Last weekend was Birmingham Pride , I’m sure that many of you were there and had an incredible time. This year the parade was back on properly after its change last year, and Coalition had another ‘Pride is a Protest’ walking float which was a great success with loads of people marching from various different universities around the Midlands- UoB, Aston, Birmingham City, Derby, Coventry, Warwick and Newman (sorry if I’ve forgotten anyone). This year was my first Birmingham Pride, and I’ve never been to a Pride so big before, and I had a lot of fun. But I find it questionable whether fun should be the main aim of Pride. If you look in the a variety of gay magazines, Pride is much more often called such things as ‘pink party time’ than ‘pink politics time’. In an entire 13 page ‘Pride Guide’ there is not one mention of the politics behind the party, the main need for us to have Pride at all.

Our Fight For the Right to Party banner

As we have gained more rights as a community, our freedom has undoubtedly, by many, come to be taken for granted. Surely Pride is a perfect time for the community to come together, and as well as being glad for how far we have come, thinking about and shouting about when we don’t have and what so many others around the world also lack. I am not claiming that I am some kind of martyr for the cause, but simply someone who wants to see change, and, next year, will do her back to try and see it come to fruition.

The theme for this year was, it has to be said, a significant improvement on last year’s ‘Pink and Green’. ‘Equality through the Decades’ could have been historical, informative, political, and radical. It could have been so much more, but all it really was manifested itself as were a few loosely themed floats in the parade. After all, why does Pride need to have a theme, per-se? Surely gay rights are the theme of pride, and whether or not they have been achieved. When every LGBTQ person in the world has the same rights as every straight person, then we can have themes that celebrate this change.

The men hired by Seflridges last year to participate in London Pride

Pride has become a corporate sponsored, capitalist, money making opportunity. This cannot be doubted. A big party is, of course, a great deal of fun, but for a community (for that is what we are) who used to pride itself on its incredible voice, its power to change society, we have lost our drive. It would of course take immense amounts of effort, of time, to change pride even partially back to the way it was, but why do so many doubt the possibility? Thirty years ago, Harvey Milk stood up at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade and inspired a message of hope to the tens of thousands of people there. This year, Lady Gaga stood up and did exactly the same thing (Although it has to be said, her public speaking doesn’t really compare), to over 1.2 million listeners. If we really did had reached equality and could warrant a completely commercialised Pride, then this wouldn’t even have been necessary, and despite her popularity, so many people would not have turned out, they would have cared more about the alcohol than the atrocities.

Maybe Gaga is a little high to aim for Birmingham Pride, given that this year we bagged The Cheeky Girls, but why not, in the future, do what we do best? Fight back, protest, and have a bloody good time while we’re at it. Just give it a decade and I can but hope.

righttoparty.lgbtq.co.uk

To read our motion submitted to NUS LGBT Conference see below:

Lee Pitchford, manager of Missing bar in the Birmingham Gay Village is pleased to present the Midlands BIGay Night Out on Saturday, 27th March. This event is a charity fundraiser and all proceeds will goto ABPlus and Cancer Research UK – two very worthwhile charities – so please come along and show your support.

Coaches are picking up from the city centres of Stoke on Trent, Wolverhampton, Derby, Coventry, Nottingham, Walsall, Telford, Sheffield, Shrewsbury, Kidderminster Northampton, Leicester, Burton, Cannock, Manchester and Gloucester. Coach tickets are only £10, cover the outbound and return trips and are available to buy online – click here!

Coach ticket holders get:

• Cheap return travel to Birmingham!
• Fun and games on the coach!
• Barcrawl to 5 venues; fun, games and drink offers!
• £4 off entry to DV8
• £2 off entry to the Gale
• £2 off entry to Chic

I’m advertising this event to LGBTQ students at the University of Birmingham as well as our Coalition partners and the Midlands LGBT* student population at large. It’s for a good cause so please come along!<

That’s this Friday coming; as the poster says, http://scifinight.lgbtq.co.uk/ has all the information.

Again, as the poster says, works of science fiction have contributed to the struggle for LGBTQ equality by drawing attention to the issues faced by LGBTQ people through analogy, or – as is the case with Doctor Who and Torchwood – illustrating a non-heteronormative world and smashing any natural audience expectations of heterosexual main characters.

I am helping with the running of this event; so whether or not you have a nerdy side, come along. It should be educational as well as entertaining.

Homophobia is Gay 4 will be run this term. The date is as yet indeterminate but I am hoping for a Thursday evening in week 5/6.

Unlike previous years, the fourth incarnation of this highly successful event will be run chiefly by the Lib Dem Society, who have appointed a sub-committee to handle HIG.

While the commitee and volunteers will help with stewarding, I – as Officer – have been put in charge of liasing with the Lib Dems and fulfilling our part of the effort. However it’s not really a one-man band kind of thing…so I’m looking for 3/4 LGBTQ volunteers – weather or not you’re commitee/association members – to join my own little sub-committee and help out with the following:

• Working/meeting regularly with Lib Dem Soc
• Logistics of transport/stewarding
• Offers, promos and other financial shizzle.
• etc. etc. etc.

It’s a good way to get involved in the LGBTQ and it’s something you can put down on a manifesto should you want to run for committee or a Guild position in the future. And it’s good to volunteer; Emod said so. xD

If you’re interested, then feel free to contact me (m.ward@guild.bham.ac.uk or via the various media accessible via my blog) as soon as you can.

Muchos thanks!
Matt

The Westboro Baptist Church is a particularly bad example of a conservative, homophobic organisation that gives faith and organised religion a very bad name (indoctrinating children into their hateful regime, no less).

However, while this is the experience of many LGBTQ people – a huge contributing factor to the number of athiests in the community – it’s certainly not the experience of all. More importantly, there is a huge difference between faith and organised religion; faith in a particular ideal is obviously more liberal than adherence to a value system established by the latter. Many LGBTQ people follow a particular faith – be it through their own interpretation of faith, or through the more enlightened organised religious groups within christianity/mormonism/etc who do not exclude on the basis of sexuality. These enlightened groups have been given a bad name by their conservative, homophobic counterparts in other religious organisations and they should not be treated as one and the same.

That being said, even in a welcoming and enlightened religious organisation it’s still very difficult for people to come out to others in such a community because of this stigma. It’s something we should work to avoid given the opportunity.

As I mentioned in my recent catch-up post, the Chaplaincy here at the University is very progressive, very friendly and myself and the LGBTQ have established a good working relationship with the Methodist Chaplain, Kara Cooper, in particular. Kara and the Chaplaincy staff acknowledge that LGBTQ people have suffered in the name of religious doctrine and are dedicated to changing this. Kara has also recently become a regular at many of our events (even providing a projector that actually works for GC chambers) and through our various discussions we’ve put together an event for this week.

The LGBTQ Association and the Chaplaincy will be running a faith and sexuality event tomorrow, Monday 30th November, at 6PM in the Chaplaincy’s Oasis lounge. It’s an opportunity for a group discussion with the chaplains, myself, a few committee members and other LGBTQ to discuss their experiences and perspectives. If anyone wants to come along please do; a free meal will be provided. Afterwards we’ll all mooch over to the pub for a quick drink. All in all definitely worth coming along to.

This Friday is the 11th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), an event which is held on the November 20th each year and is observed in places throughout the world. TDoR was set up in November 1998 following the death of Rita Hester, which also led to the Remembering our Dead project; a project which lists the names of trans people killed as a consequence of discrimination.

The guiding principles of the Day of Remembrance:
• “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” (Santayana)

• All who die due to anti-transgender violence are to be remembered.

• It is up to us to remember these people, as their killers, law enforcement, and the media often seek to erase their existence.

• Transgender lives are affirmed to have value.

•We can make a difference: by being visible and speaking out about anti-transgender violence, we can effect change.

The University of Birmingham LGBTQ association will be marking this event with a candlelit vigil in Mermaid square (outside the Guild of Students) on Friday at 6.30pm. If you wish to assist in the reading of names, or want to contribute to the event with other readings/ poety etc. please don’t hesitate to get in contact. In the event of poor weather the vigil will be moved inside, however, we suggest to all members to bring warm clothing in the event of cold weather.

TDoR website.