Brace Yourself for the Adventure - Exhibition

May looks set to be a second LGBT History Month in the South West this year. An exhibition, organised by The Intercom Trust and running throughout the month, opened on the 1st May at the North Somerset Museum in Weston-super-Mare as an opportunity to experience the vibrant heritage of everyone’s diverse past.

Brace Yourself for the Adventure
1 May – 31 May
North Somerset Museum
Burlington Street
Weston-super-Mare
10am to 4.30pm, Monday – Saturday

Intercom Trust

LGBT Related Radio and TV Programmes. 18th – 25th May

We seek them out so you don't have to. This is our weekly non-exhaustive round up of upcoming LGBT programmes on the radio and television. Inclusion of a programme is not a recommendation.
Enjoy!

Radio
Some of the programmes listed below will remain available for listen again from the BBC's website.

Monday 19th
BBC Radio 4 - 3.45pm: Joan Armatrading’s Favourite Choirs

Tuesday 20th
BBC Radio 4 - 3.45pm: Joan Armatrading’s Favourite Choirs

Wednesday 21st
BBC Radio 4 - 3.45pm: Joan Armatrading’s Favourite Choirs

Thursday 22nd
BBC Radio 4 - 11.30am: A Taste of Honey - The legacy of the play explored.
BBC Radio 4 - 3.45pm: Joan Armatrading’s Favourite Choirs

Friday 23rd
BBC Radio 4 - 3.45pm: Joan Armatrading’s Favourite Choirs
BBC Radio 4 - 6.30pm: The News Quiz, chaired by Sandi Toksvig
BBC Three Counties Radio - 10.0pm: Ern and Vern
Available in Herts. Beds. Bucks. Cambs. Northants. Essex. Listen live online here.

Television

Films

Sunday 18th
C4 - 9.00pm: Brokeback Mountain. First terrestrial outing for Ang Lee’s adaptation of Annie Proulx’s tale of two gay cowboys.

Factual and entertainment

Sunday 18th
BBC1 - 7.30pm: I’d Do Anything. Norton, Barrowman and Humphries judge the Nancys.
BBC2 - 11.00pm: Graham Norton Uncut. Late night repeat from Thursday
ITV - 10.45pm: South Bank Show. Melvyn Bragg meets Gore Vidal in LA.

Monday 19th
C4 - 8.00pm: Dispatches looks at Christian fundamentalists
C4 - 10:00pm: Reverend Death - a gay priest helps people to commit suicide.

Tuesday 20th
BBC2 - 9.00pm: The Supersizers Go. Features Sue Perkins messing with wartime food
C4 - 8.00pm: How to Look Good Naked. Last in series.

Wednesday 21st
C5 - 10.00pm: Viagra; 10 years and on the rise
E4 - 11.35pm: Brothers and Sisters

Thursday 22nd
BBC2 - 9.45pm: Graham Norton Show
C4 - 11.00pm: Derren Brown: Trick or Treat.

Friday 23rd
BBC1 - 10.35pm: Jonathan Ross. Neil Diamond
BBC2 - 10.00pm: QI. Stephen Fry presents
ITV - 8.30pm: Coronation Street. Paul may leave.
C4 - 10.00pm: Derren Brown: Trick or Treat

History Month Signs Declaration Against Hate Crime

Race for Justice is a cross-governmental strategy to combat Hate Crime in our society spear-headed by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform and the Attorney General. By singing the declaration, History Month shows its support to the Attorney General's initiative and marks its will to continue its work to eradicate all forms of hate crime. We invite you and your organisation to join us by also signing the declaration.

Read the Attorney General's letter and invitation here (pdf file).
View the signed declaration here.

International Day Against Homophobia - IDAHO

The newly released International Lesbian and Gay Association’s 2008 report on state-sponsored homophobia says that to be lesbian or gay risks jail time in 86 countries and death penalty in seven. The figure normally quoted is 77 countries (find out more here).

In the UK itself, while amazing advances have been made in the Statutes Books in the last 10 years, homophobic incidence are a still all too common, especially in the schoolyard.

International Day Against Homophobia provides a platform for everyone to make a powerful statement to demand improvements for the quality of life for LGBT people both overseas and here in the UK. The 17th May -the day in 1990 when the World Health Organisation finally removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders- can be used to raise awareness of homophobic issues that are negatively impacting on people’s lives and to showcase success stories where a positive change has been achieved.

As befits a campaign in the UK, it will be marked in a wide variety of ways, with gravitas, concern, determination, wit and irony.

On the morning of Saturday May 17th campaigners in Plymouth will be assembling their floats which celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Rainbow Flag, elder LGBT people in Belfast will be preparing to launch their new social/campaigning group , a lesbian in Leicester will begin the task of judging the winner of an IDAHO cake competition, and Trade Unionists in London will be laying wreaths for those who have been judicially slaughtered as a consequence of their sexuality.

The Communication Workers Union will be laying wreath in London to “openly protest at the appalling manner in which Iran treats LGB people”.

The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association is hosting a meeting at Amnesty International Human Rights Centre, which will explore the rights of LGBT people at home and abroad. They will also be addressed by the Director of Changing Attitude, Nigeria. In Scotland, campaigners have designed posters under the categories of asylum, justice and human rights under the heading “Love is for everyone, everywhere” and these have been widely distributed particularly to schools “to raise the Scottish public awareness of human rights afforded to LGBT people around the world”.

The University and College Union have arranged a major conference in Manchester about “LGB Rights in Europe”. In Oxford, Amnesty International have arranged a demonstration and rally which will be addressed by several campaigners, including human rights activist, Peter Tatchell. There will be another demonstration in Medway, Kent this time about the homophobic statements of the Bishop of Register while Kent Police will hold a seminar in Maidstone as part of its campaign to raise awareness and reporting of hate crime. Brighton campaigners will again mark the day by releasing 77 lanterns into the sky, to mark the countries which criminalise homosexuality. The London Borough of Waltham Forest will unveil a plaque which has been commissioned “to remember the many victims of homophobia and transphobia from around the world and the UK who have lost their lives”

While there is naturally a focus on events abroad, no-one is complacent about LGBT Rights in the UK. The Lesbian and Gay National Archives have called a conference to reflect and remember Section 28, and an exhibition in Lewisham recalls the decriminalisation of homosexuality in “1967 and all that”. A film made by a Liverpool LGBT Youth group called “Are we there yet?” will be shown as part of a daily programme in a mainstream cinema up to and including IDAHO day. In Manchester, on the other hand, the Lesbian and Gay Foundation will be showing the film “Stonewall” to see “how far we’ve come”. There are many hate crime initiatives too. The Met will be present in Leicester Square on May 16th giving out information and advice about hate crime, and will also distribute 10,000 postcards for IDAHO day. Liverpool police will fly the rainbow flag, and at night their police station will be illuminated by a dazzling display of rainbow colours. New police advice surgeries/helplines for the LGBT communities will also be launched on IDAHO day in Bromley, Liverpool and Kent. Local authorities have arranged public awareness raising events for IDAHO, often including speeches, entertainment, a minutes noise or silence in Haringey, Hartlepool, Plymouth, Sheffield, Birmingham, Coventry, Bath, Tameside, South Shields and Northampton.

Posters designed by students at the University of Arts to mark IDAHO have been distributed all around the country in police stations, schools, job centres and youth clubs.

IDAHO takes place on May 17th and so does the UK’s Football Cup Final. Events to reflect this have been arranged in Brighton, Oldham, and Sheffield. In the FA Cup Final Programme, not only is there a commitment to tackle homophobia, but support is given for the International Day Against Homophobia-an incredible achievement.

Derek Lennard, IDAHO-UK Coordinator commented “Perhaps the time will arrive soon when gay professional footballers will feel safe enough to “come out”, and help break down one of the last bastions of homophobia in the UK”. He continued “In the meantime, and to the extent which it is appropriate, I would like to wish campaigners and supporters in the UK and abroad a happy IDAHO day for May 17th”.

Find out more about the day and the events organised across the country: www.idaho.org.uk or join the IDAHO UK facebook group

Picture taken at the protest against the deportation of Mehdi Kazemi back to Iran - Opposite Downing Street, Whitehall, 22 March 2008

Robert Rauschenberg Dies

Robert Rauschenberg
1925 - 2008

The art critic Robert Hughes once described the influencial and controversial american artist Robert Rauschenbergas "a protean genius who showed America that all of life could be open to art." Adding that his "taste was always facile, omnivorous, and hit-or-miss, yet he had a bigness of soul and a richness of temperament that re called Walt Whitman."

Lord Arthur's Bed

2008 - City slickers Donald and Jim are celebrating their civil partnership.
1868 - Lord Arthur Pelham-Clinton, 3rd son of the 5th Duke of Newcastle, married a pretty young creature, who went by the name of Miss Stella Boulton, thereafter known as Lady Arthur Clinton.

But disaster struck when Lady Arthur and her best friend Fanny were arrested at the theatre. A police investigation revealed a fact of some importance: Stella was actually Ernest Boulton and Fanny was really Fred Park. They were both charged with sodomy and sent for trial. Lord Arthur was also charged.

Lord Arthur's Bed by Martin Lewton weaves these two stories together, dramatizing the farcical trial that gripped the nation 25 years before the downfall of Oscar Wilde. In Fanny and Stella's extraordinary and comical story, two modern men find a hidden history and some uncomfortable truths that threaten to wreck their new life together.

The production is on tour throughout May and will be in:

Brighton on 14/15/16 May at 7.30 at the Friends Meeting House
01273 709709 www.brightonfestivalfringe.org.uk

Leeds on 20/21 May at 8.00 The Carriageworks
0113 2243801 www.carriageworkstheatre.org.uk

Bath on 22/23 May at 8.00 at The Rondo Theatre
01225 463362 www.bathfestivals.org.uk

Settle on 24 May at 8.00 at the Victoria Theatre
01729 825718 www.settlevictoriatheatre.co.uk

The play contains nudity and scenes of a sexual nature, suitable for ages 16+.

Some background to the Clinton case can be found here (spoiler for those planning to attend the play).

Pictures: "Stella Boulton" and an admirer and poster for the show

Hidden Gay Hip-Hop Scene Revealed

Terrance Dean, a former executive at music channel MTV, has penned a memoir of his life and times in the hip hop industry as a gay man. It is an explosive exposé of a thriving gay subculture in an aggressively male business, where anti-gay lyrics and public homophobia are common.

[...] That gay hip hop subculture certainly seems to be thriving. Dean's book describes a world where many industry executives and some artists are leading secret gay lives, which are often obvious to everyone but rarely talked about. And, despite using some false names, the book contains enough information so that it will undoubtedly spark off a frenzy of speculation as to who some of the characters are in real life.

[...] Dean hopes that by bringing out his book he will allow a leading hip hop figure to come out as gay and thus pave the way for the notoriously homophobic industry to come to terms with its secret side.

[...] There are signs that things are changing. Several leading rap artists, including top seller Kanye West, have admitted that homophobia is rampant in the industry and they have spoken out against it. West had previously spoken out against gay lyrics. There are also a handful of openly gay rappers such as Deadlee, who has held national US tours of his music and appeared on television to talk about his sexuality.

Read the full article in the Guardian here.

Hiding In Hip-Hop, on the low-down in the entertainment industry - from music to Hollywood by Terrance Dean was released on 13 May in the USA and will be available on 17 July in the UK. Dean is also the author of a blog.

Campaigners Gather to Fight Birmingham Pride March Ban

Birmingham Pride will not have its traditional march and parade this year as a result of a lack of agreement over traffic restrictions. Some see this as a cynical effort to allay the fears of residents as the gay village is turned into a posh housing estate. Some see it as another nail in the coffin for the notion of Pride as a political event.

The University of Birmingham LGBTQ Association believe “Birmingham Pride” and its parade to be the most important event of the Birmingham LGBT calendar. They see Pride as a protest. The LGBT community do face social inequality and discrimination on a daily basis and feel it still has not achieved the aims of the Queer Liberation Movement of the sixties which was recreated in last year’s parade. The Association feels that Birmingham Pride will be incomplete without its Parade and risks forgeting its purpose, not only this, but it is also confined solely to the gay village: out of sight and sound of the heterosexual world.

The association, like so many others, declares itself unaware of the complete reasons for the cancellation of the parade, but believes it is not too late to host a simple march taking the aims of pride back to its grassroots. This pride march is possible through the use of the ‘Human Rights Act of 2001’ stating a person’s right to peaceful protest. The parade needs no budget and this way needs no permission from the council.

The association is therefore calling for a meeting to discuss plans to organise a parade. This is to be held at Nightingales on Wednesday 14th May at 7pm. If you are interested in attending this meeting, and being involved in the parade march, or for any further information, contact the University of Birmingham LGBTQ Association by email (lgbtq@guild.bham.ac.uk) or by phone (07871899155 – Holly Pike (Chair), 07712588808 – Emma O’Dwyer (LGBTQ Officer))

for more information about the association, please visit: www.lgbtq.co.uk

Moj of the Antarctic Returns to South London

Following a successful run in March 2007, Moj of the Antarctic returns to Oval House Theatre for one week only to launch the production’s British Council-sponsored tour of southern Africa in June/July 2008.

Moj of the Antarctic is inspired by the wonderful true life story of Ellen Craft, a 19th century African-American slave woman who escaped to freedom by disguising herself as a white man. Ellen’s amazing story of race and cross-dressing is one of the forgotten gems of black and trans histories.

Moj of the Antarctic extends Ellen’s life story into a flight of theatrical fantasy where upon arrival in Victorian London, she finds work as a sailor on a whaling ship bound for the Southern Seas. Life on the ship is tough and even stranger is the men’s obsession with Black face minstrelsy. Eventually the ship arrives in Antarctic waters ripe for whaling, and Moj becomes the first black woman to step foot on Antarctica.

This innovative theatre piece incorporates video, words, dance, music, storytelling, song and stunning original photography created for the piece on location in Antarctica by queer visual artist Del LaGrace Volcano.

Moj of the Antarctic is set to tour in summer 2008 to South Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mauritius, delivering a programme of performances, workshops and artist development by writer-performer Mojisola Adebayo and Oval House’s Head of Theatre Programming, Ben Evans.

Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey
Directed by Sheron Wray
13 – 17 May, Tuesday - Saturday 7:45pm,
Oval House Theatre
Kennington Oval
London SE11
Tickets: £12/£6 concessions
Box office: 020 7582 7680
Online sales: www.ovalhouse.com (no fee)
BSL interpreted performance with Jacqui Beckford: 13 May, 7.45pm
Matinee: 17 May, 3.00pm

Berlin Street Named After Pioneer Scientist

Only a few days before the 140th anniversary of his birth (14 May), the city of Berlin honoured the memory of Magnus Hirshfeld.

A promenade located along the Spree river, right in the political centre of the German state, was re-baptised the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Ufer by the German Justice Minister on 6 may after the pioneering physician, sexologist and gay rights advocate who was persecuted by the Nazi. The chairwoman of the Berlin Jewish community, the sexologist Martin Dannecker, representatives of the City also joined members of the gay community in the event which happened at the initiative the Gay and Lesbian German Federation (LSVD).

On the 10 May 1933, Hirshfeld's Institute for Sexual Research (which he founded in 1919) was pillaged by the Nazi. His books and records were destroyed. On the occasion of the ceremony, the LSVD launched a subscription for the installation on the newly named street of a replica of bust of the scientist which was destroyed by the Nazi when they attacked the Institute.

27th May will see the inauguration in Berlin of the a monument commemorating LGBT victims of the Holocaust (more info)

Magnus Hirshfeld