve official and historic documents relating to the City of Bristol going back 1,000 years. Alec Temple (Archives Officer) and Lucy Bonner (Senior Archivist) will introduce some of the key collections, series and individual documents which may be used to explore Bristol’s LGBTQ+ history before presenting case studies that demonstrate how archive sources can be used to explore LGBTQ+ lives.

They have an excellent guide: Bristol Archives Sources for Research: LGBTQ History.

What is she wearing? 20th-century lesbian dress in the press

Outline crayon sketch of two standing women huggingJoin in a whirlwind journey through nearly a century of lesbian dress, seen through the eyes of straight and dyke media alike. How were lesbians depicted? What were they wearing and where did they wear it? We’ll encounter aristocrats, bar toughs and gay libbers, butches, femmes and lipstick lesbians (including kd and Cindy of course), and find out about lesbian in-fighting over what we ‘should’ be wearing.

Kim Renfrew’s talk is based on research that forms part of her PhD in lesbian dress at the University of The West of England (UWE).

Bristol Gay Switchboard – 50 Years On

A male volunteer at the Bristol gay switchboard is answering a telephone call.

Bristol Gay Switchboard opened on February 1st 1975 using a private phone line in a back bedroom in Totterdown. This is the extraordinary story of a small team of volunteers who spotted the need for information and, with no support or external funding, created an organisation which flourished for the next 37 years. We look at how it began, the immense diversity of calls received and the help it offered, and how it grew to fill a need with the LGBTQ+ communities.

Andrew is a Bristol author and architectural historian. He is a founder member of OutStories Bristol, with a background in LGBTQ+ history education and research.

Note: this is a change from the original advertised talk.

BLAST! from the Past

Image of three typewritten newsletters on coloured paper from 1992 to 1994.BLAST are a group of Bristol lesbians who want to celebrate our history. We wish to hear from lesbian women who were involved in Bristol’s self-organised lesbian groups from the 1970’s onwards. We hope that lesbians who went to any of the self-organised groups in Bristol will join us to share their stories and memorabilia.

BLAST wants to create a ‘map’ of groups, and to have quotes, stories and memories about what we did, what these groups meant to us, why they were important – and more. We also want to collect any documents – posters, newsletters, etc. about the groups, that can be contributed to a permanent archive that records this important history.

BLAST will be at M Shed on 22nd February to tell you more about this project. Alternatively contact us at BLAST.07456@gmail.com.

Our thanks to ….

Words "M shed" in black textLogo of four circles and an overlapping 'x' with text Quartet Community FoundationImage of a golden cockerel and the word "Courage"Logo with letters "OS" and "B" and text OutStories Bristol

Museum Bums explore the inspirations for John Addington Symonds

 Lectures  Comments Off on Museum Bums explore the inspirations for John Addington Symonds
Sep 152024
 
Two seated young men gleefully showing their book titled "Museum Bums".

Mark Small and Jack Shoulder

Each year OutStories Bristol in collaboration with the University of Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition (IGRCT) present a lecture celebrating the life of John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), Bristol-based writer, art historian and pioneer of homosexual rights.

The 2023 lecture was given by Jack Shoulder and Mark Small, the duo behind the eponymous viral Twitter (‘X’) account @museumbums. Your can read a transcription of the lecture here.

 

5 Oct 2024 – talk ‘How to Bring Your Canon Up Gay: John Addington Symonds, Eve Sedgwick, and the Intellectual History of Male Homosexuality’

 Old events posts  Comments Off on 5 Oct 2024 – talk ‘How to Bring Your Canon Up Gay: John Addington Symonds, Eve Sedgwick, and the Intellectual History of Male Homosexuality’
Aug 152024
 

OutStories Bristol in collaboration with the University of Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition (IGRCT) present the 11th John Addington Symonds Annual Lecture.

Saturday 5th October 2024,  2pm to 4pm
The Old Council Chamber, Wills Memorial Building, Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1RJ

First floor of Wills Building – go up main stairs and turn right
Map    Accessibility

How to Bring Your Canon Up Gay: John Addington Symonds, Eve Sedgwick, and the Intellectual History of Male Homosexuality
Middle-aged man with beard and moustache, wearing tweed jacket

Symonds in 1880s
Photo: Eveleen Myers

Smiling middle-aged woman resting head against hand

Sedgwick in 2007 Photo: David Shankbone

In his talk, Dr Sam Rutherford will compare the life and work of the English classicist and historian John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) with that of the pioneering American queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950-2009), to interrogate the history of Western gay male culture and the creation of gay male communities.

Dr Rutherford will discuss how Western gay male cultural heritage of the 19th and 20th centuries, drawing on Greek antiquity, became bound up in racism and transmisogyny, but could also become a site of transmasculine possibility. Through a trans reading of Sedgwick’s lifelong desire for belonging in gay male community, Dr Rutherford proposes a different understanding of gay cultural heritage which moves beyond narrow conceptions of individual, ‘born this way’ gay (or trans) subjectivity.


Young smiling man wearing colourful striped casual shirtSam Rutherford is Lecturer in LGBTQ+ History / History of Sexuality at the University of Glasgow. His first book, Teaching Gender: The British University and the Rise of Heterosexuality, 1860–1939, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2025.

 

 

 

The event is free and open to everyone. Tea and coffee will be provided after the talk – and cake to celebrate Symonds’ 184th birthday! He was born 5th October 1840.

This is also an opportunity to chat with members of OutStories Bristol about our activities.

Please register to attend on Eventbrite – not essential but helps us anticipate numbers for catering.
You do not need to print your ticket or show on entry.


The talk is an annual celebration of the life of John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), Bristol-based writer, art historian and pioneer of homosexual rights.

This event is held by OutStories Bristol in collaboration with the University of Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition (IGRCT). Our thanks to the IGRCT for hosting this event.

Find out more about the IGRCT on their website; you can also find them on Facebook and X (Twitter).

UnivOfBristol_logo_colourOutStories Bristol logoAncient sculpted head on black background with text "Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition"

13 July 2024 – OutStories at Bristol Pride

 Old events posts  Comments Off on 13 July 2024 – OutStories at Bristol Pride
May 232024
 

Logo with words "Bristol Pride" on a red backgroundBristol Pride Day is back! Not only is Bristol Pride one of the largest UK Pride events, it’s one of Bristol’s largest festivals.

OutStories will be there with a stall in the Community AreaCome and say hello!

Saturday 13th July 2024,  12pm onwards
The Downs, Westbury Park, Bristol
Map

Buy your Pride Day Supporter Wristband now! Bristol Pride is a not for profit charity and every penny from supporter wristbands helps to make Pride happen.

See you there!

Table with OutStories posters and leaflets

First gay novel in English?

 Blog  Comments Off on First gay novel in English?
May 192024
 
Line drawing showing a young man (Roderick Random) with a stave fighting Captain Weazel with a sword, watched by horrified onlookers

Frontispiece by George Cruikshank for an 1831 edition

Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) is regarded as one of the earliest, if not the first, English novel to depict openly homosexual characters. Smollett (1721-1771) was a Scottish doctor, naval surgeon and novelist who regularly spent winters in Bath from the 1740s-60s.

Partly set in Bath and drawing on people he met there, Roderick Random was Smollett’s first novel and includes several gay characters. Earl Strutwell, “notorious for a passion for his own sex”, takes advantage of the naive young Roderick in order to kiss and fondle him. Roderick writes: the Earl “pressed me to his breast with surprising emotion”.

At first Roderick does not understand Strutwell’s advances but later “his hugs, embraces, squeezes and eager looks were no longer a mystery” and Roderick realises he has been introduced to Strutwell, for his seduction, by Lord Straddle “a poor contemptible wretch who lived by borrowing and pimping to his fellow peers”. Roderick sees that Strutwell’s manservant is jealous of Roderick because previously this “valet de chamber …. had been the favourite pathic of his lord”, meaning a catamite, a youth who plays a submissive role in anal intercourse.

Although Roderick rejects Earl Strutwell’s advances, Smollett lets the Earl have a lengthy and eloquent defence of homosexual love, citing precedents of same-sex relationships in Ancient Greece and Rome. Strutwell was based on a real man. In his essay Offences Against One’s Self: Paederasty (circa 1785) philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) wrote:

“Much about the time when this novel was published a Scotch Earl was detected in the consummation of an amour after the manner of Tiberius* with two of his servants at the same time. The affair getting around, he found himself under the obligation of going off to the Continent where at the close of a long life he died not many years since.”
(* Tiberius: a reputedly “sexually perverse” Roman emperor).

This was John Tilney (or Tylney), 2nd Earl of Castlemaine (1712-1784) who in order to escape scandal lived in Italy for many years where he died the year before Bentham wrote Paederasty. Although not published until 1978, the essay is the first known argument for homosexual law reform in England, making Bentham an early advocate of the decriminalisation of homosexual acts.

While working as a naval surgeon’s mate on board ship Roderick meets Captain Whiffle, a wildly flamboyant gay man dressed as an effete dandy of the period in pink and gold. Tall, thin, with “meagre legs”, Whiffle fits the popular stereotype of the day of homosexual men. The surgeon, Simper, has the bedroom attached to Whiffle’s own and it is made clear no one should walk in on them unexpectedly. Simper is described as “a young man, gayly dressed, of a very delicate complexion, with a kind of languid smile on his face, which seemed to have been rendered habitual by a long course of affection”.

It could be argued therefore that Whiffle and Simper are the first gay couple in English literature. Roderick informs the reader:

“These singular regulations did not prepossess the ship’s company in his [Whiffle’s] favour but on the contrary gave scandal an opportunity to be very busy with his character, and accuse him of maintaining a correspondence with his surgeon not fit to be named”.

“Correspondence” in this context means a sexual relationship. “A crime not fit to be named” was a common euphemism for male same-sex intercourse used in the 18th and 19th centuries. Captain Whiffle is said to have been inspired by Admiral Lord Harry Powlett, 6th Duke of Bolton (1720-1794).

Smollett was obviously aware of gay men and, although he uses them for comic effect, he expected his readers to be aware as well. By reading Roderick Random gay men would have seen they were not alone and that homosexuality was widespread, even to the point that it featured in popular novels.

Smollett lived in Gay Street, Bath, from 1765-66 and also visited the then fashionable Hotwells Spa in Bristol. He travelled to Italy for his health in 1768 where he died in Monte Nero, near Livorno, Tuscany, in 1771 aged 50.

Jonathan Rowe 2024

Rictor Norton (Ed.), “Lord Strutwell, 1748”, Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 22 February 2003
http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/strutwel.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Smollett

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Roderick_Random

Help create a gender exhibition in Bristol?

 Old blog posts  Comments Off on Help create a gender exhibition in Bristol?
May 122024
 

The 'Progress' pride flag comprising the six colours of the original plus white/pink/light blue representing trans people and brown and black for people of colour.Would you like to contribute to a gender exhibition in Bristol next year?

Bristol Museums in partnership with National Museums Liverpool and Brighton & Hove Museums are working on an exhibition about gender. The exhibition will open in Bristol in Spring 2025, and then tour to the other cities.

They want to work with groups of people to select objects for the exhibition and provide responses based on their own lived experience of gender, which could be included in the show. In Bristol, they would like to focus on working with LGBTQ+ people for these sessions.

During the sessions, participants will look at objects from Bristol Museums’ collections, and discuss and make recommendations on which ones should be featured in the exhibition. They will discuss their responses to the objects, and any reflections or questions the objects might prompt, based on participants’ own lived experience of gender. Some of these responses will also be included in the show, with participants’ consent.

These sessions will be led by a professional facilitator with expertise in LGBTQ+ topics, and participants will be paid for their time. The sessions are expected to take place in June and July this year, probably at M Shed or Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, and take about half a day of an individual’s time.

If you are interested or want more information, contact Steven Bradley, Exhibitions & Displays Manager, Bristol Museums.
Email: Steven.Bradley@bristol.gov.uk

Words "M shed" in black text

7 July 2024 – LGBT+ Bristol history boat tour

 Old events posts  Comments Off on 7 July 2024 – LGBT+ Bristol history boat tour
Apr 252024
 

Join Bristol Pride and Outstories Bristol for a special LGBT+ history tour on the water.

A Bristol Ferry Boat will take you across the historical harbourside of Bristol and tour guides from Outstories Bristol will rerun their insightful tour into Bristol’s LGBT+ history drawing on the surrounding areas and sights you will see during this one-hour tour. By popular demand we are running two sessions this year, at 12:30pm and 1:45pm.

Sunday 7th July 2024. 12:30pm and 1:45pm
Tour starts from Prince Street ferry stop, near Arnolfini
Map

£11 + £2 booking fee. Booking is essential and spaces are limited. Book via Bristol Pride.

Our thanks to South Gloucestershire Council for supporting this event.

Logo with words "Bristol Pride" on a red background

10 years ago – the first same-sex marriage in Bristol

 Blog  Comments Off on 10 years ago – the first same-sex marriage in Bristol
Mar 312024
 

Two happy smiling men under a rainbow banner with text "just married"It is ten years since the introduction of same-sex marriage in the UK.

The first same-sex marriage in Bristol took place in the Lantern Room of the Old Council House on Saturday 29 March 2014. Michael McBeth married Matthew Symonds, their dog Zoly carried their wedding rings in a bag attached to his collar.

The rainbow banner behind Mike and Matthew carried the message ‘just married’. It was donated to the Bristol’s M Shed Museum after the wedding.