QB
Nottinghamshire's Queer Bulletin
February/March 2008 Number 40 It's LGBT History Month again. There are lots of things going on locally - a major LGBT History exhibition; a play "The Gay Man's Guide"; the annual pub quiz; a presentation on the trials and tribulations/successes and achievements of the Nottingham Campaign for Homosexual Equality in the 1970s, an Oscar Wilde exhibition, a display at Central Library - you can find the details in the DIARY section.
If you have any information, news, gossip or libel, please send it to
QB, Lesbian and Gay Switchboard
7 Mansfield Road
Nottingham NG1 3FB
or e-mail notts@lgswitchboard.fsnet.co.uk
The deadline for the next edition will be mid March.
LOTTERY GRANT FOR LGBT HISTORY PROJECT
A phone call on December 13th announced that the proposed LGBT history project “Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage” will get a grant of £40,600 from the Heritage Lottery fund.
This is a three year project with both on-going activities (such as recording local people’s oral histories) and events organised for specific times i.e. for Pride and for LGBT History Month each February. The events for this February are listed below and in the Diary section. The award of the grant means that the late session at the View from the Top on Feb. 12th will be a launch for the whole project as well as the exhibition.
BRIEFS ON AND OFF THE SCENE
Fagged Out, a monthly gay, bi, gay-friendly party in The Basement (Rock City). Friday February 8th. 9pm to 3am
Bears in the Forest have stopped their monthly meetings.
LIRAIN (Lesbians into real ale in Nottingham) Lirain is a group of lesbian and bi women who get together, drink fine ales and chat. Get togethers are informal and there is a yahoo chat group. To find out more, join the yahoo group at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lirain
Something Social will cease to exist as a combined network of social groups, but the individual groups will still continue. Adam Woods, who started Something Social, has found that a) since he moved to Taunton and b) since the demands of his work increased, it has become practically impossible to coordinate Something Social. The people on the e-mail lists for Eat-Out, Arts, Tardis, Badminton, Real Ale and Book socials will still get information. Events, dates etc will be published on the www.gaynottingham.com website and via Switchboard.
@D2 seems to have closed. No licensee
QB'S BITS
Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage is also involved in providing LGBT History Month displays at Mansfield CVS, Ashfield Women’s Centre, Bassetlaw CVS and Newark and Sherwood CVS.
Switchboard would like to thank Something Social for its donation of £1022 (see front page) and also Breakout Gay Men’s group for its donation of £100.
When OutHouse agreed to wind up in 2005, it was left with a substantial amount of money - the residue left after the sale of the Cranbrook Street building and the payment of outstanding debts. OutHouse members agreed that this money should go to local organisations with similar aims to OutHouse. The legal ramifications of this process are coming to a close and we hope to bring you their conclusions fairly soon.
LGBT History month is being celebrated at Trent University with events including a series of films, speakers, workshops and a cabaret at the Union. They will also be launching the campaigns “Bullying Sucks” and “Gloves Off” - the latter dealing with discrimination for people living with HIV.
There’s a new website devoted to Leicester-born gay playwright Joe Orton. See it at
PLAY YOUR PART WITH PRIDE
Following the phenomenal success of last year's Pride the organising committee has reassembled and are straining at the leash to get 2008's Pride ready. Even at this early stage new and exciting ideas are being developed, including one which will take place over the whole of Pride week. Sadly, some of the previous committee have moved away or have other commitments this year, so there is plenty of opportunity for anyone to get involved and bring new ideas and talents.
With Pride 2008 looking like being even bigger than ever, now is the time to become part of the most exciting Pride in the Midlands. Volunteers are needed in all areas - and especially on Pride day itself. Last year's volunteers were the heroes of Pride, and we encourage anyone, regardless of age, sexuality, ability or experience, to come forward. We also look forward to seeing previous volunteers.
Log on to the website www.nottinghampride.co.uk and the committee chairman or volunteer co-ordinator will contact you in due course. Being part of Nottingham Pride is something to be proud of.
TRANS-ACTION
Trans-Action offers practical help and support for all trans-folk and their families in and around Nottingham. Trans-Action works with the police, city council and local authorities, victim support, the domestic violence unit and many other local and government bodies… helping you to help yourself and ensuring a better delivery of services to transgendered people. You can contact us via the NLG Switchboard (0115 934 8485)… Just tell the person who takes your call why you need Trans-Action and they will put you in contact with us.
We act as a conduit for your problems and provide anonymity whilst getting action on the matters that affect you. Whatever problems you are having – we want to hear about them so we can try to make our city a better place to be transgendered.
News… For the last 4 years, Jenna has been running the organisation single-handedly, and with very little funding. So, I’m pleased to be able to tell you that Tricia Moores and Radcliffe Gregory have now joined the committee and this will make a huge difference to help and support that we can offer to the trans community of the East Midlands and the wider area covered by Nottingham GIC.
The BIG survey
So we can best represent the needs of all sections of the Trans community, we need some accurate statistics, so please visit our website and complete the online questionnaire. If you can’t get online, then call NLGS Switchboard and they will take your information.
Recently, Jenna met with Mandy Pride, from Nottingham City Council to discuss ways in which the council can help and support Trans-Action in service provision to the local transgender community. As a result of this meeting, I am excited to be able to announce that we are now taking the first steps toward the establishment of a drop-in centre for trans-people, their friends and families– the first in the UK. Check the website for the latest news!
The quarterly newsletter, now in its 6th year, has now been expanded to 8 pages and the next edition will be issued on February 28th 2007. If you wish to contribute, all letters and articles need to reach us by the 14th February deadline.
From January 2008, the new URL for Trans-Action is http://www.electrabeauty.com/trans-action
. Please make sure you email trans-action@clara.co.uk with “Mailing List” in the subject box and you will be kept bang up-to-date with all the latest developments and also receive the newsletters.
NOTES AND QUEERIES
Birds, bees, educated fleas … they’re all at it.
Crab-eating Macaque monkeys are nearly all bisexual. Unusually, they also sometimes have same sex contact with other species. They have been known to have sex with orang-utans ….. and even foxes.
Over 50% of courtships amongst dwarf cavies are of the same-sex variety. Females court each other by performing a rumba-like dance while slowing circling each other. They accompany this with a burbling sound known as “rumbling”.
Female spotted hyenas have a seven inch clitoris …. which can be turned inside out.
About a quarter of all sexual activities in Humming Birds is between pairs of males. The proportion remains the same when the birds are presented with stuffed birds of both sexes. As they also have been known to try to mate with brightly coloured inanimate objects (e.g. small feather dusters), this does not say much for their powers of discrimination.
QUOTE QUOTA
If Michaelangelo had been straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been wallpapered (Robin Tyler)
I have been a practicing homosexual for 30 years, and after all that practice I’m very good at it (Ike Cowen)
It always seem to me pointless to disapprove of homosexuality; it’s a bit like disapproving of rain (Francis Maude)
My lesbianism is an act of Christian charity. All those women out there praying for a man and I’m giving them my share (Rita-Mae Brown) THIS IS YOUR LIFE Now that Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage project has been given the green light, we are looking for people who can contribute to the project. One of the ways in which you can do this is to have a look for memorabilia which relates to local venues and groups from the past. Have you got any flyers, photos or other literature from venues such as The Pavilion Club Mario’s/Shades Infinity/Eternity Cellos La Chic/Part II Kitsch/Casablanca De Luxe/Nero’s or from groups/organisations such as CHE/GLF Quest Lesbian Line GLYP Friend WAG The Lesbian Centre at the Women’s Centre If you have, and if you are prepared to let us make copies, then get in touch. In the last few days several things have happened which help the progress of the project. The project has located an office. We hope to move in on February 1st. The office is part of the Nottingham Voluntary Action Centre complex where many voluntary groups (including Women’s Aid, Disabled People’s Advocacy and Switchboard) are based. The address is Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage, NVAC, 7 Mansfield Road, Nottingham NG1 3FB. We don’t yet know the phone number or final e-mail address, but as an interim measure we have set up a hotmail address, so you can now e-mail on The project also now has its logo THE POLICE AND US - THEN Before 1967 the law said that sex between men was a crime worthy of imprisonment and that it was the job of the police to enforce that law. Some members of the police did the enforcing with more enthusiasm than others. It is therefore understandable that there is a history of mistrust of the police amongst the LGB community. The 1967 Sexual Offences Act did not make an immediate difference in the attitude of many police forces. After 1967 arrests for gay “sex offences” actually rose. Some of these arrests were a direct consequence of anomalies in the 1967 Act i.e. men were arrested because they were having sex with someone who was 19 or 20, or because they had contravened the weird definition of privacy used in the Act. There was also the paradox that having sex as “consenting male adults in private” was OK, but the process leading up to the sex could still be a crime. This was because “chatting up” someone in a gay bar could be interpreted as “soliciting for immoral purposes”. The latter offence meant that in the 1970s gay venues existed by the grace and favour of the local police force. This wasn’t a problem in Nottingham, but in some parts of the country the police were heavy handed; there were instances where police noted the registration numbers of cars parked near gay venues and then went to the owners’ homes and questioned them about their activities. Arrests for cottaging were often obtained by devious means: “pretty police” would wave their willies at gay men and act as agent provocateurs; cameras would be installed in the ceilings of public lavatories. In 1985, research in Nottingham showed that police arrests for cottaging on Saturdays followed a peculiar pattern. Either no arrests or lots of arrests. The researcher eventually concluded that when Nottingham Forest were playing at home, the police went to the Forest ground - when Forest were playing away, the police trawled round the cottages. Gay men and lesbians were arrested for causing a “breach of the peace” for kissing in pwere going along to Trafalgar Square, where, at an appointed time, the men would kiss the men and the women would kiss the women. The police were invited to arrest everyone. As an aside, I will mention that in a school in North Nottinghamshire two female students have recently been suspended for holding hands.ublic. This law was “mocked to death”. Hundreds of lesbians and gay men informed the police that they As an example of how not to work with the LGB community, “God’s Copper” James Anderton, Chief Constable of Manchester in the 1980s, led the field. “I see increasing evidence of people swirling about in a human cesspit of their own making… We must ask why homosexuals freely engage in obnoxious practices, knowing the dangers involved.” THE POLICE AND US - NOW From our current perspective it is quite amazing to see the distance the police have travelled in the last few years. We now have a situation where Staffordshire Police Force is classed as the best employer for LGBT people in the UK. I have a copy of an article written by a local woman who was the victim of homophobic harassment. Her car was scratched and daubed with paint and graffiti was written on the walls of her house. After contacting the police, she remarked that she could not have wished for more considerate or effective treatment …. but this article appeared in 1976. There always has been “good practice” in how the police force works with us, but in 1976 “good practice” might have been the exception, whereas today we expect it …. and in most cases receive it. Locally we have had a Police LGBT Consultation Group for over 8 years. Those who attend the group’s meetings are happy to state that progress has been made in many areas. Examples include: 