‘Freedom 25’ is a film made by members of Bristol’s Freedom Youth and local film-makers Black Bark Films
to mark 25 years of Freedom Youth, one of the longest running LGBTQ+ spaces for young people in the UK.
The film celebrates and recognises 25 reasons why @FreedomLGBTQ is as important in 2020 as it was in 1995, creating community and crafting friendships.
Watch and share Freedom 25.
#iWill #powerofyouth #youthvoice
Do you know John/Jack Hewit (b.1917, d.1997)?
A writer researching a book would like to contact a relative of Jack Hewit, who was the lover of both Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess in the 1940s and 1950s. Background information.
Jack may have relatives and possibly the executor of his will in the Bristol area. If you know anything, Paul Wilson paul@wordstock.co.uk would like to hear from you.
The LGBTQ+ Voice and Influence Panel (LGBTQ+ ViP) have awarded OutStories Bristol a grant of £250 towards the gathering of oral history. When restrictions due to the Covid-19 virus end, some of our volunteers will resume interviewing and recording the stories of local people to expand our community history archive. The money will allow us to reimburse the travel costs of those experiencing hardship and other direct expenses. Thanks Vip!
Led by Off the Record, the LGBTQ+ ViP panel represents LGBTQ+ voices on the city-wide Voice and Influence Partnership. Funded by Bristol City Council, the Partnership ensures individuals, groups and communities whose voices aren’t always heard are listened to, and help them be a part of shaping Bristol’s future.
The Partnership consists of various local equalities groups: The Care Forum, Bristol Older People’s Forum, Centre for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People, Off the Record Freedom and WECIL. The forum aims to hear the voices of equalities groups and ensure their representation in citywide decision-making.
Everyone is invited to become a member of the Voice and Influence Partnership. Membership is free. As a member you will hear about events, upcoming consultations, participation opportunities and news about the Voice and Influence Partnership. You can sign up here.
LGBTQ+ Voice and Influence social media:
https://www.facebook.com/LgbtqVip/
https://twitter.com/lgbtqvip
https://www.instagram.com/lgbtqvip/
We are living in unprecedented times and OutStories Bristol want to hear how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected Bristol’s LGBT+ communities. We rely heavily on social interaction but now have to cope with isolation. What has been your experience?
My Queer Quarantine will collect and record your stories.
You can contribute in a variety of ways: video, audio, prose, poetry, art; whatever you feel comfortable with. Our plan is to post as much as possible on our website for the rest of the community to see.
Email your contribution to us at contact@outstoriesbristol.org.uk with the subject “My Queer Quarantine”.
Please say clearly how you wish to be identified on our public blog: full name or just a first name / pen name.
Not comfortable about having your story posted publically? It will still be valuable to future historians so mark your contribution PRIVATE and it will not be seen by anyone except us and any accredited researchers who have been given access to our archives.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you need further information or advice about how to record or submit your story.
We hope to hear from you!
©Sam Leighton-Dore
https://www.samuelleightondore.com/
BBC Radio 3’s ‘Free Thinking’ podcast Queer Histories discusses how we apply modern LGBT+ language and identities to historical figures both real and fictional and what it means to have to “prove” your identity in today’s legal world.
Presented by Shahidha Bari, the participants are Jana Funke who teaches Medical Humanities at the University of Exeter, Senthorum Raj who teaches at Keele University School of Law, and Morgan M Page – writer, performance artist, and trans historian whose podcast is called One From The Vaults.
Other LGBT+ related podcasts from the BBC include:
Writing Love: Jonathan Dollimore, Sappho;
Queer Icons: Plato’s Symposium in which Shahidha Bari discusses the LGBTQ movement in the history of philosophy;
Censorship and Sex: Naomi Wolf on John Addington Symonds and Sarah Parker on Michael Field;
Comrades in Arms in which Tom Smith explores the East German Military’s fascination with its soldiers’ sexuality;
and a vast library of programmes in the Gay Britannia season that marked the 50th anniversary of 1967 Sexual Offences Act.
The earliest known LGBT postmark in the UK
To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the first Avon Pride, the 1991 organising collective led by convenor and philatelist Rob Brettle sponsored a special postmark. It is the earliest known LGBT postmark in the UK and was only available by post from the Wales & West Special Handstamp Centre based in Cardiff.
The postmark comprised 15 balloons, representing the 15 years, floating out of a triangle. Gay men incarcerated in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s were forced to wear an inverted pink triangle on their prison clothes as an identifying symbol intended to be a badge of shame. In the 1970s the pink triangle was reclaimed as a symbol of LGBT pride and against homophobia.
Special cover
A special cover (envelope) was available and used artwork from the 1991 Avon Pride programme. It was designed by Kate Charlesworth, a British cartoonist and artist who has produced comics and illustrations since the 1970s. Her work has appeared in LGBT publications including The Pink Paper and Gay News, as well as national newspapers The Guardian, and The Independent.
Today Pride is seen as a festival with big-name singers and bars selling alcohol. Pride ‘back then’ was about the community getting together and sharing in activities: picnics, boat trips, films at the Watershed, singers at the Arnolfini, guided walks, coffee mornings, and an annual garden party at the Oasis Club which raised money for Bristol Lesbian & Gay Switchboard.
Chris Leigh, with thanks to Rob Brettle for information.
Last edited 18/2/2020
Bristol-based sculptor Alec Stevens and illustrator & creative technologist Nicola Hogg are creating a city-wide ‘experience’ using mobile phone technology, storytelling and sculpture to reveal stories as the user makes their way through the city.
Called Short Back and Sides, the first instalment focusses on the city’s rich LGBT+ history and used OutStories Bristol’s ‘LGBT+ Life’ map as its source of information. Hear Alec and Nicola talk about the project.
The pair worked from Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio which supports the development of creative technology projects.
We are delighted to see our map and research being used to inspire others to engage with Bristol’s rich LGBT+ heritage in new and novel ways.
On June 28 1969, around one o’clock in the morning, New York City Police raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar in Greenwich Village, New York …
Rainbow Revolutions is a new book for older children and teenagers that charts the rise of the LGBTQ+ rights movement during the 20th century and celebrates the individuals who stood up and demanded recognition. It is written by University of Bristol anthropologist and OutStories Bristol trustee Jamie Lawson.
The book covers the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the impassioned speeches of activists Karl Ulrichs and Audre Lorde, the birth of Pride, and the fabulous New York ballroom scene of the 70s and 80s made famous by Ryan Murphy’s smash hit TV series Pose.
Jamie Lawson says:
“As an anthropologist working with queer communities, I take seriously and am passionate about the roles of history and politics in modern LGBTQ+ identities.
“The opportunity to explain to a young audience the historical origins not only of oppression against queer people, but also queer radical activism itself was extremely exciting, and seeing it published is quite remarkable.
“While the book is written for everyone, I thought a lot during its writing about my young, queer readers: The mainstream, cis-het world often tries to pretend that LGBTQ+ identities sprung up, recently and out of nowhere – being able to connect young queer people to their own history is an important and deeply humbling experience.”
Rainbow Revolutions by Jamie Lawson and illustrated by Eve Lloyd Knight is published by Wren & Rook / Hachette Children’s Group.
Oliver Messel was Britain’s leading theatre designer from the 1930s to the mid 1950s. A gay man, he spent part of the war years in North Somerset. The University of Bristol Theatre Collection now holds the archives of Messel and have created a number of online resources allowing you to explore his life and work in more detail.
The online Oliver Messel Archive includes a 360-degree virtual tour of their 2018/2019 exhibition Wake Up and Dream: Oliver Messel – Theatre, Art and Society, an illustrated bibliography, online Schools’ Resources, and access to the complete online catalogue for the Archive.
You can also view a performance of ‘I went to a marvellous party’, commissioned and co-produced by the Theatre Collection and written and performed by Tom Marshman. The work, part installation/part performance, was based on Oliver’s Archive and shown at various locations around Bristol in February and March 2019.
Ellie O’Connell, Education Co-ordinator, Feminist Archive South will kick off our day of talks at M Shed on Saturday with this great presentation:
This talk will share how exploring feminist and queer archives with LGBTQ young people can stimulate vital discussion around intersectionality, inclusivity and solidarity in activism then and now. Drawing on the Feminist Archive’s educational workshops funded by the Government Equalities Office and delivered in partnership with T.I.G.E.R, teacher Ellie O’Connell will share how creative methods can bring archives to life and mobilise activism.
Reclaiming queer feminist liberation politics works to provide spaces for learning about the connections between the Gay and Women’s Liberation Movements and facilitate intergenerational exchange within LGBTQ communities. The realisation of shared systems of oppression under what bell hooks termed the ‘imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy’ is a key point of learning around the foundations for solidarity; this is illustrated by a variety of compelling archive sources from the gay and women’s liberation movements included in our resource.
In developing an archival handling collection that highlights these key questions, we’ve sought to represent a range of voices at the intersection of the gay and women’s liberation movements, including queer people of colour, disabled and trans feminists. Through collectively mapping the major achievements of LGBT+ and feminist movements, we start to see what they have in common. For example, the way in which trans rights, free abortion and contraception, making marital rape illegal and decriminalising gay sex represent victories of bodily autonomy for those who do not conform to the heterosexual reproductive matrix. In seeking to understand what others face, we must first identify correlations between oppressions. As Shon Fay has articulated, ‘Misogyny, homophobia and transphobia share much of the same DNA.’ Considering the continuing multiple struggles faced by young LGBTQ people today, forming inclusive multiple alliances must be the way forward.
Central to the Feminist Futures educational workshops is the creative transformation of archival materials through DIY counter-cultural methods including badge, poster and zine making. How can we take inspiration from feminist archive materials and reconfigure them to envision queer feminist futures? This presentation will share some of the amazing work about LGBT+ feminism made by young people in workshops as well as showcasing work from the Feminist Everywhere, a project by UWE students using FAS to create Bristol site-specific artworks, including ‘Gay Disco History Parking Ticket’, a subversive work of activist performance art. In addition, we’ll share how including LGBTQ herstories in our A Level Art, Sociology, History and English workshops and resources not only creates spaces to stray from the heteronormative curriculum but also reclaims the presence of LGBTQ people and culture in all areas of feminist herstory.
You can download a free copy of the LGBT+ Feminist Movements resource and find out more about FAS workshops here.
Unfortunately Dr Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman has been taken ill and will be unable to speak at M Shed on Saturday. However, Dr Edson Burton has kindly volunteered to step in at the last minute and will be giving a talk on Decolonising Sexuality. Our thanks to Edson, who will be brilliant as always, and our best wishes to Nathaniel for a speedy recovery.
There are no changes to the timings of the talks. The full programme can be found here.
We are by no means the only people putting on LGBT History Month events in Bristol. Here are a few things you might want to attend.
Saturday Feb. 23rd: An afternoon of events at The Chocolate Quarter in Keynsham, including films, a short play and discussions. Places are limited so please contact St. Monica Trust to register. This event is a collaboration of the St. Monica Trust, The Chocolate Quarter, GayWest and the Bristol Ageing Better LGBT+ Group.
Thursday Feb. 21st: An evening Proud Bristol event featuring our Robert Howes.
Wednesday Feb. 27th: A Noon Reception at the Lord Mayor’s Chapel, courtesy of the City Council LGBT+ Employees Group.
Thursday Feb. 28th: An evening event staged by Unite the Union, featuring Tom Marshman.
There was a great deal of excitment earlier this month when a previously unknown Arthurian manuscript was discovered in Bristol Library. These things do turn up from time to time. In 1911 a box of letters written by Henry VIII was found at Woolaton Hall in Nottinghamshire, and in 1927 something much older was noticed in amongst them. It was a manuscript of a 13th Century story called The Romance of Silence clearly set in Arthurian Britain and featuring the enchanter, Merlin. It turned out to be a very unusual story indeed.
The main character of the story, Silence, is assigned female at birth, but raised as a boy by their parents. Silence grows up to be a famous knight. Even the queen is enamoured of “him”, but of course Silence must remain mysteriously, and infuriatingly from the point of view of the ladies, chaste.
Performance storyteller, Rachel Rose Reid, will be in coversation with transgender literary critic, Cheryl Morgan, at our LGBT History Month event. Rachel and Cheryl will discuss the character of Silence, and how a 12th Century author produced a tale that is a sophisticated examination of themes of gender, and of nature v nurture.
In the evening Rachel will be performing part of the story just over the harbour at the Arnolfini. You can by tickets here.
For full details of the line-up for this year’s LGBT History Month event, click here.
We are now able to announce the running order for our LGBT History Day at M Shed on the 16th. See below for details.
As usual we plan to have a half hour break at 13:30 for people to get lunch. However, we are delighted to be able to use that time to show the Talking LGBT+ Bristol film produced last year by Bristol 24/7 and Tusko Films. Charlie, Robert and Cheryl all feature in that film.
That gives us a full running order as follows:
Additional information about all of the talks is available on the main event page.
In the 1980s a flourishing, noisy, confident lesbian & gay movement clashed with a right-wing homophobic UK Government — and lost. In disarray after Westminster passed the first major anti-gay legislation in a century, many of us wondered what to do next. Taking lessons from what went wrong, the Stonewall Group emerged with a very different style of activism and grew into the most successful LGB — and now T — lobby organisation in the world. One of the founders, Lisa Power, had been active in the movement since the 70s and looks back on how and why Stonewall came about and what made it different.
Come and listen to Lisa at our LGBT History Month event at M Shed on Saturday, February 16th. Full details here.
In this second post about our 2019 LGBT History Festival we are delighted to introduce Dr. Max Carocci. Max is the former curator of Native American artifacts at the British Museum and now works at their Anthropology Library and Research Centre. He has written a number of works on Native American culture, including contributing to Professor Richard B. Parkinson’s legendary A Little Gay History.
In his talk Max will address the existence of non-binary genders among Historical North American Indians through their own art, visual representations, and imagery. It is an attempt at weaving together new gendered histories starting from scattered and fragmentary lines of visual and material evidence. The talk will conclude with the ways in which contemporary Two-spirits (Native American non-binary genders) are slowly recovering traditions on the basis of this material, oral histories and the recovery of indigenous languages.
With LGBT History Month coming up, we have news of an historical novel with a very gay theme. The Prince of Mirrors by Alan Robert Clark is a tale of two young men with expectations. One is predicted to succeed, the other to fail. Here is some blurb:
Prince Albert Victor is heir presumptive to the British throne at its late Victorian zenith. Handsome and good-hearted, he is regarded as disastrously inadequate to be the king. By contrast, Jem Stephen is a golden boy worshipped by all – a renowned intellectual and the Keeper and outstanding player of the famous Eton Wall Game. He is appointed as Prince Albert’s tutor at Cambridge — the relationship that will change both of their lives.
Set mostly in London and Norfolk from the 1860s to the 1890s, The Prince Of Mirrors is, behind its splendid royal facade, a story about the sense of duty and selflessness of love, that have a power to show someone who they really are. Blending historical facts with plausible imagination, it is a moving portrait of Britain’s lost king, the great-uncle of Queen Elizabeth II.
Hardcover and ebook editions are already available. A paperback should be out in June.
This is the first of our feature posts on the talks we will be offering at our LGBT History Month events at M Shed in February. For more details on the event, click here.
Wake Up and Dream is an introduction to the life of Oliver Messel, through the Oliver Messel Archive at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, presented by Gemma Brace
Designer, artist, maker, magician… Oliver Messel’s (1904-1978) career embraced a multitude of guises and, like his papier-mâché masks, allowed him to inhabit numerous social worlds and stages, moving between backstage and high society with ease. Often regarded as one of the twentieth century’s brightest theatrical stars, his imaginative and illusory design skills were in high demand. He appeared to implicitly understand the all-encompassing attention to detail required to transport audiences from modern life back to Ancient Egypt or Renaissance Italy, considering each element, from costume to staging.
However, his Personal Archive has many more stories to tell beyond the world of theatre, documenting his life as a gay man, a social campaigner and a member of the society set. These aspects of Messel’s life are illustrated through intimate photographs of family and friends capturing the cast of London’s ‘Bright Young Things’ alongside handwritten letters from Hollywood stars and touching notes between Messel and his longstanding partner Vagn-Riis-Hansen. These sit side-by-side with ethereal costumes and designs from fêted stage and screen productions, architectural drawings of Caribbean villas, advertising props, fabric swatches and illustrations, each object shining a light on Messel’s ability to turn his hand to all manner of artistic practice.
These objects weave together theatre, art and society, providing a glimpse into numerous worlds – both real and imagined. By revisiting these memories and searching out stories, the magic and mastery of an artist whose creative vision can be seen throughout all aspects of his making is revealed. Whether creating fleeting fantasies in papier-mâché and tulle or making them concrete in paint and stone, the Archive encourages us to both look back and reflect and to ‘wake up and dream’.
We have our full list of speakers and topics available now. Here’s what we will have for you at M Shed on Saturday, February 16th.
Stephen Williams – The former MP for Bristol West will be in conversation with James Higgins of Bristol 24/7, talking about what it was like being an openly gay MP.
Lisa Power – Founding Stonewall – what happened? A personal memory of the late 80s from Section 28 to the start of Stonewall’s rise.
Max Carocci – Native American Two-Spirits: Alternative Histories of Gender and Sexuality.
Performance story teller, Rachel Rose Reid, will be in conversation with Cheryl Morgan, talking about The Romance of Silence, a French Mediaeval story with a non-binary person as the main character.
Dr Edson Burton Decolonising sexuality (LGBTQ+ in Black History).
Elissa O’Connell of Feminist Archive South will talk about Reclaiming Queer Feminist Liberation: using feminist and LGBT+ history to explore solidarity and inclusivity in activism then and now.
Gemma Brace: Wake Up and Dream, an introduction to the life of theatre designer, Oliver Messel, illustrated with items from the University of Bristol Theatre Collection.
In addition we will be showing the film, Talking LGBT+ Bristol, made in 2018 by Bristol 24/7 and Tusko Films.
The talks will be in the Studio rooms. The running order is as follows:
As usual, there will be a variety of community stalls in the M Shed first floor foyer. Confirmed bookings include:
Keep an eye open for in-depth posts about each of these talks. Everything is free, so we look forward to seeing you at M Shed on February 16th.
The New Year has barely started, and already February is not far away. As usual, we will be collaborating with the M Shed to put on a day of talks and discussion about LGBT History. The date you need to put in your diaries is Saturday, February 16th. Talks will take place from 12:00 to 16:00, and as usual there will be an array of stalls run by local community organisations. Everything is free to attend.
This year our speakers will include Stephen Williams talking about his time as an openly gay MP. We will also have Lisa Power talking about the founding of Stonewall. Other talk topics include the life of the theatre designer, Oliver Messel, and sexuality/gender in Native American society.
More information about all of our talks and speakers will appear here over the coming weeks.
You may also be interested in similar events taking place in Taunton on February 2nd, and in Cardiff on February 9th.