Policy conference on transgender equality – inc. issues in education: Westminster Social Policy Forum, Morning, Wednesday, 15th June 2016
by Laurence Georgin
Westminster Social Policy Forum Keynote Seminar: Policy priorities for transgender equality
with Rt Hon Maria Miller MP, Chair, Women and Equalities Committee and former Minister for Women and Equalities and former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Rt Hon Paul Burstow, Chair, Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust; Professor of Health & Social Care, City University, London and former Minister of State for Care Services, and Helen Belcher, Trans Media Watch; Peter Dawson, Prison Reform Trust; Will Huxter, NHS England; Delia Johnston, Trans in Sport and Steve Mulcahy, Richard Lander School, Cornwall
This timely seminar will assess policy priorities for transgender equality, focusing on:
- Issues around NHS services for transgender people;
- The effectiveness of the Gender Recognition Act, the Equality Act 2010 and the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act;
- Inclusion in both education and workplace environments; and
- Transphobia (including the portrayal of trans people in the media) and hate crime against trans people.
Following the recent Women and Equalities Committee inquiry which considered how trans people still have yet to achieve full equality, attendees will consider how key issues are dealt with by Government agencies, the media, the NHS, the criminal justice system and the education system.
The agenda includes a keynote contribution from Rt Hon Maria Miller MP, Chair, Women and Equalities Committee and former Minister for Women and Equalities and former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Rt Hon Paul Burstow, Chair, Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust; Professor of Health & Social Care, City University, London and former Minister of State for Care.
The conference will bring together health practitioners and commissioners, local authorities, schools and other educational institutions, employers and HR professionals, legal experts, representatives from the criminal justice system, media companies, commentators and academics, campaign and third sector groups and other interested parties.
Delegates will discuss how to best address discrimination in other important public services, and will evaluate the outcome of the review into the care and management of transgender people in prison.
Overall, planned agenda sessions look at:
- Policy priorities for addressing transgender equality;
- The impact of legislation on gender recognition and identity;
- The portrayal of trans people in the media;
- The criminal justice system and its impact on transgender people;
- Access to health services and treatment; and
- How best to achieve an inclusive education and employment environment.
This event is CPD certified
More information can be found at: http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/forums/event.php?eid=1166
Lesbian Life Stories: Stuck in the Past? On the Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimonies (ALOT)
by Laurence Georgin
Thursday 18 February 2016 – 6:00pm
The 2016 Southampton Stonewall Lecture will be given this year by Professor Elise Chenier, Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. All welcome.
This 2016 Stonewall lecture from a leading historian of sexuality and gender will explore and explain lesbian experience as captured in three decades of oral histories. In the 1990s the discipline of history, once a leader in LGBT studies, was overtaken by literary and cultural studies, and ‘life experience’ fell out of academic fashion. Professor Chenier will show that âlesbianâ remains a useful category of analysis and that life stories continue to have a transformative effect, playing a key role in constructing the LGBT community.
This lecture will be chaired by Professor Mark Cornwall, Professor of Modern Europe History at University of Southampton.
Speaker information
Elise Chenier is Professor of History at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, and an expert in the history of sexuality and oral history. Her first book, Strangers In Our Midst: Sexual Deviancy in Postwar Ontario (Toronto, 2008) was awarded an honourable mention for the Canadian Law & Society Book Prize. She has published widely in journals such as the Radical History Review, the Journal of Women’s History, and Left History, and is the founder of the Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony (alotarchives.org), an open-access digital archives, and interracialintimacies.org, a digital visualization of the research process and learning tool. She is currently writing a book on ‘Same Sex Marriage in the USA, 1950-1987’.
Event Information
Venue
Avenue Campus
University of Southampton
SO17 1BF
RSVP by 14 February
This event is free however you must register to attend and receive joining instructions. Â To register for a place please visit the Online Store website.
The inaugural Stonewall Lecture was given in March 2012 by Angela Mason CBE, former executive director of the Stonewall charity. Her lecture, drawing a large audience, was entitled: âTwenty-Five Years On: The Fight for LGBT Rights in the UKâ. The 2013 lecture ‘Gay Culture in Postwar New York: Community Creation and Conflict‘ was given by Professor George Chauncey (Yale), 2014 was provided by Professor Laura Doan speaking about ‘On the Entanglements of Queer Memory and History: The case of Alan Turing‘ and last year we welcomed Professor Richard B Parkinson from the University of Oxford with his lecture entitled ‘Glimpses of a Gay World History: From Ancient Egypt to the Modern Museum‘. You will find recordings and interviews of these lectures by following the links above.
If you wish to attend this very popular lecture please register by 14 February for a place via the Online Store. Ensure you book soon to avoid disappointment!
There will be a charity collection on behalf of Stonewall at the end of the lecture.
Research: The experiences of sexually diverse individuals
by Laurence Georgin
Sarah Ella-Davies is currently studying for a Masters in Occupational Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. For her research project she is trying to gather information on the experiences of sexually diverse people. The experiences of sexually diverse individuals is a relatively unstudied area, and she hopes that evidence such as this will draw attention to some of the issues that need to be addressed.
To provide reliable results her research requires a relatively large number of participants. You can therefore fill in her questionnaire at
https://goldpsych.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6F2HokWUPWn9rdr
You can also circulate this and encourage people to complete the questionnaire.
All research information will be kept in strictest confidence and anonymity measures ensure that participants are unidentifiable from the data they submit.
The Gay Word documentary, Bernie Grant Arts Centre, Tottenham, London, 19 September 2015
by Laurence Georgin
ALL Welcome!
Doors open 17.00, film starts at 17.30 (run time 50 minutes)
The documentary will be followed by a Q&A with the producer, Amy Ashenden. There will also be a bar open til 22.00 with drinks and refreshments. Arrive early for the best seats!
Nearest tube: Seven Sisters, 5 min walk (take the High Road exit and continue towards Tesco, just past Haringey college bear left onto Town Hall Approach Road and the Bernie Grant Arts Centre is on your left).
Register at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-gay-word-documentary-premiere-screening-qa-with-producer-tickets-18179268682Â
The Gay Word trailer:Â https://youtu.be/cItd4S0L4ugÂ
The Gay Word is a documentary about the recent trend of saying the word âgayâ negatively to mean rubbish, uncool, or embarrassing. Amy Ashenden travels around the South East of England to find out why some people have started to say ‘eurgh that’s gay’. Is it homophobic or has language evolved?
Amy Ashenden asks gay and straight people, young and old, why it makes certain people deeply offended and others less phased. At Stonewallâs HQ in the city centre of London, Amy speaks to the largest gay rights organisation in Europe, which is campaigning against the word âgayâ being used negatively, and travels to meet the university academic who claims itâs harmless. She also speaks to teachers, parents, a LGBT+ activist, a transgender male, and young people still in school to find out where the trend of saying âthatâs so gayâ negatively comes from, and if it should be stopped.
Amy Ashenden is a BA French and Spanish graduate from the University of Southampton. She freelances for the Guardian<http://www.theguardian.com/profile/amy-ashenden>, is the former editor of the Guardian Student Website of the Year 2013, The Student Journals<http://studentjournals.co.uk/>, and has previously produced Working for Nothing<https://youtu.be/eRSVbNcHjJc> – a documentary about unpaid internships in the UK, which featured an interview with the leader of the Green Party, Natalie Bennett.
If you can’t go, there will be a showing of Amy’s work at the University in February. More about it soon!
What makes life âliveableâ for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) people in Southampton?
by Carla Barrett
Liveable Lives project workshop (Southampton)
Sat 21st February, 12 noon to 3pm
Central Hall, Evans Street, Southampton, S014 1ZA
What makes life âliveableâ for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) people? And what makes life not liveable? The Liveable Lives project, based at the University of Brighton, wants to hear from Southampton! Places outside of big cities are often neglected in LGBTQ research in the UK, making this a rare opportunity for Southamptonâs LGBTQ people to take part in an international project.
Southamptonâs LGBTQ communities are invited to join us on Saturday 21st February, for an interactive project workshop that will explore what makes our lives âliveableâ rather than just âbearableâ, so that life feels like living, and not just surviving. This ground-breaking research will gather stories and experiences of everyday life as an LGBTQ person through activities like drawing maps of our lives; making collages to visualise how we live our lives; and expressing ideas through writing. There will also be the opportunity to join in discussion groups with other LGBTQ people, and to have one-to-one interviews with researchers. Attendees who would like to stay involved in the project after the workshop will be able to take part through their mobile phones, using a quick and easy web-based app!
The workshop will be held at Central Hall, Evans Street, Southampton, SO14 1ZA on Saturday 21st February. LGBTQ people can drop in any time from 12 noon to 3pm, and come and go as suits them throughout the day. Food and drinks will be provided, and the venue is wheelchair accessible. Please bring along partners, friends, and share the invite with your networks.
Those wishing to take part or find out more about the project can contact us via Facebook (www.facebook.com/groups/liveablelives/) or Twitter (@liveablelives), or by sending us an email (liveablelives@brighton.ac.uk).
If you are interested in taking part, you can sign up here: http://goo.gl/forms/rrkY4OdCVK or join the Facebook event here: http://on.fb.me/1GpRu4U. This will help us plan for the numbers who wish to attend and let us contact you with further details about the event.
Annual Southampton Stonewall Lecture – 11 February 2015
by Carla Barrett
The 2015 Southampton Stonewall Lecture will be given by Professor Richard B. Parkinson, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford.
‘GLIMPSES OF A GAY WORLD HISTORY: FROM ANCIENT EGYPT TO THE MODERN MUSEUM’
Wednesday 11 February 2015 – 6:00pm in Lecture Theatre A (Avenue Campus)
The lecture will be chaired by Professor Mark Cornwall
ALL WELCOME!
Professor Parkinson has worked on same-sex desire in ancient Egyptian culture and literature, exploring the possibilities of a âqueer philologyâ. This year’s Stonewall lecture will discuss his research on this topic and the wider issue of how and why museums can represent same-sex experiences as integral parts of world cultures. He will discuss his experience of curating a ground-breaking LGBT history project at the British Museum, which drew on objects ranging from ancient Egyptian papyri, German ceramics, images by modern artists such as David Hockney and Bhupen Khakhar, and the Merchant Ivory film âMauriceâ, in order to present a âLittle Gay Historyâ of the world in 40 or so objects from a single museum collection.
The Southampton Stonewall Lecture is an annual lecture at the University of Southampton devoted to the history of homosexuality or LGBT history. The purpose of the lecture is to educate the present about the past; to showcase thinking and research about LGBT history; and to enhance the University of Southamptonâs remit of promoting sexual diversity in the regional community.
The inaugural Stonewall Lecture was given in March 2012 by Angela Mason CBE, former executive director of the Stonewall charity. Her lecture, drawing a large audience, was entitled: âTwenty-Five Years On: The Fight for LGBT Rights in the UKâ. The 2013 lecture, ‘Gay Culture in Postwar New York: Community Creation and Conflict’, was given by Professor George Chauncey (Yale). Last year’s lecturer was Professor Laura Doan, speaking about ‘On the Entanglements of Queer Memory and History: The Case of Alan Turing’ .
Remembrance Day
by Carla Barrett
As part of the University of Southampton’s Great War programme (2014-15), a new work will be performed at the Turner Sims on Sunday 16th November at 7.30pm. This is ‘Remembrance Day’ by the composer Michael Finnissy, who is also chair of Composition at Southampton. The piece notably addresses the issue of homo-erotic content in war-poetry and incorporates texts by Henry Lamont Simpson (backgrounded by Goethe and Peter Abelard). It is therefore an intriguing interdisciplinary way for us to think about masculinity and the memory of the Great War.
For tickets, contact the Turner Sims box office on 02380 595 151 or email info@turnersims.co.uk.
See also the full Great War programme at:Â http://www.southampton.ac.uk/greatwar_unknownwar/
The Chevalier d’Eon: Transgender Diplomat at the Court of George III, 1763-1777
by Carla Barrett
Dr Jonathan Conlin (Senior Lecturer in Modern History, University of Southampton) will be giving a lecture entitled “The Chevalier d’Eon: Transgender Diplomat at the Court of George III, 1763-1777” at The National Archives later this month.
Date: Thursday 23rd October
Time: 6pm
For more information and to book a place at this event, please click here.
Exiles of Love: LĂda MerlĂnovĂĄ and the World of the Czech Lesbian
by Carla Barrett
As part of the Czech/Slovak Literature Seminar Series at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Professor Mark Cornwall (University of Southampton) will be giving a talk entitled “Exiles of Love (Vyhnanci lĂĄsky): LĂda MerlĂnovĂĄ and the World of the Czech Lesbian”.
Date:Â Thursday 11th December
Time: 6pm
Venue:Â UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 16 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BWÂ (room TBC).
All are welcome. Texts in the original language will be made available prior to the meeting; please contact Peter Zusi at p.zusi@ucl.ac.uk. Unless indicated otherwise texts do not exist in English translation.
Thomas Glave: An Evening of Readings and Conversation
by Carla Barrett
Photo credit:Â Oslo Freedom Forum
Wednesday 15th October 2014 at 6pm
Lecture Theatre B, James Parkes Building, Avenue Campus, University of Southampton
Thomas Glave is a writer of essays, short-fiction and poetry whose books include Whose Song? And Other Stories, Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent, The Torturer’s Wife and Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh. He is also the editor of the ground-breaking anthology Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles.
His short story – The Final Inning – received an O Henry Prize in 1997, while Words to Our Now and Our Caribbean were both recognized with Lambda Literary Awards celebrating excellence in LGBT literature. Glave’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, Callaloo, and in several anthologies. His interests include contemporary Caribbean “Queer” writing, Latin American and post-colonial literature, Black British writers, literatures of testimony and human rights and creative non-fiction. He has been an important voice for LGBT rights in the contemporary Caribbean.
Glave is a professor of English and creative writing at the State University of New York in Binghamton and 2014 Leverhulme Visiting Professor in Hispanic Studies at the University of Warwick. He will be in conversation with Professor Stephen Morton (English) and Dr. Christer Petley (History).
This event is organized by the Centre for Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies at the University of Southampton.