Uganda Drops Anti-Gay Bill

Uganda has dropped - or shelved it's proposed anti-gay bill. Parliament closed yesterday after failing to implement it. Although Parliament has been extended to run on Monday and Tuesday, only administrative business will be carried out. Many, however, believe that public pressure scuppered the Bill's chances, especially the USA's description of the Bill as 'odioud'.

Read more here.

David Kato, Murdered

David Kato
1969 - 2011

The Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato has been murdered aged 42.

The BBC News obituary can be found here.

Outburst Cultural Day, November 27th

Outburst, serving the black LGBT community in London, have announced a cultural day event at Camberwell on November the 27th.

Click here for more details.

Justin Fashanu In Extra Time

Born in 1961, Justin Fashanu was brought up by foster parents and by the children’s charity Barnardos.

At 14 he signed schoolboy forms with Norwich City FC, where he progressed through the ranks and played for the first team when he was in his late teens. His 1980 volley against Liverpool was the goal of the season and still claims its place in football’s all time great moments.

The following year, he was signed by Brian Clough and joined Nottingham Forest for one million pounds. He would go on to find fame and notoriety as the first black million pound footballer. And the first (and still only) openly gay Premiership player.

Sadly, he would end his own life at the age of 37.

The play begins when Justin arrives back in the UK (pursued by allegations of sexually assaulting a teenage boy in America) and takes us to his death in a lock-up garage a few hundred metres from where the play is taking place.

What kind of man was he? How had events in his life shaped his thinking? Why are the last known accounts of him said to be happy and positive?

The Saturday matinee at 2.30pm will be followed by a Q&A

Justin Fashanu In Extra Time
Thurs 8th-Saturday 10th July, 8pm
Richmix
35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA
Price £12 and £10 concessions
boxoffice: 020 7613 7498 or online

Gay pride and prejudice in Kenya

Ishmael, an openly gay Kenyan man living in the small coastal town of Mtwapa, just north of Mombasa, says that many gay men have come to live here, attracted by its open-minded and liberal atmosphere.

But this image of the town has been overshadowed by an increasingly vocal and mobilised anti-gay campaign which has been garnering local support.

This comes after similar moves in neighbouring Uganda and Malawi.

Read the full article on BBC News here.

You can listen to Nina Robinson's report on the BBC World Service's Assignment programme from Thursday 17 June.

Dakar: from Africa's gay capital to centre of homophobia

In colonial times, Senegal's metropolis Dakar was famous for its open and tolerated homosexual prostitution market, and as late as in the 1970s, as many as 17 percent of Senegalese men admitted having had homosexual experiences. Now, Dakar is West Africa's centre of gay oppression.

Read the full article in Afrol News, here.

Black British Lesbian History Project: Contributions and Volunteers Needed

Like so much of LGBT History the specific experience of black British lesbians is being lost. The books are out of print and the memories are fading for not always being shared. Nazmia Jamal has created a new online chronology to try and preserve this memory.

The basis for the Black British lesbian timeline is the chronology printed in Valerie Mason-John & Ann Khambatta's 1993 book Lesbians Talk Making Black Waves.

This is the first step in a larger archive project. Nazmia is planning to apply for funding over the summer to set up a proper website. But in the meantime she needs your help. If you have any images, documents, publications, banners, memories etc that you would like to share please do get in touch.

If you know of any groups, events, meetings or publications (however short lived) that should be added to this timeline please add them to the blog (as a comment) or email nazmiaijamal@gmail.com

Nazmia is particularly interested in lesbian, queer or feminist history around the UK from 1993 onwards.

Please email above if you

* have information that can be added to the timeline
* would be interested in being interviewed for the history project
* are able to conduct an interview or do some research for the timeline
* could build us a proper website

Note that Nazmia is using the definition of 'black' that the London Black Lesbian and Gay Centre used, i.e. those who are “descended (through one or both parents) from Africa, Asia (i.e. the Middle East to China, including the Pacific nations) and Latin America, and lesbians and gay men descended from the original inhabitants of Australasia, North America, and the islands of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean.”

South African Lesbian Football Team Offers Sanctuary

Many people see South Africa, with its famously liberal constitution, as a bastion of sexual freedom on the continent.

But in some townships, gay women in particular experience homophobic abuse, rape and murder.

The BBC's Andrew Harding has been finding out how football has given one group of gay women sanctuary in South Africa; watch his 2min11 report here.

Georges Kanuma Dies

Georges Kanuma
1972 - 2010

The Burundian AIDS and Human Rights activist Georges Kanuma died on 14 April after a short illness.

- Burundi: Message of condolence for Georges Kanuma - Everyone Group
- Farewell to Committed Activist Georges Kanuma - Behind the Mask

Event: Gay Africa

GAY AFRICA is a response to the human rights and sexuality crisis sweeping the continent. In Uganda they propose to execute gays, in Malawi they imprison gay men who marry, in Nigeria they ban all meeting and support for LGBT people.

How far does the American Christian Right support homophobia in Africa? Is South Africa a shinning example of human rights or a special case? Do activists and the media in the West help or hinder African lesbians and gays? How does what’s happening in Africa impact on LGBT people throughout the world?

Performers and Special Guests include:
Dr Antoine Rogers (Lecturer in Social Policy)
Bisi Alimi (Nigerian LGBT Activist)
Campbell (Filmmaker/Curator)
Gaylene Gould (Broadcaster)
Godwyns Onwuchekwa (Nigerian LGBT Activist)
Dr Iain Reeves (Consultant in HIV Medicine)
Inua Ellams (Performance Poet)
Jasmine Cooray (Performance Poet)
John Bosco (Gay Ugandan Refugee)
Keith Jarrett (Performance Poet)
Lee Jasper (Black Human Rights Activist)
Michael Senyonjo (Ugandan Human Rights Activist)
Mojisola Adebayo (Writer/Performer)
Phyll Opoku (UK Black Pride)
Rhymes Won’t Wait Collective
Rev. Rowland Jide Macaulay (House of Rainbow)
Shaun Newport (Pride London)
Skye Chirape (Zimbabwean LGBT Activist)

Short films screening:
Souljah by Rikki Beadle-Blair (Best Short Film at Rushes Soho)
Young Black & Gay by Dean Atta (Channel 4, bfm IFF, LLGFF)

Gay Africa
Sunday 28th February 2010
4pm – 8pm
Free Word Centre
60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA
Free
Facebook event

What the Uganda anti-gay bill is about in 3min

Exhibition: Ethnic Minorities Coming Out

Coming out can be painless for some but stressful and even traumatic for others, including friends and family. A new exhibition to open in East London documents the experiences of ethnic minority individuals coming out, allowing them to express their experiences and difficulties with culture and traditions through the medium of visual arts.

The project involves the production and exhibition of photographic images of ethnic minority lesbian, gay and bisexual people, accompanied by text describing their experience -both positive and negative- of coming out.

To find out more and view some of the images of the exhibition, visit www.sonalle.com

Ethnic Minorities Coming Out
Fri 11 September – Sun 4 October
admission free
Rich Mix
Mezzanine
35 - 47 Bethnal Green Road
London E1 6LA
www.richmix.org.uk

Image: Sonalle Photography

Queering Asia

Asia is set to become the new dominant economic and cultural pole in the next few decades. There remains many questions about human rights in that part of the world, particularly when it comes to LGBT rights.

It is therefore interesting to see, 40 years after the Stonewall Riots that kick-started the movement, a blossoming of Pride events across the far east.

Earlier this month, Shanghai organised China's first ever Pride event which lasted a week. Despite the fact that homosexuality is not illegal in China, it is still not accepted socially and the government felt obliged to ask the event's organisers to tone things down and no public event took place. Read an AFP article here. www.shanghaipride.com.

At the same time, India, where homosexuality is still illegal, thanks to the British inherited Section 377, will see Pride celebrations in the 5 biggest cities. This follows a massive growth in LGBT visibility and support throughout the country.
Find out more here.

Lagos / London 2008 - Andrew Esiebo and Nilu Izadi

Lagos / London 2008 - Photographers Andrew Esiebo and Nilu Izadi in conversation about their recent work

Wednesday, 8 October, 3.30 pm - 5 pm, Goldsmiths University, RHB 139 (aka Main Building)

Andrew Esiebo is a photographer working in Ibadan and Lagos, Nigeria, and a member of the Black Box photographers' collective. His projects and residencies have brought him to London and Paris, where he has an ongoing audio-visual project Living Queer African and Eyes from South to West. His photographs have been exhibited, most recently, at the Thought Pyramid Gallery, in Abuja, and in the Tea Pavilion of the Guangzhou Triennial.

Nilu Izadi is a photographer with a fine arts background based in London, and a member of the Photo Debut photographers' collective. She has travelled extensively to build site-specific camera obscura around the world. These include, in Bassa Blanca, Spain, an army bunker conversion and a tent camera sewn with the members of a refugee camp in the Western Sahara. She has set up pinhole photography workshops for galleries including Serpentine and The Photographers' Gallery in London.

This event is free and open to the public.

Campus map and directions:
Goldsmiths CCS: http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/cultural-studies/
Queries to Dr. Jennifer Bajorek at j.bajorek@gold.ac.uk

Black History Month 09

As Labi Siffre joins the merry band of its patrons, LGBT History Month UK is proud to celebrate Black History Month this October.

Please visit the resource pages we have put together to mark the month. These include some information about prominent black LGBT people and black LGBT organisations.

You can view these pages by clicking here or on the image above.

LGBT History Month Nominated

LGBT History Month has been nominated for the Black LGBT Community Awards 2008 in the category Advocacy Group. The award recompenses the organisation who has made the biggest impact on ensuring that Black LGBT communities are represented in society and that their rights are protected.

The awards are organised by the Black Gay Men’s Advisory Group, an independent group of black gay and bisexual men of African and African/Caribbean parentage working for and on behalf of black men who have sex with men. Award categories include Lifetime Achievement, Woman and Man of the Year, Club of the Year, Arts, Community Development, Communications and Health Promotion.

The award ceremony will take place on 20 September. To vote for your favorites, visit www.blgbt.com (until 8 September).

Black Prides

The second annual Outburst UK Black LGBTQ Pride Festival took place on Saturday at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in north London and was dedicated to the memory of fashion designer, actor and model, Arthur Peters who died last month. The day ran from 12 Noon till 10pm with a fireworks display at 9pm.

Headlining on the main stage was US RnB recording artiste Michael Ashanti who was performing exclusively at the festival, plus Kym Mazelle, the well known American Dance-pop, Soul and House music diva, UK Lesbian Rapper Mz Fontaine, European dance sensation Shena, plus the UK’s answer to Destiny’s Child 4Flava, one of the UK’s top belly dancer Cassia, up and coming rapper MC Chewy, young R’n’B singer Cory McLeod, UK Reggae artiste Guess, and others. The host this year was TV presenter and director, Trevor Blackman.

For more information visit www.outburstfestival.org

If you missed this event, another chance of attending a black pride offers itself on Saturday the 16th


The party will be taking place at Regent College, Regent's Park and will feature the likes of Leon Lopez (Hollyoaks and Brookside), Souls of Prophecy, Mz Fontaine, Michael Anthony, Ms Kimberly. Music will be supplied by Biggy C, Jeffrey Hinton, Nubian Soul, Saj, Gina K, Goodaz, Flex, DJ G, Philly, MC Tyron, amongst others.

There will also be a UK Black Pride's Got Talent Showcase and a Caribana World Tent showcasing music from around the world with DJs and performers such as Desire, Marvin Madix (MDB), MC Chewy and Guess. Also at hand will be a chillout zone, crazy play area, market place and information stalls.

Visit www.ukblackpride.org.ukfor more information.

New LGBT Hip-Hop Website Launched

The growing rise of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgendered hip hop artists and rappers has given birth to a website exclusively catering for the underground music scene that has long been referred to as "homohop". OutHipHop.com says their goal is to be the primary destination on the internet for all "out" hip hop artists (and their fans), an all inclusive home for LGBT artists who make all forms of rap and every variation of hip hop and are "out" with their sexuality.

The website, which is already live, features Interviews, CD reviews, a robust Artist Directory, Feature Stories and News, a Bulletin Board, and Media. The site presently offers a free Mixtape download and promises more content as time goes by.

Many of the news items and CD reviews are featured in a blog-like manner, which allows readers to post comments.

Egyptian Film to Explore Homosexuality

Although Egyptian cinema, since its inception, has presented many homosexual characters, most of these have been comic devices inserted to generate a few cheap laughs. The only serious portrayals of homosexuality have been through a few minor characters in a handful of Egyptian films like Salah Abou Seif's Malatili Bathhouse (1973), Youssef Chahine's Alexandria Trilogy (1980's), Asmaa Bakry's Mendicants et Orgueilleux (1991), Yousry Nasrallah's Mercedes (1993), and Marwan Hamed’s The Yacoubian Building (2007).

However, these were presented in a manner so subtle as to often be detected only by the initiated. The Egyptian Underground Film Society (EUFS), a group of artists and intellectuals seeking a creative outlet away from political restrictions, has just completed its first production, All My Life, which falls firmly into the category of Queer Cinema. Its protagonists are gay men seen facing persecution and discrimination, particularly in the wake of the 2001 witch-hunts against them; the most famous incident being the Queen Boat arrests in which 52 alleged homosexuals were tried in a national security court.

According to the film's director/screenwriter Maher Sabry, "We all build fences around ourselves to protect ourselves from pain; that's why it's easy, when we see others treated unjustly, to assume that they must have done something to deserve punishment. It's especially easy if they believe differently from us or live a lifestyle we don't approve of. Then it comes round to us, and others say the same.. and so on until we all know what it feels like to be oppressed."

With the rise of the wave of conservatism in Egypt and the Arab world in recent years, artists have become increasingly unable to tackle a number of subjects that were dealt with in Egyptian cinema in the past. Last year, following the screening of Egyptian film The Yacoubian Building, 112 members of the Egyptian Parliament - one-quarter of the total - signed a petition demanding the removal of the scenes portraying the only homosexual character in the film. And yet, the portrayal of the gay character in Yacoubian Building is tame compared to the one in The Malatili Bathhouse in 1973, more than thirty years earlier.

All My Life, a product of guerrilla filmmaking, attempts to break away from the taboos imposed by Egyptian censorship, sexual, social and political. According to the director, "Censorship is a knife in the heart of any artistic movement. The censor treats me like a child, telling me, as a person, what to read, what to hear, what to watch, and therefore how to think, how to express myself. All this is done in the name of "protecting the public interest" but in fact it is "protecting power-holders and political interests". Censorship only flourishes in countries with corrupt and tyrannical governments afraid of a rise in public awareness; it guarantees the maintenance of the status quo. Just as the Internet revolution has opened the door to people to express themselves uncensored, so the digital filmmaking revolution has given me the same opportunity. I knew from the start that my movie would never officially be allowed a public screening; but I'm confident that people will see it, because where there is corruption, video piracy is all the rage. When the festivals are over, it'll be for sale on the sidewalks like all banned films. This way, I know I may not recoup the money I spent on the film, but at least I'll have achieved self-fulfillment."

Find out more about the film here. We do not currently know if All My Life is scheduled for release in the UK.

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.