OutStories Bristol

Trans Pride South West have a week-long programme of events in Bristol celebrating gender diversity including:

• spoken and written word evening at the Watershed,
• comedy night at Zed Alley,
• fashion show,
• remembrance vigil.

The week culminates on Saturday 20th with a protest march against gender-based abuse and violence, a Community Day at The Station (Silver Street) and an Afterparty.

OutStories Bristol will have a stall at the Community Day. Come and say ‘hello’.

Website: https://tpsw.co.uk/tpsw-2021/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/985474265517639/

OutStories Bristol in collaboration with the University of Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition (IGRCT) present the 8th John Addington Symonds Annual Lecture (online event).

Monday 4^th October 2021, 7pm to 8pm

Unfortunately our original guest speaker, Nancy Rabinowitz, is unable to present her lecture “Classics and Social Justice: A contradiction in terms?”. Instead we are delighted to welcome Tom Sapsford.

Tom Sapsford  –  The Song of the Cinaedus: Deviant Performers in Ancient Rome

The cinaedus is a man noted in classical literature for his effeminacy and voracious (homo)sexual appetites. Often used as a slur in invective Latin poetry and graffiti to lambast the masculinity of named individuals, this talk explores how an array of ancient Mediterranean sources presents the cinaedus as a specific type of performer, whose signature song and dance appear to be as racy and challenging as the social behaviours so often ascribed to him.

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Tom Sapsford

Tom Sapsford is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Studies, Boston College. His research focuses on ancient Greek and Roman performance cultures, classics and the history of sexuality, dance in classical antiquity and its receptions.

This is an online event and prior registration via this Zoom link is required.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with a link enabling you to join the meeting.

OutStories Bristol AGM

The talk will be preceded by the AGM of OutStories Bristol (very brief!). Members of OutStories will receive a separate email with reports.

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 Twitter.

As part of the 2021 The Palace International Film Festival, curator Kate Fahy talks to two local queer Bristol artists, Tom Marshman and Cheryl Morgan, for a conversation about queer history, spaces and community.

Further information: https://www.palacefilmfest.org/talks

Saturday 11 September 2021,  12:30pm

Bricks Relay Project Space
St Anne’s House, St Anne’s Road, Brislington, Bristol, BS4 4AB
Map

Free but reserve a space

It is common to see claims that being transgender is a modern phenomenon, but there is plenty of evidence that gender transition took place in ancient Rome. Cheryl Morgan will look at how and why Romans changed gender, and introduce some who did, including members of the Imperial family.

Cheryl Morgan is a co-chair of OutStories Bristol and a regular speaker on the LGBT+ History Month circuit. As a expert in trans history, she has written for venues such as Notches, History Matters, and the CUCD Bulletin. Her work has also appeared in Introduction to Transgender Studies (Ardel Haefele-Thomas) and the SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies (Abbie E Goldberg & Genny Beemyn).

Thursday 17th June 2021,  7.30pm

A recording of this event is available until Thursday 24th June.
To view, register with HistFest and they will send you a link.

This is an online event organised by HistFest.   Tickets: £5 + 98p fee.
http://histfest.org/meet-the-trans-romans-with-cheryl-morgan/
Book via Eventbrite.

Ticket holders will be sent a link in advance and will have access to the event for 7 days.

The Roman world had, in some ways, far more gender diversity in it than we have today. Also, Romans firmly believed that people could change sex if the gods willed it so.

Cheryl Morgan’s exciting and thought-provoking talk, suitable for all audiences, will cover a variety of trans and intersex characters from the Roman world. We’ll meet the Emperor who wanted to be a woman, the Empress who grew up as a boy, the genius intersex philosopher, eunuchs who grew up as girls and many others, some of whom lived here in the Province of Britannia.

Join The Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University for thieir third Annual LGBTHM Public Lecture.

Wednesday 24th February 2021, 6:00 pm to 7:00pm GMT

This is a free online event. Register on Eventbrite. The organiser will send joining details in advance of the event.

Cheryl Morgan

Cheryl Morgan in Co-chair of OutStories Bristol.

Portrait of d’Éon by Thomas Stewart (1792)

As part of LGBTQ+ History month, London’s Strawberry Hill House hosts a series of online talks which explore the House, its occupants and our cultural understanding of LGBTQ+ history during the long 18th century.

By any measure, Charlotte de Beaumont, Chevalière d’Eon, had a remarkable life. According to her biography she had been a diplomat, spy and calvary officer in the service of the French Crown. In her retirement in London, she became a professional swordfighter and a feminist. She was known to intellectuals such as Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft, and her true gender was the subject of considerable wagers.

Death has not slowed her down. She has given her name to the Beaumont Society, Britain’s oldest support organisation for trans women and cross-dressers. She has even become the star of a Japanese anime series.

Cheryl Morgan

In this talk, Cheryl Morgan, co-chair of OutStories Bristol, will delve into the story of this trans celebrity and compare the experience of being trans in the 18th Century to today.

Wednesday 17th February 2021 at 7pm

This is an online event. £8 for non-members of Strawberry Hill House. Click here to register.

Jonathan Cooper

To celebrate LGBT History Month, the Human Rights Implementation Centre of the University of Bristol is delighted to welcome Jonathan Cooper OBE, from Doughty Street Chambers, who will delve into queer history and explore the human rights of being queer.

Despite legal reforms, meaningful equality remains out of reach:

• Trans identities are increasingly the subject of public and political debate
• Measures to protect LGBT kids from bullying at school are under attack
• A trans man cannot be registered as the father of the child he gave birth to
• A gay man can be denied a service with a pro-gay marriage message and the law will provide a legal fiction to justify why that is OK.

Is gender the problem and not the solution? Do we need to end gender? What’s next for Queer Britain?

Cheryl Morgan

The discussion will be chaired by Dr Sandra Duffy, and Jonathan will be joined in conversation by Cheryl Morgan of OutStories Bristol, and Dr Peter Dunne.

Thursday 11th February 2021, 5pm-6pm

The event will be online via Zoom.

For details and the Zoom link see https://www.bristol.ac.uk/law/events/2021/hric-seminar-.html.

Women were barred from the original Olympic games, yet Rome had women gladiators.

Down the centuries, the question of who can partake in sport has always been controversial and not least for the LGBTQ+ community. In the 20th century, thanks to advances in medical science, the focus has switched over to definitions of womanhood.

The 1930s saw numerous controversies over women athletes, including Mark Weston from Plymouth who had competed in the Olympics as a woman but, after an unspecified procedure at Charing Cross Hospital, began to live as a man.

These early controversies primarily featured people with intersex traits, and this pattern has continued. More recently there have also been controversies over the participation of trans people in sport.

Our panel discussion will look at the LGBTQ+ history of gender segregation in sport, and what that means for intersex and trans athletes today.

The panel will be:

• medical historian, Dr. Sonja Erikainen from the University of Edinburgh;
• historian Professor Noah Riseman from the Catholic University of Melbourne;
• football player Samantha Walker;
• rugby player Verity Smith.

This event is morning to accommodate Professor Riseman joining us from Australia.

Wednesday 24th February 2021       11am to 12pm

How to take part

This online talk will be held over Zoom. The event is free but you need to register in advance.

Please book your place through the Bristol Museums website https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/m-shed/whats-on/lgbtq-history-month-the-history-of-gender-in-sport/.

Details of how to join the session will be in your registration email.

Mark Weston is one of the five Icons for this year’s LGBT+ History Month.

Thanks to Bristol’s M Shed museum for facilitating this event and to M Shed’s Equality and Diversity programme sponsor: UWE Bristol.