I am referring, of course, to the Tories, of whom many appear to think gays are just a hippy newfangled case of political correctness gone mad and can be easily cast aside in pursuit of cheap political potshots at their party apparatus. Tim Loughton MP, egged on by sneaky right-wingers and what passes for the religious right in this country, tabled an amendment this evening to the Same Sex Marriage Bill that would open up civil partnerships to opposite sex couples. Now, I don’t think that there’s actually that many people that think that when same sex marriage comes in, gays should just keep civil partnerships all to ourselves in some sort of amusing gay privilege scenario, but for some reason this amendment would require the entire bill to be overhauled and put it back by several years, possibly cost £4 billion (claimed Cameron, Labour disputes this). The entire situation was less “free the straighties!” than “annoy David Cameron!” Labour, wanting to embarrass the government but also for teh gays, has been umming and ahhing all day over what to do in response.

I won’t comment on the madness of the determination of Conservative backbenchers to derail what is a serious effort by David Cameron to capture the centre ground politically and swipe Labour’s deservedly proud reputation for legislating on progressive social issues. But I was surprised by the sudden reminder that actually to some people, I don’t matter. I am 24 years old, and when I was in primary school in the 90s, I was shocked that they even had Simon and Tony on Eastenders. Then I grew up under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and the sea-change of attitudes and legislation that has brought Parliament to this point happened. When I was in secondary school, we had this peer sex education scheme where the sixth formers taught the Year 9s about sex – I was banned from mentioning homosexuality by one of the maths teachers because “there’s legal problems” and when I pointed out that said legal problems had been repealed three years before, was told firmly to drop it. But that was a strange incident because it was so unusual.

And now we’ve got members of our political class who have been democratically elected making out that the rights of gay and bisexual people are just another political ball to be thrown around, which is just appalling. I’m shocked and appalled. Wow, is this what is feel like to be gay in Missouri? Wow, was I just able to make a serious analogy of 21st Century Britain with Missouri? Because I can, because of this:

“I warn her, I fear the playing field is not being levelled I believe the pendulum is swinging so far the other way, and there are plenty in the aggressive homosexual community who see this as but a stepping stone to something even further”

- Sir Gerald Howarth MP, this evening in the House of Commons, apparently making a serious claim that gays are planning to take over the world

Ironically, mere hours before the vote that took place, the Church of Scotland voted narrowly this afternoon to ordain and admit gay and lesbian ministers. Again, disappointing that it was narrow, but for the Church of Scotland it’s a leap forward. For the Tories to be rampaging around the House whining about “irrelevancy” and “discrimination against Christians” is a step backwards. Into a large, black hole of cynicism (for them) and sadness (for us).

In any event, Labour cleaned up their act, got behind the bill and voted down Tim “Lout” Loughton’s “wrecking” amendment 375-70 and the Same Sex Marriage boat sails onwards to the Lords, where more hostile Tories will continue to stab the gay community with a thousand tiny malevolent pinpricks. Hopefully, they’ll lose majorly there as well. But it’s sad that there’s still a significant minority of people at the highest levels of our society who don’t get that LGBT people want to get on with their lives and that marriage for many LGBT people is a part of that.

But enough sadtimes. Happy thoughts. I am going to be ordained on July 2014, and I am looking forward immensely to the legalisation of same sex marriage in 2015. I am so pleased that so many of my friends, who have been together for decades in some cases, will be finally be able to have their relationship recognised and publicly santified on the same basis as their straight counterparts. I am going to conduct as many gay weddings as my schedule will allow, and nothing will stop me. It’s going to be great! And gay. It’s going to be great and gay.

…as long as the bill passes, that is. Many Tories claim that the focus on the government should be on the economy and not on “social issues”. In which case, when the Bill comes up for the Third Reading, I suggest they think about the boost to the economy of all those extra gay weddings, and walk through that Yes lobby.

And Eurovision 2013 was certainly no exception.  We only had to wait until the third act before the first entertaining example raised its head: the Moldova backing dancers.  Clad all in white, they truly were the epitome of camp as they gyrated happily behind the solo female singer, a woman wearing, where her skirt should have been, what I can only describe as an illuminated tea cosy.

A few acts later came Romania.  As if the fact that the singer looking like a strange cross between Dracula and Ming the Merciless wasn’t enough, the dancing essentially consisted of what appeared to be three naked blokes (a closer peek revealed flesh-coloured shorts) enjoying a bit of rough and tumble.  They were overlooked by the aforementioned vampire / Flash Gordon baddie singing in high-pitched tones of which Katherine Jenkins would be proud.  ‘Bizarre’ doesn’t quite seem to cover it.

By the time we reached Ireland’s offering, complete with greased-up, leather-clad drummers, nobody in their right mind could do anything but declare the whole thing to be a big, beautiful gay-fest.  With commentary provided, for us Brits at least, by the fantastically sharp-witted Graham Norton.  Glorious.

Courting controversy

But of course by far the gayest, and indeed most controversial entry, were Finland, with the most upbeat slice of camp Europop ever created, “Marry Me”.  Clearly the audience were adoring it as they jumped about, patriotically waving flags and generally loving life.  Basically, a feel-good moment for all.  Or was it?  As it turns out, it most certainly was not.

Apparently Turkey, those Eurovision killjoys, decided against televising this year’s show on the basis that Finland’s gift to the world of poppy, sing-along joy finished with two women kissing.  They had already announced, in December 2012, that they would not be entering an act into the 2013 competition because they disagreed with rules that allow the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy to participate in the Grand Final without having to attend any qualification rounds.  So, at the risk of sounding even more mature, they then advertise their blatant, disgraceful homophobia to the world.  Way to go, Turkey; way to go.

Of course, as much as hundreds of die-hard fans love the spectacle of it all, Eurovision isn’t really about the music; really, it’s all political.  I mean, let’s face it, if it were judged as a music contest, the show would have ended ages ago.

Hope for the future

With LGBT rights so high on the political agenda of many countries, it’s no surprise that this was reflected in this year’s Eurovision.  It is of course sad that one of the big news items was one country’s refusal to televise the show because of a lesbian kiss.  But then, in some ways, even that can be turned into a positive.  The vitriol and rage with which that particular decision was met on Twitter, for example, far outweighed the number of people who felt that they could see Turkey’s point.  At work, I even ended up having a discussion about the unfortunate situation with some of my students and all of them, without any prompting from me, were outraged.  Their sheer anger that a country could behave like that “in this day and age” warmed my heart.

And it’s this kind of shared feeling that makes changes.  A whole group of people who all desire to make a change to the way the world works is a powerful tool.  Of course, there is a lot of suffering in the world.  Nearly every other day I sign a petition, usually prompted by communications from organisations like AllOut or Stonewall, in an attempt to try to change situations in countries where citizens are put to death because they are gay, and horrific incidents like that aren’t going to stop overnight.

But, even during supposedly light-hearted events like Eurovision, there are glimmers of hope.  Good on Sweden, this year’s host nation, for example, for being so proud of their country’s policies on gender equality and gay marriage that they included them in a song designed to ‘sell’ their nation to the rest of the continent; you, my Scandinavian friends, are heroes of Europe.

Moments like this, combined with the uproar created whenever a country like Turkey behaves in such a bigoted manner, give us all hope for a better future for the LGBT community the world over.

I’d like to leave you with the words of Graham Norton, as he rounded-up his introduction to Finland’s Eurovision entry: “At the end of this song there are 2 girls kissing.  And if 2 girls kissing offends you, then you need to grow up.”

She has four children from a previous relationship, aged 14, 12, 10 and 8, but they do not live with Jane and Eric. Jane openly admits she is “not the mothering type” and does not have a close relationship with her children, especially as they do not get along with Eric who is a heavy drinker and often in trouble with the police.

Jane’s ex-partner and his new wife have custody of all four children, an arrangement everybody is happy with.

Jane and Eric have a rocky relationship and often row. Jane works night shifts and needs to sleep during the day but Eric does not work and often has his friends over for daytime drinking sessions which disturbs Jane’s sleep, which in turn affects her performance at work. She gets irritated with Eric for spending so much money on alcohol.

Eric believes the fact he gave up smoking with Jane two years ago should be enough to please her and he should not be expected to cut down on his drinking as well.

Jane is estranged from her family and does not have any close friends, so she is completely reliant on Eric for emotional support, but his drinking and inconsiderate behaviour means she constantly feels let down by him. The pair decided having a child together would mend their unhappy relationship, but after two years of trying Jane has not fallen pregnant. This has added more strain to their relationship.

Jessica is also 34 and lives in a nearby Borough of London called Petalbury with her civil partner Rebecca who is 45.

The couple have been together for ten years and in a civil partnership for the last seven. Jessica works as a primary school teacher and Rebecca works from home as a children’s book illustrator.

For the past five years, Jessica and Rebecca have successfully fostered a number of children, something which has brought them great joy and satisfaction. The troubled children who entered their home have all left much happier with higher self-esteem due to the loving, stable and caring environment Jessica and Rebecca were able to provide for them.

Jessica is from a close family and has a particularly strong bond with her twin brother Joshua who lives just around the corner with his wife and two daughters. Jessica and Rebecca often spend time with Joshua and his family and have a great relationship with their two nieces, who simply adore their lesbian aunties.

Jessica and Rebecca would love to have a family of their own one day, but their modest income means private fertility treatment is not an option for them.

One day, Jessica and Rebecca read an article in Lesbilicious magazine. They discovered new guidelines were in place for NHS trusts which stated same-sex couples should not be discriminated against when it comes to fertility treatment and funding for same-sex couples should receive the same priority as straight couples. Feeling heartened they made an appointment with their local doctor to see what options were available to them.

After a blood test showed Jessica was ovulating as normal, their doctor agreed to refer Jessica for Intrauterine insemination (IUI). This is a fairly simple procedure where Jessica would be artificially inseminated with donor sperm and costs between £500 and £1000 per cycle of treatment.

That same day Jane received some news. Tests from her local doctor confirmed there was no problem with her fertility and the reason she had not fallen pregnant was due to Eric’s low sperm count. Jane’s doctor also agreed to refer Jane for fertility treatment but she was not referred for IUI. New guidelines  state  if a straight couple have been unsuccessfully trying to conceive for two years they should be referred for three cycles of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) which costs, on average, £5,000 per cycle of treatment.

One month later

Jessica received a letter from Petalbury’s NHS Trust stating the Trust was unwilling to fund Jessica’s IUI treatment. On the same day Jane received a letter from Leafbury’s NHS Trust referring her and Eric to a fertility clinic for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Why did Jane’s case receive funding while Jessica’s did not?

Funding for fertility treatment is a grey area with policies varying from trust to trust. Each case is assessed on an individual basis and the criteria can be very different. Some trusts only offer treatment to women under 35 while others offer it up to the age of 42. As Jane and Jessica are both 34 they are equally eligible for treatment although the fact Jessica’s partner is 45 may have been taken into consideration.

Factors taken into account when referring straight couples for fertility treatment include the man’s age, whether or not the couple already have children together and one or both of the couple giving up smoking. In Jane’s case, the fact Eric is 30, they do not have children together and they both gave up smoking two years ago worked in their favour.

Legally NHS trusts must not discriminate against same-sex couples wanting fertility treatment, but discrimination is hard to prove. Even if Jane and Jessica lived in the same borough, the NHS trust could claim they had been referred for different treatments and their cases were different.

Public opinion

Public opinion on fertility treatment for same-sex couples is divided. Many people are for it but the right-wing view is that same-sex couples should never be offered treatment on the NHS as they would not be able to conceive naturally. Jessica and Rebecca are yet another example of the sense of “entitlement” gay couples feel towards receiving equal rights.

Surely if this is the case, Jane and Eric should also not have been offered treatment. After all they were unable to conceive naturally?

Another right-wing view is that fertility treatment should be based on the parents’ National Insurance contributions and only those people who have contributed a sufficient amount to the tax “pot” should be eligible. Jessica and Rebecca do not earn a great deal but they have paid their taxes all their adult lives. Jane earns more than Jessica and has also paid her taxes but as Eric is unemployed he has not contributed to the public purse. Which couple is more “deserving” in this case?

What happened next for Jane and Jessica?

Jane and Jessica are fictional characters but their story is based on real-life scenarios and it is up to the voting public to decide their fate. It was a Labour Government that passed the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act in 2008 which put same-sex parenting and heterosexual parenting on equal footing in the eyes of the law. The persistent homophobia displayed by some members of the Conservative party, highlighted by the Tory opposition to the gay marriage bill, does not inspire hope for couples such as Jessica and Rebecca being offered fertility treatment on the NHS and funding is being reduced under the existing Government.

In a happy ending, Jane decided against having a child with Eric and focussed on re-building her relationship with her existing children. Jessica appealed to Petalbury’s NHS trust and its decision was overturned, meaning Jessica and Rebecca were able to start their own family. 

Sadly, a more realistic outcome is that Jane had a child with Eric after three expensive cycles of NHS-funded IVF treatment but this did not mend their relationship. The child ended up being taken into local authority care and fostered by Jessica and Rebecca, the cost of which ran into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

1. She is a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassador. (Let’s start with the big stuff.) She’s visited refugees in 30 countries, she lobbies for humanitarian causes to the US Government, and she’s set up several humanitarian charities. It is over the top to say she’s as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside? No. Cheesy? Yes. Who cares. Swooooon.

2. Angelina Jolie is the quintessential straight girl’s crush. She’s the gay girl’s crush too, (obviously – that’s not news) but she has a magical hold over all straight women. Straight women can see that someone like Beyonce is pretty, and Megan Fox is sexy, but Angelina is… something else. Angelina can make even the most settled straight girl question the previously unquestionable. Which, if you’ve ever fallen for a straight girl, is encouraging.

3. She’s bisexual. Famously, unashamedly, properly bisexual. None of that ‘I just kissed a girl and liked it’ business – she had a well documented relationship with model / actor Jenny Shimizu in 1996. “I probably would have married Jenny Shimizu if I hadn’t married my husband [Jonny Lee Miller],” said Angelina at the time. “I fell in love with her the first second I saw her.”

4. She’s with Brad Pitt, one of the coolest guys on the planet. Obviously all of us secretly think she’d be happier with us (see point 2), but failing that, she may as well be one half of the world’s most beautiful couple.

5. Angelina is a politically aware film director as well as an actor. In 2011 she directed In the Land of Blood and Honey, a film set in the Bosnian war. She uses her power as one of the world’s most famous actors to draw attention to what she called “”the worst genocide since World War II in Europe”.

6. She made computer science cool in Hackers, thereby encouraging a generation of girls to become programmers. Maybe.

7. She made guns cool, thereby encouraging a generation of girls to become assassins, cycloptic Sky Captains of the future and wealthy archaeologist/thieves. Hmm. Ok. Perhaps her film choices haven’t been particularly inspirational.

8. Angelina and Brad support gay marriage – they donated £100,000 in 2008 to support the campaign for gay marriage in California. (Just forget the bit where they also declared that they wouldn’t marry until gay people had the right to marry, but then they changed their minds and did it anyway. Bad Brangelina.)

9. She’s officially the world’s most beautiful woman. Take a moment, if you would, to spare a thought for beautiful women everywhere; women who are ignored, discriminated against, and face hardships on a daily basis because they are simply too beautiful. It’s just so sad. And poor Angelina has had to deal with that burden all her life.

10. Angelina helped launch the Malala Fund in early April 2013. The fund supports girls’ education in Pakistan, and is named after Malala Yousafzai, the schoolgirl who survived getting shot in the head by the Taliban. Angelina also pledged £200,000 for the fund. This itself is pretty amazing, and then you look again at the dates – Angelina said she finished the three months of medical procedures on April 27, so she was still recovering from surgery when she spoke at the Women in the World conference. Most people would want to quietly recover at home; Angelina does more humanitarian work.

11. She proved that bad tattoo choices don’t have to define you forever. With her tattoo of ex-husband Billy Bob (husband and tattoo now both removed), Angelina shows us that she makes mistakes too – she’s only human, like the rest of us. Except she’s far more attractive, socially conscious, rich, lucky and powerful. But other than that, she’s just like everyone else.

On May 17^th, people all across the world will be joining virtual hands as we celebrate the International Day Against Homophobia.

For those of us here in the States, this is not a widely known event, though I can only hope it will become more widespread as time passes. It is officially recognized in places such as the EU Parliament, Spain, Belgium, the UK, Mexico, Costa Rica, Croatia, the Netherlands, France, and Luxembourg as a day to educate the public, our friends and family, and address issues on a political level as well as a personal level.

IDAHO (because of course there’s an acronym) was conceived in 2004 and came into fruition after a yearlong campaign on May 17^th, 2005. But really it all began on May 17^th, 1990, when the World Health Organization officially removed homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases. (Hear that people? The WHO doesn’t classify being gay as a disease, nor has it for over 20 years, so it’s time you stop, too.) Years later, IDAHO was born in commemoration of this landmark event, and has been steadily spreading its message every May.

Years after its inception, the acronym was lengthened to IDAHOBIT to include Biphobia and Transphobia. (Yes, I recognize the importance of including Bi and Transphobia, but I can’t help but smirk a little when I read IDAHOBIT out loud.) The campaign continues to grow every year, especially as more people spread the word online, “fighting the homophobia web virus”.

What I like about this campaign is that it is clean and simple. Spread the word about homophobia to friends, co-workers, family members, and strangers you are “friends” with online. Donate money to help cover the costs of pamphlets and paper educational materials. Sign petitions (for those that live in nations where they officially recognize IDAHOBIT) to encourage the government to protect our civil rights. Write a blog. Fly a rainbow flag. Share a human rights’ video on your wall. And get the message across that homophobia is not only wrong, but it is hurtful.

Oh yeah, and wear some rainbow pride to work.

The main thing is you can support this campaign, this event, from the comfort of your own home. It is easy to join the fight against homophobia, and more importantly, it is imperative.

- “I believe ______ is going to Candy bar that night.”

- “Lol. Why?”

- “Because she loves chubby teenagers with bleach-dipped, asymmetric, flock-of-seagulls haircuts.”

It is true that the clientele are of a particular subsection of the lesbian community in London. One that doesn’t seem to be replicated in, for example, the lesbian basement of G-A-Y, the late First Out, and Ruby Tuesdays at Ku bar.

Credit is due, however, to Candy bar in their recent attempts to appeal to a wider range of lesbians. Chick habit live is an ‘indie/alternative’ night which features bands and DJ sets from notable acts. On Thursday night, I headed down there to see Hunter Valentine (of Real L Word fame/notoriety) supported by Battle of you and The cut outs.

Melody Patman from Battle of you. Photo: Laura Cunliffe (www.lercdesigns.com)

Battle of you were an absolute treat. An unpretentious five-piece band from Shoreditch with upbeat hooks that make every chorus as catchy as the last. Fantastic energy from lead singer (and aptly named) Melody Patman and keyboardist Nicola Hogg. Think Two door cinema club, but better. This is a band you must see live, but until I get the pleasure of this for a second time, I’ll be listening to their EP.

The cut outs. Photo: Laura Cunliffe (www.lercdesigns.com)

The cut outs were a very different breed; all dressed in black stripped back to a drum machine and two electric acoustic guitars. Perfect harmonies from the two ladies, however, the band seemed to lose the attention of the crowd after a couple of songs until the final brilliant version of The killers’ Mr Brightside. The cut outs’ ‘dirty-dance-rock’ did not lend itself as well to an acoustic set; they’re better when plugged in.

And then there was Hunter valentine (a.k.a. Kiyomi + 2/3 lesbians). As they walked onto the stage, screams of epic proportions were raised to the point that I could almost have been at a Take That concert. It was certainly a coup for Candy bar to book Hunter valentine: the first lot of tickets sold out in half an hour.

Was Kiyomi’s girlfriend, Lauren, there? Yes she was, standing by the stage looking adoringly at Kiyomi. I actually felt like I was in The real L word for a brief time. Interestingly, as the band were tuning up, the shouts from the crowd were for Lauren rather than the band.

It was billed as an acoustic set although the only sign of this was the drummer, Laura Petracca’s, substitution of a plastic shaky egg for the drums. Laura provided occasional backing vocals but mostly she was just enjoying the crowd, striking exaggerated tongue-in-cheek poses for the cameras. Aimee Bessada, the lead guitarist, did not feature in The real L word, but was an excellent addition to the band. She looked like she could have been an extra in Almost Famous with her shaggy hair, leather trousers, and pattern shirt.

Kiyomi McCloskey from Hunter Valentine. Photo: Laura Cunliffe (www.lercdesigns.com)

But let’s be honest, Kiyomi is the star of the show, with her trademark annunciation and swagger. Kicking off with “Staten Island dream tour“, uber-fans sang along (to the point where they drowned out the band). We heard favourites such as “This bull rides tonight” and, after much pleading from the crowd, “The great Canadian love song“.

During the set, two significant things happened:

1)    A girl who was not wearing a bra danced a little too enthusiastically and I found myself witnessing a public display of nudity. Interestingly, when the girl realised what had happened, she proceeded to admire the offending tit in the mirror right next to her.

2)    A fight nearly broke out between an incredibly short girl and a much taller girl. Clearly the short girl was confident in her ability to handle herself.

The set was good, if a little predictable. I wanted to hear or see something that a recording simply couldn’t convey. True, their stage presence was a strong point, but musically I wanted something more, something unexpected, like a re-interpretation of a cover or a brilliant show of musicianship.

The question is whether Hunter Valentine can stand alone as a band, not just a lesbian band which had the enormous advantage of being given a platform on The Real L Word. But then again, personalities can never be entirely separated from the music; presumably One Direction fans are not fans solely on the basis of their music. It remains to be seen whether Hunter Valentine will make the transition from ‘gaymous’ to ‘famous’.

Visit www.lercdesigns.com for more of Laura Cunliffe’s photos.

Do:

1. Offer to pay if you suggest a location or activity. You might decide on the day to pay half each, but be prepared to pay if you invite her to the most expensive restaurant without checking if it is okay with her. There’s nothing worse than the bill arriving and the pair of you sat waiting for someone to pipe up and offer the cash. 
2. Take her somewhere where you can get to know her and/or have fun. The classic “the cinema is not a good place to go on a date”. How do you know you even like the same films? What if you go to hold her hand and she withdraws? Do you stay in the cinema, awkwardly sat next to someone who evidently doesn’t want to be there watching a film you probably don’t even like? Group activities are often to be avoided because the other person is never quite sure if it’s a date or not. So take her somewhere where you’ll both have an enjoyable time, that way, even if you don’t get on, you still had fun.
3. At least make some effort. If you work with the girl you are going on a date with, don’t turn up in your work clothes. Equally If she’s impressed you’re a farmer by trade, don’t turn up to your meal in your farmer gear. She’s going to want to know you have a life outside the farm as well, and I’m not sure the other people at the restaurant will appreciate the farm stench either.
4. Act interested. If you invited her out on a date then it’s your duty to listen to her list off the names of her twenty cats and even if you’re not, pretend you’re interested. Tips to make yourself look like you’re interested even if you’re not: ask her questions about what she just told you, smile, nod, mhmm, and ahh, and don’t fall asleep.
5. Be honest. If you tell her you’re an aeronautical engineer then make sure you actually are, because one day she might ask to see your spaceship (not a euphemism) and it won’t be good when you have to tell her you’re not actually an astronaut, but a supermarket cashier. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being a supermarket cashier). Be yourself, be yourself, be yourself. If you are funny, be yourself. If you are not funny, then still be yourself. There’s nothing worse than someone trying too hard to crack a joke only to find they’re the only one laughing, or the date is laughing out of awkwardness or embarrassment.

Don’t:

1. Don’t mention the second date straight away or get ahead of yourself. Bringing up baby names, wedding locations, and your ten year future plan, with them featuring in it, are probably going to scare away your date. Although, you might find she’s as forward as you are and appreciates that prior to the date you embroidered towels with her name on and cleared half your wardrobe to make space for hers. More often than not they’re not going to take kindly to it, and you will scare them away.
2. Avoid things which bring back memories of an ex. “Oh you should probably sit here, because my ex always used to sit here and we found it just worked better like that,” …“You’re going for the steak? Really? I’m a vegetarian, but my ex loves meat and I’d definitely suggest you opt for the ribs, those were her favourite”… “You have such nice complexion; it’s really similar to my ex’s, that’s what made me fall for her you know!”… If you’re not yet over your ex, you probably shouldn’t be dating. If you’re dating to try and get over your ex, follow the golden rule: THOU SHALT NOT MENTION THINE EX.
3. Don’t drink too much. Going for a drink is always a great way to break the ice, but what you want is a little crack in the ice. You don’t want the ice to be crushed and in your vodka, but then it’s on your lap because you drunk too much vodka and spilled the ice, then you’re on the ground throwing up the ice and vodka because you had alcohol poisoning, and so your first date is actually spent in Accident & Emergency with your date watching you have your your stomach pumped. Great first impressions you have given her.
4. Don’t get too personal. On the first date, it’s all about getting to know the person and seeing if you match initially. Personal, deep and emotional topics should be left out, alongside, how much money you earn, politics and religion. If you break down on the first date, or start asking her intruding questions so she breaks down, I don’t think a second date will be on the cards.

On the series website http://www.leslievilleseries.com/ the series is described as…
“…a story about connection, attraction and navigating between lust and true desire. It’s the story of two girls meeting, clicking, but one is already in a relationship. Still, the two carry on with their “friendship” firmly wrapped up in denial about what they’re really doing – falling in love.”

The series writer and director, Nadine Bell, wanted to explore the difficulties lesbians face when finding themselves attracted to a new ‘friend’ while at least one is unavailable to develop the friendship into something more.

Tiffany Martin plays Ona who has been in a relationship with Laura for about a year and a half. Samantha Wan plays Sera who is currently single but is best friends with her ex Gwen, played by Jenna Harder, a more rough-around-the-edges non-romantic realist who calls it as she sees it. The dynamic between Wan and Harder is quite believable in Episode 2 ‘Getting to Know You’ and Harder’s role is clearly to encourage Wan to step outside of her heteronormative ideals.

While the actors have a rather short medium in which to explore their angst at the situation the interaction between Martin and Wan feels forced and uncomfortable in a way that does not appear to be intentional. Even the relationship dynamic between Martin and her girlfriend Laura (played by Meghan Campbell) doesn’t feel authentic.

It’s refreshing to see a series that dives into what can be quite a common lesbian dilemma and may be helpful in offering other women who are facing a similar situation to see the dynamic from another perspective.

The first season so far has relied on a variety of volunteers who have spent their spare time editing the shorts for release. Bell is dedicating her time to ensuring these episodes are also provided with subtitles in a number of different languages in an effort to reach as many audience members as possible.

On a positive side note, the soundtrack to the short series features local Toronto-area queer and queer-friendly musicians such as Emma McKennna http://emmamckenna.bandcamp.com/, Bonjay http://bonjay.net/music-video/, Warm Myth, Carly Rhiannon http://www.carlyrhiannon.com/, Fake Date, Phèdre http://phedreamour.com/ and KidKulit http://kidkulit.com/.

While it may not be quite an award-winning project, there is enough tension between Ona and Sera (with a little help from Gwen) to make this series worth following and I’ll be keeping my eye out to see what Nadine Bell’s next project may be.

I would rehearse the scenario in my head until I was tired of my own voice, always trying to imagine their faces when I finally spat it out. Shock, horror, disbelief?

In the end, it was something of an anti-climax. My older brother was so nonchalant I wondered if he’d even heard me. My Mum had ‘always known’. My Dad still loved me. My best friends were only interested in who I fancied. The world kept turning and I moved onto some other all-consuming, monumental drama. Unrequited love after unrequited love.

I never considered what happens after you’ve taken those first steps into gay life, but quite soon I learned that coming out is just the start of a whole host of awkward, hilarious and heartbreaking situations that only lesbian and bisexual women could possibly understand.

Here is a totally scientific, not definitive or exhaustive, based entirely on stereotypes list of First World Gay Lady Problems. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

1. You have probably been mistaken for a 14-year-old boy more than once.

lesbianswholooklikejustinbieber is your life

 2. Everyday is a constant battle to avoid twinning with your girlfriend/wife/significant other.

Photograph: Autostraddle

3. People just love to shout really obvious things at you from moving cars, e.g ‘lesbian!’

 4. Checking into a hotel is full of potential pitfalls. Be prepared for a lot of awkward.

"Are you sure it was a...double bed you wanted?"

5. You might see your ex.

6. This.

7. You and your friends probably look like a 90s boy band when you go out.

And Harry Styles is your fashion inspiration.

8. It’s common to see an attractive man and feel torn between whether you want to be them or sleep with them (see: Ryan Gosling).

Then there's Zac Efron. And Justin Timberlake...

 9. You think talking to your cat is a legitimate way to pass the time.

10. Clothes. Whether it’s what to wear to the beach, or what to wear to your wedding, there are no easy answers.

Not to mention shopping…

11. This.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

‘What if it was You?’ by Perpetual Detour.

12. You better get used to explaining exactly what it is that lesbians do in bed, because it’s likely you’ll spend even more time doing that than talking to your cat.

13. And while we’re on the subject of you-know-what, taking your sex toys on holiday is a disaster waiting to happen.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

“What is that, some kind of weapon?”

14. In the end, it doesn’t matter how you get your hair cut or what you wear. One way or another, you will end up looking like Justin Bieber.

Radfem 2013 – a women-only conference that aims to “rebuild a radical feminist movement” – appears to have been barred from the organisers’ preferred venue. Those who planned to attend the event are quite understandably unimpressed.

However, others are celebrating this turn of events, arguing that Radfem 2013 is effectively a platform for hate speech. Amongst them are a group known as “Men’s Rights Activists”, who argue that men and boys are systematically marginalised and disadvantaged in modern society.

As claims and counter-claims are furiously exchanged across social media, what is really at stake?

Who are the ‘radfems’?

Radical feminism is a term typically associated with certain ideas and approaches that emerged during the “second wave” of feminism. Radical feminists tend to share the view that gender inequality occurs primarily because of patriarchy, a system of power that prioritises both men and masculinity.

There are many approaches to radical feminism. However, the term “radical feminism” has often come to be associated with a particularly dogmatic, moralistic approach. This is perhaps unfair, but certainly seems to be appropriate in the case of Radfem 2013.

One of the key speakers on both days of the conference is lesbian feminist academic and activist Sheila Jeffreys, a woman known for her scathing critiques of women’s fashion, kinky sex and trans people.

Jeffreys is right to highlight the damage caused by sexist expectations of what women should wear and how we should behave. However, her response – as exemplified in books such as The Lesbian Heresy – is to set out her own strict rules about how we dress and who we fuck. In the 1980s her philosophy inspired a violent turn amongst followers. Roz Kaveney writes:

“I was not present, by a margin of about twenty minutes, when a group of women, disguised with ski masks, smashed up Chain Reaction, the lesbian SM London night club with crowbars and injured the women who got in their way – in the name of opposing violence against women; I was present a few weeks later at the Hackney Empire for an International Women’s Day cabaret when a group of lesbian feminists were jeered by the queue, among whom were almost no SM women, with a cry of ‘Where’s your crowbars?’ I saw women from Sheila Jeffreys’ circle at the picket outside Chain Reaction a few weeks earlier and, if she did not know the women who attacked the club with physical violence, one may assume that she knows a woman who does.”

But that’s in the past, right? And there’s no proof that Jeffreys was directly involved.

No such excuses for Cathy Brennan (a.k.a. “bugbrennan”), who has been booked by Radfem 2013 to run a session on “identity politics, queer theory and the appropriation of radical feminism“.  Brennan is known for outing minors and writing to the United Nations opposing civil rights legislation for trans people. She is also the “public face” of Pretendbians, a hate site based largely around screenshots of trans people from dating websites.

Interestingly, a number of other individuals known for transphobic views – including Julie Bindel – were prominently included in the Radfem 2013 programme, but have since been removed.

A number of speakers are also known for their support for the “abolition” or “prohibition” of prostitution – a position that wrongly presumes to speak for the interests of all sex workers.

Opposition

It’s no surprise then that Radfem 2013 has its fair share of critics, including a wide range of feminists. The conference has been positioned as anti-sex, anti-sexworker, anti-kink and anti-trans.

Some of these criticisms are more fair than others. For instance, many critics assume that Radfem 2013 has followed last year’s event in explicitly excluding trans women. No announcement has been made to this affect. However, many trans people are deeply unimpressed that a platform is being given to known transphobes.

The conference has also been criticised by anti-feminist groups, including a number of Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) organisations. Amongst them are international network A Voice For Men, and local branch MRA London.

The so-called MRAs appear to be living on a different planet: a planet in which women have so successfully seized control that men and boys are now a downtrodden, marginalised group. It isn’t really within the scope of this article to criticise their position, but a beautiful piece that does so can be found here.

The particular kind of radical feminism represented by Radfem 2013 gives MRAs a perfect excuse to feel victimised. Speakers such as Sheila Jeffreys tend to blur the distinction between regarding the patriarchial structures that advantage men as the problem, and treating men (all men, all the time, regardless of context) as the problem. In advocating “political lesbianism” she implies that any form of sexual contact with a man is tantamount to heresy; a lesbian heresy, you could say.

Of course, Radfem 2013 doesn’t represent all radical feminists, let alone all feminists or all women. It’s not the job of women to disavow Radfem 2013 in order to appease the MRAs either. However, the situation allows for an almighty conflict to emerge between these two extremist groups, and woe betide those caught between them.

Cancellation?

Radfem 2013 was due to take place in the London Irish Centre. This was cast into doubt a few days ago when MRA London posted a slightly bizarre piece in which they claimed to have ousted the conference after making complaints and holding a protest outside the venue.

A response from Radfem 2013 denounced MRA groups for “terror tactics”, and stated that the event would be going ahead in the Irish Centre. Meanwhile, a number of Radfem supporters began to conflate MRA actions with trans opposition to the conference.

Since then, the situation has only become less clear. An article in The Times implied that the event was cancelled after the venue learned more about it:

“While our commercial bookings subcontractor [an events firm called Off to Work] has a certain amount of freedom to use the centre when we are not using it for cultural events, if it comes to the charity’s attention that an event goes against our policy, then we will point it out to them.

We did some research into RadFem and discovered certain language was used and some statements were made about transgender people that would go against our equalities and diversity policy.

We have discussed with our subcontractor Off to Work how to avoid such confusion in future and have strengthened our internal communications as a result.”

The article also states that the Irish Centre received 29 complaints about Radfem 2013: hardly the work of a well-organised campaign on the part of some trans cabal.

However, a Facebook post by booking agent Off To Work suggests that the decision to cancel Radfem 2013 wasn’t necessarily taken because of concerns regarding equality.

“Our cancellation of the booking was a very difficult decision, but one that we have made to protect the safety of our venue staff [...] We have made this difficult decision based entirely on our available infrastructure and the wellbeing of our staff, without pressure from any group concerned with the subject matter of the conference.”

Why is it that Off To Work feel that the safety of their staff might be in question? It’s unlikely that the conference attendees will find themselves facing off against a baying mob of trans activists; whilst a war of words is being waged on the Internet, there seems little appetite for a full-blown demonstration. Meanwhile, the last major demonstration against transphobia from radical feminists was a relatively relaxed affair. The culprit would therefore seem to be either the paranoia of Radfem organisers, or a genuine threat of intimidation from MRA London.

The real danger

We should care that Radfem 2013 is likely to take place. Its organisers espouse a regressive philosophy that is likely to cause harm to many. If we fail to actively oppose this approach to feminism, it is likely that a new generation of women will also subscribe to their hateful views.

We should also care that MRAs are claiming “victory” in its apparent cancellation. This is partly because a number of radical feminists make a habit of conflating trans activism with “men’s rights” activism. But perhaps more concerning is the idea that MRAs might feel empowered to close down feminist events.

Did MRA London use intimidation tactics against Radfem 2013? There is certainly no excuse for theft and threats under such circumstances. With the evidence available though, it’s difficult to say whether or not this actually happened. The organisers of Radfem 2013 aren’t exactly the most trustworthy source of information.

In a sense, this doesn’t matter. Members of MRA London and other MRA groups think that it is right to shut down feminist events, and now they have reason to believe that they can shut down feminist events. At a time when women are still likely to be paid less than men, are disproportionately affected by the cuts, and are still likely to face gendered abuse and violence, this is a worrying development.

Jane Siberry’s website is headed-up with the strapline “singer, songwriter, poet, trollop | hello!”. The Canadian musician and writer has her own unique voice and style and has always walked to the beat of her own drum.

I’ve loved her work for a long time: she’s intelligent and collaborative and she’s in the UK right now for a small tour of intimate gigs and salon-style events.

If Siberry is playing anywhere near you then go and see her – you’ll not regret it. Better still, why not take advantage of the great free giveaway we’ve sorted. There are two sets of tickets up for grabs for two of her live shows in Birmingham and Nottingham (see the end of the article for details on how to apply).

If you’re unfamiliar with Siberry’s music, here’s my take. The first reason I like it is because it’s pretty difficult to categorise. Over a long and respected career she has mixed a whole host of styles to constantly produce albums that engage and surprise. Latin rhythms, jazz and samba, dark and broody soundscapes, spoken word pieces, pop and love songs, concept and song sequences – Siberry can do it all.

And her voice – no exaggeration – is to die for. Returning to her back catalogue to write this reminded me how much her voice puts me in mind of Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. Her vocals are sometimes sweet and light, sometimes metallic-edged and dark, but always compelling. That she often blends vocals and spoken word is of particular interest to me as a poet and creative writing researcher, and Siberry manages to make imaginative and witty music that is also accessible.

A sampling of her song titles: “Goodbye sweet pumpkinhead”, “Half angel, half eagle”, “Mimi on the beach”, “Barkis is willing” and “Miss Punta Blanca”, conveys her wide-ranging subject matter and clear love of language. Some of her rhymes “I coulda been Miss Punta Blanca / but I didn’t wanta” are funny and kind of throw-away but then, in a heartbeat, you listen to a song like The Valley (covered wonderfully by KD Lang) and it takes your breath away it’s so beautiful.

The musicianship on her albums is amazing and where she really excels is in live performance, which she spices with a dose of theatre. I’ve seen a Siberry show once, a few years ago, at The Sage Gateshead and met her briefly afterwards – although, in truth it was my partner who spoke to her, as I tend to go mute on encountering artists I really respect. Siberry admired my partner’s coat and we found her to be personable, open and very funny. Her set of songs that night had the whole audience transfixed. In the course of the evening she played a variety of instruments, told affecting stories and had me laughing out loud and in floods of tears. Not many artists can do that in one fell swoop.

It’s hard to pull out one stand-out track from Siberry’s catalogue: on different days I’ll listen to different things and in the canon of women artists Siberry – for me – is up there with the best of them.

Check out her website (www.janesiberry.com) for more info on her music and other creative outputs. You can download files and listen to some of her work. And while you can download files for free I’d urge you to make a donation and help support an innovative artist happy to put her work out there for us.

Win Jane Siberry gig tickets

To win one of two pairs of tickets to see Jane Siberry live, send an email to: maria@mppromotions.co.uk and make sure to write “Jane Siberry – Lesbilicious competition” in the subject line of your message. Please state which show you’d like tickets for – Birmingham (Wednesday 15 May 2013) OR Nottingham (Sunday 17 May 2013) and leave your full name and a telephone contact. Winners will be picked at random. Good luck.

A couple of weeks ago I took the Metro light railway. A man saw me get on, and he offered me his seat. I am not pregnant, or disabled, or unsteady on my feet. I didn’t need to sit down any more than he did, so I thanked him, and declined.

He looked embarrassed, stood up and strongly insisted that I take the seat. I could see he was trying to be noble and chivalrous, and on another day I might have accepted his offer, to make him feel better about himself.

But on that day I didn’t back down. I knew he wouldn’t have offered if I’d been a man, and I didn’t want to be treated differently because of my gender. So I declined again, and remained standing. So did he. We both felt awkward.

Everyday feminism

That man probably thought I was being rude. Maybe other people on the train thought so too. I think I was being feminist, in a mundane, everyday way.

For me, feminism means trying to treat people the same regardless of their gender, and so I try to reject and challenge positive sexism as much as negative sexism. It was a tiny, forgettable act, hardly on a par with dying for women’s suffrage, but it’s the sort of thing that you might see appear on 100 Deeds, a collaborative art project which aims to encourage feminist deeds.

“Feminism means something different to everyone,” says Sarah Evans, co-founder of 100 Deeds. “This project started because Jennifer [Gaskell, 100 Deeds co-founder] and I were talking about the word ‘feminist’ and how different people took such different meanings from it. I’ve always been comfortable with it, but other people see it as an aggressive, angry, radical word.

“We wondered if we needed another word to describe the equality that we mean, but we decided that any other word would probably get misconstrued too. So then we thought, why not invite everyone to explain what feminism means to them, and how they define it.”

Deeds not words

June 4th, 2013 will be the 100th anniversary of one of history’s most famous feminist deeds, when suffragette Emily Wilding Davison stepped in front of the king’s horse at the Epsom Derby while campaigning for women’s right to vote.

100 Deeds marks that anniversary, and, inspired by the Suffragette slogan ‘Deeds not words’, it invites ordinary people to contribute their examples of feminist deeds to their website. The deeds will then be featured in Manchester’s People’s History Museum, and at London’s Wilding Festival in June, a festival set up to commemorate Emily Wilding Davison.

“I learned about Emily Wilding Davison when I was 12, she was my hero when I was growing up,” says Sarah. “I thought it was incredible that someone would put their life on the line for something they believed in.

“Emily is our inspiration for this project, but the feminist deed you submit to 100 Deeds can be anything, it doesn’t have to be something really massive or life-changing.

“You probably already do something amazing every day that you’re not even conscious of. But if you add it to 100 Deeds, someone else might see that action you took and think ‘I could do that too’.”

Click here to submit your deeds to 100 Deeds.

All deeds will be shared on the 100 Deeds website and featured in People’s History Museum, 4th – 14th June 2013 as part of Wonder Women: Radical Manchester, alongside the memorial of Emily Wilding Davison & Wilding Festival, with ‘Soundcastle’ London.

But that’s not even the best bit.  Oh no.  Such is the passion felt by those who campaigned so hard for this change, that when the result of the parliamentary vote was announced, MPs and spectators in the public gallery spontaneously broke into song.

That’s right.  They started singing.

The tune of choice was a Maori love song, entitled ‘Pokarekare Ana’.  And, in more ways than one, they couldn’t have chosen a more fitting melody: the lyrics of the song (part of which I have ‘borrowed’ for the title of this article) speak of a lover who has been kept away from his / her beau by both distance and, it is suggested, a tribal difference  or law which does not allow them to be together. Nevertheless the love between them is as strong as ever and will remain that way forever.

In my own sentimental, romantic way, I like to think of that as being reflective of the feelings of the campaigners for this change; they kept their strong feelings and principles, even when the law was against them, and they have finally achieved their aim.  And seeing their reaction to that achievement is, quite simply, beautiful.  If I were a New Zealander, I would be proud to be so today.  I have never before in my life seen such an overwhelming reaction to the passing of parliamentary legislation, and I don’t know if I ever will again.

Of course, I hope I will.  I hope that Whitehall will soon follow suit and make me proud to be British.  When they do, I personally will be singing from the rooftops, and I cordially invite all of you to join me…

Watch New Zealand’s magical moment, from the House of Representatives in Wellington, here:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Last weekend a constitutional convention debated and voted over gay marriage in Ireland.

Made up of a third of politicians and two thirds ordinary citizens, the convention voted overwhelmingly with 79% recommending the constitution be amended to allow for same sex marriage. 19% of participants voted against, and the remainder voted no opinion.

Asked what form this constitutional change should take –  78% of the convention voted for a directive amendment i.e. ”the State shall enact laws providing for same-sex marriage”, while 17% voted for the permissive form i.e. ”the State may enact laws providing for same-sex marriage”.

The convention also voted in favour of recommending that the State pass laws “incorporating changed arrangements in regard to the parentage, guardianship and the upbringing of children”.

The Irish Government has reacted to this result by pledging to hold a debate in the Oireachtas (Parliament) and deliver a response within the next four months.

Constitutional definition

This constitutional change is essential in the fight for gay marriage in Ireland. While the Constitution doesn’t explicitly define marriage as being between a man and a woman, the Courts and further legislation has interpreted it as such.

The Constitution is considered a living document, open to interpretation by the judges and the Supreme Court. It is this legal system that has interpreted the constitutional definition of marriage to being between a man and a woman.

When the Civil Registration Act was introduced in 2004, it too defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. Given the nature of the legislation, this definition could be amended to make it gender neutral at any time.

Spot the difference

What’s the difference between civil partnership and marriage in Ireland? According to Marriage Equality, an organisation based in Dublin, there are 160 differences.

These missing pieces range from issues of the family home, finance, legal procedures, administration, immigration, parent and child, to equality.

It’s things like only one parent having legal rights to the children, lack of inheritance rights  for children and unequal immigration procedures. More on these differences can be read in the Marriage Equality report.

Gay marriage globally

 Information via Department of Justice and Equality, 2013.

The people speak

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Video by Karl Hayden.

Our reactions have the power to both inflame and extinguish the fire of homophobic speech. Unfortunately, in recent months, the fire has been inflamed by calls for censorship, petitions for sacking journalists, and the cyber-lynching of individuals like Julie Burchill, Suzanne Moore, and Richard Littlejohn. We need another approach. Here are some of my own, employed with varying degrees of success.

 Cure 1: laugh

As I read about New York’s Cardinal Dolan saying that gay people are “entitled to friendship” only, it aroused in me nothing more than mild amusement. Jeremy Irons’ claim that same-sex marriage could lead to a father marrying his son to avoid paying inheritance tax is such an astonishingly illogical leap that, yes Jeremy, I am laughing at you too. Further, the Conservative MP Nadine Dorries argued that, because the Marriage Act of 1973 does not offer a definition of adultery for same-sex couples, there was no requirement for married same-sex couples to be faithful.

More surprising than the content of these arguments is that both Dorries and Irons made their points as if they were genuinely persuasive grounds for not allowing same-sex marriage. Why is it that opponents of homosexuality and same-sex marriage put forward such bizarre arguments? At this moment, many of you will rightly point out that no one can provide a convincing argument against same-sex marriage or homosexuality because none actually exists.

There is a danger of dismissing the possibility of discussion with someone because his or her arguments are too ridiculous to even consider. In this instance, however, I am confident that laughing at these arguments reduces their power. We have to pick our battles and save anger for those occasions on which it can be channeled to a productive end.

 Cure 2: be outraged and complain to an official body

 Laughter is a useful weapon in our arsenal against homophobia, but it is difficult to employ when misguided views turn into vitriolic attacks. When Julie Burchill’s article ‘Transsexuals should cut it out’ was published in The Observer, many of us reached for the censorship hammer. I was outraged and shocked when I received an email from the Press complaints commission stating that the article had not breached the Editor’s code of practice. The explanation given is as follows:

“…the Observer denied a breach of Clause 12 [discrimination] because the article had not made reference to any specific individual…The clause does not cover references to groups or categories of people.”

“Clause 4 [harassment], which states that ‘journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit’. It made clear, however, that the publication of a single comment piece was not conduct which would engage the terms of Clause 4.”

In the exceptionally politically correct country that we live in, I was surprised to find out that anyone can say whatever he or she likes about a particular sub-section of society as long as it is:

1)    Not directed towards an individual

2)    Not inciting others to hatred or violence on the grounds of sexuality, race, etc.

In other words, you can’t yell “dyke” at someone in the street, but you can say that homosexuality is unnatural.

Julie Burchill would have considered the backlash to her article as some sort of victory. Firstly, because writers want to evoke strong reactions from their readership; the worst reaction is indifference. As with satirical novels, the more outrage there is, the more successful the writers will consider themselves.

Secondly, there is an irony in the fact that Burchill wrote her piece in response to the abuse that her friend and writer Suzanne Moore had received on Twitter from the trans community. By complaining to the Press complaints commission, pressurising the editor to unpublish the article, and hounding Burchill on Twitter, we proved her point: mob justice is a danger to free speech. Censorship does not change minds for the better.

 Cure 3: hope that people change their minds

 We tend to divide people into homophobes and nice people, ignoring the fact that individuals can and do change their minds.

Rob Portman last month became the first incumbent Republican Senator to publicly support same-sex marriage, citing his gay son as the driving force behind his change of heart. Since Portman’s announcement, several high-profile Republican senators have followed suit. In 2010, only sixteen members of the Senate supported same-sex marriage, now the number is fifty-four.

Minds are changing all over the world, and they are changing at breakneck speed; there is room for optimism.

I happen to be a mother of two fantastic children and I can definitely, 100% guarantee that I did not have sex with any men in order to have either child, not even for the baby that I carried and gave birth to! So why is it that when you are pregnant and decide to tell people your wonderful news, they want to make the baby’s conception about men or sex?

The role of ‘the man’

My wife and I recently had a baby and yes we are very aware of the fact that without a man our baby could not have been conceived (at least not at the moment but apparently science is working on that for us) and we will be eternally grateful to the selfless man who gave up his little (but very effective) swimmers so that people like us could have a baby together.

However, this selfless act does not make it all about him. Or even about him just a little bit. The fact of the matter is that our baby is nothing to do with him or any other man. I know that people enter into different types of relationships or arrangements and some may include the man in the child’s life. I respect anyone’s choice to raise their child how they see fit. For us this was to use donor sperm and for the donor to have no parental rights or responsibilities.

This baby is came into the world because my wife and I are in a loving and committed relationship and wanted to add to our family by having and raising a baby together, not because a man donated some sperm. It would be fantastic if we could have conceived without needing outside help but that’s not reality. The fact that people seem to have this innate desire to want to focus on the role of the man in the conception of our child I find a bit insensitive and disrespectful.

Unfortunately I lost count of the amount of times people referred to the donor as the child’s father. It may seem like a petty distinction but when you have chosen to have a baby with a woman you don’t really want to focus on the fact that you couldn’t conceive the child together.

The role of sex

With regards to sex – I love sex, it’s one of my most favourite pastimes but it has absolutely nothing to do with the conception of our baby. It may come as a shock but we did not conceive by having sex. In fact, if I am honest I have to say that lying on a bed with my feet in stirrups while a middle aged nurse shoved a tube through my cervix while my wife sat holding a tube of pink coloured sperm is not high in my list of most erotic experiences. Straight couples (I’m assuming) get to have fun while they conceive, for lesbians it’s hard work!

The far too common reaction of men to suggest that they would have ‘helped us out’ or we ‘just had to ask’ demonstrates that people find it difficult to differentiate between the conception of our baby and sex. It would have been great if any one of them had ‘helped us out’ as it would have saved us about a grand on donor sperm but after mentioning that their only contribution would be with a plastic cup, their jokes about helping seem to lose their appeal.

Separating the role of men and sex from having a baby does not seem to be something that is going to happen any time soon. My only advice to people in my situation is to practice your fake smile and polite laugh. Alternatively, scream, shout and tell everyone exactly what you think of them (then blame it on the hormones – it’s amazing what you can get away with!

(Thanks to Hollaback for this infographic.)

Some memories, no matter how insignificant they might sound to others, never leave you.  I like to affectionately call these ‘elephant events’, in honour of those gorgeous creatures which, apparently, never forget.  I’m going to share one of my ‘elephant events’ with you now. 

Last year I was sitting in the staff work room at my previous school, marking some essays and generally minding my own business.  Suddenly, from over my shoulder, came the dulcet tones of a colleague from my department:

“Sue, do you think I can show this video to my Year 7 class?”

I turned around, half interested now, to see said colleague in front of a computer; playing on the monitor was Katy Perry’s ‘Fireworks’ video.  The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Colleague: I’m using the song to teach my class about similes and metaphors, and I wanted to use the video to get the kids interested.

Me: That sounds wicked (I might have said ‘awesome’ instead of ‘wicked’; knowing me it would definitely have been one of those two.  Anyway, I digress); what’s the problem?

Colleague: Well, there’s a scene in it with two women kissing.

Me: (a bit bemused) What, are they, like, stark naked and shagging?

Colleague: No.  They’re fully clothed.  Just kissing.  But I’m worried that parents will complain.

Me: These kids are 11 or 12 years old.  They will have seen people kissing before.

Colleague:  But…(in a voice that is desperately trying to think of a diplomatic way to put the next bit) they’re both women.  It’s a lesbian kiss (she didn’t say ‘lesbian’, she mouthed it).

Me:  [insert name here], if it was a heterosexual kiss, would you worry? (Without even pausing for colleague to respond) Because if it wouldn’t bother you in that situation, it shouldn’t bother you in this one.  And if a parent does complain, please direct them to me, because I think that would be a perfect opportunity to educate that parent as well as their child.

“Promotion” of homosexuality

Needless to say, the conversation ground to a halt there.  Just in case you were wondering, my colleague did show the video and no-one complained.  However, rewind this event back to the late 80s or indeed the whole of the 90s, and that teacher would have been in direct violation of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.  Her ‘violation’, as declared by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government of the time, would have been “the promotion of homosexuality”.

Now, to me, that sounds ridiculous.  For a start, the colleague in question is by far the straightest woman I’ve ever come across; if I were to pick someone to proclaim the beauty and wonder of being a lesbian, it certainly wouldn’t be her.  Secondly, I take serious issue with the word “promotion”.  As you’ve probably guessed, I am a lesbian.  I have embraced the ‘lifestyle’ of fancying and going out with women whole-heartedly and, since coming out as a teenager, I haven’t looked back.  It’s fair to say that I am loving being a lady-lover.

However, that’s my life.  It’s fine for me, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be for anyone else.  Not once, in the whole time I have been out, have I ever considered “promoting” the ‘lesbian lifestyle’ (if indeed that concept even exists, which it doesn’t).  “Come on kids, get yourselves gay!  It’s brilliant!  It’s much better than heterosexuality, and if you sign up for at least 12 weeks, and recommend a friend, you’ll get a free toaster!”  What a ridiculous notion.

David Wilshire - 'founder' of Section 28

But, the fact still remains that section 28 legislation had a massive impact on thousands of lives and changed both the educational landscape and that of local government as a whole.  In local authority run establishments across the land, gay support groups were shut down, funding totally removed, in case the support of a minority group were to be viewed as a “promotion” of ‘their lifestyle’.  And, of course, this lack of support couldn’t have come at a better time for the LGBT community, because this destruction of all auxiliary networks coincided beautifully with the demonisation of gay men due to the AIDS/HIV epidemic that was splashed all over the news at the time.

I was only 6 when this happened.

I was unaware of David Wilshire MP’s disdainful statement that the book he had found in his local library, Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin, “portrays a child living with two men … [and] clearly shows that as an acceptable family relationship”.

I was unaware of the 1987 speech made by Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Party conference when she declared that, “children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay”.

I was unaware of the despair and anguish that must have been caused to the entire LGBT community and the resulting formation of Stonewall (possibly the one positive thing to come out of Section 28).

LGBT rights group Stonewall formed as a result of Section 28 being passed

School days under Section 28

But I did start school in 1987 and finished my GCSEs in 1999.  In other words, the entirety of my education was completed under Section 28 legislation.  And, as a teacher now, I can still see the echoes of that legislation in schools today.

My overriding memory of being in school is that being gay didn’t exist.  It wasn’t frowned upon, it wasn’t derided, it just… wasn’t.  Nobody ever spoke about it.  The main outcome of this for me was that, when I started having sexual feelings towards women, probably at about the age of 10 or 11, I had no idea what the hell was going on.  I didn’t know anyone who was gay, or bisexual, and certainly not transgender, and I wasn’t really aware of any gay role models on television (my joy, by the way, when a couple of years later I discovered kd lang was unadulterated; I fell in love instantly).  In short, I didn’t have anywhere to go for information or advice and so I just kept quiet, hoped the feelings would go away, a bit like my liking for shell suits, and then all would be well again.

Needless to say, this didn’t happen.  I continued to experience life at school, including sex education as I went through my secondary years, none of which even went near touching upon being gay.  I knew how to avoid getting pregnant and how to avoid STDs (as long as I was straight) but as a teenage lesbian the latter information, most importantly, was completely unavailable to me.

What’s changed?

Comparing this to my experience as a teacher, the difference is clearly evident.  I have taught sex education every year of my 8 year career so far, and each time every kind of sex, gay sex included, has been discussed.  It is true that some of these discussions have incited homophobic comments from students, possibly because they have heard these views from family or other friends, but the point is that every time that happens, the opportunity to give them all the necessary information presents itself.  That way, whether the students decide to ‘agree’ with the idea that some people are gay or not, they at least have their facts straight (excuse the pun) before they make that choice.

And it’s not just sex education where these discussions come up.  Let me give you an example: I’m in a lesson giving my Year 11 class an introduction to their Shakespeare set text, Much Ado About Nothing.  As I’m sure you can guess, we’re all having unimaginable fun.  A hand goes up at the back:

Student: Miss, this play has got a lot of blokes and girls getting it on.  Wasn’t Shakespeare gay?

Me: Well, no-one’s really sure but we think he might have been bisexual.

Student:  So, gay then?

Me:  No.  Bisexual.  It’s different.  If he was gay he’d only fancy men.  If he was bisexual he’d fancy men and women.  And even if he was gay, it wouldn’t mean he couldn’t accurately write about a man and a woman falling in love.

And so the conversation sort of went on for a bit, fizzled out, and then we carried on as we were.  But I can’t imagine a scenario where I couldn’t have those discussions with kids.  No topic should ever be closed for discussion in a school, ever.  Young people need information.  The more accurate information they have on a subject, the better equipped they are to do what we really want them to do – form their own, independent ideas.

Community values

Most of all, though, young people need support.  We all do, really.  The notion of community is something that we, as human beings, are inherently drawn to.  And that, in essence, is where Maggie Thatcher fell down in her policy-making.  From Section 28 to the miner’s strikes, the idea that we can all exist independently from one another, being responsible only for ourselves and no-one else, goes against all our natural instincts.  Perhaps her theory was ‘divide and rule’?  Well, it worked for 3 elections…but thankfully no longer than that.

Thatcher - a 'divided' legacy

I’m not going to ‘Thatcher bash’ and I’m certainly not going to rejoice that an old lady, a mother and a grandmother, has died.  But I am going to be happy that Section 28, a policy that caused devastation to thousands of lives by marginalising the LGBT community and declaring that they were ‘abnormal’, has been repealed.  But then, I was happy in 2003, when that actually happened.

It’s important that we learn from Thatcher’s Premiership.  She was indeed a strong and independent leader who clearly knew her own mind.  She still remains our only female PM.  I can only presume that she wasn’t completely homophobic, because in 1967 she voted in favour of decriminalizing homosexuality.  Having said that, I can’t imagine what changed between then and the late 1980s.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.  I will never believe that Margaret Thatcher’s political ideology was a positive one and I can totally understand the anger of all those affected by her policies and their families.  But I also believe in affording dignity and respect to all human beings.  If you don’t want to listen to me, listen to the man who epitomises these values:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

Thatcher’s legacy?  Teaching all of us the importance of community, of support, and of mutual respect.  As far as the LGBT community goes, she didn’t want these things; let’s mark her death by making sure they are present in all of our lives.

Last month my friends and I saw the musician Tristan Prettyman perform at the Bowery Music Hall. I will confess this was my first time seeing her, and in reality I had only just heard of her a few months before when my girlfriend told me she bought us concert tickets for a fun date night. Within ten minutes of Tristan Prettyman bouncing onto the stage with her band, my friends and I agreed we had a full blown crush. It appeared we were not the only ones with crushes, because the (primarily female) audience went wild for Tristan as well. I leaned over to my girlfriend and yelled, “Seriously, Tristan Prettyman is one hot lesbian! Those legs are unreal! Who was she engaged to before?” And lo and behold, she had been engaged to a man (popular singer Jason Mraz) and is totally not a lesbian. I surveyed the audience members (short hair-check, flannel shirts-check, slouchy beanies-check, tongue down another girl’s throat-check) and turned to my GF with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean she’s not a Judith? Why the eff are all these lesbos yelling out their phone numbers then?”

She didn’t have a concrete answer, and it inspired a discussion about female singers and bands that have a large lesbian following. I’m not talking about kd Lang, Indigo Girls, Uh Huh Her, Melissa Etheridge, or other lesbian musicians who are rocking the scene. Of course lesbian music fans will want to band together and support talented and popular lesbians. But what is it about some musicians that draw in the Judith fans? The answer is obvious when it comes to singers like Ani DiFranco. I was fortunate enough to see Ani for the second time last December (she was amazing, btw) and it was no surprise that it was a total taco party. But Ani is vocally bi, and has had female lovers and girlfriends, and she sings about girls in love, so of course she has a large lesbian following. But Tori Amos? She isn’t gay, and she sings about love and love lost with men. And yet she has a huge lesbian fan database.

The alternative band Garbage has all male band members, save for one, singer Shirley Manson. At their Terminal Five show in March the crowd was a wild mix of genders, ages, and cultures, but wouldn’t you know, my girlfriend and I were sandwiched between two lesbian couples. I imagine, like me, a lot of the bouncing lesbians were there to sing their hearts out alongside fiery Shirley Manson (also bi) who knows how to touch our souls with her dark and gritty music. “Cherry Lips” is a pop anthem about a beautiful transgendered individual, and not only does the song rock the house, it is a sweet tribute and inspiring to LGBT fans and non-LGBT fans alike. But tiny and adorable folk singer Jewel? A beautiful scribe of love and heat between boys and girls? Lesbians love that silky voiced pixie (and so do Funny or Die fans).

You know who else lesbians love? Fiona Apple. And after the letter she penned (in 2000) in response to a high schooler’s request to write to his school’s gay-straight-alliance went viral in 2012, I am sure her LGBT fan base grew even more. Alanis Morrissette? Her anthems make me belt my pain out the car window, and I am sure many women have blared her song “You Oughtta Know” on repeat after a break up. Women, and lesbians, love Alanis. (And apparently some gay men in Florida HATE Alanis.) Robyn embraces her gay fan base, and even rocks a “lesbian haircut”, so it’s no wonder the Judiths set their playlists to Robyn when running along the Westside Highway. Ah yes, lesbian haircuts could be used as a filter, for hasn’t La Roux singer Elly Jackson often defended her sexuality? Surely I am not the only girl out there drooling over Pink’s cute hair and smokin’ abs while she rocks a full house.

Madonna owns the gay fan base, boys and girls alike, but that’s a no-brainer. Kelly Clarkson. My Judith friends worship Kelly Clarkson. (The lesbian rumors have been mostly quashed after her recent engagement to a boy, though she is an outspoken LGBT ally.) And perhaps there lies the answer. With songs like “Stronger” and her new single “People Like Us”, she is offering women everywhere some amazing and empowering ballads. Perhaps lesbians are drawn to musicians who sing about more than clothes, Hollywood, and the next boy toy. Maybe we like singing along to songs that not only rock, but actually have lyrics that mean something to us. Tori, Fiona, Alanis, Jewel, Ani . . . all poets that know how to layer their lyrics with truth. They are women who know how to rock, who deserve our fanbase, and who inspire me to belt their anthems in my shower.

Things I think, part one: women should be able to earn a living however they want, free from judgement. Showing off your body and expressing your sexuality, in the right circumstances, can be an extremely empowering experience and it isn’t right for me to moralise about how someone else pays their bills.

Who am I to tell anyone how to earn a living, especially from a position of privilege? So what if it’s not something I‘d choose for myself? My worst nightmare is standing in my pants in a crowded room of strangers, but I think that says more about me (or my pants) than anything else. Whether stripping is a choice of desire, need or circumstance, it’s still a choice, and it’s still valid.

Things I think, part two: objectification of women’s bodies makes me feel uncomfortable. Sure, I’ve been known to steal a glance or two at Jessie J‘s cleavage, but I question the motive and rationale of a person whose idea of a great night out is cheering on strangers taking off their clothes. I struggle to understand, that as a society, as women, we are really comfortable being reduced to nothing more than how we look, and how we look naked.

So, there’s a conflict there. I believe people in the sex industry should have personal autonomy,  but I dislike strip clubs.

While I believe that women can and should be agents of their own change, I think that strip clubs are just another socially acceptable part of the casual misogyny we are constantly exposed to. So casual, in fact, you probably didn’t even notice it sneaking in and sitting down at the dinner table with you and your family while The One Show was on. Matt Baker might introduce ‘the beautiful and witty’ Alex Jones because, it seems, the most interesting thing about a woman is always, always, ALWAYS the way we look. It’s not offensive, per se, but it’s still reductive, and my heart is telling me to rage against it. Until everyday sexism is a thing of the past, how can I reconcile strip clubs with feminism?

Whether it’s gratuitous nudity or an exercise in empowerment, it’s still a strip club. Right? Well, maybe not, actually.

Michelle De Souza is one of the women behind Chica Bonita, an exclusive club created for the purpose of les/bi women to express themselves freely in an safe, supportive environment.

So how did it begin? Michelle explains: “We wanted to start a revolution and shake up the LGBT community in Britain. Our aim was to provide a sense of exclusivity in women’s society. Over the next couple of months we started researching and exploring various avenues to achieve this.”

Chica Bonita is an exclusive club by women, for women. Photograph: Chica Bonita

Please forgive my skepticism, but the only experiences I’ve had of strip clubs have been the time I got a face full of boob from a stripper at a lesbian club night and felt so awkward I had to leave, or in Edinburgh’s notoriously seedy and aptly-named pubic triangle, (I kid you not) where the stench of heteronormativity is enough to make you want to hurl your cookies. How is Chica Bonita different from these kinds of strip clubs?

“We actually want Britain’s lesbian community to understand that Chica Bonita isn’t a strip club. We incorporate women who are professional exotic dancers within our venues, which will help develop and celebrate our sexuality.

“Heteronormative gentleman’s clubs focus on the male’s perception of sexual desires where Chica Bonita will allow women to develop their own concept. Often you find ‘gentleman’s clubs’ as a predominantly male domain where women are subjected to ridicule and criticism from clients. This is why we strongly believe that Chica Bonita will always remain as ‘women only’ with no male presence.”

No male presence? I can feel myself warming to the idea. By shifting the dichotomy, the experience undoubtedly changes for everyone. But there’s still a nagging in my head. Does feminism hold the answer? Well, much like me, it’s torn on this one. Some of my best friends are feminists (ha) and they fiercely disagree about the issue of strip clubs.

Siouxsie Q recently launched into a stinging, articulate attack on the portrayal of sex workers in an episode of Glee, explaining why there’s more to the issue than stereotypes, and why we need to be aware of intersectionality and our own privilege when engaging in debate.

She said: “You seem to miss a really important piece about the role sex workers play in artistic communities. Myself, and so many others like me who are artists, free thinkers, the kids who didn’t fit in when we were in high school. Well, some of us grew up to be whores. Sometimes if we happen to be queer, fat, trans or many other types of ‘othered’ identities, sex work may present some of the best and only options for us to make money while we conquer our dreams.”

This isn’t a new debate, and Chica Bonita isn’t the first woman-owned strip club. In San Francisco, The Lusty Lady has been around since the 1970s and since then has touted itself as a feminist strip club. Heart says: “The dancers there have always believed themselves to be feminists. For this reason, it has been unique among strip clubs in its practice of rejecting traditional beauty standards and and opposing all discrimination, especially size discrimination.

Dancers from The Lusty Lady in San Francisco, taken from the film Live Nude Girls Unite. Photograph: Phyllis Christopher

“The problem is that strip clubs are about men buying the opportunity to objectify and fetishise the kind of female bodies men have decided are worthy of being objectified and fetishised. On a deeper level, they are about regulating and and selling the bodies of women in the interests of perpetuating a system in which women’s bodies are viewed as the property of men and hence, saleable. That being so, the term ‘feminist strip club’ can only, in the end, prove to be an oxymoron.”

The difference between Chica Bonita and The Lusty Lady, though, is the audience. Remove that power imbalance, and surely you’re removing most of what makes strip clubs problematic.

Sheila Hageman, author and mother, says: “It’s taken me a while to own that not only am I a feminist now, but I always have been, even when I was a stripper. And for me, being a feminist is about not apologising for the decisions I make or made about the ways I choose to use my body and see myself as a woman in this world.

“Feminism is about something more and is open to interpretation. Feminism is about women having real identities of their own, rather than living as man-made beings.”

She continues: “Historically, women have for the most part resigned themselves to their predetermined destinies. Today, a woman can be her own agent of change. Strippers shatter the traditional mould even as they objectify themselves because they are making conscious choices.

“But does that make strippers empowered? On good days I had respect for what I was doing and treated my work as an art form. Of course, there were also those days where I became just body parts, overwhelmed by men who seemed intent on belittling me as an object merely existing for their pleasure.

Can stripping, then, ever be an act of feminism? Hageman thinks so.

“That woman is making a choice for herself. No matter how confused or misguided she may be, if she has made that choice for herself, then it should be honoured and seen as a feminist act – a conscious choice of her destiny in the world.”

But there are still people who disagree with Siouxsie Q, Hageman, and De Souza, and cannot remove stripping from the seedy, degrading place it has been relegated to.

Navprit Rai, former Lib Dem advisor says: “Stripping is not some grand feminist statement.

“It perpetuates the idea that women should primarily be judged on their looks and sexual attractiveness. As much as I would like to say that being a stripper is challenging the dominant sexual norms and acting outside of the confines of acceptable behaviour for a woman – in a culture where a man is ‘a bit of a player’ and a woman is ‘a slut’, I can’t.

Feminism then, like my friends, are never going to agree. Much as we’d like things to be black and white, they very rarely are, so we have no choice but to live in the grey. I think there’s only one thing for it…

Chica Bonita launches 26^th May at Legs 11 in Birmingham. Will I see you there?

We’d like to hear your views on strip clubs. Let us know what you think in the comments.

5^th April 2020

Marriage Mayhem!

The world has hit crisis point.  Very few people saw this coming, but our lives as we know them are teetering on the brink of destruction.  A humanity which has survived wars, famines and diseases, has been brought to its knees by a homosexual scourge.

We should have heeded the warnings; now it’s too late.

Since the legalisation of same sex marriage in England, Wales and the US some years ago, the planet has been awash with misery and deprivation.  But how has it come to this? Here we catalogue a timeline of, perhaps at the time seemingly meaningless events, showing how they have combined to form a recipe for disaster:

Men holding hands: clearly a sign of malicious intent

October 2012: The Daily Mail reported 2 cases of good, Christian folk who had been “entrapped” by gays and had suffered as a result; one man had been demoted and fined for making a homophobic comment on Twitter, whilst the other was a B&B owner who had been fined for refusing to allow two men to share a double bed in her establishment.  At the time this was written off by many as justice for those displaying homophobic behaviour…but not for long.  In the same month, 3 years later, the situation had got so bad that it was ruled illegal for anyone heterosexual to have a job, just in case they used their position to behave in a homophobic manner.  Bisexuals could only work part-time.  Relying on their LGBT friends for handouts as the ‘nanny state’ benefits system was stripped back, the vast majority of straight people fell into extreme poverty.

Legal document or lethal weapon?

 Christmas 2012: In his Christmas message, Pope Benedict XVI denounced gay marriage, stating that the idea was an “attack” on the ‘traditional’ family.  At the time, many left-wing fanatics rubbished his claims.  However, little did we realise that, less than 2 years later, after legislation had been passed in England and Wales to allow ‘marriage’ to occur between gays, these newly married ‘couples’ actually did begin to attack traditional families.  No mother, father or 2.4 child was safe walking down the street, as rampaging homosexuals randomly attacked them, beating them sometimes half to death with their newly acquired marriage certificates.  Some victims suffered head wounds caused by the heavier, better quality certificates, whereas others had to endure painful paper cuts.  Legal document turned weapon, the government ordered an immediate amnesty on all marriage certificates, deeming them too unsafe to be left in public hands.

April 2013: Actor Jeremy Irons stated that same sex marriage would lead to wealthy fathers marrying their sons in order to avoid paying inheritance tax.  Naturally, most passed this concern off as the ramblings of a mad-man.  However, the year the bill was passed, Whitehall announced a £100 billion loss in revenue due to fathers scrambling to marry their male offspring in a desperate bid to avoid losing cash.  As peer of the realm Lord Winalot told us, “Of course there has been a great deal of emotional damage caused to my son by being married to his father.  Not to mention the damage caused to his reputation amongst the local girls in the village.  But that pales into insignificance when you think of all the money we’ve saved.”

So, there you have it.  The gays have taken over.  The ‘pink disease’, as it has come to be known, has spread like a plague throughout our towns and cities, leaving the heterosexual community an ignored and undervalued minority.  The curse of a liberal, democratic society.

 A fiction…

Naturally, this is a fiction.  But it’s a fiction born of some very real, very concerning comments from influential figures from all walks of life.  Of course, most of the time the media blow them up to be more than they are, but that in itself is a problem as opinions are formed and minds are made up on the basis of over-inflated, hate-filled rubbish.  When writing this article, there were so many ridiculous comments that had been made about gay marriage and lifestyles that it was impossible to include all of them and hard to know which ones to pick; I guess I’m just sick of hearing them.  It’s hurtful and it’s unnecessary.  By all means, have your own opinion, but at least make it an informed opinion.

 The majority of people understand that gay people don’t want to be treated any better than anyone else (and nor, for that matter, do we want to take over the world).  All we want is equality.  The equality to live and love and work alongside every other human being, with the shared similarity of living on earth together and enough understanding that any differences between us don’t make a difference to how we treat one another.  A utopian idea, isn’t it?

Yesterday an article was published by GCN (Gay Community News), a free magazine for the Irish LGBT community. Or so I thought. Entitled LGBT Soup, the article sparked uproar with its biphobic, transphobic and asexphobic slant. Written by Ciara McGratten, the Deputy Editor of the magazine, many saw this piece as the voice of GCN, and turned away in astonishment.

McGrattan begins her article with a brief history of the terms gay and lesbian – an interesting read. But then goes on to state her distaste at the words bisexual, transgender and asexual, amongst others, from being “tacked on” to the LGBT community.

“The “T” doesn’t need to be there”

Her reasoning is given as follows;

“While, it’s obvious that the trans and gay communities fight the same kinds of fights, and as such make logical allies, trans individuals, are not part of the ‘gay’ community by virtue of their non-traditional gender orientations (except the ones in same-sex relationships, naturally).”

Hmm… how many times have you heard a gay guy being  described as a ‘nancy-boy’ or a lesbian referred to as “butch”?  The LGB’s have a longterm affinity with “non-traditional gender orientations”. It’s no wonder the transgender community has developed with the help of LGB.  In Ireland we have an organisation called TENI (Transgender Equality Network Ireland). While they run autonomously, last year they marched in the Dublin Pride Parade – and with a contingent of over 100. This massive display of the transgender community wouldn’t have happened without the help of the LGBT organisation Dublin Pride. There’s nothing wrong with this.

The statement in the article which caused the most comment was;

“As big a fan as I am of sensitivity to marginalised individuals, I am more concerned with accuracy of language.”

For me, the point in LGBT is inclusivity. Bisexual and transgender people are marginalised, especially in Ireland, and I think supporting them is more important than having a perfectly eloquent language. Heck, if I were to label myself accurately I would be a pansexual, transgender, polyamorous individual. I find it easier just to refer to myself as gay and inbetweeny in gender if anyone asks.

Asexuality is absurd too

“Seriously now. Asexual? Asexuality is the absence of sexual attraction to anyone – same-sex, opposite-sex, whatever. When exactly did LGBT become the dumping ground for every non-heterosexual orientation?”

A “dumping ground”. How inclusive of you. Asexuality is a term often misunderstood, and is paired with the LGBT community so as to allow a space for understanding. Not long ago I didn’t ever get asexuality – this was until an asexual banner joined us in the Pride Parade. The people marching explained their thoughts, marginalization, and joy at being able to join such a huge celebration of expression. Why should they be left out to make a shorter name?

Bisexuals “not same-sexing it up”

Now, this is an argument which is wrong on so many levels;

“Even the current LGBT mouthful is unnecessarily long, when ‘gay’ suffices for all same-sex attractions. This doesn’t cover bisexuals, you might argue. It doesn’t need to: ‘bisexual’ is only a description of what someone is doing when they’re not same-sexing it up.”

Ok. So say I’m bisexual. If I were “sexing it up” with a lady, I’d suddenly not be bisexual anymore – let alone not belong to the LGBT community? What!?

Hang on. Who chooses my labels? Who defines when and how I use them? Who defines my membership to the LGBT community?

I don’t think I need to elaborate…

“LGBTLMFAO”

Woah. If the image of the alphabet soup in the shape of “f*ck off” hadn’t offended enough, this was the last straw. LMFAO, as many of you know, stands for Laugh My F*cking Arse Off. Not a great way to end a biphobic, transphobic and asexphobic article.

The featured image of the article.

The “Gay Club”

This marks the crux of the offence in the article for me.

“Do you sleep with people of the same sex? Welcome to Gay Club. In a relationship with someone of the same-sex? Welcome to Gay Club. Trans and exclusively attracted to people of your gender? Welcome to Gay Club. Attracted to both sexes? Good for you, but unless you’re with someone of the same-sex, you aren’t part of Gay Club.”

Well then that’s a club I don’t want to be in. Your club doesn’t have space for my human array of emotions? No thanks. I’ve got to respectfully disagree on this one.

This was the life of Lucy Meadows, a teacher of St. Mary Magdalen’s C and E School in Accrington, Lancashire. Like many trans women, Lucy just longed to be herself, and at age 32, that is what she did.

Upon coming-out to her workplace, the Headmistress, Karen Hardman, wrote this letter that made the headlines in the press:

“Mr. Upton has recently made a significant change in his life and will be transitioning to live as a woman.”

On Wednesday Mrs. Meadows’ pupils were told the worst. Their teacher was dead.

Post-mortem results have not been released, but it is believed she killed herself.

We’ve learned this woman’s tragedy through the emails gleaned my the media. In a New Years mail to her friend, Mrs. Meadows spoke out about the media’s publishing of her wedding photographs and other private photos from a sibling’s Facebook page. She also spoke about her urge to come-out.

“I was lucky to have a supportive head, but I think I’d have done it here regardless as I couldn’t put it off any longer and I have family and financial commitments as well. The guidance I’ve had from the trans community has been generally sound and very much appreciated, and I’d like to be able to say I’ve given something back. I suppose the best way for me to do this would be to educate the people around me and children at school – I am a teacher after all!”

The Press

Lucy goes on to describe her taunting by the papers;

“I became pretty good at avoiding the press before Christmas. I live about a three-minute walk from school so they were parked outside my house as well as school. I’m just glad they didn’t realise I also have a back door. I was usually in school before the press arrived and stayed until late so I could avoid them going home.”

Unfortunately, this kind of harassment avoidance is common among trans people – whether it be to avoid the papers, their family or even the neighbours.

Littlejohn and the Mail

In December, Lucy’s fate was to get even worse when her gender reassignment became the subject of nationwide media attention. In a piece headlined, “He’s not only in the wrong body… he’s in the wrong job.” Richard Littlejohn of the Daily Mail asked readers what they thought of “the devastating effect” on the students of Mrs. Meadow’s change in gender. It was then that Lucy complained to the PCC.

Over 150,000 people have signed a petition urging the Daily Mail to fire Richard Littlejohn and demanding a formal apology. The Daily Mail has since struck back in defence. A spokesperson has said;

“It is regrettable that this tragic death should now be the subject of an orchestrated Twitterstorm, fanned by individuals – including former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell – with agendas to pursue.”

Last night a candlelight vigil was held outside the Daily Mail headquarters, with up to 300 members of the transgender community and supporters attending. Participants held placards with the message “I am not afraid.”

Stand up and be counted

Lucy isn’t alone in her battle against a transphobic society. GIRES (Gender Identity Research and Education Society UK) estimate 300,000 to 500,000 transgender people live in the UK. Of these, 78% of transgender people have seriously thought about ending their lives and 40% of those have attempted, 22% of those at least 3 to 5 times. (The Trans Mental Health and Well-being Survey 2012)

Lets not let Lucy’s story go to waste. In a era where the faces of the transgender community are rising to the fore – stand up and be counted. It’s not so long ago lesbians and gays felt the stigma.

If you or someone you know is affected by these issues and need to talk to someone urgently, the Samaritans is available 24 hours a day on 08457 90 90 90; or email jo@samaritans.org or visit the Samaritans’ website.

Some members weren’t happy with the wording in the bill because of the included terms ‘gender expression’ and ‘gender identity’.  Randall Garrison, the New Democrat Party Minister of Parliament who introduced the bill, removed the term ‘gender expression’ by way of a compromise.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal were in support of the bill adding transgender identity to the federal anti-discrimination and anti-hate legislation saying it would promote acceptance and send a message about tolerance.

There were some MPs who debated that transgendered people were already protected under sex and disability but the explicit protection outlined in the bill completely eliminates the possibility of challenging the rights of transgendered people or leaving them vulnerable within a non-specific grey area.

‘Both sides of this debate should agree that equality and protection against harm are two fundamental values that all Canadians of any gender, any age, any background are entitled to.’          —Tory MP Michelle Rempel

This is a big thing and a small thing simultaneously.

It’s a big thing because this is a group of people who have been marginalized, ridiculed, attacked, misunderstood and left without any basic protections.  Without trying to sound glib, their position within mainstream society has been exclusive, relegating them as a kind of modern-day leper and forcing them into hiding where they exist on the outer extremities of the rest of the population.  This bill changes that reality for the thousands of Canadians who identify as transgendered as well as for the transgendered tourist population visiting Canada.

It’s a small thing because why have transgendered people NOT been protected under the law so far from the harassment and violence that they endure on a regular basis?  As human beings, they should always have been protected under human rights.  Having your basic human rights protected seems like such a small thing—to those who take it for granted.

In the UK a transgendered woman is treated like a social pariah while shopping for clothes on the High Street.  In the American state of Arizona a transgendered man uses the men’s toilet and sparks an outcry and public debate because of the gender on his birth certificate.  In Canada a transgendered woman is refused work at a rape crisis and support centre because she was born male and can’t possibly empathise with the women survivors (despite experiencing the very same gender-based violence).  In the UK a transgendered woman kills herself after a reporter chooses to publicly rip her life apart by way of an article in a daily paper just because he is uncomfortable with who she is.

Who gets to decide?  Who is the lucky person who decides how any single individual apart from themselves is permitted to exist within our society?  I haven’t been granted that permission from anybody of note.  I don’t know anybody in my own circle of family and friends who have been granted that permission.  Until I see a piece of paper with some kind of seal on it stating ‘This person has the right to impose his/her/their own values onto anyone and everyone they choose to and reduce their life to a state of misery just because they feel like it’ then I will maintain my stance that my life is not your business and your life is not my business.

If you are walking down the street wearing a paper bag and a fruit basket on your head, you must be comfortable doing so and I kind of admire you for feeling secure enough with who you are to pull off such an out-of-the-ordinary look.  Work it.  It looks good on you.  By the same token, if I choose to walk down the street wearing a pair of trousers and a t-shirt I would expect no different treatment because at the end of the day, underneath whatever we’re wearing, we are human beings and we have a right to feel safe and protected and free to be who we are.

Are you lesbian? Gay? Queer? Bisexual? Nonstraight? Questioning? The BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (BFI LLGFF) have decided that maybe it’s time they changed their name, and they’re looking for suggestions for what it could change to.

LLGFF is not the most elegant of names, and as well as being rather a mouthful, it’s not particularly accurate. It’s not just a festival of lesbian and gay films, because people don’t always fit into those two neat categories.

Sexuality is a spectrum, and it’s as difficult to divide and categorise as the spectrum of light. Where does blue end and green start on a rainbow? There certainly aren’t just 7 colours – just take a look at Crayola names, or the amusing and slightly insane colour survey from XKCD.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, or LGBT for short, is often used a catch-all for people who don’t fit into the box marked ‘heterosexual’. But not everyone fits in that either. What about people who feel ‘bisexual’ is too binary, or ‘lesbian’ too permanent? Or the people who don’t consider gender particularly important – either their own or other people’s?

‘Queer’ is heralded by some as the magic word that ends all these problems – a wonderful umbrella term that encompasses everyone who isn’t 100% heterosexual. Many people love it and use it quite happily, but for a significant minority it will always be a term of abuse, and no amount of reclamation and rehabilitation will make it fit back into polite society.

The LLGFF have got a real challenge on their hands. All organisations that speak to non-heterosexual audiences face the same problem – Lesbilicious included. We took the decision early on to use ‘lesbian / bisexual’ to refer to all women who don’t consider themselves to be straight, but we do sometimes say ‘lesbian’ instead – and in doing so accidentally exclude readers who don’t identify as lesbian.

So what’s the solution? An alphabet soup of acronyms, which may include more people, but may enrage others who feel it’s empty politically correct posturing? Or a random word that excludes everyone and no-one, explains nothing and confuses everyone?

Whatever LLGFF do about their name, most people will probably think it’s the wrong decision. In a way, that’s positive. People are complex, and so, inevitably, if there are an infinite number of ways that people can define themselves, there will never be one category big enough to fit us all.

What label do you use to describe your sexuality? And what do you think the LLGFF should change its name to, if at all?

Acts already announced:

RITA ORA

KATY B

UNION J

OFFER NISSIM

SKIN (DJ SET)

+

VERY SPECIAL GUEST:

HOLLY JOHNSON

Rita Ora

More acts to be announced as well as 4 separate large indoor dance tents and 5 additional tents.

There’s still time to get your tickets, so don’t miss out on such a fantastic event. More details can be found on their website:  AS ONE IN THE PARK

£40, £75 VIP

12pm – 10pm

Victoria Park, Hackney, London E9 7DB

Nearest Tube/National rail: Mile End

Perceptions of lesbian sexual appetite, however, go much further than the idea that we engage in less casual sex than gay men. They relegate us to the bottom of the sexual desire scale with ideas such as lesbian bed death; it is not just that we don’t have casual sex, we don’t have sex at all. According to these perceptions, gay men and lesbians occupy two extremes of the sexual deviance spectrum; gay men are promiscuous and gay women are lacking in sexual desire. Between these two extremes, heteronormative sex can insert itself (as it were) and reaffirm itself as normal and natural, whilst “othering” any sex that does not constitute heteronormative sex.

Botticelli's painting of the birth of Venus, goddess of sexual love

Heterosexism is the new homophobia

This is not just a matter of blaming the straight majority, since the survival of the lesbian bed death idea can be accounted for by the (unconscious or conscious) internalisation of these heteronormative beliefs by lesbians and bisexual women. I know that I have been guilty of this. In my last article, when a doctor asked me if I was sexually active, I replied: “I’m gay, does that count?”

Let us also consider the name The L Word. Already we are labeling ourselves as something that dare not speak its name. It reminds me of characters in Harry Potter calling Voldemort “you know who” because he is too terrible to be named.

I will admit that there is a part of me that considers lesbian sex not “real sex”, but I believe that this internalised feeling of heterosexism was borne out of saturation with hetero-normative sex. If I switch on the TV, I cannot avoid heterosexual sex scenes. If I read the newspapers, I cannot avoid stories of celebrity sex tapes. If I listen to the radio, it is only a matter of time before Flo Rida asks: “Where dem girls at?”

There is a surfeit of heterosexual sex in the modern world and yet gay sex barely gets a look-in. This is why heterosexist beliefs are internalised and survive within the LGBT community: because gay sex is rarely represented, let alone normalised.

Lesbian sex in mainstream culture

When lesbian sex does make its way into the mainstream, it is qualified by what I like to call “The abnormality factor”. Consider the following lesbians in these films:

Black Swan (mentally ill)

Gia (junkie)

Monster (serial killer)

Lesbian Vampire Killers (mythological and homicidal)

The Kids Are Alright (prefers penis when given the choice)

Batwoman ([in DC Comics] domestic abuser)

The message? Lesbian sexual desire can only be expressed when it can be dismissed as deviant, leaving the mainstream community able to preserve their sense of being “normal”.

Now I am not suggesting that we start waving strap-ons in the faces of our straight friends, but it is worth considering to what extent we are complicit in lesbian sex remaining in the closet, even if it is due to cultural heterosexism.

I’ve played sports since I was tiny, played hockey for over a decade for my North Wales club, Ardudwy Hockey Club, and Lancaster University, as well as being a sports rep for Lonsdale College (Lancaster has a collegit system in place which is invaluable, in my opinion), so sports has always been a staple part of my life.

A couple of weeks ago I came across a horrific article where one (male) journalist scrawled a terribly misogynistic portrayal of women’s sports, and how, in his humble opinion, women’s sports doesn’t deserve the same coverage and equality as men’s for reasons that are so nonsensical, I shant waste time delving into them.  I wrote a response (which can be read here) and decided, things need to change, and thankfully, a whole host of other sensational women who are the backbone of women in sports are dedicating a large portion of their time in helping to move women’s sports to the next, equal, level.

I got the opportunity to speak with Tammy Parlour, co-chair of Women in Sports Trust, and is a 4th degree black belt in the Korean martial art of Hapkido, having practiced for over 30 years.  She founded Chang’s Hapkido Academy UK, a full-time martial arts and meditation school in central London.  Tammy specialises in the relationship between martial arts and personal development. She has written a book on meditation, lectures at organisations like The Wellcome Trust, and is doing a part-time MSc in Strength & Conditioning.

Hey Tammy, how are you?

Very well, but rather busy.

Ah, I can imagine! Enjoyed much sports over the weekend?

As I coach the marital art of Hapkido full-time throughout the week, Saturday is my ‘rest day’.  I’m also preparing to test for my 5^th degree black belt in April so things are quite full-on.  Saturday’s are usually about gentle walks, Frisbee in the park or some sofa-TV action – Sundays I do a Strength & Conditioning session – I’m currently in a strength phase which I always enjoy – particularly squats and dead lifts.   We were glued to the TV watching the World Indoor athletics this weekend and last Saturday we loved getting to see the Women’s Rugby live at Twickenham.  There is little that beats the thrill of seeing  exciting sport right in front of you and one of the WST’s aims is to encourage more opportunities for watching live or televised women’s sport.

Very busy indeed! The rugby was wonderful, I made sure I watched too! The Women in Sports Trust sounds really fantastic.  Could you tell us a bit about how it started?

Women’s Sport Trust was stimulated by the London 2012 Olympics.  Like many people – women and men – we were massively affected by the increased media coverage of women’s sport and as a consequence access to strong female role models.  It made their previous absence from mainstream media all the more apparent.  In addition to this there were stories about female athletes representing their country yet struggling financially.  We thought “what can we do?”, and so we founded the Women’s Sport Trust.  I strongly believe that individuals can make a difference;  the Women’s Sport Trust seeks to bring individuals together into a movement that enables them to show that  women’s sport matters.  We have world champions, Olympic gold medallists and business leaders on board – but just as importantly we are getting support from individuals who are willing to donate small amounts of money, or get a group together to attend a match.  It all counts – and the more people who feel they have a connection to WST, the better.

That is really impressive! What’s the main aims the trust hopes to achieve?

We are a grant giving body dedicated to raising the profile and changing the perception of women’s sport in the UK.  We want a world where strong, diverse female role models are highly visible rather than hard to find, and sport is one of the most important public arenas we have – which means that sport has the potential to shift how women are seen and how they see themselves.  The Women’s Sport Trust is designed to make the most of sport’s ability to generate positive change for women.  Practically this means we want to provide an additional funding stream for women’s sport, we want to engage with media organisations to increase coverage, we want to encourage spectatorship and participation – and as a result of all this raise the profile of new and existing role models.

The more coverage the better, for sure. What do you think are the biggest obstacles infront of women in sports today?

Every female athlete we’ve spoken to has mentioned the lack of media coverage.  I believe we are seeing a change – post-Olympics, women’s sports stories are starting to get out and there is evidence to support that there is an enthusiasm for women’s sport – but more needs to be done.  We’d like to see the media able to fully capitalise on the appetite for women’s sport that exists.   The relative lack of media coverage also has a knock on impact to sponsorship and funding, creating a negative cycle that WST wants to play a part in breaking.  If potential sponsors are able to see more media coverage and large audiences, then they will be more compelled to provide financial support.

Ah yeah, and more sponsorship equals more opportunities in the long run. Women in sports have come leaps and bounds over the last century, but we’re still a long way off equality, why do you think that is?

This isn’t happening just in sport.  Just today there were a number of articles claiming that “public appointment processes are ‘loaded towards male characteristics and experience’”.  The Davies report also talked about getting more female representation on boards.  We need to review how decisions are made and check that they are not weighted against female representation.  We also need more diversity amongst decision makers and leaders – including more women.  Those who are in positions of influence have the potential to make decisions that positively impact on women in all spheres, including sport.  There is significant media and political attention on this but progress is too slow.  We hope to play our part in pushing things forward by raising the profile of both women’s sport and leading female figures.

I know we’ve touched on this but what do you hope to achieve with the representation of women’s sports in the media?

The simplest answer is that we want to see more of it!  It can be depressing to read through the back pages of a range of newspapers and notice the minimal coverage of women’s sport – although there are notable exceptions.    We don’t want to browbeat the media though – we want to work with them to change things and have actively engaged with a number of media allies.  We are keen to see a more diverse range of female role models in the media – so that women of any age can be inspired by and connect to them.  Our patrons, athlete supporters and grant recipients will also be a great source of positive media stories and we are actively planning to link them up with journalists.

Do you think the London Olympics and its legacy has made an impact on women’s sports?

I do.  The Women’s Sport Trust’s existence is living proof.  But only time will tell how much of an impact that is.  If access to women’s sport matters, then we all need to get involved.  We need to go to women’s sports events, blog about women’s sport, talk to journalists and programmers, be good role models for our daughters and demonstrate that the hunger for women’s sport is very real.   Whilst the Olympics were extraordinary, we can’t be complacent and just expect a legacy to emerge as if by magic – we actually have to do something.

Definitely! Where do you see the biggest shifts in participation? What sports?

I think we’ll see huge shifts in participation for any sport that the media decide to positively cover.  In all probability then, sports like tennis, football, cricket and netball will greatly benefit.  Upcoming showcase events like football’s Women’s Euro 2013  that will be covered live by the BBC and others, as well as the thrilling recent Australia – England Netball series are cases in point.  Work by progressive organisations like the WSFF are making a big difference – but so are the coaches who volunteer time and the parents who take their children to clubs.  It needs to be a combination of big policy changes, investment and media coverage aligned with the “little big things” getting done on the ground that will really make a difference.

Do you have any advice for girls who want to venture into new sports but haven’t taken the leap yet?

Sport and play tap into the same human desire to connect, run and be part of something.  There are some sports I’ve tried and I didn’t really go for – but I gave them a whirl.  Then there are sports I’ve tried that I’ve loved and have become an enormous and positive part of my life.  So my advice would be – dive in and give it a try.

Thank you so much Tammy for answering these questions for us, and I implore you, lovely reader, to take a look at Women’s Sports Trust’s website here and more importantly, take part!

Oral arguments heard at US Supreme Court later this month

On March 26^th and 27^th, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments regarding Proposition 8 and the Defense Against Marriage Act. Last week, multiple briefs were filed in support of the American Foundation for Equal Rights’ Plaintiffs challenge against Prop 8, and the repeal of DOMA.

I’ve mentioned Prop 8 before, and that’s because it is a wily case that is frankly hard to untangle. Suffice to say, marriage equality advocates are hoping that, after five years of bandying around the words “Prop 8” and “Marriage Ban” and “Really, California??!” an end is finally in sight. Once the oral arguments are heard, it is presumed that a verdict will be reached by June of 2013. (I know I’m not the only California native with her fingers crossed.) Briefs came piling in last week and backers of the Plaintiffs in the landmark Hollinsgworth vs. Perry included the obvious choices of PFLAG, the 13 US States where marriage equality is legal, NFL players Chris Kluwe and Brendan Ayanbadejo, and the state of California.

As far as the Defense Against Marriage Act goes (a federal law that went into effect in 1996 that defines marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman) the case of US vs. Windsor will be going before the Supreme Court as well. President Clinton, who originally signed the DOMA into law, has long ago changed his views and has advocated the repeal. In addition, the Obama administration added its official support last week (Gobama!). Over one hundred American companies devised a brief stating how their married LGBT employees are negatively affected by having the state recognize their marriage, but having that same marriage not recognized on a federal level. These are prominent companies, such as Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Starbucks, and Disney, and their arguments are logical, precise, and should hold some clout.

In a pleasant change of events, over one hundred prominent Republicans added their names to a brief presented to the Court. Former members of Mitt Romney’s staff, a former Congressman, a former member of John McCain’s staff, Meg Whitman (a prominent Republican who supported Prop 8 when she ran for governor of California), and a handful of former members of the Bush administration all added their signatures to a brief in support of same sex marriage. Obviously it is known that not all members of the GOP are opposed to marriage equality, but it is encouraging when prominent members put it in writing.

Perhaps my favorite “brief” was that put forward by Ellen DeGeneres. Granted, she filed said brief on her blog and on Facebook, but it is still a valid argument. I’m proud of the Obama administration, the bold Republicans, the celebrities, the Faith organizations, the LGBT organizations, and the American companies for taking an official stand. But really, I just love Ellen.

“Portia and I have been married for 4 years and they have been the happiest of my life. And in those 4 years, I don’t think we hurt anyone else’s marriage. I asked all of my neighbors and they say they’re fine. But even though Portia and I got married in the short period of time when it was legal in California, there are 1,138 federal rights for married couples that we don’t have, including some that protect married people from losing their homes, or their savings or custody of their children.

The truth is, Portia and I aren’t as different from you as you might think. We’re just trying to find happiness in the bodies and minds we were given, like everyone else. Coming out was one of the hardest things I ever did. I didn’t intend to be on the cover of Time magazine saying, “Yep, I’m gay.” The truth is, I don’t even remember saying that. I mean, I definitely said the “I’m gay” part. It’s the “yep” I don’t remember. I’m not really a “yep” person. “Yes siree Bob” maybe. But not “yep.”

In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “We’re here, we’re queer, get over it.” And there’s another famous quote that says “A society is judged by how it treats its weakest members.” I couldn’t agree with that more. No one’s really sure who said it first, so if anyone asks, tell them I said it.

I hope the Supreme Court will do the right thing, and let everyone enjoy the same rights. It’s going to help keep families together. It’s going to make kids feel better about who they are. And it is time.

*I was just told Benjamin Franklin did not say that first quote. I apologize and see that I have a lot to learn about stuff.”

The main problem with Sue Perkins is that she’s Sue Perkins… writes Hilary Wardle.

She first hit our screens in the early 90′s and has been all over our collective tellyboxes ever since. In fact, since she started presenting Great British Bake Off she’s only been half a Dench (equivalent to a quarter of a McKellen) away from formal ‘National Treasure’ status.

So when her vet character repeatedly introduced herself as ‘Sara’ in the first episode of her new sitcom it seemed a bit jarring: “Hi, I’m Sara, a 40 year old lesbian who hasn’t yet come out to her parents. Also, I just killed a cat.”

No you’re not! You’re Sue Perkins. You’re really good at conducting orchestras, you’re best mates with Mary Berry and you once ate a boiled calf’s head.

It doesn’t help our suspension of disbelief that Sue is – effectively – playing herself, although unlike Sara I suspect she’s definitely out to her parents. If not, they definitely don’t have a TV. Or radio. Or the internet.

However, once you got past the shock of Almost A National Treasure Sue Perkins pretending to be someone other than Sue Perkins and even (!!!) kissing women and waking up naked – ok, all you could see was a bare shoulder, but still - the good news is that Heading Out is actually quite good.

It’s hard to judge sitcoms on the first episode alone as they take a while to find their feet, but while the overall set up was a bit clunky at times (I’m still not sure why she couldn’t just cremate the dead cat at her own vet surgery) there were some great individual jokes and one liners, a testament to Sue’s solid stand up comedy origins.

Putting the lesbian element to one side for a moment, there’s also a huge amount of mileage in the veterinary setting-  so much so that it’s quite hard to understand why VetComs (as @Magicdarts over on Twitter calls them) have taken so long to catch on.

The initial scene showing Sue- sorry, Sara- having to deal with an owner who changed her mind half way through having their cat put down (“look, to be honest with you it’s essentially a windsock”) was genuinely engaging and funny in its own right, a bit like a postmodern version of All Creatures Great and Small with the James Herriot role played by a overly talkative 12 year old boy in a netball skirt.

Also, the casting of Shelley Conn as Sara’s love interest was inspired. Firstly because she is incredibly – and I mean INCREDIBLY – attractive (good call, Sue), but more importantly she’s a fantastic actress with a very impressive résumé: she recently played the lead in Stephen Spielberg’s gigantibudget sci-fi dinosaur series Terra Nova on Fox.

With her glamorous Hollywood polish and perfect teeth, Conn really did stand out, floating around like a British Thandie Newton against a rather more prosaic backdrop of UK comedy heavyweights, e.g. Joanna ‘Thick of It’ Scanlan and Mark ‘Brian From Spaced’ Heap, who had a great cameo as an overly sensitive pet mortician. In fact, the only problem with the impressive cast is that there were too many of them to keep track of. Poor Nicola Walker (Ruth Evershed in Spooks) who plays Sara’s friend Justine was completely under utilised. Hopefully she’ll have a more central role in future episodes.

It remains to be seen if Heading Out can move away from some of the awkwardness and slightly low-budget feel that are its only real flaws. However, thanks to Sue and a great supporting cast the series benefits from a huge amount of charm and some solid gags. Also, any pilot that contains a provincial, over 30′s netball team version of the traditional All Blacks ‘haka’ performed by professional Miss Tiggywinkle lookalike Joanna Scanlan surely has a huge amount of potential.

‘Marriage’ is a word that invokes a traditional image in my mind: a man committing to ‘look after’ a woman financially in exchange for sex on demand and a woman committing her life to every desire the man could possibly want (maid, cook, nanny, prostitute) in exchange for her personhood.

‘Same-sex Marriage’ also invokes an image. For the forward-thinking, it means two adults committing their lives to one another in an exchange of love, equality and shared hopes. For the backward-thinking it invokes an image of debauchery and a tearing-down of all that heterosexual married couples hold dear. So let’s examine the idea of what makes ‘marriage’ so sacred between a penis and a vagina but not so between two penises or two vaginas?

Prince Charles. Katie Price. Ashley Cole. Tiger Woods. Heather Mills. Anna Nicole Smith. Donald Trump. Lorena Bobbitt. Need I go on? What about ANY of these public marriages is so valuable or sacred? Cheating, lying, violence, publicity, money-grubbing… THIS is sacred? THIS is what the straights are trying to protect so fiercely? Even they can see there’s nothing left for us same-sexers to devalue within heterosexual marriage that they haven’t already accomplished themselves.

Traditional Marriage

When I was 15 a heterosexual couple got married on television. The father of the bride spoke to the cameras and explained how this was the responsibility of every father, to save up his money so he could give his daughter the wedding of her dreams.

Mortified, I immediately marched out of the room in search of my father and informed him, “I don’t know if you’re saving money for my wedding or not but if you are, spend it.” My father was taken aback and said nothing and I realised in that moment that he hadn’t been saving anything for that eventuality. I was simultaneously surprised and grateful. The thought of looking like Angel Delight in front of family and friends whilst being the focus of attention was a horrific thought. I never pictured myself married. Never.

Same-Sex Marriage

I’ve been ‘same-sex married’ since March of 2009. That’s four years of marriage without cheating, lying, violence, publicity or money-grubbing. Instead, there’s commitment, love, dedication, stick-to-it-iveness, passion, and shared hopes. We have weathered the storm of two different countries and cultures, moving homes five times (so far), financial instability, hospitalisations, legal battles and serious ‘baggage’ issues. We still love and care for one another deeply, remain committed and continue to take our marriage vows seriously.

Our wedding was small (I insisted). A couple of hours prior we went to pick up our marriage license and our wedding bouquets. We had two roses each—red for love; yellow for friendship. With four guests attending, we exchanged our vows in a grassy park surrounded by trees overlooking the Pacific Ocean on Canada’s west coast. Our wedding bands were Ring Pops, candy diamonds on plastic rings.

My mother toasted our marriage and, with love and sincerity, welcomed my new missus into our family. Our ‘reception’ was a meal at a local restaurant. When the bill came my father reached to pay for it. We protested but my father wouldn’t take no for an answer. He looked right at my new bride and explained: “your daughter only gets married once…” his elbow jabbing her ribs, “right!?”

One of my friends paid for the wedding commissioner, roses and rings as her gift to us and my parents paid for the meal so all told, our wedding cost us less than a tenner. We walked away from our big day without any debt, regrets or complaints about the food. It was a brilliant focus on our love and commitment to one another.

We have since wanted to have a similar event in England so that the close family and friends of my missus can also witness our love and commitment to each other. Thanks to the obvious approval of the same-sex marriage bill in both countries, perhaps we’ll actually get to celebrate our fifth anniversary by doing it all over again in England followed by a ‘legitimate’ honeymoon in France.

Being legally married to the woman I love on both sides of the pond is the kind of equality we’ve both been waiting for.

On our wedding day. Photograph: Tamara Lakeman.

There had been some tears, a lot of laughter, and we were very happy with what we’d put together. It felt like a perfect way to take the next step in our relationship. It was all going very well until we got right to the end. I now pronounce you…erm, what?

Suddenly, there on a couch in a stranger’s house, it became painfully clear that there wasn’t a script to follow, no hundreds of years of tradition to lead the way and that Sarah and I, like thousands of another couples that have embarked on the same journey, were carving our own path.

It was intensely liberating but equally scary and the fact was this: we didn’t know what word to use.

I felt really uncomfortable with the word wife. It felt awkward in my mouth and sounded silly when it came out. I now pronounce you…wife and wife? No thanks.

For me, this tiny word carried a huge weight of negativity. This person said it all: “When I hear the word, I’m immediately hit with a wave of connotations: wedding dresses, Father of the Bride, housework, husbands, love?, divorce, yoga class, soccer mom, supermom, second, _____’s wife, loss of identity, work, swap, wedding rings, diamonds, trophies, gold diggers, happily ever after, proposals, the second shift, First Lady, the 1950s, partnership, ownership, equality?, and many, many, more things.”

I, too, was struggling to work through all of my ‘wife baggage’ but the problem was compounded by the fact that I had been programmed by society for twenty odd years to believe that a woman couldn’t have a wife.

Same-sex relationships have been around in some form or another for a gazillion years, but while parliament debate whether or not we should be allowed the right to marry, language is stuck in traffic half way across town, desperately trying to catch up, and all the horn-honking in the world doesn’t seem to be helping.

On the day, as we stood in front of our family and friends, Juliet declared that Sarah and I were partners for life. It might have been an awkward compromise (partners in crime didn’t seem appropriate) but as we walked down the aisle to rapturous applause from our most important people, the only word that mattered was love.

Jen Christensen, NLGJA president agrees that “there are no established terms” for civil unions and that the language is still evolving. But it became clear in the days, weeks and months following our wedding, wife was the word I defaulted to. No longer did it feel clumsy or heavy in my mouth; it was said it with a smile.

I realised that as marriage is in a process of evolution, so is the word wife. It doesn’t carry the same baggage for me that it once did. Now, it means to love and be loved, to be equal and to be responsible for someone else’s heart.

Welcome news, then, that Associated Press have backed down and are changing their guidelines in the way they refer to same-sex couples.

Gone are those horrible quotation marks strangling the words husband and wife or a lesser alternative. Instead, they have agreed that those terms should be used in reference to any legally recognised marriage, regardless of gender.

It might seem like a fairly innocuous move, but that view is to completely misunderstand the value of language and the importance that words can have on a person’s identity and sense of self. A relatively small detail though it might be, it has massive significance, reaffirming the social hierarchy between same-sex and mixed-sex relationships.

A couple of months ago, my father-in-law was introducing us to some of his friends. “This is my daughter, Sarah,” he said, “and her…partner, Carrie”. Why did he choose partner rather than wife?

Afterwards, he explained that he wasn’t sure which word to go for because he didn’t know what we would be comfortable with. It struck me then that we were actually very lucky. I know there are lots of heterosexual married women that hate the connotations of being a wife, but like it or not, that’s what they are in the eyes of the world. I can’t imagine many father-in-laws sitting down and asking them what terms they prefer.

Carving your own path is difficult, but it’s much better than being tied by tradition. Our wedding was our own, from the vows to the vocabulary.

Because there were no expectations on us, we were able to mix and match aspects of tradition (we asked our Dad’s to walk us down the aisle for our Humanist ceremony) with innovation (we asked our Mum’s to walk us down the aisle on the day of our legal ceremony).

Our gay brothers share the same problem. Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays Mitchell in Modern Family, said: “I didn’t grow up thinking I’d ever have a husband or someone I married. I didn’t know it was available to me as an option. But I think something happens when you meet someone that you love so much. The word “husband” is no longer an awkward word to say because it’s the only word that’s even possible.

“When I was in my early twenties and met people who introduced to me to their husband or partner, it felt awkward to me. I was like “What’s wrong with boyfriend?” That seemed fine to me. I’ve realized, now that I’m on the other side of the relationship, that when it’s that important to you, “boyfriend” is just not going to cut it. It’s not enough. It’s almost disrespectful to the relationship and the connection.”

When same-sex marriage finally passes into law in the UK, language is likely to have caught up and that awkwardness that some of us feel using words like wife will have dissipated. That’s a pretty good present, as wedding anniversary gifts go.

The second single from HP’s Fairytales album, Fight For, is to be released on 11^th March.  And, in the meantime, the anticipation is being built with the release of the official video this week.

What’s it all about?

The basic premise of the video is a variety of friends and fans of Peace, including a number of Waterloo Road and Lip Service favourites, holding up placards proclaiming what they would Fight For.  These range from the amusing (“the duvet”) to the personal (“my dog back”) to the universal (“equality”) to the downright surreal (Peace dressed as a panda bearing a placard reading “a world made of bamboo”).

All of this is interspersed with close-up shots of a smoky-eyed, moody looking Heather.  This brings us back to the original meaning of the song – the need to fight for a flailing relationship.  In addition, it reminds the audience that, aside from being able to punch out some quality tunes, she’s also pretty easy on the eye.

Is it any good?

As HP herself tells us, “I love that songs can mean lots of different things to different people and I wanted to embrace that in the video”.  It’s safe to say that she has achieved this and the sentiment of including her fans in the video fits in well with the general ethos of her work (the production of the Fairytales album was funded from an online auction of Peace products / services and her connection with fans, certainly from reading Twitter feeds and Facebook posts, seems to be very strong and real).

The song itself is described as: “a laid back slice of catchy, soulful pop, driven by lush piano melodies, string arrangements and warm basslines, alongside Heather’s rich vocals”.  And who are we to argue?  Fans of Peace will already know the song and the single (Jack Guy Remix) certainly doesn’t disappoint.

All in all the video is nice, the song is better.  HP fans will undoubtedly love it but, if you aren’t already acquainted with HP’s music, I would urge you to give this single a listen.

Fairytales, produced by the Oscar nominated Nigel Wright, was originally released in May 2012 reaching number 7 in the Official Independent Album Chart, while debut single Better Than You reached number 30 in the Official Independent Singles Chart.

Fairytales (Special edition) will feature the following bonus features: Fight For (Jack Guy remix), Sabotage (Live version), Fairytales (Live version), exclusive poster & a DVD containing never before seen live acoustic performances of Lost and Thank God For You, a track by track interview with Heather and the Fight For music video.

Fight For will be available for download on March 11th via iTunes and Amazon

Fairytales (Special edition) will be available on March 16th as a physical product only from Amazon, Play.com and heatherpeace.com

www.heatherpeace.com

www.facebook.com/heatherpeaceofficial www.twitter.com/heatherpeace

www.youtube.com/heatherpeaceofficial

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Syren’s award-winning successes include releasing a song in aid of Breast Cancer Care, U.K; and winning the Frankie Miller Songwriter of the Year award at the 2012 Scottish new Music Awards. Erin’s passionate nature hasn’t stopped there, she used the attention received from the awards to travel the country talking to LGBT carer groups, and festivals encouraging them to think about long-term practical benefits of coming out.

Erin of Syren.

What does “Syren” mean?

The name “Syren” came from a few talks when we first formed as a band. We wanted a name like “Muse” but that was already taken and we liked the connection between Syren and Greek Mythology. Syrens reach out and draw people in and we hoped to do the same with our music.

What, personally, does the band mean to you?

I’d like to think the music we write is accessible, everyone goes through rough times and we hope with our music we can let people know they’re not alone. I aim to inspire everyone in the LGBT community, the biggest goal being to empower everyone to work towards their ambitions without letting society’s view of our sexual orientations get in their way.

Has this meaning changed throughout your journey with the band? If so, how?

Well the band formed in 2007 and there were three of us, Amanda, my wife Jo and myself. It was going well and we were getting gigs. Then Jo became ill so eventually we had to stop. After Jo passed, Amanda left the band so it was just me really. I toured with a local band and they offered me a gig. I think after the bands breakup and the death of Jo, it reaffirmed that I wanted to write music and to help people, more so than ever.

What have you, and the band learnt from the recent passing of your wife?

When Jo was ill I thought about what I could do instead of music, but it always fell back to this, music is my life and I know this is what she would’ve wanted.

I’m sure your wife is very proud of all that you are doing, so what projects do you have lined up for 2013?                                                                         

We have some nice things lined up in 2013, it’s going to be our biggest year yet, we hope. We’ve got a number of shows lined up. We’re playing a lesbian festival in Dunfermline, a gay festival on the Scottish borders, talks with carers groups to help people bring out their sexuality. I hope Syren evolves this year into something new.

With the recent parliamentary bill for same-sex marriage, do you think we’ve come a long way or do we still have further to go?

I think some  people aren’t too bothered because we already have civil partnerships, but not calling it ‘marriage’ pushes us away from everyone else. Calling it marriage tells everyone there’s no difference between a heterosexual marriage and a homosexual marriage. I do think that society’s view is slowly changing, but I for one want to help push it along.

Who are your musical idols/influences?

I could talk for hours and hours about my musical influences. I find myself listening to a lot of Queen, Kt Tunstall, and Alanis Morissette.

Who are your LGBT idols/influences?

I admire lady gaga and Jessie j for coming out as bisexual when they’re in the public eye so much, it must have been hard for them as it could easily go one way or another, but they’ve paved the way for people to see that there should be equality.

Finally, in terms of music, what would you say to aspiring musicians who just can’t seem to get their foot in the door?

I think most importantly, you should have a clear and realistic view of what you want, work as hard as you can, and never listen to negativity and eventually what you want will come your way.

We’d like to thank Erin for taking her time to talk to lesbilicious and we wish her every success in the coming years.
Her music can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/syrenband

Lesbian couples and women up to 42 will be allowed IVF on the NHS in line with the latest review of guidelines.

Previously, only women up the age of 39 were allowed IVF on behalf of the NHS and lesbian couples were excluded completely.

Under the new guidelines of the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), lesbian couples can gain access if they have diagnosed fertility problems and women aged 40 to 42 will be allowed one cycle of IVF as long as it is their first attempt.

The figures

This is a huge help to couples who would have had to go privately, spending in the regions of £20,000. With the cost of £3,500 a cycle and £350 a year for the preservation of eggs… not to mention the cost of drugs, tests and extra consultations. And there’s typically only a 20% success rate among 38 year olds.

Official figures show the number of lesbian couples undergoing IVF rose from 178 in 2007 to 417 in 2010. This treatment resulted in the birth of 358 babies to lesbian couples over the past three years while the same treatment for single women led to 660 births (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority).

Intro-uterine insemination

Interestingly, the new guidelines also call on health authorities in England and Wales to fund IUI, intro-uterine insemination using donor sperm for people in same  sex relationships. If the couple still struggles after 6 cycles of IUI, they will be considered for IVF.

In a day and age where IUI is available, it’s about time lesbian couples should be able to put down the soft cup and Pre-Seed and avail of more modern and sure-fire methods.

The legalities

The recommendations come after the Labour relaxations in 2008 law, putting same-sex parenting on an equal legal footing.

Following the implementation of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, fertility clinics may no longer take into account the stereotypical need for a male role model. Lesbian couples now need only show they can provide “supportive parenting”.

This is an important move, and if an NHS Trust denies a lesbian couple fertility treatment – while caring for straight couples – they could face legal action.

Resistance

Not everyone is happy about the new guidelines though, given the already overstretched nature of the NHS IVF system.

Each year the NHS carries out 25,000 cycles of IVF with a total cost of around £75 million. But a survey from 2011 revealed only a quarter of NHS Trusts provide all the amount they should. The new NHS guidelines will stretch these services still further.

Love makes a family

As Nice says, treatment is based on medical need, not on social circumstances.

Who’s to say that when resources are tight, straight and slightly younger couples should get preference over lesbian couples, or women just two years older?

Criiiiinge. Big Brother 11 contestant Shabby. Photograph: Channel 4/PA Wire

I’m not talking Sue Perkins or Clare Balding. I mean, people that your average Joe can relate to. More often than not, Sapphic representation on the small screen come in the form of knife-wielding sociopaths, murderers or other crazies masquerading as gayers in Soap Land before a) killing their girlfriend, b) killing themselves or c) deciding it was a phase after all.

You’d think I’d be happy, then, to watch something, ANYTHING, with real lesbians talking about their sexuality and being themselves. Say, BBC Three’s The Year of Making Love starring 26-year-old Alex, who identifies as bisexual, and Tash from Australia. The premise of the show is this: 500 couples fill out a compatibility test, scientists pair up couples based on their answers, and then the cameras follow their every move to see if their real life chemistry matches up to what the science says.

Alex, from Chester, wasn’t sure if she would be paired with a man or woman, but she looked delighted with red-headed Tash who seemed equally pleased with her match. We then follow them through the early weeks and months of their blossoming relationship.

On paper it all makes sense. I like lesbians, I like rubbish television and they’re kind of attractive, vaguely amusing and articulate. So why am I cringing? I had eyes before I clawed them out. Why do I want the ground to swallow me whole?

It’s not just lesbians on TV. Even some of the most iconic lesbian films leave me dying of awkward, curled up in the foetal position, begging for it to stop. I don’t know if it’s the sub-par acting, the low production values or the amateur feel to it, but more often than not, I’m left with no feeling in my toes from curling them so much and depressed that this is all we have to offer as a community.

It’s much the same sensation I get watching Scottish people on Jeremy Kyle. It’s so utterly cringe-worthy I feel like peeling the skin from my face would be less painful, but it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that the people on the show aren’t an accurate representation of people from Scotland and besides, it’s not like we have anything in common, save the accent and a penchant for a deep fried Mars Bar.

And yet, watching lesbians on TV leaves me feeling like I’ve just watched every home video my parents ever recorded (the one of my brother and I pretending we’re Torvill and Dean was a winner) in front of every girl I’ve ever fancied. I’m embarrassed, I’m mortified, and as we say in Scotland, I’m black affronted.

Alex and Tash. The Year of Making Love is on BBC iPlayer now.

Of course, there are exceptions. I loved Santana and Brittany in Glee, Lip Service finally found its non-awkward feet with Lexy, and even The L Word had moments that didn’t make me want to throw something at television (or throw myself at the television, killing two birds with one stone, so to speak).  There is no denying that TV portrayals of lesbian and bisexual women have come on leaps and bounds in recent years but representations of any kind, particularly positive ones, are so few and far between that when we do have an actress or a television series or a reality TV star, our expectations are far too high for them to ever live up to.

It’s an experience that many people from minority backgrounds share. So often TV execs resort to caricatures that we’re left with lesbian protagonists that have been reduced to nothing more than skinny jeans and stereotypes, which is embarrassing for everyone involved. It’s only natural, then, that lesbian reality stars are going to play up to those images because that’s what is expected of us. But we deserve more than that from our television portrayals. There is so much depth of personality, creativity and originality in the lesbian and bisexual community but we don’t see that on screen.

Glee's Brittany and Santana

Still, I keep watching, toes curled and all. Call me masochistic, but I think it is optimism. With so many talented actors, directors, producers and people working in creative industries like television that also happen to be gay or bisexual, it’s only a matter of time. It has to get better. Right?

In stand up comedy, I am a new act; I’ve been floating around the North East open mic scene for a while and performing as a musical comedy act for a few months. I’m luckier than a lot; I’m having a really good time, and one or two promoters don’t think I’m too rubbish to perform on a decent line up.

I’m at the point where I should be thinking about improving my comedy CV. A good way to do this is with national comedy competitions. This, coupled with the fact that I am of the female variety of human, would suggest that I’m a prime candidate for the Funny Women New Act competition, running annually since 2002.

But is Funny Women right for me? No. Because they support Pay to Play.

Pay to Play

For those of you who are not aware, in comedy, accepting money in exchange for stage time (whether at an open mic gig, or as part of a competition) is known as Pay to Play.

It started in New York; unscrupulous promoters realised that new acts were desperate and charged them for stage time. The promoters got money and beer sales for zero effort. The acts got five minutes on stage in front of other acts who didn’t care or respond, and the honour of paying for the pleasure. The public audience got… well nothing. Actual audience members don’t tend to go to these things, rendering the whole thing fairly useless.

In the last decade or so, these practices, coinciding with the boom in TV comedy, started to trickle into the UK’s scene, particularly London (which is a Sea of Lost Souls for new comedians). For the most part, these sort of events don’t last very long, though I do know of a handful which have operated for a few years. New acts are desperate enough for time, and some promoters are too lazy to not rip them off.

Funny Women’s hilarious charges

Thanks for the history lesson, but what does this even have to do with anything? Two years ago Funny Women starting charging a £15 ‘administrative charge’ to enter, and this year they’re doing it again.

The charge, by the way, goes towards “paying compères and venue hire fees, promoting the shows, producing print, regularly updating the website and crucially, being in constant contact with any entrant who wants assistance or advice.”

But wait, aren’t those the sort of things that the organisation, corporate sponsors (we will talk about that later) and ticket sales should be paying for? Haven’t huge, prestigious competitions (such as So You Think You’re Funny?) run for years without having the acts fund the competition? Why is Funny Women different?

I have the same opinion of competitions that can’t afford to run as I do of gigs which can’t afford to operate because they don’t get an audience: your business model is flawed and asking hopefuls to make up the cash shortfall is wrong.

When this all came to light two years ago, Chortle did the research for me: “the [2010] awards attracted 350 entrants – meaning a potential income of more than £5,000 if the same number apply in 2011. Organisers also make money on the door of the events. Tickets to see the amateur performers take part in a London heat cost £12.50 – more than professional weekend line-ups at big clubs such as the Stand or Up The Creek.”

The comedy industry reacted angrily, and Ms Funny Women, Lynn Parker, hit out with what the most bizarre sexist tirade I had ever read from the typey fingers of a woman.

‘We were not aware of the “pay to play” controversy’

Last week, Funny Women insisted that they don’t charge people to perform, despite the £15 fee. They not only defended the practice of charging entrants, they claimed ignorance as to what they were doing: “When we introduced the fee in 2011, we were not aware of the “pay to play” controversy that swept New York and caused such consternation in the live comedy scene.”

This was the part of the whole saga which floored me.

Funny Women’s sole aim is to support and grow the acts of women who want to make a go of comedy. Their every focus is to nurture females in the UK comedy circuit. Considering that Pay to Play is one of the biggest comedy controversies in the last decade, it astounds that they wouldn’t know about it.

It is terribly frustrating to me that an organisation, which claims to want to support, would be so thoroughly clueless on issues that affect their specific target audience.

Win win win (makeup)

Even if I were to get over the introduction of the fee, the ignorance of their defence, and the undignified way that they conducted themselves in the weeks following, I still would not be entering this competition. I have heard (admittedly second hand) horror stories of how some acts have been ‘nurtured’, and about the way some have been discouraged from standing by and talking about their sexual identities.

And what, for me, seals the nail in the coffin of the Funny Women competition is the prize list.

In most national competitions you win a cash prize, some gigs and other opportunities. In Funny Women you win a year of ‘development’. Oh, and £500 of Benefit cosmetics (girlish squee!), write a blog for Benefit cosmetics (double squee!) and even the opportunity to be a brand ambassador for… wait for it… Benefit cosmetics.

Personally I’d rather wait until I’m successful to decide whether or not to sell my soul to a cosmetic company (though damn it, I do love their eyebrow range).

We haven’t touched upon the underlying argument of whether there is really a need for a gender specific competition of this sort, but if you’re interested in a female comedy competition in a supportive environment which won’t charge, you should check out Funny’s Funny – a competition started by comics in 2011, as a direct response to the Funny Women controversy.

Nat Wicks is stand up comedian based in Teesside. She was named Recommended Act of 2012 by Funny’s Funny competition organisers, and is currently competing in the Musical Comedy Awards (neither of which she paid to enter).

Schulman is a writer and activist who co-founded the direct action group the Lesbian Avengers in the early 90s. She was due to give a reading of her book Israel/Palestine and the Queer International at the LGBT Center of New York City, but was banned from doing so last week.

Speaking yesterday (16 February 2013) at the Lesbian Lives conference at the University of Brighton, Schulman blamed the increasingly corporate nature of queer spaces for the censorship.

“When I was getting on the plane to come here [to Brighton, UK], on Thursday [14 February 2013], an hour before I came, I found out I was banned from the lesbian and gay centre where I was supposed to be doing a reading of this book, said Schulman.

“They have banned all discussions about Israel-Palestine, because they think it’s divisive.

“In the subsequent 48 hours since I got here, the centre got a thousand emails of protest, it’s all over Facebook, and this morning they changed their minds.

“But it’s good to know that the community is resisting this. The corporate sector is taking over the gay world. And they’re apolitical, and they do stupid things like this, but we can stop them.

“When something like this thing happens, with the gay centre, I think it’s great. Because it shows that there’s still a group of people in our community that want social justice, and want free expression, and don’t want to be corporatised.

Sarah Schulman speaking at the Lesbian Lives conference at the University of Brighton on 15 February 2013:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

In an interview with BuzzFeed on 14 February, Shulman blamed the centre’s “stereotyped beliefs about punitive rich Jews” for the ban.

“It’s hard to understand the logic of the LGBT Center,” said Schulman. “At the failed community meeting with their director, Glennda Tentone and her board, there were no Jews on staff, yet they kept telling us that this censorship would make the Center a ‘safe space” for Jews!

“It was bizarre, especially considering that Jews like myself, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, Judith Butler, Joan Nestle etc were among the 1500 people who signed a petition for an open center.

“It seems that they hold cliched and stereotyped beliefs about punitive rich Jews who will pull out their Jew-money if anyone criticizes Israel, and it was this misguided prejudice that lead them to defensively ban any criticism of Israel.

“I know it sounds insane, but I honestly think that that is what happened. A weird kind of anti-semitism combined with a profound lack of intelligence and integrity.”

Schulman has previously criticised the the Israeli government for using its progressive attitude towards gay rights as whitewash, or ‘pinkwash’.

“Since many people mistakenly see events like Gay Pride parades as signs of modernity, the government claims that Israel is a progressive country,” says Schulman.

“Queer people have not fought for so long to be used by a racist government to justify human rights violations.”

“I believe in equal rights for all human beings. If there is a Jewish Right of Return, there can also be a Palestinian Right of Return. I do not support different levels of rights based on religion.”

It’s a neatly packaged story, and one that the press are happy to run away with, but it’s not necessarily true.

Explaining his views on gay marriage – which he voted against – to ITV Wales, Welsh secretary David Jones said “I regard marriage as an institution that has developed over many centuries, essentially for the provision of a warm and safe environment for the upbringing of children, which is clearly something that two same-sex partners can’t do.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, his comments provoked uproar from all corners. Responding to the fierce criticism, Jones then issued a further statement to explain his views:

“I did not say in the interview that same-sex partners should not adopt children and that is not my view. I simply sought to point out that, since same-sex partners could not biologically procreate children, the institution of marriage was one that, in my opinion, should be reserved to opposite sex partners.”

Jones is naive – growing up as a child with married parents is no guarantee of either a warm or a safe environment. He’s also illogical – his premise that marriage should be reserved for heterosexual people, because they will biologically procreate children, ignores those straight married couples who are infertile, past childbearing age, or just have no interest in children.

So he’s naive, illogical and – based on the number of follow-up statements he’s had to make – a terrible communicator. But he’s not a homophobe that thinks gay people shouldn’t be parents. He’s simply a homophobe who thinks gay people shouldn’t marry. A subtle distinction, but accuracy is important in these matters.

It’s not helpful for newspapers like The Guardian to gleefully publish headines like “Top Tory: gay people can’t raise children”. While it’s not anywhere as bad as The Sun’s recent tasteless frontpage regarding the tragic death of Reeva Steenkamp, shot in Oscar Pistorius’ house, both headlines are sensationalist and put the newspapers’ agendas ahead of public interest.

Jones’ opinions on gay marriage are scandalous enough, we don’t need the media overreacting and putting words in his mouth. And let’s face it, it’s only a matter of time before David Jones or another of the anti-gay-marriage MPs says something else anyway.

Or perhaps he won’t – it would appear that Mr Jones is A Friend Of The Gays after all. Sadly he couldn’t stretch all the way to the cliche that some of his best friends were gay, but he did rather weakly bleat that he had “people in my life who are important to me who are gay”. Judging by the depth of his knowledge on gay issues, what he probably means is that he sometimes watches Will and Grace.

It is not, however, the speculum, the swabs, or the undignified feet-on-stirrups position that has caused me the most discomfort on these occasions; It is the health professionals’ assumption that I am straight.

Awkward conversations at the Sexual Health Clinic

The first encounter went like this:

Doctor: “Any pain during sex?”

Me: “No.”

Doctor: “Any bleeding before or after sex?”

Me: “No.” (by this point I even felt that I was somehow deceiving the doctor into thinking that I was straight)

Doctor: “What contraception are you on?”

Me: “Er, none; I’m gay.”

Doctor: “Oh right…”

To my shame, the second encounter with a different doctor went like this:

Doctor: “Are you sexually active?”

Me: “I’m gay, does that count?”

In this instance, I wanted to pre-empt any heterosexual-exclusive questions that would lead me down the path the first doctor squeezed me down. Better to get it over with.

The problem was that I needed to communicate that, yes, I am sexually active, but please don’t ask me questions about penises because my answers will inevitably mislead you. So, I’m going to throw in that I’m gay, even though you didn’t ask, to save us both some embarrassment.

Third encounter with yet another doctor:

Doctor: “Do you have a long-term sexual partner?”

Me: “Yes, I have a female partner.” (By now, I was becoming a pro)

Doctor: “Are you having penetrative sex?” (Translation: what is it that lesbians do in bed?)

Invisibility of lesbian and bisexual women in the NHS

I have come out to four doctors, two nurses, one sexual health worker, and one machine in recent months and only one asked me what my sexuality is; it was the machine.

Doctors failed to acknowledge my ‘coming out’ and often quickly changed the subject. I might as well have told them that I was a unicorn.

Their response reminded me of something Leonard Woolf’s mother said about The Well Of Loneliness: “Until I read this book, I did not know that such things went on at all. I do not think they do. I have never heard of such things.”

It is one thing to assume a patient is straight (in this case, the doctor is hedging their bets, plumping for straight simply because it is statistically more probable.)

It is quite another to render a minority group invisible simply because you have not even entertained the possibility of their existence. I believe that, in my case, it was the latter. I felt like The Invisible Woman rather than the four-leaf clover.

Institutionalised exclusion of lesbians and bisexual women

I am not alone in highlighting the invisibility of lesbians and bisexual women within sexual health services. A report commissioned by the NHS Cervical Screening
Programme in 2009 states:

The Health Protection Agency does not routinely collect data on lesbian and bisexual women… neither the National Strategy for Sexual Health and HIV (DH, 2001) or the recent update (IAG, 2008) includes reference to lesbian or bisexual women.

Re-thinking the risks of STIs and cervical cancer

Some writers claim that the idea that lesbians and bisexual women are at a lower risk of contracting STIs is chiefly the result of their exclusion from sexual health research.

The dearth of data in this area means that doctors just don’t know and are likely to misinform their patients about the risks of STIs and cervical cancer (the report even featured lesbians whose doctors denied them cervical screening because they considered it unnecessary).

This inaccurate perception of risk, added to other barriers to healthcare, such as heterosexual assumptions, mean that lesbians and bisexual women were ten times less likely than heterosexual women to have had a cervical screening in the past three years.

Ironically, the greatest risk factor for cervical cancer is not sex with men, but not being screened.

The NHS needs to honour their duty of advancing equality of opportunity for lesbians and bisexual women; our health is at stake.

The internet:

Happily, this method of finding love is quickly losing the stigma it once had.  In fact, it provides a perfect place to meet a wide range of people for chat, fun and maybe more.  Firstly there are social media sites such as Twitter.  Many happy couples owe their relationship to the open forum for discussion that Twitter provides, as well as filters that, once they catch onto the fact that you’re a lesbian, direct every other lesbian in the known world to follow you.  The only catch here is that, as we know, the people on the other end of these tweets could literally be ANYONE.  If @axemurdererintraining or @letsgetmarriedonthethirddate try to get it on with you, run away quickly.

Perhaps a more ‘traditional’ way of meeting a lady on the web is the lesbian dating site.  Sites such as this offer a professional and, importantly, free gateway to a variety of women.  Not only do you get to see a picture of your potential beau, but also find out a whole wealth of information about them, from political beliefs all the way through to their idea of a great night in / out.  Perfect.

 Pubs and clubs:

In terms of traditional, age-old pulling spots, this has to be top of the list.  Across the hazy, strobe-lit dancefloor, you see her.  A vision in skinny jeans and a Superdry vest, giving you those ‘come to bed’ eyes.  You stride purposefully across the room, give her a burst of your best funky dance moves, and she is putty in your hands.  Ok, so perhaps this isn’t always the way it works.  Maybe there’s a bit more staring first.  Staring longingly.  For quite some time.  Before you drunkenly stagger over, just before closing, and throw up on her shoes.  You old smoothie.

Pubs and clubs can be great places to pull, especially in bigger towns and cities.  Just make sure you have a good group of mates in tow and that you maintain an appropriate level of sobriety, just in case.

 Gym or a sports team:

What better place to meet a gorgeous lady than at a gym?  Or at your local hockey / football / rugby club? (Yes, I could have used other sports examples, but let’s just run with the stereotype, for the sake of argument).  If they’re engaging in some physical activity, chances are they look after themselves and are sociable, interesting people.  At the very least, they probably enjoy the drinks in the clubhouse after the game.  The only downsides to this are that your lady will see you sweaty and, if you’re a novice, possibly a bit flustered and confused.  However, don’t be put off; there’s a lot of fun to be had in those showers…

 At work:

Why not brighten up your working day with a bit of flirtation with an attractive colleague?  You see each other every day, and if you work together, you probably live in roughly the same area.  The hardest bit about this tends to be ascertaining if the colleague in question is interested (indeed, if they are LGBT in the first place).  However, if they are, a post-work drink is a great way to get to know each other better.  Be charming, be cheeky, be confident; ask them questions and be genuinely interested in their answers.  But beware: if this relationship goes wrong, you may find yourself having to dig out that interview suit.

At the vet:

Of course, being a self-respecting single lesbian, you’ve got a cat.  Or a dog.  Or a very sweet but slightly less entertaining hamster.  Anyway, if you’ve got a pet, chances are, sooner or later, you’ll have to visit the vet.  And who knows who might be sitting in that waiting room.  However, waiting until your pet needs medical attention might not be the most pro-active approach to changing the fortunes of your love life.  Also, is it the most romantic setting?  Perhaps not.  But at least we successfully navigated this section of the article without a disgusting pun about stroking a pussy.

 At the supermarket:

We’ve all been there.  You’re strolling through the frozen foods section and all of a sudden, a little hottie appears, quicker than you can say, “Why do these burgers come with a free saddle?”  Not familiar?  Ok.  So maybe this suggestion is a little tenuous.  Ikea, on the other hand, could be a whole different ball game.  Spot-the-lesbian is always a great game to play in the aforementioned Swedish flat-pack haven, so this could be the ideal opportunity to strike up a conversation about soft furnishings; with any luck, you might end up on hers.  This could also of course be a good place for your second date, when you’re choosing furniture for your love nest.  Well, you know what lesbians are like…

So, now that you’ve got a few ideas up your sleeves, I’m sure you’re all raring to go out and bag yourselves a life partner.  No?  Oh, ok then.  Whether you are single, in a relationship, ‘seeing someone’, or sworn off of romance for good, here at Lesbilicious we hope you have a lovely Valentine’s Day, doing exactly what you want to do.  Enjoy.

In an interview with The Sun, Rita said:

“She’s officially mine. She’s, like, untouchable. I’ve taken her off the market. We call each other ‘wifey’.

“You know what a wifey means? It’s like your other half. Like when you get married, like, that’s your wife!”

She went on to assert that she is not dating X Factor winner James Arthur. Confused? Me too. If The Sun were convinced of Ora’s relationship with her “wifey’ why would they need to pursue this line of inquiry?

Before anyone gets too excited, Lesbilicious would like to throw an educated guess out there: Rita and Cara have had enough of men recently, and need a bit of publicity, but they are NOT actual lovers.

Sorry to disappoint.

My mum has always called this his "Grinch hat".

Yesterday, 11 February 2013, Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican enforcer, “God’s Rottweiler” and paradoxically, the “teaching Pope” and author of a pastoral letter to the world’s Catholics praising sexual love, has today announced that he is resigning from his position due to “advanced age”.

Pope Benedict is the first pope to resign since Clement V in 1415. To say the world was shocked was an understatement.

It was clear from comments that he’d made while Cardinal Ratzinger, that he had thought that resignation was an option for an infirm Pope. He was 78 then. He’s 85 now, and has arthritis, using a mobile throne to get around. He was already exhausted before he was elected Pope, and he’s had some nasty falls in the last few years.

It must have been really upsetting watching John Paul II slowly decline in office and claiming that he was inspiring people with his suffering. He may well have been inspiring people, but if he’d been a bit more with it, perhaps a lot of the scandals that exploded under Benedict’s watch, and the substantive decline in church-going in Europe, could have been dealt with a lot earlier.

I admire Pope Benedict as a person for his personal integrity and intellectual depth, an integrity that this resignation only confirms. I’ve read eleven biographies by and about Pope Benedict, and I really appreciate his concern for clarifying and discerning truth – I keep this quote from him on my Facebook profile:

“God speaks quietly. But He gives us all kinds of signs. In retrospect, especially, we can see that He has given us a little nudge through a friend, through a book, or through what we see as a failure — even through ‘accidents.’ Life is actually full of these silent indications. If I remain alert, then slowly they piece together a consistent whole, and I begin to feel how God is guiding me.”

Another:  “truth is not determined by a majority vote”.

I personally always interpret that as a clarion call for the rights of gay people regardless of the will of the majority. But sadly Pope Benedict has a less-than-progressive view on LGBT people.  He stated as recently as December 2012 that gay marriage was a threat to world peace (seriously). He delivered a Christmas speech to the Vatican in which he stated:

“People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being,” he said. “They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.”

Basically, gays aren’t cool.

And I like Pope Benedict, but I’m LGBT, I’m a woman, I’m Jewish. I’m offended when Pope Benedict announces that gay marriage is the greatest threat to world peace or says that a woman was born to be a mother and can’t be a priest, or reinstituted a Latin rite that prays for the conversion of the Jews. I’m not Catholic because I don’t believe in the theology that leads to those beliefs.

But being surprised that the Pope opposes gay rights is like being surprised to discover that bears defecate in the woods.

Neither Benedict’s successor nor perhaps his tenth successor, is going to say anything different what is currently written down in canon law. We can’t be surprised by that. All we can do is suggest that they focus on different things and maintain a dignified silence when it comes to the human rights of homosexuals, secure an exemption for religious conscience in the gay marriage laws, and get on with their lives. I think that’s the most we can hope for from the Catholic Church, and some dioceses are already taking that option. I think we should encourage it, not talk about them “discrediting the faith”. What bishop cares about what you and I think of his faith?

The papal baseball cap was an interesting new addition to the pontifical wardrobe.

Pope Benedict’s comments make sense in context, sort of. He has tried to focus his papacy on what he calls the “New Evangelisation” of an increasingly secularised Western Europe.

Part of that challenge, for him, is what he considers to be the temptation of a false understanding of human rights. For him, rights come only from Christ, and Christ, through his Church and the Catholic tradition, has a very fixed idea of the roles of men and women and the position of sexuality in a human life.

So everyone suddenly introducing gay marriage and bringing the Christian heritage of Europe crashing down around him must be very disconcerting – he’s trying to shore up his support, as it were.

But in the eyes of the Catholic Church, being gay is largely on the same level as masturbating. Now, obviously, I think that’s still terrible. And the Catholic Church has campaigned quite hard, if fruitlessly, to prevent gay marriage and gay adoption (and presumably trans rights). But even the Church has explicitly condemned the use of state penalties for gay acts. And being gay doesn’t mean you’re going to go to hell.

Westminster Cathedral held “Soho masses” for years for gay Catholics (until Archishop Nichols cancelled them this year as revenge for gay marriage coming in in the UK), with the idea being that gay Catholics are as much sinners as every other Catholic and should be welcomed into the Church. The Vatican has grumbled, but not actually stepped in.

Because of the length of John Paul’s papacy, only two cardinals under the age of eighty were eligible for the conclave who had been appointed by the previous Paul VI, and one of them was Cardinal Ratzinger himself.

As John Paul and Benedict went out of their way to appoint cardinals that agreed with their rigid conservatism, it is unlikely that the Church will take much of a new direction on theological matters, but we can hope that they will write off things like gay liberation – the Catholic Church is going crazy in Italian politics at the moment on the subject of gay marriage, and the Church in America is opposing the Obama’s administration immigration reforms that they used to champion because they explicitly include LGBT immigrants.

We can hope the new Pope might instead focus on more pressing matters for Church, like the fact that there’s a ratio of one priest to every 8,000 Catholics in Africa, for example. That is not a small deal for a church that believes that eternal salvation depends on priest-dependant baptisms, confessions, participation in mass, etc.

Fact is, when you have nations from Vietnam to Nepal drawing up equality legislation, it’s a lost battle. And at some point, a Pope is going to hold up his hands and say “We can’t win this”.

Our best bet as LGBT activists is to try and persuade the Catholic hierarchy of that as soon as possible and direct that energies into more meaningful and useful things like poverty, debt forgiveness, and environmental issues. Things that matter. Bashing gay people? That doesn’t matter. Except to us.

Another quote that I keep on my Facebook profile from Tory MP Francis Maud, whose brother is gay:

“It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It’s like disapproving of rain.”

What do you get for the darling dearest who has everything – the L Word mug, Lip Service boxset, the permanent coffee table arrangement of flowers and shit loads of chocolate in the cupboard?

WELL…

 

Om nom nom nom nom!

Fancy shmancy dinner for two

Lesbilicious writer Carrie says she’s never bought into the whole Valentines shindig, but does make a mean cheesecake. Maria’s making chocolate dipped strawberries for her hubby – some of them stuffed with cream cheese and brown sugar. Posh!

 

 

 

Rock that bod.

Get Sexy

Do a sexy photo shoot and collage them onto a card for your candy girl. I’m not telling you who on the team is getting crafty with this one!

 

 

 

 

Sparkles!!!

To the dance!

Take her out ballroom dancing UGG boots style – thanks Soline.

 

 

 

 

What a delicious bouquet!

Strawberry flowers

Give in and buy her flowers. But not just any flowers, strawberry flowers. Each strawberry flower turns into a big luscious berry and looks pretty all year round.

 

 

 

 

Who said veganism was all carrots?

Vegan Choccies

Chocolates with an edge. Vegan girlfriend? Check these out at Montezumas! Georgia did.

 

 

 

 

 

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

Woo with words

Get your Shakespeare on and write your betrothed a love letter. Got flair? Use a calligraphy pen and burn the edges. Parcel it up in a heart pulsing red envelope and watch her swoon.

 

 

OMG, f*** it!

Oh, you don’t have a Valentine, rock your hot little punk tush to this (NOT something for work):

Speakers included author and editor Ron Suresha, BiRequest leader Paul Nocera, sociologist and Shaman Dr. Aih Herukhuti, novelist AJ Walkley, author and activist Robin Renee, and psychologist Dr. Betti Schleyer.

To be perfectly sincere, I had somewhat low expectations before the event started. I don’t mean to be unkind, but the fact of the matter is that I have attended “Bi” events in the past and there is usually a low turn out and a struggle to find legitimate speakers. Yes, I am bi, so I suppose it sounds a bit turncoat of me to generalize about my own people, but I’m just going off my own past experiences. The good news is that the event far exceeded my expectations.

The speakers were allotted a set amount of time and each presented under their own designated topics. Presentations ranged from the history of bisexuality (with Dr. Herukhuti showing hieroglyphic evidence of two married male manicurists embracing and being buried in the same tomb-yes, he said they were manicurists) to the various studies over the years disproving and proving bisexuality, to the alarming statistics regarding the mental health of the bisexual community. Author AJ Walkley shared her story via video, Robin Renee taught us about the importance of connection, and we were coaxed out of our seats for a group activity (you know, one of those things that is not only fun, but you actually “learn something” in the process).

Let’s get serious, thank goodness for the lightheartedness and charming background told by AJ Walkley and the silly, but informative group activity that broke up the heavy handed plop of repeatedly disheartening messages. True, it was interesting to see how the severe lack of informed and legitimate studies really has affected the perception of bisexuals in the world. And yes, people need to know that bisexuals have a higher risk of depression and suicide. (No, bisexuals as a whole are not born with these mental illnesses, but they do face an inordinate amount of stigma, bullying, and abuse.) But come on, people! I don’t want to walk out of a conference feeling completely dejected and fearing the worst!

Thankfully, there was laughter.  In a square room, one person holding up a male gender symbol sign stood at the west end. One person holding up the female gender symbol sign stood at the east end. “More feminine” was on the north side, and “more masculine” stood on the south side of the room. A series of questions were read out loud, and the audience walked and shifted according to their answers. For instance, the first question was, “In the last six months, which gender do you most identify with?” (Exhibit A: I walked to the “female, more feminine” side of the square room) That one seemed easy enough for most people, as was, “Which gender have you had the most sexual relations with in the last six months?” Things started getting a little trickier when they started asking about who you fantasize about, and who you would prefer to be engaging with sexually. It was so fascinating to see how people shifted and walked about, sometimes striding far apart from what one may guess. The real highlight was about eight minutes into it, when one older woman who had resigned herself to a chair, blurted out, “Which side is the “I haven’t been laid in forever” side?”

As aforementioned, the “Bisexuality: Identity and Experience” was better than expected and I am grateful for the Trevor Next Gen for hosting and organizing. I also loved the awesome sexuality comic shout out! I look forward to attending more bi-related conferences in the future, and can only hope that laughter is sprinkled in to keep things from going too deep or dark.

Zoe Lyons is a critically acclaimed stand up comedian who regularly appears on Mock The Week (BBC2) and The Wright Stuff (C5).  Other TV appearances have included Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow (BBC1) and Celebrity Pointless (BBC1). We’ve managed to convince her to share some of her top Valentine’s tips with Lesbilicious readers. Enjoy!

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching I can quite easily contain my excitement because, my friends, I am not the romantic sort, writes Zoe Lyons.

Couple that with the fact that my girlfriend and I have been together 14 years and you may well understand that the whispering of sweet nothings has long since been replaced with the yell of “where the hell are my socks?”

It has to be said that I’m the least romantic of the two of us. The GF will on occasion make a gallant effort to scatter some rose petals over our relationship. Only last week she went through my diary, turned to me and said “Please keep the 10th free”.

“Oh god….why?” I snapped.

“It’s our anniversary”  came her deflated response.

“I totally knew that” I lied.

So here are my top tips for Valentine’s Day dates for those who find gushy amour a complete bore.

The Flowers

Do not buy your partner flowers on Valentine’s Day. There are a couple of reasons for this. Anyone who has ever been given flowers whilst on a night out will know what a pain in the arse these blooms become over the course of an evening. You’re forced to carry your bulky buds around all night and keep the bloody things alive in the process.

As the evening progresses I often find the care factor for the flowers decreases, they get sat on, trapped in a taxi door, dry out by a radiator until you’re left with some sad leaves squashed in clear plastic. So destroyed is the bouquet that often the first thing you do when you eventually get home is bin the thing. Secondly, the price of flowers rockets around Valentine’s Day, meaning you’ll pay through the nose for a single red rose.

If you feel you simply must show your love by gifting a bit of flora buy a house plant, at least you’ll get your money’s worth and nothing says I love you like a cactus!

Food

Ok, I love my food, I really do. Food is a wondrous, joyous stimulating thing but it is not a romantic thing. Try and get romantic with my food and I will prod you with my butter knife. Anyone who has ever had food poisoning from an oyster will know how quickly the purported claim that they’re an aphrodisiac disappears down the loo. Also, the number of places I’ve seen selling chocolate body paint on the run up to the 14th February is extraordinary.

I find the thought of covering the GF in pudding a bit bizarre, not least cause I don’t really have a sweet tooth and if I wanted to dip her in gravy suddenly I’m the weird one!  So if you’re planning a meal out with your beloved I strongly recommend you stick to basics like steak and chips and use a plate to eat off rather than her torso.

Soft Toys

The doe eyed bunny gift with “I love you” embroidered onto its tummy? No, just plain no.

Location

A good location for the Valentine date is vital. If like me you’re in a long term relationship, you don’t want to go anywhere where you might be forced to sit for long periods and talk to one another. We have covered everything… twice. Why not try the cinema: if you include trailers that’s a good two and a half hours where you don’t have to think of anything to say. For the advanced version of this date go to an opera, The Ring Cycle by Wagner lasts for 14 hours.

If however this is a new relationship and the focus of your affections is a bit of a looker, you should have your date in as public a place as possible. You may want to take in several bars in the evening to make sure that all your ex girlfriends get a good chance to see you with said hottee, before said hottee realises she can do better and trots off.

The Bedroom

And so to bed! If the date has gone to plan and she’s been won over by your gift of a robust cost-effective house plant, with any luck there may be some romance in the bedroom area. The fact that I have referred to it as the “bedroom area” is a clear indicator that I am no clever linguist when it comes to the language of love. I don’t see this as an issue really as, if we’re honest, most of us find the idea of “talking dirty” a little awkward.

Plus, if someone is demanding that you drop dirty talk in their shell-like while they’re covered in chocolate body paint it’s my feeling they’re asking too much.

“Talk dirty? Well you have ruined these bloody sheets for a start.”

Keep it simple but to the point.

“Eh up chuck, under these polyester pyjamas I am totally starkers!”

Happy dating.

Zx

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

 Zoe’s new tour ‘Pop Up Comic’ will premiere on 20th February at the Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury. The show will take in 22 dates including 3 nights at London’s Soho Theatre from 15th – 17th March.

Pop Up Comic is Zoe’s fifth solo show and is an energy packed combination of the silly, physical and the satirical. Zoe has taken a long hard look at the big issues of the day, binned them and focused her attention instead on some really important stuff, like why are there so many one-footed pigeons and motion sensitive air fresheners in the world? 

It’s been less of a great day for David Cameron, who saw more Tory MPs vote against the bill than vote for it. And that is quite sad, really. It’s sad because it means that a majority of the Tory Party believes that it has an electoral winning strategy based on discrimination and enforcing inequality. UKIP  has recently been trying very hard to reinforce this notion and drag David Cameron away from just one more game of Fruit Ninja or face the mass haemorrhage of disgruntled Tories to Nigel Farage’s grinning arms. Their most recent tactic is to try to capitalise on the outrage among religious conservatives at the introduction of gay marriage. And that’s even more sad, because at least when Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather disgracefully voted against the bill, she at least did so on grounds of conscience, rather than blatant political opportunism.

My feed was filled with comments recently from friends shocked that 500,000 people turned out to protest the same sex marriage proposal by President Hollande in France. While I am disappointed that so many people turned out on a social issue yet had nothing to say about rampant economic inequality, I can’t bring myself to think badly of people who just want to stick to marriage-as-baby-incubator model that we’ve had in Europe for a very, very long time, John Boswell’s research on medieval gay marriages notwithstanding. I can understand people being uncomfortable by same sex marriage on grounds of tradition, rather than homophobia, though I don’t agree.

I used to agree, actually. I had this idea that marriage was a purely religious thing, and that as there weren’t any religions that agreed with same sex marriage that I was aware of at the time, then we couldn’t justify breaking with such a long history when very few gay people wanted to get married. But that was in the 90s, which was well over a decade ago (just to make you feel old). I got over it when I realised that I had friends who wanted to get married and couldn’t because the state didn’t think they were the right genders. Friends both secular and religious. Attitudes change very, very fast when discrimination wears a human face. It struck to me that it doesn’t matter what my religious views are, there is no conceivable reason why a secular state-sanctioned union should be regulated according to the mores of clergy who have nothing to do with it anyway, and even less reason why those same clergy should have any influence over the marriages performed by clergy of a different religion altogether. But, coming from that background, I see where some of the more heartfelt same sex marriage opponents are coming from: I just wish they’d campaign as hard on heterosexual divorce (though some are).

So, the social conservatives currently looking at UKIP with fresh eyes, or cheering on the Tory backbenchers as they fear-monger about incest in the streets as a result of letting people make lifelong commitments to one another, aren’t necessarily doing it because they actually hate gay people. I want to be honest about that. We live in scary times, with old certainties about who you are and where you stand in society are being melted away or undermined. The idea being pushed by some marriage equality advocates that heterosexual people aren’t affected by gay marriage is ridiculous – when you can no longer assume when someone says they’re married that they are heterosexual, when every form has to become gender neutral, when you have to rethink every thing ever labelled “Him and Her” – yeah, heterosexual people are affected. Not negatively, but they do have to think about it (would you want it any other way?). You can see why some people living with economic and social insecurity are going to freak out at such an immense change to the way we conceive of gender roles in the UK. Clearly, there’s some votes to be had.

The problem with chasing those votes is, in just six years, ten states across the world have ripped up their old marriage laws, and that number looks set to double in the next year or two. Countries as far apart as South Africa, Argentina and Nepal, have or are introducing same sex marriage. This isn’t a decadent Western affectation. We’re looking at a tsunami of social change, and, now that the dam has been broken, we’re not going back. Many conservative-minded people have just accepted this and are simply trying to secure a religious exemption, which seems fair to my mind. If we accept that Catholics can refuse to marry divorcees or Jews can refuse to conduct interfaith weddings just because, then it seems just as fair to allow people whose definition of marriage doesn’t include gay people. Refusing to let your church hall to a gay couple would be a different matter, but that’s already illegal anyway.

With opposition to marriage equality dropping by 5 points a year in the US, and a solid majority already in favour of same sex marriage here, it would have to take a world crisis of hitherto unknown proportions to persuade our society to demonise and victimise and discriminate against LGBT people the way we used to. The sorry biography of Oscar Wilde, sentenced to prison for sodomy and exiled to France to escape the outrage of the public to die in penury, seems impossible now.

No, there’s no political advantage in the long-term to trying to gain votes by being homophobic. The average coming out age is now 15 – nearly everyone knows someone who’s gay who isn’t a moral deviant. The bastions of bigotry are aging and dying off. Is it seriously viable in the long term for any party to throw its lot in with the likes of the BNP and the Christian Party? In thirty years’ time, when the people brandishing the anti-gay placards now will be viewed with uncomprehending eyes the way we views the placard of the seventies opposing inter-racial marriage, UKIP and the Tory leadership will have a very awkward time on its hands trying to explain away its fuss over gay people wanting to form permanent unions sanctified by state and society.

It seems pretty odd right now.

The Bill extends the legal form of marriage to same-sex couples. It would allow gay couples to legally have a “wedding” (rather than a Civil Partnership ceremony) and some faiths would be free to marry people in their religious buildings – with the notable exception of the Church of England and Church in Wales.

MPs were given a free vote, and Prime Minister David Cameron, who is firmly in favour of same-sex marriage, may be disappointed with the Conservative voting breakdown: 132 Conservative MPs voted for the Bill, 139 voted against, and 30 abstained.

Most Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs voted in favour of the legislation.

“I genuinely believe that we will look back on today as a landmark for equality in Britain,” said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

“Tonight’s vote shows Parliament is very strongly in favour of equal marriage.

“No matter who you are and who you love, we are all equal. Marriage is about love and commitment, and it should no longer be denied to people just because they are gay.

“The Liberal Democrats have long fought for equal marriage. It is party policy and I am proud that the Liberal Democrats are part of the coalition Government that are making it happen.”

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill will now receive more detailed parliamentary scrutiny and is likely to progress to the House of Lords in early May 2013.

Beyond parody...

A debate on gay conversion therapy will be held in a Parliamentary committee room tomorrow.

Entitled “Sexual reorientation therapy: Freedom to change?”, the event has been organised by two right-wing Christian organisations: Christian Concern and Core Issues (“God’s heart in sexual and relational brokenness”).

Speakers include Core Issues director and “ex-gay” campaigner Dr Mike Davidson (who was stripped of his professional credentials in 2012) and Dr Joseph Berger, a consultant psychiatrist from Canada who denies the existence of trans people and advocates child abuse.

They will be debating “the legitimacy and freedom to offer sexual reorientation” with Professor Michael King of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.

The debate will be followed by an afternoon programme of talks from a variety of other middle-aged white men, including American evangelical preacher Professor Dale Kuehne and international litigation specialist Paul Coleman.

Both events are intended to critique the growing level of opposition to conversion (or “reparative”) therapy from professional bodies. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK Council of Psychotherapy, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and British Psychological Society have all condemned therapies aimed at “curing” same-gender attraction.

The very fact that these events are being held in the House of Commons is worrying. The implication is that the “ex-gay” lobby has support from MPs.

Lesbilicious talked to Dr Lyndsey Moon, chair of the British Psychological Society’s Psychology of Sexualities section, who shared our concerns. “I think we need to find out who gave it the go-ahead and who made those requests,” he said.

“I don’t know how such a meeting with such high-profile figures who seem to have all been mobilised so many months ahead has happened in a public arena without us knowing about it.”

It is also disturbing that the organisers are keen to portray conversion therapy as a “free speech” issue. Core Issues in particular are keen to hijack the language of liberation, defending their right to “support” individuals who “voluntarily seek change”.

This kind of argument can only hold up in a world that is a moral free-for-all: a libertarian world of relativistic values, in which it’s okay to be queer but it’s also okay to regard us as abhorrent. A world that is not truly safe for all.

It is important therefore that we fight for active acceptance of LGBT people within public life. And whilst Mike Davidson has every right to be an ex-gay, he does not deserve the right to promote intolerance in the House of Commons.

Lucy: Hi Valerie, thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions. A lot of Lesbilicious readers will know you for playing Jo Glass in BBC3 series Lip Service…how did you get involved in the show?

Valerie: Hi Lucy, interestingly, I was in L.A. finishing our album and completely missed the first series but I heard through the grape vine over there that there was this really cool show happening on BBC3. The fact it was set in Glasgow too and
about the lives of lesbians living there just seemed like a cool idea. I caught up with it online and just dug the whole vibe from the acting talent to the high production values to the storylines of these really compelling characters, so I was delighted when my agents called up and told me that Kudos (the production company who make Lip Service) wanted to meet me for the second series.

L: How do you view the character of Jo? Do you think she was aware that Lauren was…less than faithful shall we say!

V: You know when I met the team we had a conversation about how comfortable I was with some of the more graphic sequences and how did I feel about them. And my response was that I wasn’t a huge fan of them but I get how it might be viewed by others as important…it’s just not my thing really. So I was pleased with Jo Glass because she was just a woman doing a job, in a relationship, living her life as a gay woman. We didn’t need to see her demonstrate that she was ‘a lesbian’ if you know what I mean…she just was and I really liked that low- key representation. Neve (the actress playing Lauren) is such a talented, proper actress that it was great to establish their relationship and where it was at and crucially, that it’s not because of your partner that you have an affair, it’s because of you.

In answer to your question was Jo aware of Lauren’s affair…There was no actual scripted indication but like any intimate relationship signals are picked up on quickly and I think that by the last episode, at the dinner party, there’s definitely a sense
that something is not right. We all felt that would have been an interesting dynamic had we moved it to a 3rd series…to see what the aftermath of Sadie’s actions might have been. She wrecked Jo’s relationship and her gallery. How would Lauren and Jo make it back from that…or not?

L: Yes I agree, I think that would be really interesting to see. Would you like to do a third series if the opportunity was there?

V: Yes. I think it’s an important show for the BBC…gay women make up a percentage of the license fee and where do they find themselves represented? This was a show that was on its way to really exploring a lot of aspects of a world that people who are not part of, can have a lot of misconceptions about…and Lip Service was demystifying that. Put it this way…regardless of whether the writers/producers/powers that be decided that there wasn’t a future for the character Jo Glass…I would wholeheartedly support the need for a third series.

L: That’s good to hear! You mentioned your album earlier, is music your first love or do you prefer acting?

V: Both equally, so long as they’re telling an interesting truth.

L: Thanks Valerie, it’s been a pleasure to talk to you.

Shortly after I caught up with Valerie, the BBC confirmed that Lip Service was disappointingly not going to be recommissioned for a third series. I went back to Valerie, who has been a huge supporter of the campaign for a third series, to get her feelings on the announcement…

V: I was on set in Law and Order last week with the director Jill Robertson who directed half of the last series of Lip Service, and we were saying it’s just a massive shame. I do wonder though if Kudos are free to take the show to another channel like say E4 or Channel 4 or Sky (who seem to be quite directional with their drama right now). This happens in the U.S. occasionally (recently with Cougar Town). If that was something Kudos wanted to explore, I can imagine they’d have massive support from Lip Servants urging a new channel to take it. I really hope the story of these fascinating gay women and their lives doesn’t end here. It simply deserves to be told.

You can catch Valerie on Twitter with her band, The Souls: @wearethesouls

The New Normal

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet; the new normal has just started airing over in the UK on E4, from the creators of Glee this whacky new comedy following the lives of a wealthy gay couple and their surrogate is definitely one to watch.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Rizzoli and Isles

TNT American crime drama, Rizzoli and Isles has become an instant hit in America since it first aired two years ago. Rizzoli and Isles follows the lives of Detective Jane Rizzoli and Medical Examiner Dr Maura Isles as they solve murders in the city of Boston. Of course, having two female leads is a potent mix and just asking for the LGBT community to fall in love with them. I should point out that they are not in fact a couple but my god they act like one. The show itself has dealt with Transgender and coming out issues. You can catch Rizzoli and Isles on Alibi on UK television. I highly recommend it.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

South of Nowhere

South of Nowhere is a US teen drama series, following the lives of the Carlin family after their life changing move from Ohio to LA. The show deals with issues such as homophobia, racism, abortion and drug abuse, to name a few. It has a similar feel to Skins, mixing realistic drama with light hearted comedy moments. I promise you each episode will leave you wanting more. If not for the storyline, for the amazingly good looking actors.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Glee

This show deserves a mention purely for the fact that there are probably more gay characters than there are straight ones. Set in an American high school Glee is all about being a misfit and about accepting yourself, not only that, the songs are pretty catchy too.

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

Grey’s Anatomy

Until recently I hadn’t even heard of Grey’s Anatomy, a medical drama following the struggles of medical interns and their mentors as they attempt to juggle their personal lives with their stressful jobs. The main LGBT aspect comes in the form of lesbian couple Callie and Arizona, two female doctors working in the hospital in which the show is set. The show is excellently written and will have you in stitches one minute and crying uncontrollably the next.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Sometimes when I grab my iPod I find it difficult to know who to listen to due to the overwhelming choice of great music we’re blessed with.  As an editor of AltSounds.com and the owner of my own creative company specialising in the music industry, I’m lucky enough to find myself lost in a sea of talent, and picking my favourites is just like being a kid in a sweet shop!

So without further ado, here are our picks for 2013, an eclectic anthology of strong, talented ladies who are just sensational.  Whether you’re a fan of rock, electro, acoustic or grime, we’ve got it all!

Who: Heads Hearts

What: Electro Soul Bangers

Where: London

Why: These are one of the most exciting bands I’ve listened to for a while.  Their passion pulses through their electro soul that is doused in atmospheric nuance and cloaked in haunting yet seductive vocals.  If you’re looking for someone who can put on a show, write dense , addictive tunes that packs a punch, then you must check out Heads Hearts, or trust me, you’ll be missing out.

Who: Amplify Dot

What: Grime/Hip Hop

Where: London

Why: Amplify Dot is a 24 year old who’s been bubbling under the surface and been making some waves in the underground scene for years.  With props from the likes of Ms Dynamite, Mista Jam, Zane Lowe, Kano and a whole heap more, 2013 is set to be the year she’s going to break through and master the mainstream.  Amplify Dot is a gifted and artistic lyricist, who’s stunning rhymes are utterly spellbinding! Watch this space.

Who: AMiTY

What: Acoustic, Folk, Alternative

Where: Wolverhampton/Brighton

Why: AMiTY is an incredibly impressive artist, with a fantastic arsenal of anthems at the ready, 2013 is looking bright for this Brighton based lady.  She’s got an amazing personality, and a loyal following that’s destined to grow and grow due to the immaculate folk tunes that are sophisticated, exciting and endearing.

Who: RoxXxan

What: Grime/Hip Hop/Urban

Where: Birmingham

Why: You know that someone’s worth a listen when they’ve got three x’s in their name! Probably one of the highest scoring Scrabble names (if you could use names, I’m aware of the rules).  RoxXxan is a fiery lady with an arsenal of brilliant tracks and is quickly becoming one of the biggest names in the grime scene and beyond. She’s already got the backing of the Streets’ very own Mike Skinner, and with her crude yet addictive lyrics drenched in some slamming beats and dazzling synths, RoxXxan is ready to make some noise in the music scene in 2013! Also, she’s Stooshe’s Karis’ beau!

Who: Christina Novelli

What: Pop/Dance/Acoustic

Where: London

Why: Christina Novelli has shot into the limelight after her luscious voice was used in one of last summer’s biggest dance tracks ‘Concrete Angel’ by Gareth Emery.  Not only was Christina’s voice a galvanising force that flowed through the entire piece beautifully, she also co-wrote the original track (the acoustic version is a haunting testimate to ballads) with producer Dee Adam! Christina was also a familiar face on Channel 5’s Candy Bar Girls, where she also showed her singing talents.  If you’re a fan of raw, gutsy and highly contagious pop with passion and attitude coursing through each track, then Christina Novelli needs to be on your playlists!

Who: Red N Pink

What: Electro/Soul/Alternative

Where: London

Why: Red N Pink are proving to be an almighty force to be reckoned with! Last week the girls won a fantastic competition to perform with the likes of Professor Green, Misha B and Chip all due to their talent and incredible uniqueness as well as their fantastic fan base that has proven to be a tremendous asset to the girls.  With an album rumoured to surface this year that promises tantalising electronic soul cocktails with an alternative edge, it’s definitely one to keep an eye out for.

Who: Hunter Valentine

What: Alternative/Rock

Where: Toronto/New York/LA

Why: Hunter Valentine are a hard working rock group with raspy vocals and pulsating melodies that promises to satisfy your craving for penatrative rock bangers.  It’s safe to say that having a dominant role in the latest series of the Real L Word has given them an excellent platform to showcase their electrifying, dense music, although their latest album Collide and Conquer is a testament of their sensational power rock capabilities.

Who: Kenelis

What: Rock/Alternative

Where: Brighton

Why: Kenelis are one of the most underrated rock groups I’ve had the honour of coming across over the past couple of years.  What I admire the most is their incredible hard working attitude and their commitment to providing excellent rock anthems that are laced with assertiveness, energy and vibrancy.  Their caffeine fuelled tracks are dazzlingly brilliant and offer the perfect recipe for a fantastic live performance.  Make sure you catch them this year!

I immediately stopped and checked to see if he was conscious and told my supervisor to call for an ambulance.

My supervisor had continued on without stopping. I called after her and her response to me was, ‘we’re going to be late for work’. I was stunned by her lack of caring, empathy, consideration and basic humanity.

In January 2011 I fell and broke my right ankle.

In December 2012 a woman on a bus in New Delhi was viciously gang raped and beaten unconscious.

I don’t know if the man on the bench lived or died because another person stopped, called for an ambulance and was able to stay with him until help arrived. I did not die from the injuries I sustained when I fell. The woman in New Delhi died from her injuries.

One small yet significant common thread tie these events together: onlookers.

The day I broke my ankle, the bus was full and after raining all day, the windows were steamed up. I had a book in my hand and reading glasses on the end of my nose as I made my way home from work. At the time, I was working as a victim support worker with women and children experiencing domestic violence. It was a job I loved which gave me both a sense of social responsibility and purpose. I was assisting in the empowerment of women.

When I reached my stop I stepped off the bus while simultaneously removing my reading glasses and when I looked up I was nearly at the corner where the sidewalk turns. A large hedge ran the perimeter of the sidewalk and came to an abrupt end just before the sidewalk turned left. A small crowd of young people were rounding the corner as I was approaching. At the end of the hedge line I took a step to my left to avoid a collision with the crowd and lost my footing in a sudden 3- or 4-inch drop in the sidewalk’s structure.

A 3’ x 4’ cut-out in the sidewalk was hidden just beyond the sightline of the hedge and I twisted my ankle from the drop. My balance was thrown, my left ankle was sprained and in trying to catch myself from falling completely, my right ankle slipped as well and I heard the crack of a bone and found myself flat down on the ground, both ankles rendered useless.

One of the crowd of young people glanced briefly over their shoulder at me on the ground but didn’t stop. I was next to a busy road with cars going past at one- or two-second intervals and not one of them stopped. Bus after bus came by and not one driver, nor any disembarking passengers, asked if I was okay.

My body was going into shock; I could feel the swirling pain mixed with dizziness begin to take over. My fear of being ‘stepped over’ whilst unconscious on a busy street corner in south Vancouver was more powerful than my awareness that my body had given up on me.
Nobody stopped to care.

Onlookers: people unable or unwilling to step out of their own lives and help to ease the pain of another human being. It is a devastating feeling which reminds you rather painfully of your own insignificance.

The man who fell off the bench onto the sidewalk in the worst part of Vancouver in 2001 was filthy, smelly and was most likely homeless and an alcoholic. Two people immediately stopped to help him.

I was dressed professionally on my way home from work in 2011 in what was a decent neighbourhood. In the approximately 30 minutes I sat there awaiting the ambulance, nobody stopped for me.

The woman in New Delhi in 2012 was on a bus on her way to university and had a friend with her. There were people everywhere. For the two hours she was on the bus, and the 20-25 minutes she was on the ground, naked and bleeding profusely from her wounds, nobody intervened.

When the entire incident made headlines around the world, people stepped outside of their lives to lobby for change and to state what a horrific experience this was for such a bright young woman. The woman eventually died and people upped their petitions and took even more ‘affirmative action’.

The simple fact of the matter is: she didn’t need them after it was over and she was dead. She needed them as the group of men got onto the bus and picked her for their attack. She needed them when those men took from her what she was not offering. She needed them throughout the entire ordeal and nobody went to her aid. Only in death did she become significant.

Is this the world we now live in? If so, next stop, please.

Don't worry Cat, your character was killed off anyway

BBC3′s budget cuts meant its future was always going to be a bit uncertain, particularly as it was announced in April that fellow BBC3 drama The Fades had been axed despite strong viewing figures.

I reviewed both series of Lip Service, firstly on my own website, then for Lesbilicious. At first I thought it was terrible. The characterization was flat and central couple Cat and Frankie were a terrible match with virtually no chemistry whatsoever.

Their ‘climactic’ sex scene at the end of series one was like watching a whippet attempt to mate with a dead swan, all obscene buttock clenching, jutting bones and pale flesh. I vowed I’d never watch it again, despite the fact it was the only lesbian drama on UK TV.

However, when I was asked to review series two for Lesbilicious I went back on my vow, girded my loins and prepared to take one for the team (so to speak). Then, something strange happened…

I started to enjoy it.

Sadie: everyone’s favourite love child of Holly from Red Dwarf and a Cockney barrow boy.

Not at first, of course. The addition of faux butch footballing characters called Fin, Tigger, Badger, Pooh and Piglet (ok, I may have made a few of those up) was poor to say the least.

The first series of Lip Service had been crying out for some boyish totty, but Glasgow isn’t West Hollywood and the (largely English) cast were so skinny and femme they look like they’d escaped from a Boots ‘Here Come The Girls’ advert. They were representative of precisely 1% of the UK lesbian community, and approximately 0% of Glaswegians.

However, although welcome in theory, Tigger and the rest of the bois were the worst bunch of stereotypes I’ve encountered outside a Julie Birchill column. They were football watching, lager guzzling dullards who looked like they’d escaped from the Top Gear studio audience.

Thankfully Fin and her cohorts were quickly sent packing by Tess, and although no other butch characters emerged to fill the gap they left we were content with the utterly fantastic Sadie (Natasha O’Keeffe). Yes, it turned out that what Lip Service really needed was a gravel-voiced, cockney Cleopatra lookalike with a penchant for petty theft and noisy sex.

What it also needed was a bit of cast pruning, notably Cat and Frankie. Cat was pruned by a speeding Vauxhall Corsa in a scene that saw Lip Service temporarily morph into an episode of Casualty, complete with unpleasant, bone crunching sound effects.

Of course, Frankie couldn’t stick around after losing her ‘soulmate’ so she packed and headed off to New York. This left new characters Sadie and Australian doctor Lexy (Anna Skellern) free to grow and expand without being constantly put off their stride by a moping skeleton who looked like the ghost of Princess Diana.

It's entirely a coincidence that her name rhymes with sexy

Dr Lexy really was fantastic. Funny, charming and sexy, she gave Tess (one of the few original characters who were actually entertaining) someone to moon over, while in turn Lexy mooned over the recently bereaved Sam, aka the thinking women’s crumpet, Heather Peace.

This fun, gossipy love triangle gave the second half of series two a great hook. At the same time, the programme stopped taking itself too seriously and suddenly became genuinely funny, at least in part due to another new character: Tess’s bitter, divorced actor colleague Hugh who was so amusing he deserves his own spin off.

I was genuinely sad when series two came to an end, and I’m equally sad to hear there won’t be a series three. It’s a real shame to kill off Lip Service just as it had started to find its feet and display real potential. Also, lesbian dramas are very thin on the ground at the moment. Nothing has really emerged to fill the void left by The L Word and the excellent Sugar Rush is now a distant memory.

There’s a small chance that another channel might wake up, smell the coffee and take it off the BBC’s hands. After all, it worked for Big Brother. So let’s keep those petitions coming and in the meantime, here’s a picture of Anna Skellern at the British Independent Film Awards to keep you going.

Julie Burchill's transphobic rant in The Observer was taken down and an apology issued by the editor, but her words have made a lasting impact

Dear Julie,

It’s four o’clock in the morning and I’m awake. And sobbing. As a trans disabled person in a same sex relationship with another disabled guy I’m used to hearing offensive comments. I’m used to the stares, and the prejudice, and being patronised and discriminated against. But the impact of your rant is on a whole other level, this is deeply painful. I’m not usually awake at this time but I woke because I was having an awful dream. In it I was telling the one person in my life who doesn’t know about my trans history, someone I love very much, that I’m trans. And he told me that I was disgusting, and that he hated me. He confirmed my worst fear, that I would never be the father figure that I have been to him for most of his life again. When you’ve not experienced gender dysphoria or the prejudice which comes with being trans, you can’t imagine the self-loathing that it invokes. Or how long it takes to begin to move on from those feelings and believe that you are worthy of happiness.

In case you’re interested, which the evidence would suggest you’re not (but in for a penny in for a pound!), I was getting there. I’ve got a good job and a wonderful husband. I’m lucky to have a family who loves me and an extremely supportive group of friends. But your tirade of hate has set me back.

As I said to begin with, I’ve had to develop a thick skin. Most of the time my partner and I can laugh about the prejudice we encounter. Sometimes we get angry, but even then we can take that anger and do something creative with it. I’ve been the victim of a transphobic physical assault and, in some ways, the hurt that your words have caused me is worse because what feels like an assault has occurred on a national platform, for everyone to see, and there’s nothing I can do about it. And to make matters worse all the majority of the media can say is that I’m being overly sensitive, or that I want to be offended.

I don’t by the way. I’d really just like to get on with my job, fighting for equality and human rights for other trans people. But instead I’ve spent every waking moment since reading your diatribe early on Sunday morning dealing with these feelings. The slurs you used so hurtfully attack my identity. They are the words I always fear that people are secretly thinking about me. They make me feel worthless, and ashamed, and want to hurt myself.

After reading the article my dad, who because you seem to think it adds validity to an argument is from a working class background and not the least political (he’s a photocopier engineer), sent me a text me to tell me that he loved me and that as always, I had his support. I want you to consider how you would feel if you had to send a similar message to your son or daughter because a respected journalist used a national newspaper to hurl hateful comments mocking and ridiculing their very identity.

And now, I’m going to try and get back to work.

Of course Jodie has previously mentioned her then partner, Cydney Bernard, in a previous awards ceremony. But that didn’t quite have the scale of the Globes, and certainly the words ‘coming out’ were never used. That said, Jodie does tell us that this isn’t a ‘coming out’ speech as such…

“I hope you’re not disappointed that there won’t be a big coming-out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age.”

(So maybe it is laziness that we are calling this a ‘coming out speech’ at all? In fact I have issue with the term in general, are we not ‘proper’ lgbt people unless we have struggled through this rite of passage? But I will refrain from delving into it here… moving on…)

Moving and engaging

No one seemed surprised by her speech (I wonder if people had been forewarned) but the A-List audience did appear suitably moved and engaged.

The most shocking statement about her entire speech was that she is fifty? How did that happen? She certainly looked beautiful, statuesque even, embodying all of the glamour and razzmatazz of Hollywood stardom. In simple terms, Jodie looked, as always, like the consummate professional and her speech reflected this.

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

I like many things about this speech. I really like that she did not thank everyone in the world who has ever ‘come out’ before her, or all of the great lgbt advocates for all of their great work; I like the fact that it didn’t seem painful for her, none of it, that this seemed as straightforward and silky smooth as I don’t know, eating ice cream; I love the fact that she did it in her voice, in her way and that she kept her speech about her as an individual. It was a personal moment full of style and grace.

Criticism

Unfortunately, there is always someone who has to rain on my parade. You can do a search for yourself if you would like to read the hounds at bay criticising Jodie Foster for not coming out so publicly earlier. Perhaps this should be a fairer piece of writing and I should go on to analyse the critiques and come back to you with something less biased, but I’m not going to. Not just because I have always been a massive fan of Jodie but because sometimes I worry the lgbt community can’t simply just celebrate something and enjoy it without bitterness… As Jodie said in her speech,

“But now I’m told, apparently, that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show. You know, you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. No, I’m sorry, that’s just not me. It never was and it never will be.”

Our stories our way…

Here is my pennies worth. LGBT people are individuals. It is up to us to decide when, how, if we say anything at all regardless of how far along the rainbow lexicon we identify. Not every star has to be an advocate. In fact the thing I have always admired most about Jodie is her ability to keep her private life private. She chose the time, she was in charge of her own coming out story and that is how it should be for each end every one of us. It’s still a shame that we have to do it at all. So let’s enjoy this happy moment and celebrate being individuals. Celebrate telling our stories in our way. Let us enjoy Jodie’s speech in all of its wonder.

Jodie Foster, thank you for not compromising, thank you for being in charge of your own life, and thank you for being an inspiration.

Gotta love that transsexual lobby

Fun with bigotry

Burchill’s article doesn’t pull any punches. It draws upon a wide variety of slurs (“shemale”, “shim”, “bunch of bed-wetters in bad wigs”), makes frequent, nasty references to genital surgery, and repeatedly asserts that trans women are “really” men:

“To have your cock cut off and then plead special privileges as women – above natural-born women, who don’t know the meaning of suffering, apparently – is a bit like the old definition of chutzpah”.

So what led Burchill to produce this unrelenting stream of bile? The answer lies in what could have been just a small social media spat, as a number of people objected to an article in the New Statesman by Suzanne Moore, who is also regularly published in the Guardian.

In her piece – a powerful, largely well-argued polemic about the importance of women’s anger – Moore caused offence by suggesting that the “ideal body shape” is that of “a Brazilian transsexual”.

This throwaway comment was not only a sweeping generalisation, but in pretty poor taste given the exceptionally high rate of murder for trans women in Brazil. Moore only fuelled the controversy when she responded rudely and dismissively to criticism, both on Twitter and in an article for the Guardian.

“People can just fuck off really. Cut their dicks off and be more feminist than me. Good for them.”

This isn’t just an issue of transphobia. A number of people will inevitably claim that a similar article “would not have been published if it was about black people”: an attitude that ignores the racist attitudes displayed by both Burchill and Moore.

When asked to clarify her “Brazilian transsexual” comments, Moore explained, “I deliberately used the word Brazilian transexual as ideal shape small hips and big T and A”. This implies that she is making some pretty sweeping generalisations not only about trans women, but about the entire population of Brazil. Burchill dismisses any criticism of this as “semantic”, and goes on to suggest that we should “join [Moore] in decrying the idea that every broad should aim to look like an oven-ready porn star”.

No diversity here

Taking responsibility

It’s easy to see this kind of controversy as relatively minor: ultimately, it consists of little more than a whole bunch of people arguing on the Internet. However, the impact will be widely felt.

Writers such as Moore, Burchill, and Julie Bindel – who also pitched in via social media – are widely respected for their work, particularly within LGB and feminist circles. The Guardian has a readership of thousands, meaning that Burchill’s piece in particular will be widely read.

Anyone who denies the power of the media in shaping attitudes is kidding themselves. Burchill’s article reinforces the idea that it’s okay to indulge in a bit of casual racism whilst viciously mocking trans people and dismissing their concerns. She reinforces the idea that “trans” and “transsexual” necessarily refer to trans women, and that trans men and individuals with non-binary gender identities do not exist. She even reinforces the idea that trans women face relatively few challenges compared to cis women.

You only need to look at some of the stories that have come out of the #transdocfail hashtag on Twitter in the last week to see the very real challenges faced by trans people in the UK. A vast epidemic of medical mispractice and negligence is both erased and perpetuated by the writings of Burchill, Moore and Bindel.

This is particularly disappointing when such writing comes from lesbian, bisexual and/or feminist writers. You’d think that women who have experienced sexism and homophobia might have some level of empathy for others who face prejudice, harassment and threats of violence on a regular basis. You’d think that they might understand that this isn’t just about the “other”, but members of their own community: trans women who happen to be gay, bisexual or queer; trans people who happen to be feminists.

It is also disappointing to see such articles in the Guardian, a publication known for its somewhat smug allegiance to “right-on” left-wing politics. Burchill and Moore should be able to say whatever they want (and, of course, everyone else should have the right to object) but they hardly have the right to be offered a platform for hate speech by a popular newspaper.

The Guardian’s editors could have easily chosen not to pay for their transphobic diatribes. You have to wonder if the decision to do so was based on incredible stupidity or deliberate malice.

An intersectional approach

The concept of intersectionality probably offers us the best possible way out of this mess. It’s been somewhat savaged by Burchill and Moore (and studiously ignored by Bindel) during this particular debate, as they argue that it’s an unnecessarily complex, academic idea. But intersectionality doesn’t have to be complicated.

Intersectionality is, at its core, the idea that (aside from a very small number of individuals who are spectacularly well-off or badly-off) we are all oppressed, and all privileged. To use some examples from my own life: I am oppressed as a bisexual trans woman, and privileged to be white, abled and middle-class. It does not make sense to say that I am simply oppressed, or simply privileged.

These oppressions and privileges then intersect. So, for instance, a black trans woman is likely to face somewhat different (and often, more significant) challenges than a white trans woman. It is for this reason that the public spokespeople for any given minority group are more likely to be privileged in certain ways: as can be seen in the predominance of high-profile white cis feminists.

Burchill, Moore and Bindel all attempt to rank the oppression of women against the oppression of trans people, suggesting that the former have it harder than the latter. This simply doesn’t make any sense, as both women and trans people are oppressed, and some women are trans.

Similarly, Burchill points to the writers’ respective working-class backgrounds, and suggests that trans complainants on the Internet are largely privileged in terms of both class and education. This is not only inaccurate, but entirely missing the point: even a middle-class trans woman has class privilege, she is still oppressed: because she’s trans, and because she’s a woman.

Intersectionality doesn’t mean that we can’t speak about the oppressions faced by others. It just means that we should respect and acknowledge difference, and listen carefully to those who are oppressed in ways that we are not. We can arguably make more of a meaningful difference in the world if we don’t assume that everyone who matters has the same experience as us.

I believe that bigoted writers from marginalised backgrounds and media editors would both do well to adopt a more intersectional approach. It’s therefore quite possible that the writers and editors responsible for the recent prejudiced articles are simply acting from ignorance.

Or, of course, they could just be horrible people.

A petition calling for an apology from the Guardian can be found here.

To contact the Observer reader’s editor, Stephen Pritchard: Stephen.pritchard@observer.co.uk

A note on the use of “Guardian” in this article: Burchill’s article was published by the Observer newspaper, which has a different editorial team to the Guardian, but is also owned by the Guardian Media Group. It was posted online to ‘Comment Is Free‘ on the Guardian/Observer website.

Actually it hasn’t taken me that long; there are depressingly few films that seem to have lesbians as lead characters. Well there are depressingly few films that have strong female leads, though that’s a different discussion for another time.

I found some movies I loved (Kiss Me); some which very much made me smile (Debs); some which made me cry (Aimee and Jaguar) and some which me think – very, very hard (Mulholland Drive).

Embracing the whole of the lesbian film genre was a whole new experience to me; previously I wanted to watch films because they were good, not because they had lesbians as main characters.

If I am looking to identify with a character, surely being a ‘lesbian’ is not the priority; identity is about much more than sexuality.

But I guess I am looking to find a space on film that is sadly missing. I want to see women falling in love with each other and I want to see this written as normal and not as problematic. I guess that is what you search for as a minority – films, books, plays and TV that talk about you.

So I decided that I wanted to share some of these films I’ve recently found and love.

Kiss Me and Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same

In January and February 2013 I am putting on a season of films at the fabulous Star and Shadow community cinema in Newcastle where I volunteer.

It’s an excuse to give two of my favourites a wider audience – Kiss Me (“Kyss Mig” in its native Swedish, also known by its American title “With Every Heartbeat”) and Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same.

The first film, Kiss Me, is by far my favourite lesbian ‘falling in love’ story – beautiful cinematography, beautiful acting, beautiful woman and beautiful (and quite realistic) sex scenes. It is a very common story arc (see ‘Imagine Me and You’ or ‘Saving Face’) but the direction overcomes this (and hey, ‘falling in love’ is just soppy.)

The second film, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same is just funny. I laughed from frame one and did not stop; the dance scene being my particular favourite (wait until you see it).

Both are small scale films, written, produced and directed by women with passion and with a story to tell. Both are shot on ridiculously tiny budgets. Both stress the trials and tribulations of looking for love. Both are hopeful.

Weekend and North Sea Texas

After much deliberation I decided to add two excellent gay male films to the season too, to strengthen the film season – Weekend and North Sea Texas. I think it is fair to say that there are more strong gay films than there are lesbian, which is reflective of the film industries treatment of men and women in general.

So the film season has become a gay lesbian, bisexual, pansexual sort of queer thing – and after much deliberation I think I found a suitable title to reflect this: ‘Straight as a Rainbow’: Hopeful Romantics.

I am still in two minds whether I should have put some ‘straight’ romance films in there, so gay and straight can live happily together, that way gay becomes normal – doesn’t it?

Maybe that will happen in the future, though currently I think there is a need to prioritise ‘non straight’ films and give them the bigger audience they deserve. All of us, straight and gay and everyone in-between, need safe, supportive spaces that show these types of films.

Watch the trailer for Kiss Me:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

‘Straight as a Rainbow’ Film Season: hopeful romantics: 13 Jan – 3 Feb 2013, Newcastle upon Tyne

• KISS ME (2011): Sunday 13th January 2013
• WEEKEND (2011): Thursday 17th January 2013
• CODEPENDENT LESBIAN SPACE ALIEN SEEKS SAME (2011): Thursday 31st January 2013
• NORTH SEA TEXAS (2011): Sunday 3rd February 2013

Tickets for each film cost £5/£3.50 concessions. All films start at 7.30 pm, doors open at 6.30 pm. For more information and to book see the Star and Shadow website.

Now that the holidays are winding down, it’s time for Americans to amp back up for that other winter holiday that involves too much spending, excitement, and over-eating . . .the Super Bowl.

On February 3^rd, 2013, New Orleans will be host to the 47^th Super Bowl and televisions across America (and of course, internationally) will be blaring the play by plays as well as the entertaining commercials that have become almost as famous as the game itself.

So what’s the controversy that has piqued my LGBT loving ears? Well, it involves television network CBS and one of America’s most lovable gay actors, Neil Patrick Harris. Harris has been out for quite some time and is the star of the very popular CBS series “How I Met Your Mother”, as well as countless films and theater productions. Let’s get serious, this guy is likable and has an insane amount of fans thanks to his acting, his LGBT stance, and his huge internet presence. It’s no wonder CBS has used him for a Super Bowl ad. The commercial shows Neil Patrick Harris wearing eye black with the date “Feb. 3, 2013” printed inside the eye black. This is done in the same style that famous Christian football player Tim Tebow notoriously used to broadcast Bible verses.

So again, what’s the controversy? Apparently some people (specifically conservative writer Joe Kovacs) feel that not only is Neil Patrick Harris mocking Tim Tebow but he is also mocking Christianity. Honestly. The poll submitted by the site clearly shows that Americans find this to be true (and by Americans, I mean the hundreds of readers who apparently read this news site and bother to take the poll). If Harris was sporting a fake Bible verse, or a direct attack against Jesus or Tebow, then I could understand the accusation. But no, he is simply announcing the dates of the 2013 Super Bowl, which makes sense as it is an ad for the 2013 Super Bowl. But wait! That isn’t all! These people are upset because not only did CBS allow someone to mimic Tim Tebow, but they allowed an openly gay actor! Who is gay! And open! This appears to be the real clencher, the hammer driving that mocking nail in, the real reason so many panties are bunched in a wad.

And forgive me for laughing when I saw that almost half the readers are voting to boycott CBS. Something tells me that when it comes down to game time, those same readers might forget their heated and passionate torch waving and might find themselves turning the channel to that evil station just in time for kickoff.

As for me? I’ll be watching the Puppy Bowl.

Panto, for puzzled readers from outside of the UK, is a peculiar British theatrical tradition. Pantomime is family-friendly comedy, which re-enacts fairytales on stage.

It’s always performed in winter, and there are essential conventions regardless of the story. The audience hisses at the baddies and shrieks advice at the goodies, there’s always some form of ‘ugly sister’ who is a man in spectacular drag, and the lead male character is always played by a woman.

Pantomime dames may hog the gender-bending spotlight, but as a young tomboy who preferred swords to tiaras, my attention was always on on the principle boy.

There, up on stage, would be a girl hero at the very centre of the adventures, swashbuckling her way to save the lovestruck princess. Six-year-old me stared dumbstruck at this exciting new career path.

Never mind that our hero was always a dullard without the wit or smarts of the more colourful characters, or that her romantic interest was an even more boring girl who was only in peril because she lacked basic feminist notions of self sufficiency.

Never mind either that principle boy was never a very convincing boy to anyone but the sweet but dim princess. In retrospect, perhaps this was what most caught my attention.

At six years old I already knew that you didn’t have to actually be a boy to have fun like a boy, but the unspoken rule was that only kids got to be tomboys, and one day you’d have to grow up and start caring about lipstick. But here was an adult woman, doing what men do, and getting away with it.

Panto doesn’t seem an obvious champion for queer life – after all, one of the central jokes is watching burly men totter around in heels, makeup and a huge wig. A man! Pretending to be a woman! Hilarious!

And yet this great British institution, this gloriously traditional piece of high camp theatre, introduced me and countless other little queerlings to the concept of lesbianism.

So did panto make me gay? Oh yes it did! Oh no it didn’t! (Sorry.)

1. Sofia Vergara

Cheeky yet sofisticated, Sofia Vergara is one hot mamma. With her flowy tresses, ample bosoms and columbian accent, who could say no? Playing Gloria Delgado-Pritchett on hit show Modern Family, we just love it when she talks about her “baby cheeses”.

2. Noomi Rapace

A woman of many looks, the face behind the Dragon Tattoo is best loved as Lisbeth Salander of the Swedish adaptions of the Millenium Trilogy. We love her best when she’s speeding through the streets of Stockholm on her motorbike and glaring at the computer screen for Blomkvist.

3. Natalie Portman

The Black Swan actress has glided into the top 25′s many a time. Known also for her performances in V for Vendetta and Star Wars, she’s quite the hot cookie. But alas, who could forget the sex scene with Mila Kunis?

4. Mila Kunis

Oops! You guessed it, Mila Kunis is at number 4. This year she was known for her role in Ted, the girlfriend of a guy who struggled to part with his cursing, drug taking, sex crazed teddy bear. She’s also the voice of Meg Griffin in Family Guy and a couple years ago had that kiss with Natalie.

5. Keira Knightley

Ok. Writer’s block with this one. What do I really need to say? She’s Kiera Knightley. Deliciously mischievous and delicately fierce.

6. Anne Hathaway

What a lady! Anne Hathaway has delighted us as the Catwoman, The White Queen and Mia Thermopolis (Princess Diaries) #guilty pleasure. What will be in store for us as we watch her as Fantine of Les Misérables? Can’t wait to find out. Squee!

7. Nicole Scherzinger

This lady got some moves! While docile in her lofty mansion, this X Factor judge and former Pussy Cat Doll can pack a punch on the dance floor.

8. Lea Michele

Rachel Berry steps it up a gear in this season of Glee. From high school diva to NYADA star, she’s done some sexy pieces.

9. Alyson Hannigan

She’s puurty! How many times have you heard the quote “This one time, at band camp…”. Yep, that was Michelle. What did she do with that flute?

10. Cheryl Cole

Phwoar. Another guilty pleasure. Seriously, who doesn’t secretly fancy her derriere?

 

Got any other faves? Tell us in the comments below…

 

I don’t necessarily have a problem with left-handed people, in fact a friend of one of my very best friends is left-handed, I just don’t like the thought of what left-handed people do in private in their own homes.

Left-handed people claim their personal lives are none of my business, and admittedly they have not passed judgment on my right-handed private life, yet I feel the need to state the left-handed activity they participate in makes me a little queasy.

I am a church-goer and believe only right-handed people should be allowed the privilege of love and marriage. I accept left-handed people are going to pair up with each other but their unions must not be referred to as ‘marriage’ or take place in a place of worship. Marriage is sacred and only for the right-handed.

It is therefore sensible for people who feel they are left-handed – and who wish to marry – to try their very best to become right-handed. If this is too difficult for them, they should give up using both of their hands altogether.

I am uncomfortable with the notion of left-handed people having children.

Left-handed parents may have a happy and loving home with the ability to offer a wonderful upbringing to a child but they cannot possibly provide a child with the same benefits as right-handed parents. Parental skill, personality and even love are irrelevant when it comes to left-handed parenting versus right-handed parenting.

If a left-handed parent or parents try to raise a child it will expose that child to all sorts of left-handed activity and the child may even turn out left-handed themselves.

Although a parent may still love their left-handed child, I am sure no sane person would ever wish for their child to be left-handed.

Children should not be taught in school that being left-handed is normal. I had a friend once who thought he was left-handed for a while, he even tried being left-handed with another left-handed person, but then realised he was right-handed all along and it was all just a phase. If he had been taught in school that being left-handed was a normal and acceptable choice he may have stayed left-handed forever.

Speaking of choice, I know many left-handed people claim they are born left-handed and they do not have a choice about it, and this may well be true, but they do not have to act upon it.

Paedophiles also claim they are born with a desire to have sex with children. Therefore one could argue left-handed people are basically paedophiles. I would not say this is always the case, but left-handed marriage is definitely the beginning of society’s decline into all sorts of wrongness and deviancy.

For example, if we allow left-handed people to marry it will pave the way for other irregular relationships, such as incestuous ones, to become legal too.

The idea that left-handed people should be able to marry is quite simply ‘barking mad’.

Around 130 Tory MPs, including David Davies, oppose the rights of gay couples to marry and argue children should not be taught about homosexuality in school. David Davies referred to gay marriage as ‘barking mad’.

Read Davies’s latest interview here.

Like and share if you believe gay people deserve the same rights as left-handed people.

This coalition government in the UK is a funny one. Having gone to such effort to make it clear that their same sex marriage consultation was regarding civil marriage only, having faced down a major revolt by the more traditionally minded churches and a hundred of backbench Tory MPs, the government last week announced that they would be adding religious marriage to the upcoming bill anyway.

This was seriously good news to those of us who have been angry that the rights of religious LGBT people have taken the back seat to the concerns of people who were pretty unhappy about civil partnerships when they came in in 2005, but now regard them as the only option to prevent ‘the gays’ from getting true equality.

The government has announced a variety of laws that will protect the rights of religious ministers to refuse to perform same sex marriages, including amending the Equality Act and ensuring the European Court of Human Rights can’t get involved.

This all seems quite reasonable – LGBT people should be able to get married, priests who don’t agree don’t have to marry them. All well and good.

The “quadruple lock”

Except for this other random law thrown in. As part of the “triple lock” announcement, additional regulations were announced for the Church of England, which will be explicitly banned from performing same sex marriages.

Apparently this was to deal with the problem of having an established church whose canon law, which must be approved by Parliament, would directly conflict with Parliament passing a religious same sex marriage law.

I say “apparently”, because it turns out no-one asked the Churches of England or Wales how they felt about it. Regardless, it seems to be setting us up for even more grief in the future. What if the Church of England decides to allow same sex marriage in its churches but vociferous Tory MPs manage to block the removal of the “quadruple lock”, as its known?

Additionally, this proposed legislation again restricts rights, in this case those of Anglican priests who actively want to perform same sex marriages and are pressuring the Church to allow them to do so.

Chris Howson, an Anglican priest in the diocese of Sunderland wrote an article on his thoughts of same sex marriage in the Anglican church, stating:

“To exempt the Churches of England and Wales from the possibility of opting to perform same sex marriages will just lead to many of us eventually leaving for more progressive Anglican shores, or joining other denominations. This is crazy. I am an Anglican priest. I am proud of the fact that the Holy Spirit has moved in our Church and helped us to move from positions of racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.”

“I hope that those in the leadership of the C of E will recognise that their position must change. Otherwise we will lose another generation, as our institution looks more and more irrelevant and unkind. It does not bode well for us that the ‘nasty party’ can easily pass us off as the ‘nasty church’.”

A wolf in gay sheep’s clothing

It can only be a good thing that in terms of planned legislation we are now down to a few thousand people whose wishes to marry couples and each other in Anglican Churches are now being thwarted, down from the hundreds of thousands of people right now.

It frankly makes me optimistic that if the government can, for reasons known only to itself, repeatedly stab its own supporters in the back for the benefit of people like me, then it can do so for the sake of the devout gay Anglicans who just want to be married in the eyes of their God. Though I continue to find it baffling that Scotland’s SNP government at Holyrood had none of this prevaricating and the Tories chose to go down this path which seems to be satisfying nobody.

Same sex marriage is the final legal hurdle to full equality on an track that started with the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967 and sped up dramatically during the last Labour government which oversaw the repeal of Section 28, the introduction of hate crime and sexual orientation discrimination legislation, the reduction in the age of consent for gay sex, and the legalisation of gay adoption, LGBT people serving in the military, and civil partnerships.

David Cameron evidently scented an opportunity to dress his party in a gay sheep‘s clothing and deny Labour a straight flush of LGBT rights laws. Given that the actual vote, after much wrangling, dissent, and grumbling from within his own party, and the fury of many natural Tory supporters now heading to UKIP and elsewhere, will see a lengthy queue of obedient and grinning Labour MPs marching through the Aye lobby as 130 or more Tories defy the Prime Minister to put themselves on the wrong side of history, I wonder if the new ‘compassionate Conservatives’ will think it was all worth it.

I started today in a good mood, which was surprising for a Monday morning. Nonetheless I did.  I was in a great old mood and all set to write a fluffy piece on a great stocking filler for the whole family but alas I read the news at lunch and I have been on a downward curve ever since.

What aggravated me so much? No it was not the garlic smuggler dodging tax, nor the news of yet another energy price increase. In fact it was ramblings of one of our elected politicians in the UK – one MP David Davies.

“I think most people are very tolerant and have no problem at all if people are gay” (BBC website)

…you know what’s coming…

“ I think most parents would prefer their children not to be gay, knowing most parents want grandchildren if nothing else.”

The ignorance of that statement is nothing short of baffling.  I mean, did he really say that!?!

“It changes the way that sex education is going to be taught in schools.”

Thank goodness!

“It’s going to have an impact on teachers and I think it goes against what a lot of people feel very strongly about, particularly within the Conservative Party.”

The assertion being made here is that this is going to impact teachers adversely.  Not to go all ‘activist’ here but ‘The School Report’ published by Stonewall (2012) illustrates that 55% of LGB young people experience homophobic bullying.

Homophobic bullying is certainly not limited to LGB students as Stonewall’s publication ‘The Teachers’ Report’ showed in 2009 that any person deemed as different can be subject to homophobic bullying, anyone considered to be outside of traditional gender stereotypes (e.g. sporty girls) or with gay friends or family could be subject to homophobic bullying, which is in fact the second most common type of bullying in schools.

Thankfully, the world is not full of idiots like Mr Davies.

Diversity Role Models

Back in May (2012) I wrote about role models because it is something I believe very passionately in. Those among us who stand up, change perceptions and inspire others simply by being open and authentic individuals.  An organisation which shares this view is Diversity Role Models (DRM).

DRM is a charity that seeks to prevent homophobic bullying in schools within the United Kingdom by using role models (both LGBT and their straight allies) to educate young people about differences in sexual orientation and gender identity to enable acceptance and respect for diversity.

“Diversity role models can be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or straight. They need not be successful, attractive or brilliant. They certainly don’t need to be perfect. All they need to demonstrate is that it’s ok to be different.”

In schools where preventative methods are implemented, it has been shown that LGBT students are 60% less likely to be bullied, leading to a better, safer learning environment for students.

2013 DRM Calendar

In conjunction with DRM, Claire’s Events has put together a calendar to promote some of the role models involved with the charity…and yes, this is the gift that keeps on giving as all the profits generated go directly to the charity.

Why did Claire do this? “I have known Susan (Dickson, CEO of Diversity Role Models) for a while now, and the work she does is so important in the fight to eliminate bullying and homophobia. I wanted to do anything I could to help the charity.”  (Claire Henson, Claire’s Events)

Spoken like a true role model.

The calendar is not the first time Claire has been involved in charity.  In April of this year she ran a charity benefit at the Komedia Brighton which included performers such as Amity, Christina Novelli and the Short and Girlie Show.

So who can we expect to see in the calendar?  Amongst others… TV Presenter Clare Balding, singer AMiTY, Paralympian Claire Harvey and the cast of the L Project.  If you want to find who else makes an appearance you know what to do.

So…

This year instead of buying my usual fluffy kittens calendar (because yes they are cute and yes I do want one) I will be getting myself one of these great calendars and each day in 2013 use it to ask myself one simple question – how can I be better today?

Buy your calendar today from the Diversity Role Models website.

The Supreme Court finally addressed the California Prop 8 appeal and the Defense of Marriage Act on Friday, December 7, behind closed doors. 

As you may recall, Prop 8 was a ban on same sex marriage that California voters implemented in 2008.  The official ruling that was handed down on Friday is that the court agreed to hear both cases, which will most likely happen in Spring of 2013, and a verdict handed down by Summer of 2013.  Americans, especially those of the rainbow variety, have been anxiously awaiting the ruling for quite some time.  If the Court had elected to not review Prop 8 next year, it would have meant that gay couples in California would be ringing wedding bells around the corner.  At this time, however, gay couples are still not allowed to legally be married in California.  While this may seem like a step back, it is important to realize that by finally addressing these appeals at the Supreme Court we are that much closer to attaining equal rights without having them revoked months later.

Now, I’m a smart girl, and I am going to assume that you are a smart girl since you are reading this piece, but let’s get serious, this Prop 8 nonsense that has been bouncing around for over 4 years is confusing!  For example (and forgive my personal revelations) my little sister and her wife were married on August 14, 2010.  They had planned their wedding for months, even though gay marriage was not technically legal in California at the time, because they wanted to celebrate their union with family and friends.  At a surprising turn of events, United States district court Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Prop 8 just ten days before their wedding.  You can imagine how overjoyed this made us, even though the legal technicalities were beside the point.  It was just plain exciting to be celebrating a marriage that their own state fully recognized.  But!  Despite the fact that same sex marriage was now technically legal in California thanks to Judge Walker’s ruling, there was a stay that went into effect almost immediately following the decision.  So, when my sister and her wife were married, same sex marriage was technically legal but not actually applicable as a tangible right.  That stay remains, and same sex partners residing in California have not been granted the right to a physical marriage license.

That was two years ago, and it’s still hard for me to wrap my brain around the semantics.  Then, on February 7, 2012, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed Walker’s decision declaring the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.  This was a win for gay, but still no legal ceremonies could be performed.  On July 30, 2012, supporters of the marriage ban filed a petition with the Supreme Court, requesting a review.  That was almost five months ago, and now the Supreme Court has finally agreed to hear the case.

Are you still with me?  And so while it appears that we are back where we started, as in sitting on our lovely behinds and waiting for those strangers in the court house to decide our fates, we are actually a little bit ahead than we were five months ago, and we are so far ahead from where we were in the 2008 election.  As many of you know, last month’s election ended with four more states ahead in the marriage equality column.  Same sex marriages are now legal in 11 of the 50 states, though there are a few more states such as California that are in an in between state of limbo.  You can find a ridiculously colorful map here that (sort of) explains the policies state by state.

The Defense Of Marriage Act will also be in review alongside Prop 8 next spring.  The justices will be reviewing the constitutionality of the DOMA and its provision denying federal benefits to same-sex couples who are legally married.  Heartbreaking stories of widows getting screwed by the federal government because their marriage is not recognized on a national level abound, and many states’ judicial systems have ruled that DOMA denies gays and lesbians the equal protection of the laws.  Again, we must wait until spring to learn anything new.

There is still hope.  Everywhere you read, look, turn, it is becoming apparent that the time are a’changing and it won’t be long before 11 states becomes 12 states becomes 25 becomes 50.  Marriage equality advocates knew that this issue would not get resolved until it hit the Supreme Court, and so we are just going through the channels to achieve the freedom that comes with equality.  Until then, we wait.

Looks pretty radical, doesn't it?

To have your gender legally recognized in Sweden you must undergo sterilization, which involves all reproductive materials being destroyed. No biological children, losing the ability to carry a child and forced to coincide with a gender binary – all to allow you to have correct documentation. What’ so important about correct documents, you might ask?  Well, without them it’s a struggle to go through airport security, to apply or graduate from university, to get health insurance, and a whole host of other mundane activities without having to come out or be refused every time you do so.

Sweden’s not alone

One of 17 other European countries to abide by this draconian law, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands join those that force surgery for document changes. Further afield in Canada the Identity Screening Regulations state that airlines should not transport a passenger if he or she ”does not appear to be of the gender indicated on the identification he or she presents.” Therefore, if you want to travel in or out of Canada as a trans person, you could face big difficulty. What’s more, in Brazil, an image must be provided to the Government with full body photographic proof of  the transition for documents to be changed.

Where can I be me? (Image via Mother Jones)

Common Protocol

If that weren’t bad enough, common protocol in many other nations involves providing proof of major medical procedures like sex reassignment surgery; hormone replacement therapy; a diagnosis of gender dysphoria; or permission by the courts. Gender dysphoria, for anyone that doesn’t know, is “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/ expressed gender and assigned gender, of at least 6 months duration”, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It’s considered a mental illness and usually has to be diagnosed before essential hormone treatment can be accessed.

Josie, an 8 year old transgender girl on the Tyra show.

The laws are no different for children and for many trangender kids, including Irish, they must travel across borders for treatment. Most transgender people I know identified as trans from the age of five or six and had to wait until their late thirties and forties to acquire treatment. Indeed, in Ireland a bill is in formation which would require transgender couples to divorce to have their gender legally recognized.

Argentina lights the way

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Argentina is lighting the way in gender recognition legislation. Passed in May, their bill allows for self-determination i.e. no diagnosis of a mental illness and requires no proof of surgery or hormone therapy. For transgender people who have no desire for surgery or hormones, or who because of health problems can’t safely undergo surgery or hormone therapy, this is a big deal. Plus, many transgender people don’t associate with having a dysphoria and so are forced into appearing ‘trans enough’ to access treatment and documentation.

For a country that appears so advanced it’s in the future on gender recognition, Sweden has a long way to go. Nobody should be forced into surgery to be recognized as who they are.

However, what niggles me is that over the 10 years I’ve been playing hockey, not once have I ever come across homophobia, whether it was at my local hockey club or at university.  I found being part of a club has evolved to become a second family, a close knit group who not only works together on the astro, but also looks out for and cares for each other.  It saddens me to think that other people haven’t been so lucky when coming to sport.

According to the report published on the Sport Wales website here, gay men generally have felt more excluded than gay women/lesbians.  However, with massive sporting stars such as Gareth Thomas and Nigel Owens from rugby, who are openly gay, have become beacons of hope for aspiring gay rugby players.  Football, on the other hand, is struggling with having gay representatives, and appears to be a completely heterosexual sphere, with no place for gay men.  A gay male that was surveyed stated:

“Make it clear that sport isn’t a preserve for straight men. More openly gay premiership football players would turn a corner” – gay male, survey

This is clearly an attitude Sports Wales and Stonewall are hitting hard, with a ‘No Tolerance’ policy coursing through the campaign.

Another message that was clearly outlined in the report was that sports club should be more responsible for showcasing that they are ‘gay friendly’.  Personally, why does a club need to state this? Surely, being friendly full stop is important, not zoning in on one group?  As part of our club, we’re hugely proud of being one of the friendliest hockey clubs in North Wales.  We’re welcoming, happy, have great attitudes on and off the pitch and care a great deal about each other and any new members who would like to join!  But if clubs were specifically advertising that they were ‘LGBT friendly’, my first thought would be “well, why wouldn’t you be anyway?”, and if I ever joined a team that wasn’t, I wouldn’t stick around.

Many of my gay friends who live in Wales and beyond play sports, whether it’s rugby, football, hockey, darts, pool, or even water polo, and the sporting world has always been a safe haven for us to be who we are.  A segment of the report focuses on gay ‘banter’, and how 75% of LGBT respondents have experienced this either whilst playing or watching.  Sometimes banter can be vicious and cruel, and there’s never any room for such vulgar comments, no matter what the situation, but I’ve had quite a bit of ‘gay banter’, but we all took the mickey out of each other for different things.  At university we had quite a few members of the club who were LGBT, so drinking fines were split to “gays drink” and “straights drink” – equality! Being gay was just a sub group of the big family that we had, and the straights had just as much banter as the gays.

Once again, maybe I was lucky to be a part of such a magnificent hockey club at university, and my local hockey club in North Wales.  It saddens me to even think about other members of the LGBT society not being accepted and appreciated as I have been, but I’m extremely impressed and excited about the Stonewall Cymru and Sport Wales movement to not only raise awareness about homophobia in sports, but one day eliminating it forever.

Hockey tour top – love it, thought it was hilarious, not offensive! The theme was music, and this is the Katy Perry song

1 – Classic and always successful: Books!

Our writer Maria Burnham recommends Jeanette Winterson’s memoir “Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal”, a story about the search for happiness. “The Lesbian Parenting Book: A Guide to Creating Families and Raising Children” will please the couples who are already in the process of setting up a family, or will encourage partners who are thinking about it but need tips to get started! It can also be a subtle message for your loved one…

2 – A cult DVD to fill your long winter evenings

Winter is the season for DVDs. Among the numerous cult movies and series to have, we picked the Lip Service box set with the seasons 1 & 2 as a guilty treat for those who have a secret fantasy on Sergeant Sam Murray… If you aim to be more original and fancy, my suggestion will be two French movies that I am pretty sure no one has heard of: “Looking for Cheyenne” (Oublier Cheyenne), an unusual love story between two women who have different political and social views, and “Gigola”, the story of a scandalous woman dressed as a man set in Paris in the 20′s starring the ambiguous Lou Doillon.

3 – Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friends

Our writer Sophie Cairns would go for something traditional like a sparkly necklace. A piece of jewellery is indeed a unique gift which lasts (just avoid if your girlfriend tends to lose stuff). Check the Diesel women jewels range for wicked ideas if you can’t afford the actual diamond thing yet.

4 – Shoes

Our writer Georgia T Rooney is thinking of getting her loved one some great Converse trainers. Double check the size before you order and be cheeky on the color! I personally love the metallic purple pair which my lover got me last year!

5 – Music

A romantic suggestion from our writer Renata Costa: an iPod with all the music she has listened with her love. If you are out of ideas, why not including the last Jesse J or the Canadian twin sisters Tegan & Sara!

6 – A witty magazine subscription

Although you read nothing but Lesbilicious, why not get your lover a magazine subscription? It is a gift that you will benefit too and that will last all year long! You can go for lesbian magazines such as Diva, Curve, or La Dixieme Muse (get her to practice her French at the same time), but Time Out is also a great idea if you live in London, to get all the info about the hottest nights in town.

7 – Tickets for funky nights out

Georgia is also thinking of gig or theatre tickets (it seems like her lover will be spoiled this Christmas). Our lesbian icon Pink is on a UK tour in 2013! For more intellectual stuff, Sadler’s Wells in London has a wonderful dance program for 2013 with some tickets under £15.

8 – Pampering

Treat yourself too for Christmas! A massage for two is a wonderful gift that you will enjoy together. Many spas now propose treatments for couples. Self-indulgence is a good thing! It is a perfect gift if you have something difficult to say or a favor to ask because your girlfriend will probably say yes to anything after thai massage and cucumber mask.

9 – Geeky stuff

A geeky gift will be highly appreciated by many ladies. The Kindle Fire or customized accessories for laptops and phones will surely be a hit. For more extravagant and sophisticated ideas that will surprise (or scare) her, have a look at the technology page of Pinterest!

10 – Involvement

Your partner already has all the items listed above? Help her take action to support LGBT people and donate! There are plenty of organizations out there who need money and support to continue doing a fantastic job: Stonewall, The Lesbian and Gay Foundation, Galop or London Friend among others. Put the receipt of the donation in a beautiful envelop under the tree and give your partner a giant kiss to show her how generous and wonderful she is!

The release of a gender-neutral toy catalogue has reignited a fierce debate in Sweden

Now, if all you know about Sweden are ABBA and IKEA, I understand you might be a little confused, but put down your Dancing Queen vinyl and flat pack furniture and listen up. Sweden is way cool. Especially if you’re a woman.

Since the 1960s, the Scandinavian country has been championing the sexual revolution with gender equality calling shotgun in the front seat. Sweden has the highest proportion of working women and in 2010 was designated by the World Economic Forum as the most gender-equal country in the world. It’s also considered a progressive, liberal country with widespread acceptance of alternative sexualities. Its gender-neutral marriage laws are the envy of many LGBTQ people across the world, and same-sex families are not at all uncommon.

I already knew Sweden was very forward thinking in lots of ways. Then this week, I stumbled across an article about the release of a gender-neutral children’s toy catalogue by a Swedish company and my admiration for all things Sweden was reignited. The Swedish edition of Top Toy, who also produce catalogues for Toys ‘R Us, features a boy playing with dolls and a girl looking pretty badass wielding a machine gun, and another toy catalogue has switched things around with a boy in a Spider-Man costume pushing a pink pram and girl riding a yellow tractor.

I was delighted. Spend more than five minutes with either of my parents and I’m sure the story of the time I threw several dolls out of a pram and used it to ferry rocks from one end of the park to the other will be brought up. I was rarely happier than when I was creating traffic jams on the car mat with my brother or turning a game of Action Men into a steamy gay love affair, but I wasn’t adverse to a Barbie or a Polly Pocket on occasion either. I just wanted to play with toys and it didn’t matter to me if they were for boys or for girls. I didn’t realise I was subverting anything—from a very young age, I simply thought it was an horrendous injustice that my brother would get far cooler things to play with than I did. To this day, I’m still bitter that he had a Ghostbusters proton pack and trap and I didn’t.

Top Toy’s director of sales Jan Nyberg said: “With the new gender thinking, there is nothing that is right or wrong. It’s not a boy or a girl thing, it’s a toy for children.”

These things do not just happen by accident. The strategy was a conscience decision after the company was criticised in 2008 by an advertising watchdog in Sweden for encouraging outdated gender roles in their imagery.

Nyberg continued: “We have produced the catalogues in a completely different way this year. For several years, we have found that the gender debate has grown so strong in the Swedish market that we have had to adjust.”

A prominent feminist blog in Sweden called Lady Dahmer explained why toys have become the frontline in the war against gender inequality: “The problem with toy stores and their catalogues is that they’re selling a concept; an idea about boys and girls and what kinds of qualities and interests they should have. It’s about money because as long as they can fool us into believing boys and girls are fundamentally different, they can keep selling us twice as much.

“Children have a strong need to fit in, not stand out. When they see what is ‘right’ for their gender, it becomes less likely that they dare break the norms.”

Allowing children to express themselves regardless of gender isn’t a concept unique to Sweden. Back home, Hamleys ‘gender apartheid’ has been slammed by people like Laura Nelson who says the toy giant should follow the example of retailers like Marks and Spencer who recently revised the way they segregate toys. Nelson said: “Hamleys should follow suit so that girls and boys are free to choose what toys are best matched to their individual interests and potential rather than a pre-conditioned and artificial notion of what the different genders should aspire to.”

But it seems toys are just a drop in the vast gender ocean. Sweden is going further and pushing toward something greater than gender equality—cleansing the notion of gender entirely. Nathalie Rothschild explains: “The idea is that the government and society should tolerate no distinctions at all between the sexes.

“This means on the narrow level that society should show sensitivity to people who don’t identify themselves as either male or female, including allowing any type of couple to marry. But that’s the least radical part of the project. What many gender-neutral activists are after is a society that entirely erases traditional gender roles and stereotypes at even the most mundane levels.”

Gender cleansing, while somewhat extreme for many tastes, isn’t just peddled by a minority or a passing fad that will soon fall out of fashion, but something that is even woven into the national curriculum. Gender advisers are common in schools across Sweden and there is a pre-school in Stockholm who says its aim is to ‘free children from social expectations based on their sex’.

I asked my friend Pete, who moved to Sweden when his daughter was born, what he thought. Was this a concept that was on the fringes of society or something prevalent in everyday life? He told me that it was common for people to confront you for referring to you child as ‘him’ or ‘her’ and that ‘hen’, a gender-neutral pronoun, was becoming increasingly popular. It has even spawned Sweden’s first gender-neutral children’s book called ‘Kivi och Monsterhund’ by Jesper Lundqvist.

Pete also said that it was controversial for parents not to subscribe to popular opinion and those who allowed children to follow traditional gender roles were marginalised in big cities like Stockholm or Göteborg. He said: “You would definitely get a dirtier look for dressing your girl in a pretty pink dress than dressing your boy in a pretty pink dress.”

Sweden’s attitude to gender will no doubt be considered radical, or even dangerous, especially in a country like Britain where gender roles and stereotypes are thoroughly entrenched in everything we do. I can just see the Daily Fail headlines now. One critic, Swedish blogger Tanja Bergkvist said: “This equality idea, it has become so absurd, it has become a really stupid industry.

“Gender researchers have convinced politicians that the solution to all problems is a gender perspective. That’s quite dangerous because they spend money and resources on the wrong things.”

But whether or not you agree with the Swedish way of tackling inequalities, you have to admit that it’s worrying that we’ve come to believe it’s something in our genetics rather than societal factors that makes boys want to play with guns and girls play with dolls and that makes men want to earn lots of money while us women simply cannot wait to get home to iron his shirts.

Everything is gendered. Not just the big things, but little things that you might not have even thought about. Why do our shirts and our jeans have to button up differently? The shampoo we use, moisturisers, razors. Bathrooms, changing rooms, classrooms. How come my brothers can get their haircut for a fiver but I’m paying £40? Aren’t Diet Coke and Coke Zero exactly the same thing?

All these supposedly unimportant, mundane anomalies stack up, reinforcing the belief that we are fundamentally different until we’ve reach crisis point. May I remind you of the gender pay gap? It might be closing, but it’s still there, and I think that homophobia and transphobia stem directly from restrictive gender roles and the assumption that men and women are supposed to behave in a certain way.

Not everyone will agree with the motives of raising a gender-neutral child, for example, but I certainly believe there are a lot of lessons we can learn from our Swedish bröder och systrar. Besides. They do make really good meatballs.

The Mums in this video have a long way to go.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

This is a perfect format to catch people saying what they believe. When people feel their privacy is protected, they talk.

In the October 19 episode of “What would you do?” the little boy wants to be Belle, the princess in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” His mom wants him to be anything but a princess. She talks openly with other mothers about wanting to “nip in the bud” this “phase” of his. This fear and disapproval is perhaps one of the boy’s first experiences not being accepted or loved for who he is.

The little boy could not care less for the costumes his mom suggests. He wants to be a cute princess with a bow on her hair. Now—up to this point all this is a dramatization and we know to suspend our disbelief.

But then the regular public intervenes. When a real-life shopper says “that’s for a girl. And you are not a girl, right?” she shows that society is a unified front. It rejects what the boy wants. And what he wants is not only a costume. He is trying on a potential identity; who he might become. Now he knows that, according to his mother, and mothers in general, what he wants is wrong. With this, society throws him and his princess costume into a corner of rejection and isolation—that is, into the closet.

It doesn’t surprise me that all the children in the clip rehash the message they have heard from their mothers casually, but relentlessly, throughout their lives. Their ears are tuned in. They want to belong. Belonging is, after all, safety. They apply the gender-normative message because they see it as a condition for being accepted. When other kids stray, they enforce conformity. They become guardians of the closet—bullies.

Luckily other voices are being heard, and kids are finding support in unexpected places.

When a girl walks into the store asking for a Spider-Man costume the moms beat the message of conformity, one of them expressing fears about bullying. I can’t help to think that the kids who hear her will take her words as a warning—if you want to be bullied, try wearing the wrong costume.

Then something unexpected happens: two shoppers surround the little girl, assert that what she wants is to be a strong woman—what can be wrong with that? When the mother “takes a little walk” to relieve some stress, one of the strangers promises to stand with her and defend her. She touches her shoulder warmly, looks around cautiously before whispering in the girl’s ear—“there are more girls like you.” With this she shows that not all of society demands a sacrifice. There are people who understand and celebrate who she might become. The woman shows for the girl the way out of the closet her mother unwittingly threw her into. Please watch the video till the end.

Thanks for being loud and brave

This November, Thanksgiving was celebrated in the US. I have many things to be thankful for, including acts of kindness from strangers towards kids who are trapped in society’s strictures.

Instead of silence and conformity some people are coming to the rescue of children who are different, telling them that who they are is not only acceptable but beautiful. Encouraging them to say their truth. To be loud and brave. Singer-song writer’s Ezra Axelrod’s song says it best:

We crossed every line just to find our own way to be / Let the waves crash into you, I’ll betcha never felt so free, felt so loud / Max, I see the fire in your eyes, I know that you will always be loud and brave.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

In light of these findings, Rosie Hayes spoke to bestselling author Cathy Glass who supports LGBT fostering and gave a wonderful insight into the life of a foster carer.

Cathy is a divorced mother of three. Over the past 25 years she has cared for around 100 foster children as well as authoring 15 bestselling books which have sold over 1.4 million copies. Additionally, she provides training to other foster carers and spends up to four hours a day corresponding with her fans.  It would be easy to imagine she also wears a superhero cape and can fly to the moon, but Cathy is refreshingly down to earth.

She does, occasionally read or watch television, although finding the time to have a relationship has proved a little tricky; “It would take a very understanding person to take me on with everything going on in my life”, she jokes before adding, “I might think about having a relationship when I retire”.

Since her book Damaged, the true story of a foster child who suffered horrific abuse at the hands of a paedophile ring, was published in 2007 Cathy Glass, has become a household name.

Each of her books tell the story of a child she has fostered; the reason they came into care, the behaviours and disclosures that occur while they live with her and the resolution of the children being returned to their natural family or being adopted.

Cathy believes sexuality is irrelevant when fostering and knows a lesbian couple who have fostered successfully for 15 years. She she suggests interested carers apply to an agency that already has same sex couples on their register, as they are likely to be the most supportive.

Cathy Glass (not real name) has been a foster mother for the last 25 years. She has written 3 bestselling books about some of the children that she has looked after. Her books include, Damaged, Cut and Hidden.

Cathy writes under a pseudonym and changes all names in her books to protect the identities of her foster children, meaning none of the children featured in the books, or any of their parents, have identified themselves. Her secret identity as a bestselling author is only known to her three adult children, who “take it in their stride”. She would like to think they are proud of her, but they rarely get a chance to discuss it.

Her style comes under the genre “Inspirational memoir” (rather disparagingly nicknamed “misery lit” by the publishing industry), yet her books differ, and have large appeal, because they are written from her perspective and not the child’s. Although the subject matter is dark, Cathy manages to make each story a heart-warming read.

“I focus on the optimistic outcome of the care order” explains Cathy, “unfortunately it just isn’t possible for some children to be returned to their mothers but in some instances, like in the case of Aimee (the girl described in her book Another Forgotten Child) a child will go and live with relatives who are able to provide them with a stable and loving home”.

Cathy weaves anecdotes from her own life, and those of her three older children (one of whom she adopted following a foster placement) into each book and readers soon get a wonderful sense of her personality and the challenging yet hugely rewarding life she leads.

“I am incredibly lucky” she says, as though her successful career has just happened upon her rather than being the result of years of dedication and passion, “I am really happy with my life and the work that I do and I have a great circle of friends. The only thing I would change is I would have liked for my marriage to continue but that ended a long time ago now and there’s no use crying over spilt milk”.

Warm and open, with an unmistakeable kindness in her voice, as well as a no-nonsense attitude that reveals her inner strength, Cathy declares her favourite thing about fostering is being able to return a child to their natural mother.

“You know from the outset that fostering is very rarely a route to adoption. You are performing a role, and when you have worked alongside the parents and the child has made such good progress, it is incredibly satisfying to return that child to a parent or parents who have overcome their difficulties which are usually drink and drug related. It makes up for the pain of their departure”.

And how does she cope when a child leaves her home?

“Of course you develop attachment to the child. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t and it is terribly sad when a child leaves your home.  Not only do you miss their physical presence but it’s the little things, likes their shoes suddenly no longer being in the hallway or their coat no longer hanging up with the other coats, which can suddenly hit you”.

She explains the feelings of loss and grief are normal after a child’s departure, and accepts that it is okay to cry and in fact a lot of foster carers do cry when the child leaves their home. Cathy always has a break between the departure and arrival of her foster children to give her and her family time to adjust.

The worst part about fostering for Cathy, are the times when there is no happy ending and a child spends most of his or her life in and out of care resulting in a series of different foster home, a sad situation she has witnessed a few times but is yet to write about.  Unless there is a residence order in force, the child’s parents or Guardian can collect the child from their foster home at any time which can be very disruptive. “It is terribly unsettling for the child, and some children have had as many as 50 different homes” says Cathy sadly.

“The local authorities try and keep the kids at the same school as it gives them stability, but you can imagine if they are in and out of care, living with different foster carers in different areas this can be difficult.”

“Some of these kids have had 20 or 30 homes and have so many behavioural and psychological difficulties by the time they reach adulthood they have to be institutionalised.”

Her experience ties in with research from Professor Judith Masson from Bristol University  that looks into the pros and cons of local authorities reaching a protective ‘agreement’ with parents to keep children in care. Professor Masson found that social workers had “a clear preference for using section 20 (the voluntary accommodation provision) rather than seeking an emergency protection order.”

Sadly, the experience of children being moved from home to home is not uncommon, and neither are the stories of physical, sexual and emotional abuse that Cathy recounts in her books.

The volume of emails she receives from people who have been victim to abuse in their childhoods has caused Cathy to believe cases reported to the police are “just the tip of the iceberg”.

“It has been a real eye opener” she says, “It made me realise so much goes on behind closed doors. When the allegations came out about Jimmy Savile I was not at all surprised. So much abuse occurs that is never uncovered”.

Her role as a foster carer is vital for abused children, who thrive in the stable and loving environment of their foster home where they are able to disclose their experiences.

Cathy’s style of caring is to listen to and understand the child, while giving them clear guidelines for acceptable behaviour. She is vehemently against parents smacking their children.

“It’s a form of abuse” she states firmly, adding “it should be outlawed”.

Cathy feels strongly that no form of physical discipline, even a slap on the wrist or a light tap on the bottom, should ever be used as punishment.

“It makes me cringe when I see a child being smacked. It is degrading for both the child and the parent; the child being humiliated and the adult clearly losing control.  Additionally, it is a really bad example to give the child. How can you tell them off for fighting in the playground when you are behaving no better yourself by hitting them?”

Cathy has coined the Three Rs technique: Request, Repeat, Reassure which she outlines her in parenting manual “Happy Kids”.

She has a slightly different method of dealing with teenagers, saying “Humour works the best in our household.”

She goes on to explain that teenagers have changes occurring in their brains that they have not experienced since they were toddlers.

“A lot is going on for them and you have to be in tune with their needs and know when they just need to be left alone. Of course, if something is really important to them then I would never laugh at them, but generally if they are having a strop, saying something funny can break the ice and bring them out of it and we can all laugh together. “

Considering her hectic daily schedule, it is hard to imagine Cathy ever being at all lazy or self-indulgent. When asked how she treats herself, she instantly replies “Chocolate” and gives a hearty chuckle. It is clear the emotional rewards she receives from both fostering and writing are huge, and she has received thousands of thank you letters from her readers who say her books have helped them come to terms with the past.

LGBT fostering and adoption week is March 4th – 10th 2013

For more information about LGBT fostering visit the New Family Social website.

So, why do lesbians love Tegan and Sara?

Tegan and Sara are Canadian born twins, musicians and lesbians. They have just finished supporting the Killers on their UK tour. But this is not the first time the twins have been to the UK. It’s their ‘hundredth’ – or so they said at their own gig at the HMV Forum in London in November 2012.

I love this band. The main reason I love them is for their music. However, even I have to admit that if it wasn’t for their sexuality, I’m not sure I would have discovered their music. So, their sexuality probably is the route to their music for a lot of women.

A Tegan and Sara gig is a phenomenon – at times there’s the kind of hysteria you might witness at a One Direction concert. At this recent gig, there was a moment when I felt like I was witnessing some kind of evangelical church gathering (for those of you who are fans, you have to admit that Where Does the Good Go has a kind of religious feel to it when everyone is singing along). There is no doubt about it; people who love these girls really do love them.

And yet, some people go to the gigs even though they don’t care about the band. A group of women stood behind my partner and I at the last gig, and they didn’t just talk over the music, they shouted over it. They were destroying the experience for anyone within a 5 meter radius, and predictably, my partner is a ‘b**ch’ and a ‘c**t’ for asking them to take their conversation elsewhere.

Why do lesbians go to Tegan and Sara gigs if they don’t like the music?

I go to a lot of gigs, and yes, this happens regardless of the gig, but there is something unique about it in this context. If those lovely women had let me get a word in I would have asked one question: why are you here?

Were they there because they like the band? Or were they there because they felt like they should be there – because it was a ‘lesbian’ event in London? They didn’t want to miss out. Or maybe they had nowhere else to go. After all, they spent £22.50 each to stand there with a drink, gab with their mates, and ignore the actual show.

This opens up a whole load of other questions about services for lesbian and bisexual women and about representation in the media. Do limited representations mean that lesbians flock to the few that are available? If this is true, have Tegan and Sara benefited or have they suffered commercially?

Are lesbians ruining it for Tegan and Sara?

Tegan and Sara are very much known as a cult ‘lesbian’ band. It has been difficult for them to break into the mainstream – because they are labeled so heavily as a ‘lesbian band’ and therefore niche. Do they feel hard done by? Sara said on stage at their gig last week that she does sometimes wonder if she should have just become a lawyer – but gigs like this make her think “nah”.

So ultimately, Tegan and Sara appreciate their fans. They appreciate people spending money on tickets and coming to their shows. But, I do remember hearing them complain at another gig a few years ago that they wished that people who came to their gigs also bought their CD’s.

So, to the nasty little creatures who swore at us and almost ruined our night; at least buy the CD. You can pre-order the new album, Heartthrob on iTunes from Wednesday 21st November. It is out in February 2012.

Here they are on David Letterman. Enjoy!

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

Or is it?

It is a fact rarely acknowledged, but the Conservative Party policy is to support civil, and not religious, same sex marriage.  This was noted in the consultation document that they published, in which they said:

“Marriages solemnized through a religious ceremony and on religious premises would still only be legally possible between a man and a woman. The Government is not seeking to change how religious organisations define religious marriage and any subsequent legislation would be clear that no religious organisation could conduct a religious marriage ceremony on religious premises for same sex couples.”

Presumably this policy was formed with the intention of heading off objections from the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church; if so, it failed miserably.

In the meantime, this policy actively discriminates, not only against the LGBT people who wish to marry in a place of worship, but against the places of worship which wish to admit them.

Religious people can be gay – get over it!

Allowing religious same sex marriage simply means that churches who want to perform same sex marriages will be able to – specifically the Quakers, the Unitarians, and Liberal and Reform Judaism.

The situation in 2015, if the proposed legislation becomes law, is that those denominations will not be able to perform same sex religious marriages, even though they want to and are specifically lobbying the government for this. Religious same sex marriage will still be illegal, for everyone, whether they want to perform them or not.

There are fears that same sex religious marriage will result in lawsuits against churches which refuse to perform same sex marriages. A poorly worded law might result in that happening, but otherwise it’s hard to see how these fears could otherwise be realised.

Types of marriage

There are two types of marriage law. Civil marriage, which is performed by registrars. And religious marriage, which is performed by “authorised celebrants” in venues recognised by the approved denominations, which are Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Non-Conforming Churches, and the United Synagogue, the Orthodox Jewish organisation (which for the purposes of marriage includes Masorti Judaism, Reform Judaism, and Liberal Judaism).

Everyone else, the Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims etc, have to have a registrar present at their wedding ceremonies, or hold a private civil wedding beforehand.

Civil marriage is regulated by the state, and is open to everyone over the age of 18 of sound mind.

Religious marriage is open to the rules set by the denomination which performs them. Catholics can turn down divorcees, and rabbis can refuse to perform interfaith weddings.

So if your church, synagogue, mosque or temple wants to refuse to let gay people marry, or rich people marry, or adulterers marry, then they can. But allowing gay people to marry? Out of the question.

The Conservative Party’s heart isn’t in it

It is a disappointing law that will be coming in then, if only because, as one of the only pieces of LGBT legislation that has been put forward by the Conservative Party and they haven’t even managed to bring themselves to embrace it wholeheartedly.

The Labour Party support both religious and civil same sex marriage, by the way. So do the Lib Dems. (Interestingly, the Green Party doesn’t. What an odd pairing.)

In Scotland, where the SNP is currently legislating for same sex marriage, they have not sought to make such a distinction, and the leaders of the Scottish Conservatives, who is herself lesbian, has promised to vote for it.

LGBTory, the pressure group within the Conservatives, has already submitted a consultation response to the government calling for religious same sex marriage to be permitted on the same basis as civil.

So, with Labour already committed to religious same sex marriage and likely to form the next government, it seems like a wasted opportunity for the Conservatives to actually do something right by the LGBT community.

But the real losers will be the thousands of LGBT couples who want to be married in their own communities who are stuck waiting for a government willing to make our marriage laws make sense.

Today, across the world marks the Transgender Day of Remembrance (20th November 2012). A day to memorialise those killed due to transphobia - the hatred or fear of transgender and gender non-conforming people – and raise awareness to the continued violence endured by the transgender community.

816 deaths of transgender people were reported between January 2008 and December 2011 according to a report by TGEU. 52% of those deaths occurred in Latin America.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance, founded in 1998 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith; a transgender graphic designer, columnist and activist, was originally created in memory of the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts.

Recognised in over 185 cities through over 20 countries, the day is observed in London this year by way of speeches, performances and a reading of the names of Latin American trans people deceased. The event will take place on the 1st floor of the ULU building, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC2 at 7pm and is a collaboration of  Translondon, Birkbeck College SU, Camden LGBT Forum and the University of London Union.

Further events are due to take place this evening in the UK at 7pm in:

Here in Ireland there will be a candle lit vigil at the Millennium Bridge, Dublin at 7pm.

A celebration of trans lives also took place on Saturday 17 November 2012 at the Dublin Unitarian Church, off St. Stephen’s Green. The service was beautiful, with members of the Dublin Trans Support Group, lesbian group Running Amach and Josh Johnson performing on the night. The ceremony was organised by Lynda Sheridan and Sara Philips of TENI. Here, Deirdre O’Byrne and Sara Philips talk on Dublin City fm

Across Ireland at 7pm tonight lantern launches will take place at:

• BELFAST: Lagan Lookout at 7pm – bring your own lanterns.
• DERRY: Peace Bridge, Derry/Londonderry 7pm
• DUBLIN: Millennium Bridge, 7pm. Please bring a candle.
• WATERFORD: John Roberts Plaza on the Quay, 7pm.
• CORK: Amphitheatre, University College Cork, 7pm. Followed by Talk on Legal Barriers and Gender Recognition in West wing Room 6

Oi, Sappho! Stop wasting valuable time and money already!

The British Government don’t seem particularly keen on equality. And who can blame them? It’s an outdated concept that carries dangerous connotations of socialist conspiracy and time-wasting bureaucracy.

You just need to glance at the news to see the latest salvo in the long, hard war on equality. There are plans afoot to scrap equality impact assessments, for which public bodies are required to consider the affect that new policy will have on minority groups such as LGBT people. David Cameron insists that such measures amount to little more than “bureaucratic nonsense”.

How about judicial reviews? This process offers ordinary people the chance to challenge the authorities over issues such as homophobia within the asylum system,  discriminatory fertility services and ill-justified arrests. It’s an expensive and difficult system to navigate. But not expensive and difficult enough, says our Prime Minister:

“We urgently need to get a grip on this. So here’s what we’re going to do: reduce the time limit when people can bring cases, charge more for reviews so people think twice about time-wasting, and instead of giving hopeless cases up to four bites of the cherry to appeal a decision, we will halve that to two.”

Cameron argues that we’re in the midst of “the economic equivalent of war”, and that such measures are necessary to save “British business” (his speech was, of course, addressed to the Confederation of British Industry). But it’s difficult to see how this supposed war to save the economy is not also a war on “equality”.

For instance, the Government has had the Equality Act in its sights for a long time now. Its “Red Tape Challenge” website is still suggesting that the Equality Duty be scrapped. This would mean that public bodies such as councils, colleges and the police no longer have a duty to think about how different groups of people might be affected by their decisions and actions.

Similarly, the NHS Equality and Diversity Council was recently replaced by a shiny new Personal, Fair and Diverse Council. If you’re wondering what that actually means then the official explanation is delightfully opaque:

“The name change has been agreed in response to the Council’s new responsibilities for health inequalities and human rights as part of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and supports its wider role to act on behalf of the whole health and social care system.”

You have to wonder just what changes to the NHS would warrant the unceremonious exit of “equality”. It does, however, make perfect sense in the context of the Government’s unrelenting war on a dangerous idea.

Of course, it could be that this particular action of NHS rebranding is actually entirely without meaning, with the council in question still committed to ensuring equality for all. But wouldn’t that mean that this change is little more than “bureaucratic nonsense”? Better get Dave on the case.

Be yourself, unless you’re a psychopath with stalker tendencies…then it’s probably best you don’t be yourself. It’s also probably best you check yourself into a mental institute and leave the girl alone.

Be interested in her families lives. I’m not saying if they’re into polo, you go out and join a polo club, buy a horse and all the equipment (especially when you’ve never even been on a horse). I’m saying if they’re talking to you about their book club, knitting group, or football team, then act interested, act like you care, even just a little bit.

Rise above any comments and be the bigger person. Although your girlfriend’s parents are adults (we hope) they are really big kids inside. If they make a snide comment at you, don’t argue back. Worst thing you could do is engage in an argument over the dinner. No one wants to see the nicely cooked turkey flying everywhere.

Brothers and sisters can be a pain, but let them be. You don’t need to impress them, not really (unless your girlfriend and them are really close…then you might need to do a little work impressing the siblings. Siblings were made to be annoying; it’s in their genes. If you’re dating their sister, they’re more than likely going to be annoying towards you too.

Awkward questions will always be awkward. Older people, especially parents, have a habit of asking exceedingly awkward questions at surprisingly busy times. So if they ask you when it was you lost your virginity, or how many people you have slept with, either answer in the most honest way you can, or swiftly continue to chew your carrots and change the subject.

You’re dating your girlfriend, not your girlfriend’s Mum or Dad. There’s being friendly with your girlfriend’s parents and then there’s being too friendly. When you reach the stage of her parents inviting you over and forgetting to invite her… you’ve gone too far.

Likewise, on another level, you’re dating your girlfriend, not her parents. Don’t let them rule your relationship. Sure let them offer you their advice, but at the end of the day there’s two in a relationship, not four.

According to the Sunday Times, Ms Miller said:

“To make sure there is no element of doubt, we would be legislating to protect the rights of religious institutions to continue to have freedom on this matter. We would achieve that through some very clear and absolute locks on that freedom within primary legislation.”

This coming from the lady who is backing the ‘Out4Marriage’ campaign, thus leading to a headache as it seems she’s doing the typical political trick of ‘saying one thing and doing another’. What’s absolutely horrific about these claims is not the fact that Ms Miller is preventing people from suing churches if they decide not to marry a same sex couple. Of course, churches, and any other religious institutions, should always have the right to refuse, as it’s up to them who they want to marry, whether it’s same sex, a Christian and a non believer, or anyone else who have decided to celebrate their love. What’s utterly unforgiveable is the fact that Maria Miller has aimed this ban toward the LGBTQ community only.  It should be a blanket ban on suing churches, not just aimed towards the gay community, but society as a whole. Instead, she’s out casted and singled out a minority group

How can Maria Miller stand up and campaign for gay marriage rights one day, then propose such unequal, unfair, unjust removal of rights another day? I’m flabbergasted at the thought of any other member of society still has the freedom to sue a church if they wish to, yet if you’re gay, you can think twice about that. Please Ms Miller, I implore you to rethink this utter ridiculous proposition, and if you want to ban people from suing the church, then ban us all, not just the LGBTQ community.

Although at this stage the Equalities Minister’s proposition is just a mere proposition, but the very essence of the thought process that’s gone into it is absolutely terrifying. We have an Equalities Minister that’s proposing bans that alienates and segregates the very people she’s meant to be representing.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”

George Orwell’s words have never rung so true.

These wins have finally upset the 32 state streak of voters favoring anti-gay marriage laws. Finally that streak has been broken! To top it off, Wisconsin elected the first openly gay Senator, Tammy Baldwin, to office. When I think about what this means for the LGBT youth of America, I can’t help but beam with pride. What an inspiring role model for any young person with political ambitions and dreams. This is just the start of the future. High five Wisconsin!

On the ballot in Maine was an initiative to allow marriage licenses for same sex couples. Even though citizens of Maine defeated a same sex marriage bill just three years ago, it appears that the people have had a change of heart. Perhaps it has something to do with the millions of dollars the Human Rights Campaign has poured into the fight for equality, or perhaps it is just a natural progression reflecting the attitude of the country as a whole. Whatever the case, high five Maine for voting pro-equality!

In Maryland, Governor Martin O’Mally urged voters to pass Question Six, a measure that would uphold the state’s marriage equality law that was passed earlier this year. With the help of the Governor, the Human Rights Campaign, the NAACP, and hundreds of volunteers, Maryland voters stood their ground and chose equality. High five Maryland!

Earlier this year, Washington passed a law allowing same sex marriages. Today voters came out to uphold the law, officially making their mark on the history books. Over a million people in Washington came forward to cast their vote, and now loving couples can continue to get married if they choose, without discrimination. Washington, you warm my heart, and high five to you!

On the ballot in Minnesota was an amendment to the state’s constitution that would ban same sex marriages. Nothing like a ban of equal rights to rile a girl up, and the race was a close one. Thankfully for gay Minnesotans and gay Americans everywhere, Minnesota did not approve a ban on same sex marriages. Minnesota, you deserve a high five!

In addition, Iowa retained Justice Wiggins, despite some backlash after his support of gay marriage. Way to stand firm, Iowa! In Massachusetts, pro-equality Elizabeth Warren took the Senate seat. Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill retained her seat, defeating Republican challenger Todd Akin, the man made famous by his infamous remarks about “legitimate rape” earlier this year.

Like many of my LGBT family and friends, I breathed a smiling sigh of relief when Obama’s victory was announced. Yes, he has not been a perfect president, but he is an ally. And with marriage equality winning in four states, this election is a landmark one. HRC President Chad Griffin stated,

“When the history books are written, 2012 will be remembered as the year when LGBT Americans won decisively at the ballot box. The dreams of millions of fair-minded Americans were realized as discrimination crumbled and equality prevailed.” A powerful and heartwarming truth; high five America!

Last week Stonewall announced that Scotland’s Roman Catholic leader, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, had been awarded the “Bigot of the Year” award thanks to his persistent and vicious homophobia, writes Anna Llewellyn.

Lesbilicious writer Carrie Lyell applauded the decision, saying “Sometimes, you have to call a spade a spade, and other times you have to call a Cardinal a bigot” and tweeted “Bigotgate. Stonewall vs the Catholic Church. Which side are you on?”

It is difficult to be nuanced in 140 characters, but ‘which side are you on’ immediately sets up an opposition between the church and a leading LGBT action group. Of course, Cardinal Keith O’Brien does not speak for all Catholics, which was rightly pointed out in the comments from readers.

However, for some people it can be difficult to identify as both LGBTQ and religious, as they are often positioned as mutually exclusive and in conflict. This applies to established gay folk finding their religious identity as well as lifelong religious people finding their sexual identity. This positioning is discriminatory and it is also unhelpful, as it stops us moving forward and maintains a division.

Bigots

Cardinal O’Brien may be pushing this conflict, but does that mean that Stonewall or the gay community have to follow suit? Is it fair, and morally just, to call someone behaving like a bigot a bigot? Is it fair and morally just to give them an award for such a thing? Moreover is it helpful and does it advance equality? My answer to these questions is no!

In the first instance the name ‘bigot of the year’ is directly aimed at a person not at a person’s actions. But even if they changed it to ‘bigotry act of the year’ I still wouldn’t advocate it. Since when do you fight name calling with name calling, especially if you want to live in an equitable and caring society.

I guess the more serious point is that Stonewall are making a stand against bigotry, raising awareness and asking some serious questions about human rights. They have got a lot of publicity from the award, which of course is an aim of an activist charity like Stonewall, but is this really the best way to do it?

I’m afraid I can’t see one positive reason for the award. If we position people, and/or groups, as bigots and publicly shame them, where is the space for redemption? Where is the space for conversation and for forward movement? Where is the space for sharing similarities and finding common ground?

You might think I’m being naive here, as Cardinal Keith O’Brien clearly thinks people like me are beyond redemption, but I am not going to lower myself to his level, and I will stand proud as a gay person who has no wish to vilify others, no matter their opinions of me.

Heckling and jeering in a room full of celebrities is nothing better than bullying, and I for one cannot condone this. Thus I suggest that it is time for Stonewall to cut the small minded negativity, to forget the ‘bigot of the year’ and to lead the way for a more caring and equitable society.

Anna Llewellyn works at the School of Education, Durham University. She is responsible for equality and diversity on Initial Teacher Training courses and as such runs workshops on ‘tackling and preventing homophobic bullying’ in schools.

The results of the US presidential election are imminent and soon we will know if voters have chosen Obama, supporter of equality and gay marriage, or Romney, the traditionalist who does not believe gays deserve equal rights.

Three cheers for these folk who simply and lovingly explained why they have voted for equality:

See the full list of supporters here.

Boo hiss to these (rather scary) kids who should take example from Jesus and learn to show compassion:

See the full list of villains here.

My vote is they learn to respect true love, discard their misguided judgments and embrace the wonderful, diverse world we live in.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien. Photograph: Scott Campbell

I mean, the Catholic Church were never your biggest fans anyway but then there was the corporate sponsors of your awards threatening to remove their support and your very own politician of the year Ruth Davidson, openly gay leader of the Conservatives in Scotland, criticising your decision to brand the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland a bigot. To top it all off, Alex Salmond’s went and got himself involved. But I just wanted to let you know that I’m on your side. Sometimes, you have to call a spade a spade, and other times you have to call a Cardinal a bigot.

Apparently he and his pals are a bit upset about it, probably in much the same way Nick Griffin gets upset when someone calls him racist. I wonder if they’ve given any thought to how their words and actions have affected my friends, my family, or me. I didn’t particularly enjoy being called grotesque, or a subversion, or O’Brien personally throwing thousands of pounds at a campaign to deny me the same rights as my heterosexual counterparts. Upset is an understatement. No corporate sponsors leapt to my defence then, or to the defence of the many vulnerable young people to whom these slurs cause very real harm.

First Minister Alex Salmond has backed O’Brien, and said: “Stonewall were clearly wrong to describe Scotland’s Cardinal in these terms in any case, should reflect on whether pejorative titles like this do anything to enhance their cause.”

Why wasn’t the same criticism leveled at the Cardinal’s pejoratives when he likened the campaign for same-sex marriage to slavery? Because losing the Catholic vote would be a disaster to the Scottish National Party’s bid for independence, I’m guessing. Hey Alex, I’ve got news for you. Your decision to press ahead with plans for equal marriage are all very well and good, but there’s no point supporting us legislatively if when push comes to shove, you cower back into your selfish little hole.

Let’s make things very clear. The Cardinal wasn’t nominated for the award because of his opposition to same-sex marriage, but because of the horrific slurs he’s directed toward the LGBT community and the unrelenting campaign of misinformation and hatred that he has spearheaded towards people whose only crime has been to believe in equality. There is nothing inherently wrong with disagreeing with equal marriage, if your arguments are based in logic and rational and not in hatred and intolerance. That, my friends, is bigotry. That isn’t name-calling, or offensive and out of date. It’s a fact.

You might be wondering why everyone seems to be getting their knickers in a twist when the equal marriage legislation is all but signed, sealed and delivered. Not quite, unfortunately. It’s far from over. We’ve still got at least three years and another consultation into views on religious freedom, education and freedom of speech before we can make a dash for the confetti.

Not content to respect the decision of the government, Scotland for Marriage have pledged to spend thousands more to oust members of the Scottish Parliament who support equal marriage rights. They say that they have established a nationwide network of volunteer activists in each constituency who will pile pressure on MSPs to “make local voters aware” of their politician’s stance on same-sex marriage.

A spokesman said: “Some people might have thought the gay marriage fight was over just because the government ignored the results of its own consultation and decided to proceed with legislation, despite two-thirds of respondents being against it. But nothing could be further from the truth.

“We have a clear agenda for action allied to a properly planned and well-funded programme which will be professionally executed.”

Thankfully for us all, Stonewall are sticking to their guns and their director in Scotland has defended the decision to give the Cardinal the title of Bigot of the Year. Colin Macfarlane said: “People nominated for the award this year have called gay people Nazis, they have compared them to bestialitists and to paedophiles, and one of the nominees suggested that gay people should be put in front of a firing squad and shot dead.

“So I think what we are doing is highlighting the very cruel, very nasty, very pernicious language that is being used by some people. I think we are right to highlight that kind of discrimination.

“We have no problem with people not agreeing with equal marriage—and there is a strong debate going on in Scotland around the proposals. We at Stonewall do not agree with them, but we do so in a dignified and respectful manner. Sadly, the Cardinal hasn’t done that. He has compared equal marriage to slavery, to paedophilia and bestiality. He has said he is going to declare war on supporters of equal marriage.

“I feel a man of the cloth declaring war on another section of Scottish society is pretty despicable. It’s disheartening and depressing. It is Stonewall’s job to shine a light on discrimination and to stand firm in tackling it.

“What I want is for the First Minister and all MSPs to say no to the kind of language used by the Cardinal and others when discussing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues and to stand firm with Stonewall and call it what is is. Bigotry. It’s cruel and it doesn’t do anyone any favours.”

Make no mistake about it. This is another blatant misuse of religious freedom by Cardinal O’Brien to attack the LGBT community and their supporters and he is using the excuse of defending traditional marriage as a stick to beat us.

There is nothing Christian about his behaviour or his words, and the views he holds are the very definition of intolerance and bigotry.

2012 just keeps getting better and better for London 2012 gold-winning boxer 

The Pink List, which lists the 101 most influential lesbian, gay and transgender figures in the UK, placed 3 Olympic and Paralympic athletes in the top 10. This is not only a great day for the lgbt community but a great day for sport.

‘Men Only’

I am thrilled for bisexual boxer Nicola. Not only is she (literally) a strong female role model, but Nicola also represents a sport that until the 2012 Olympics was strictly ‘men only’, and so she is the first ever woman to win an Olympic boxing medal. She stormed to the podium with an incredible 16-7 point victory in the flyweight category; completely outclassing three time World Champion, China’s Ren Cancan who beat her in the 2010 World Championship.

It is vital that we continue to recognise the contributions, talent and straight up fight that it takes to really make a difference in this world. What is even more wonderful is the diversity of achievement the Pink List demonstrates this year. From politicians to sports personalities, from the co-chairs of SchoolsOUT to the CEO of the Arts Council, writers, comedians, lawyers and many many more.

Elly Barnes

Let’s also not forget Elly Barnes who took the 2011 Pink List top spot. Elly pushed the boundaries of the education system to successfully challenge homophobia in our schools. Elly has now made way for Nicola. Nicola, who at only 13 won her first ever boxing bout. 13, a school child, and already moving toward something great.

Nicola Adams

So congratulations to Nicola, the 101 lgbt people who made the list, to everyone who was nominated, and to the unnamed warriors who continue to do everything they can to make the world better, safer, and diverse.

Watch Elly Barnes talk about the 2012 nominations and why she’s pleased that the winner is Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Julia and Auriane in Marseille on 23/10/2012

The spontaneous kiss of Julia and Auriane in Marseille has been inflaming the medias and social networks for a week. That day, on 23/10/2012,  anti gay-marriage demonstrations were taking place in 75 French cities.  Julia, 17 and Auriane, 19 are not gay but they spontaneously kissed in front of the anti-gay marriage protesters to ‘piss them off’ and show support to the LGBT people. They never imagined that their picture would circulate on the web and they would become a symbol of the LGBT fight for marriage. Shortly after its release, the picture was already predicted to become cult.

The way to go still seems long till the actual legalization of marriage and adoption, as we stated in a previous article.  Multiplication of debates and homophobic comments are thriving in the medias, including from representatives of the Republic, and the public opinion is shifting towards more hostility against marriage for all.

LGBT and gay-friendly people are mobilizing and if you want to contribute, here are two simple things you can do and/or forward to your friends :

Here is a link for the petition addressed to the French Government in order to show your support to legalization of homosexual marriage in France:

http://www.allout.org/fr/actions/egalite_maintenant

Sign and share!

Finally, a nice way to combine activism and pleasure with the ‘Kiss in’ taking place in Paris, in front of Hôtel de Ville, on Thursday, the 15^th of November 2012 at 7pm. Plenty of same-sex couples will be kissing for 5 minutes on the street!

For more info, just have a look at the Facebook page of the event!

http://www.facebook.com/events/379254685484737/

Alternative hip hop band Ajah

Workshops on sound engineering, sex, comedy and poetry (not all at the same time); discussions about children’s stories and lesbian parenting; a bicycle tour of women’s history in Manchester, a Pussy Riot smartmob; Manchester will be treated to something slightly different next week (3-4 November 2012).

We spoke to organiser Amelia Lee to find out a bit more about new festival Sapphormation.

What is Sapphormation?

Sapphormation is a festival for women who love women, who also like to think, discuss, debate, try new activities, experience culture and basically do a lot more than the usual things found on the gay scene (which frequently exclude many more women than they include).

Who’s it for?

This festival is for women who love women (self define this as you see fit, we definitely wanted it to be more inclusive than just ‘lesbian’ or even ‘lesbian and bisexual women’).

The festival includes trans women who love women, and we wanted to spell this out to make sure all trans women know that they are very welcome at all the events.

The event is not for men or for women who do not love women, although some events are LGBTQ such as Rapture Club Night and the Rainbow Families event, the main ethos of the festival is to have some precious women-only space.

Why do we need events like Sapphormation?

There are a lot of issues that affect women who love women, that we don’t always have a chance to explore.

Things like dealing with ‘multiple identities’ – being working class and bisexual, for example, or identifying as a lesbian who is also a mother, and who also has a disability.

We thought it was important to have a chance for women who love women to get together, think and talk about issues that affected them, outside of the narrow scope of clubs and pubs in the gay village.

What are you personally looking forward to the most out of all the events on the programme?

I can’t wait for the ‘Les-Bi Clear About This’ panel debate and question time. We have some real superstars of our community represented at it, so expect some lively discussion!

 Sapphormation takes place on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th November 2012, at venues around Manchester, UK. It is free to attend, but booking is recommended as some sessions have very limited availability. 

In the coming weeks, the Irish government is scheduled to announce legislation in relation to transgender people. I should be happy about this. I should be hitting up interflora for my girlfriend and browsing Tesco’s finest cake isle for the local Trans Support Group, but instead I’m anxious – anxious about what our government will force upon already vulnerable people.

As a community, we’re not hopeful.

The current state

While Ireland has made very sudden and swift advancements in human rights legislation, it is still disturbingly far behind. Gays and lesbians can’t marry; they have to resign to civil partnership. They can adopt, but still only singly, cutting off one parent legally. But this is all progress in the eyes of the Irish; transgender people still have no legal protection. An article by Senator Katherine Zappone, published by the Irish Times on the matter, garnered these online comments:

Get yelled at or get beaten up?

“So if I (with all my equipment intact) put on a dress and sign a form then “hey, presto” and as if by magic I’ll be woman?”
SaintRuth1

“’Get over it’; you are still a man who has undergone castration”.
Lyndakennedy

As if transgender people don’t have to deal with enough in airports, at graduations, outside toilets and changing rooms, they have to see it all online. And as outlandish as the above comments may seem, hear it from me, living in Ireland for 10 years, these comments are the norm – in cafés, living rooms and clubs.

The legislation

This upcoming legislation, if the quotes from our Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton are to be believed, will drag apart happy and stable loving marriages and families. Going on legal advice from the Attorney General, the new laws will continue to cause ‘forced divorces’ of transgender people because of the constitutional protection of marriage.

The Irish have had to adapt rapidly to the changes in law, educating themselves in tolerance, and this is to be applauded. Although, as commendable as this is, these changes in law reflect issues that have existed for a long time. These issues are far from new, and it’s time that people recognize that.

The comments above are just disgusting and its time our government acted at the root of this thinking to allow transgender people in Ireland to feel comfortable in their identities and allowed to express it.

The concern of the community here is that the new law will require transgender people go through intrusive surgeries or accept a diagnois of a mental illness in order to gain gender recognition.

The reality

Currently trangender people must visit a psychologist and admit Gender Identity Dysphoria before they are offered any further transitional medical help. They have to pay for and attend three expensive private psychologist appointments, convince the psychologist they are gender dysphoric and have them write a letter detailing their private and personal lives. They then take this letter to their GP, have their GP refer them to Loughlinstown Hospital in Dublin and THEN be seen by an endocrinologist and receive tests to check their suitability to hormones.

These are huge hurdles to leap through to access the most basic in trans healthcare. This all before surgery. If they require surgery they must have their hormones at appropriate levels, checked at a clinic which is only open one day a month, and then fly over to Charing Cross Hospital in London for their operations. Trans children are treated the same way.

With treatment so inaccessible for trans people and transphobia so widespread, it’s not suprising that rates of suicide are so high.

In Ireland and the UK, 78% of transgender people have seriously thought about ending their lives and 40% of those have attempted, 22% of those at leest 2 to 5 times. (The Trans Mental Health and Well-being Survey 2012)

These figures show to highlight the need for adequate human rights legislation in relation to transgender people. Transgender people should not have to undergo surgery to identify in their gender. They should not have to be diagnosed as having a mental illness. And they should definitely not have to separate from their loved ones to be who they are.

Vanessa Lacey of TENI at the TEA Rally for Recognition in Dublin on 20th October.

Activists outside the Dáil, the Irish Government.

LGBT Noise, TEA, ILGA Europe amongst others at the protest.

Another blow

Recently Meteor, a mobile phone provider, placed this advert into Irish broadcasting. While it it was aimed at having a laugh, the state of society and law facing transgender people currently meant it was grossly offensive and just another cheap slur at another minority group a.k.a. Paddy Power style. TENI, the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland issued a Twitter hashtag, #meteorshame, which trended in Ireland and is a major talking point of the community. The advert serves as an example of the Irish context on transgender rights.

The word is out

One positive that can be seen coming out of this advert is the creation of a dialogue. The meteor ad has created debate amongst not only the people of the trans community but also those outside of it. I’ve heard people debating in my café, I’ve heard them at home and I’ve heard them on the street. The rights of trangender people are coming to the fore and lets goddamn hope the Irish government get it right. As a country, we’re adapting fast but we’ve still many an adaption to take on – I’ll be so proud if we do.

Right, I’m off to bookmark those flowers and cycle down to Tesco to check out the celebration cakes. Wish me luck!

“To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.”

So says Mouse, the young Nebuchadnezzar crew member in the first of the highly successful Matrix films.  Never has a quote been more pertinent than this week, when Lana Wachowski, one of the film’s co-creators, received the Visibility award from the Human Rights Campaign.

A role model

So why did she receive this award?  Lana’s answer: “For being myself.”

And it’s true.  Founded in the US in 1980, The Human Rights Campaign is a civil rights movement working to achieve equality for LGBT people.  The Visibility Award is given for what it suggests: an LGBT person who is ‘visible’, in the public eye, as a role model for others.

As it turns out, the multi-talented director, writer and producer (to name just a few of her gifts), who describes herself as “painfully shy”, is exactly the sort of role model any child, teenager, or adult for that matter, would be lucky to have.

Prior to her receiving this award, I knew nothing about Lana Wachowski’s life and very little about her professional career.  Having watched her acceptance speech for this award, I cannot imagine a time when I will not be one of her admirers.

Funny and moving

As funny as it is moving, this speech picks out pivotal personal moments in Wachowski’s life (“having good parents is like winning the lottery”), as well as broadly questioning the nature of our society (“No one likes making speeches…why does anyone make them?”).

Intelligent, articulate and perceptive, Lana Wachowski is indeed the ultimate role model for any young person, LGBT or otherwise.  I cannot do justice to her speech merely by commenting on it, so please watch it here:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

“True science fact” meaning, of course, “imaginary marketing bollocks”.

Lynx (known as ‘Axe’ in the USA) spend millions every year trying to convince 13 year old boys that their cheap, overpowering deodorant will somehow transform their awkward desperation into irrestible sexiness.

Women in Lynx adverts are always gorgeous, sex-mad, and there for the taking by any man who smells of Lynx. The ‘women-as-prizes’ line of thinking is not limited to Lynx adverts, of course – just look at any action film – but Lynx have really taken it to a new level with an advert which appeared in Hong Kong last week.

In case you can’t see the small text on the poster, it reads “Unleash the Lynx effect and claim your reward from Cecil”.

This ad is a reference, of course, to the story that appeared in September 2012 of a Hong Kong millionaire who was offering HK$500 million (£40m) to any man who would marry his lesbian daughter.

Nevermind the fact that the daughter in question, 33-year-old Gigi Chao, is happily in a relationship with another woman for seven years – so happy, in fact, that the couple had a Civil Partnership five months ago.

And yet, Gigi’s father has such little respect for her identity, relationship, independence or happiness, that he has made her into a prize worth HK$500m.

Gigi is a prize, and her lesbian identity a simple hurdle for the right man to overcome. And now here come Lynx, helping enterprising men get the cash with their lesbian-curing spray.

Lynx’s advert is a joke of course, a cheeky ‘lad-culture’ bit of fun, that no one is going to take seriously. So why get annoyed about it?

Well, because it’s shit like this that perpetutate attitudes that lesbians have to deal with every day. Often it’s well-meaning and patronising: “It’s just a phase” “You just haven’t met the right man yet”; but sometimes it’s aggressive: “I could turn you straight” “You just need a good fuck”.

When lesbianism is presented as a temporary problem for a man to overcome, then protestations become challenges for a man – nay, a hero, on his heroic venture towards his prize. ‘No’ becomes ‘not yet’, ‘maybe’ or ‘yes but I want you to chase me’.

Nevermind the $50m, ‘turning a lesbian straight’ is the ultimate prize. Imagine being so very manly, so very irrestible, that you could lure a lesbian. Not all men think this way, naturally, but a minority do. This kind of thinking is a frustration for lesbians, of course, but it also deeply affects bisexual women.

Lynx and other perpetuators of this macho bullshit are the reason why some women prefer to identify as lesbian despite feeling that they might be bisexual. It’s also the reason why some lesbians feel like bisexuals ‘betray’ the lesbian community. It’s horribly unfair, and darkly ironic. It’s no more the case that bisexual women are lesbians who ‘turn’ for men, than it’s true that lesbians are predatory creatures who ‘turn’ straight women.

Gigi, by the way, has shown rather more dignity than her father. Despite being approached by 1,500 men, some bearing nude pictures, she has tried to laugh off the attention, saying, rather unconvincingly “It’s really sweet of him to do something like this as an expression of his fatherly love”.

In this sad tale we’re all victims: Gigi, lesbians, and bisexuals alike. And let’s not forget those hapless young Lynx customers either, sent on a wild goose chase and dousing themselves in more and more cheap deoderant in their doomed quest for love.

Newsflash, kids – advertising lies.

There’s a nationally or internationally assigned ‘day’ for everything now, isn’t there?

There are the nice ones:

21^st Jan – National Hugging Day

6^th Feb – Pay A Compliment Day

There are the not so nice ones:

13^th Feb – Blame Someone Else Day

6^th August – Work Like A Dog Day (as a teacher, the timing of this one is particularly entertaining to me)

And the downright weird ones:

26^th Jan – Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day

19^th Sept – Talk Like A Pirate Day

Incidentally, I once taught a student whose mother religiously observed Talk Like A Pirate Day.  It was a source of constant disappointment to me that we never had a Parents’ Evening on this date.

National Coming Out Day

Anyway, October 11^th 2012 was National Coming Out Day.  At first, I was sceptical.  I mean, why particularly assign a day to coming out as being gay?  Surely this, one of the biggest and most personal decisions of a person’s life, should be done in that person’s own time, at an appropriate moment for them.

Besides which, for most people this revelation isn’t really planned.  Of course, you try to plan it.  A thousand different scenarios are envisaged before the real discussion is had: the tears, the shouting, the denial, the ultimate (hopefully) acceptance.  But in reality, for me certainly, the subject popped its head over the parapet when I was definitely least expecting it and then it was, well…out.

As a member of the LGBT community, I was uneasy with my feeling that National Coming Out Day was not needed.  Indeed, in my more militant moments, I generally considered it to be an example of completely useless propaganda, invented only to remind the masses that gay people were still there.  I shocked myself with my own capacity for venom and vitriol.

A proud history

So, not wanting to dismiss anything until I really understood it, I delved a bit further.  My first port of call was to find out about the history of the day.  This was helpfully provided to me by the Human Rights Campaign website.  Essentially, the day commemorates the second LGBT demonstration in Washington in 1987, in which half a million Americans expressed their desire for the LGBT community to have rights and opportunities equal to that of the heterosexual community.  Many national LGBT groups were born of this march and, since then, a number of steps forward have been taken: 6 states have now legalised gay marriage, 21 states have outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation and hate crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity are now punishable by federal law.

Indeed, since 1987, the whole world has become a different place for LGBT people.  When I first properly came out, around 12 years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that it would be legal, let alone socially acceptable, for me to publically declare a legal bond with another woman and have children.  Now the debate could rage all day as to whether these things have truly been achieved; the gay marriage row quite rightly goes on and yes there are still hurdles to overcome.  But, the point is, immense amounts of progress have been made.

Let’s celebrate

I was only 5 when this march occurred and, like many others, I owe the freedoms that I now have to be open about my sexuality to the brave and pioneering individuals who have gone before me.

And that is how I now think of National Coming Out Day.  It isn’t, in fact, a day to ensure that you are prepared to tell anyone who will listen that you are gay, or bisexual, or transgendered within a very finite 24 hour window.  It is instead a day to celebrate and to remember.

Celebrate our community.

Celebrate our lifestyles.

Celebrate our friends and families.

And remember that, not so long ago, equality was nothing more than a dream.  No it’s still not perfect; a quick look at the news most days will tell you that.  But that’s when we should use the positivity of a day like National Coming Out Day to remember that, just because it’s not perfect now, doesn’t mean it never will be.

Everybody should be able to be proud of who they are; I know I am.  Let’s join together on days like this, LGBT and heterosexual alike, to celebrate.  After all, in the words of Fatboy Slim: “We’ve come a long way, baby”.

Contestation is growing

The opening of marriage to gay couples creates an unprecedented debate, even more passionate and radical than the one around the Civil Partnership (PACS) in 1999. The closer France gets to the actual examination of the proposition of law at the Assemblée Nationale – the equivalent of the Parliament – the more divided the society and the political parties are becoming. The detractors of the proposition of law blame it for being responsible of the division of society, and the public opinion is quite floating now that things are about to be official.

Even tough the public opinion is mostly favorable to the gay marriage, the question of homo-parenthood remains problematic and is slowing down the process. A recent survey shows that the percentage of French citizens favorable to the gay adoption has dropped from 58% to 53% since last year.

In the political parties, an interesting fact is that disagreements are not taking the traditional right/left  or conservative/progressive form. France is facing strong internal division of opinion within the political parties themselves about marriage and especially the Medically Assisted Procreation (MAP). The rightist party UMP (Nicolas Sarkozy’s party) encompasses the widest range of opinions and its members have been showing apprehension regarding the debate to come.

Civil Disobedience

Certain mayors have already stated that they won’t proceed to the celebration of gay marriages. The mayor of the 8^th district in Paris, François Lebel, created a wave of shock when he declared in the local press that he would refuse to celebrate gay marriages because their legalization would open the way to incest, pedophilia and polygamy. The parallel between gay marriage and polygamy has been recurrent in the last weeks and remains one of the favorites counter-arguments of the conservative sides. Some mayors therefore invited their fellows to ‘civil disobedience’ in sign of protest, although they would break the law by refusing to marry two people under the only reason that they are of the same sex. This minority of resistant mayors is asking for the creation of a ‘conscience clause’ to reevaluate the consequences of gay marriage and homo-parenthood upon society in the generations to come.

“Would you leave children in these people’s care?”

'Today, gay marriage. Tomorrow, polygamy. STOP!'

The catholic organization Civitas launched in September 2012 a 100,000 euros anti-gay marriage campaign, distributing flyers, stickers and posters in public places. They show a picture of two half-naked men parading at the Gay Pride with the slogan: ‘Would you leave children in these people’s care?’ (see photo on the home page). Civitas aims to bring together 100,000 people demonstrating in front of the Ministry of Family in Paris on the 18^th of November 2012 in order to convince the government to withdraw the proposition of law. Civitas is targeting the mainstream people to ‘re-inform the public opinion’.  Their speech and their campaign is somewhat alarmist and caricatural, announcing the programmed end of our civilization and highlighting the ‘risk’ for gay parents to bring up gay kids.

The core issues : Adoption and Medically Assisted Procreation (MAP)

If the leftist parties are overall pro-marriage, their opinion varies about adoption and MAP. Adoption is likely to be legalized at the same time as marriage, but gay couples will have to face the fact that many foreign countries including China and Russia won’t let children be adopted by same-sex parents. It will however give the chance to non-biological parents who are already in a homo-family to officially adopt their kids.

President François Hollande promised access to the MAP for lesbian couples during his campaign, before withdrawing it from the text of law to be voted. The MAP is legal in France for straight couples and represents about 20,000 births every year, but female couples have to go to Belgium or Spain to have recourse to it. Therefore, this practice already exists for LGBT people, it is simply ignored by the government. Access to MAP still receives a negative response in the public opinion and in the rightist parties. Last Friday, the 12^th of October 2012, the Socialist Bruno Le Roux, head of the deputies, promised to add an amendment to the proposition of law aiming to discuss the legalization of MAP, asserting his opposition to the Prime Minister. A step forward?

With her upcoming show The Fosters, Jennifer López is reaffirming the definition of family as inclusive of same-gender parents, biological and non-biological children, and multiple ethnicities. Unsurprisingly, anti-gay groups in the USA are panicking.

The ABC Family show will tell the story of a lesbian couple and their multi-ethnic children, some of whom are biological and others not. Teri Polo and Sherri Saum will star as the lesbian moms. David Lambert was cast as their son Brandon, and Maia Mitchell will play the foster child who brings her very real troubles into this new home. Lopez will produce and guest star the series.

It will be months before the show airs in the U.S., and the pilot is still in the works. But this has not stopped the hate group One Million Moms from protesting it. In their words:

“This program is attempting to redefine marriage and family by having two moms raise these children together.”

Not a minute too soon, is what I say. To them, there are right and wrong ways for children to be born:

“One Million Moms is not sure how the explanation will be given on how the biological children were conceived.”

What ‘explanation’ would be appropriate, OMM? Immaculate conception? Or the Stork flew the kids over on her beak?

As for OMM’s final judgment on The Fosters:

“While foster care and adoption is a wonderful thing and the Bible does teach us to help orphans, … none of this material is acceptable content for a family show.”

Of course it is the Bible that gives OMM authority to decide what kinds of families are acceptable and which are not. The Bible also says owning people and making them work against their will and for no pay is fine; your parents get to stone you if you disobey; and watch out, eating an oyster is an abomination.

The One Million Moms that never were

You might remember One Million Moms as the group that protested Ellen Degeneres’s spokesperson contract with the American retailer JC Penney earlier this year.

Ellen responded by clarifying what to her are traditional values: “I stand for honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values.”

Rightfully JC Penney stuck it out with her, and, needless to say, public opinion swelled in Ellen’s support. Thousands bombarded OMM’s Facebook account (which never approached anything close to one million “friends”) with posts criticizing the group and supporting Ellen.

So much so that OMM ended up pulling its rant, and eventually shut down the entire account. Nowadays, if you search “One Million Moms” on Facebook you will find:

• One Million Moms Behind Ellen
• One million Human Beings Against One Million Moms
• 1 Million Moms Against One Million Moms
• Four Million Moms (& Dads) telling One Million Moms to SHUT UP

As OMM’s new bullying target, Jennifer López has a lot to win for same sex couples’ rights. Firstly, the fiasco becomes an opportunity for readers to show their support. Browse some of the outlets carrying this news and you’ll see that the comments on the bottom of the page overwhelmingly support López and ridicule OMM.

What does this mean? It means, happily, that the days in which a bunch of bigots controlled the media are waning. And that is in part thanks to celebrities coming out as gay like Ricky Martin, or allies like López who promote the radical idea that people have a right to love whomever they chose.

Gone are the Latino stereotype Ricky Ricardo’s days

Far from the staunch conservatism some might associate them with, many Latino celebrities are standing for an inclusive society.

Don’t get me wrong — I love I Love Lucy. She married a Latino during the Cold war. The show poked fun at Ricky’s bad English in an endearing way. He represented Latinos not as murderous, self-destructive gangsters a la West Side Story, but as hard-working family people.

Decades later. Latinos lead again in changing our perception of what is right and what is normal in society. Ricky Martin’s coming out in 2010 was one such moment. Now we have Jennifer López and The Fosters. I can’t wait to see the show.

Gracias, Jennifer. Don’t back down now!

The people of this land were bubbly, beautiful and with just the right amount of brand-awareness. Sadly all were barren – doomed to frivolously flounce from one relationship to another without hope of commitment or children.

So powerful was this pink pound that it allowed the community of LGBT endless travel and a generally fabulous lifestyle which fortunately made up for lack of substance in their otherwise wonderful existence.

As time went by equality laws came to pass that meant no longer were the lives of those in LGBT shallow and without purpose for now they could have kids, get married (just about) and share property.  Alas, these laws came at a great cost, the loss of the much coveted and widely sought after pink pound.

 Myths

It’s alright I haven’t followed the rabbit down the hole to join the Mad Hatter, I am merely reflecting on the myth that is the pink pound.

It was about twenty years ago that this great vision of the pink pound was put across, more than likely by some marketing schmuck trying to glorify a market segment not yet being tapped.

The idea seems to lack a general credibility as without equality laws to protect the LGBT community, in combination with the general intolerance of the day, this sector would be far more prone to poverty.

No money in poverty though, so best to focus on the pinky ‘dinks’ (Double Income No Kids). So what if the myth did not fit with reality, these contradictions rarely hinder the marketing industry from making a buck, pink or otherwise.

Reality check

Since that time LGBT families have become a lot more visible. Unfortunately, equality came around a decade too late and just as we begin to have the liberties to enjoy our hard earned ‘pink’ pounds the country has dipped into a global recession with low interest rates, high inflation and poor credit. Meaning? It is better to spend than to save.

Consider this: if we spend our pound today we can get 100 sweets but with inflation being high we might only get 95 sweets for that same pound next year, worst still if we save that pound and earn interest on it we still might not be able to buy the 100 sweets that we can get today.

So what’s the point? The point is that everyone is very interested in our money right now, no one more so that those schmucks trying to sell us the next big thing for Christmas.

In economic terms we are all either savers or consumers (spenders). For all the savers you can stop reading here (I salute you). For all the consumers, read on for I have some tools and tips that you may wish to consider in the run up to Christmas.

Budgeting for dummies

Step 1 – Set up a table, this can be on Excel, a notebook or the back of a fag packet – whatever makes you most comfortable. You should have four or five columns across the top to reflect each period of earnings, the easiest way is probably to title your columns as months. You should now note down all your income over the next three months along with all your regular bills. Oh and don’t forget January! Try as you might (and I have tried it) you cannot live on baked beans for a whole month.

Step 2 – You should now have a table with your income at the top (inflows) and a list of your expenses (outflows) beneath it. Step 2 is then to consider all the other ad hoc activities, events, drinks, Christmas night outs, food, travel and any other ad hoc expenses over the next few months.  It really helps to look through your diary and allocate a realistic budget for each item. It is also worth considering the value of these activities and prioritising what is most important.

Step 3 – Now that you have a list of your income less your expenses you should have a total figure.  This balance indicates your residual income, which can either be saved or spent. Do not be surprised if it is negative, this is the point where you may have to loop back to step 2 and readjust some of those activities according to the priority. End of night kebab low priority, Christmas tree high priority.

As a contingency, I have a few ‘household taxes’ which I use when in need, some examples to consider … a swear box (which can be very profitable when brought in during family visits or DIY), raiding your partner’s pockets at the end of the day, offering lifts home to your friends for a small surcharge and regularly visiting the back of the sofa. Be creative for creativity leads to profitability.

Step 4 – Monitor your budget, this will encourage you to stick to it and remind you of all those budgets.

Katie’s Top Tips

I have three top tips that I would strongly recommend to anyone budgeting for Christmas:

1. Manage your expectations.
2. Do not drink and debt.
3. Avoid credit cards.

Whatever the balance you have available for Christmas use it for those items which rank as most important.

I appreciate that with children it can be difficult, everything is want want want and you as a parent want to provide. But kids are dumb and will likely forget Christmas after a couple of weeks. For example, last year I bought my nephew some Lego, my brother-in-law then proceeded to spend all of Christmas Day assembling the set whilst my nephew played with the box. Lesson learned. This year he gets a box.

Sometimes short term pain is needed for long term gain so on that basis manage your own expectations. Once you manage your own expectations it is a lot easier to manage those around you.   This year me and the missus have agreed to a twenty pound budget, due to impending nuptials. Does this mean we do not love each other? Only a schmuck would answer yes.

Finally, do yourself a favour and hide the credit cards. It is better to save and spend what little you have than spend the banks money and pay it back twice over however many months. You only need to look at the global recession to see what poor cash flow management and excessive use of debt will get you.

Final Thoughts…

By my calculation twenty pounds multiplied by 100 sweets should get me about 2,000 humbugs. That just about sums up my feelings on Christmas. Good luck and happy Hanukkah.

On Saturday, October 6, the Human Rights Campaign hosted its National Dinner in Washington DC, highlighting the progress of LGBT equality and honoring various members of society who have done their part in supporting equal rights across the country and all over the world.

The NAACP accepted the HRC National Equality Award for all of its efforts in the support of marriage equality. Sally Field, acclaimed actress and mother of three sons, including her youngest son Sam, an out gay man, was given the HRC Ally for Equality award.  Now, I have always been a fan of Sally Field. My mother is a fan, and we grew up watching a multitude of movies in my household, many of which starred Ms. Field. The fact of the matter is that Sally Field was one darn cute girl when she broke out into Hollywood. That smile! That charisma! Simply adorable.

Yes, she has not been as prominent in Hollywood as of late, sticking to mostly television work and her personal life. She has always kept private about her own life, and especially the lives of her children. When her son Sam came out at the age of twenty, Ms. Field did not feel like it was her place to discuss his life. This does not mean she was not supportive of her son or his sexuality. In fact, it was quite the opposite. It is so obvious how appreciative and grateful her son Sam is, having such an understanding (albeit stereotypically overbearing and mom-like) mother. His presenting speech touches on this, and also makes light of the fact that even though his mom is a gay icon, she herself was not necessarily aware of her status as such.

Listening to the speech she gave at this National Dinner, I was reminded why Sally Field was such a Hollywood darling. She can hold an audience’s attention with her distinct and carrying voice. Her smile is genuine and lovely. And she is a woman who has lived and loved, and emanates that love in her body language and words. In her speech, she radiates pride as she announces that the three things she is most proud of are her sons. Specifically, she talks about her youngest son Sam, and how she knew he was different than his brothers, no matter how hard he tried to catch up to them and outdo them in any masculine endeavor.

As she talks about recognizing his uniqueness throughout his childhood and beginnings of adulthood, it is impossible not to feel a warmth in your heart. Even though she saw parts of him that she perhaps understood before he did, she withheld from pushing him before he was ready. Her choice of words is powerful. “Nature made Sam. It wasn’t a choice.” And then she addresses the

families and specifically the parents who do not support their gay children, the ones who shun their own sons and daughters, and she emphatically states that she finds this “unacceptable”. I wanted to shout out an “Amen”, but then I felt silly cheering on YouTube. (Still . . .AMEN!)

As she wraps up her speech, she thanks the people present at the dinner. Again, her succinct and warm words resound, “You all have fought for him, as surely as if you were one of his parents.” This recognition of all the hard work and effort advocates and activists have pushed through is meaningful. But the real applause came at the end, as Sally Field said, “You’ve changed and are changing the lives of little boys and girls who’ve realized somewhere along the way that they’re just different from their other brothers and sisters, and so the f*ck what!”

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

1. Do remove images of women from your catalogue.

If you want to hit expanding markets then appeal to a country’s better side. For example, Ikea decided it was a good idea to ‘airbrush’ women out of the Saudia Arabia edition of their catalogue. Nicely done Ikea, and thanks to Guardian reporter Nesrine Malik for this little gem,

‘I perused the entire Arabic catalogue and in the Saudi Ikea universe, the world is populated entirely by single dads, children and the occasional cat.’

Ikea are now in hot water with Swedish Gender Equality Minister, Nyamko Sabuni and more importantly…me. Let that be a lesson to them.

2. Don’t ‘borrow’ personal wedding photos.

Or you will get sued. This one comes from the idiot’s guide of things not to do when advertising. Well done to the US anti-gay group, Public Advocate of the United States for providing a textbook example of this. Imagine Brian Edwards and Tom Privitere’s surprise when they discovered they were now the poster boys for a dig at a State Senator Jean White and that old evil devil ‘same sex marriage’. Exactly what they hoped and dreamed of on their very happy day. ABC has a touching video of how the two came to find out that they were now such a source of national pride. It will warm the cockles of your heart.

3. Do use positive imagery and you might even find yourself running off with an award!

JC Penney, a USA fashion retailer found themselves honoured with a GLAAD award when part of their father’s day campaign involved depicting a picture of – hold your breath – a family with two dads. Of course, One Million Moms once again boycotted the chain for promoting positive inclusive family values. One Million Moms could soon find itself in trouble for overinflating their member numbers, a wee not very funny joke at their expense. If you do however want a real chuckle, visit their website.

4. Don’t use ‘dodgy’ slogans.

It doesn’t matter how big or small you are they’ll catch up with you eventually, as Australian tour operator Wicked Campers found out. It might have taken until now for one small complaint to effectively ban the company from using the slogan, ‘It’s better 2 be black than gay, cos you don’t have 2 tell your parents’ (which has been on the road since way back in 2009) but in all seriousness maybe this is a positive sign that times are changing. I am still not entirely sure what Wicked Campers were hoping to achieve with this well thought out slogan, perhaps they were just going out of their way to be ‘wicked’ (boom boom). But whatever it was they will now have to spend one shiny Australian dollar to think of something better. I wish them luck.

5. And finally… Don’t use rainbows (my personal favourite).

PepsiCo found itself in trouble with Russian anti-gay activists when the milk company used a rainbow in packaging on one of its products. In Russia it is illegal to ‘promote homosexuality’ and obviously the use of the rainbow will turn heterosexual heads everywhere into the murky underworld of ‘the gays’. Next on the hit list for the anti-gay zealots is the spectrum of light. This seedy group is known for making the worldwide ‘gay’ sign across the world whenever light is reflected in water. Russian officials were unable to comment about the SOL group but I did hear a rumour they are suggesting people only go outside in sunglasses to avoid their brains being frazzled by that troublesome natural phenomenon.

So there we are, a list and dos and don’ts for advertisers everywhere. Remember to mind your P’s and Q’s in the future and the world will be a much better place for it. Less amusing, but better.

This year it’s EVEN WORSE. Not because of Louis Walsh’s Miracle-Gro hair and his never-ending clichés or the beautiful face of Nicole Scherzinger (I can’t believe I spelt that right first time) but because there are TWO out and proud lady gays in the live shows.

Of course, X Factor is used to its fair share of boy loving boys, but it’s not so common to have a bit of lesbian representation especially on such a mainstream show. And the best bit? Jade Ellis and Lucy Spraggan are not just there to make up the numbers. They are both very, very talented. I’ve not been this smitten since Alex Parks stole my heart on Fame Academy circa 2003.

Lucy Spraggan (left) and Jade Ellis (right)

What I really like about both Jade, 25, and Lucy, 21, is that their sexuality is not a big deal to either of them but just a part of who they are. In an interview with Look magazine, Jade spoke about verbal abuse she’s received in the past, saying: “I’ve had very ignorant people shout out ‘lesbian’ in the street, but it’s not a derogatory thing to me” and Spraggan talked of how comfortable she feels in her own identity. She told Look: “I’ve always been ‘out’. I was never really ‘in’.”

It’s easy to dismiss X Factor and shows of its ilk for many, many reasons, but on this occasion the show has outdone itself. It would have been easy for the producers to pick a couple of straight girls that would be a walk in the park to market or worse, to make the sexuality of Ellis or Spraggan one of those horrendous sob stories designed to pull on the heartstrings of the voters (I fall for it every time) but I don’t think it’s possible to overstate what an impact this kind of exposure can have on gaybies. Role models are hard to come by, sometimes, when you’re LGBT, and for once we’re spoilt for choice. Whatever your view on X Factor, I think we can all agree that’s a bloody good thing.

When I was growing up, I longed to see someone like me on TV but most of the time was met with ridiculous caricatures or knife-wielding lesbians in Bad Girls. Life around that time would have been a hell of lot less lonely if I felt there were people, fictional or not, that I could identify with. Lucy says fans have told her she’s inspired them to come out to their families and says that’s what she’s most proud of.

She said: “It’s been amazing. I’ve done gigs and some young girls there said they were watching TV with their parents…they heard my music, their parents loved it, found out I was gay, still loved it and they’ve said, ‘Oh, I’m gay as well’ and their parents have been fine. For me, to have helped someone come out is the greatest compliment ever.

“It’s the 21^st century, and if someone doesn’t like the fact that I’m gay then I don’t want them to listen to my music. Anyone who is prejudice or homophobic or racist has got something not right in their brain.”

Jade, who lives with her daughter and her partner of six years, said: “My daughter is completely accepting of the family situation. One parent came up to me and said, ‘I only knew you two were together when my daughter said Caiden’s got two mummies’. It was normal comment. It’s the children telling the parents how it is.”

It’s about time that being a lesbian in the public eye wasn’t shameful or titillating, but normal and maybe, just maybe, Lucy and Jade will be the start of something really exciting. Sure, they might just get voted off in the first couple of weeks, but the fact they’ve got this far is good enough for me.

Two well adjusted, smart, not to mention bang tidy lesbians in one season? Hats off, X Factor. I didn’t think I could love you anymore. The only problem now is who on earth I’m going to vote for. I’m not sure my wife is going to be too happy about the phone bill. I won’t tell her if you don’t.

Ireland just isn’t the protesty-type and so to see so many passionate women taking charge of the largest street in Europe was refreshing. Thousands marched through Dublin  in what was seen as the first major mobilisation of pro-choice activists…ever!

Leaving from the Spire at 2pm they took their protest through the city to Merrion Square, a peaceful park that played host to Dublin Pride’s parade end.

The Garda Press Office initially reported 500 attendees for the pro-choice march but by later that evening the office said there could have been in excess of 2,000 people involved. To put this into an Irish perspective, the march was the largest protest in Dublin since students fought against fees in the November of 2011.

Organized in anticipation of a report on abortion from a Government appointed body, marchers called for a decriminalization of abortion and laws in line with the historic x case.

The report, to be presented to the Minister for Health next month, looks at the consequences of the European Court of Human Rights decision that Ireland failed to implement existing rights to abortion where a mother’s life is at risk.

According to ‘March for Choice‘, the organizers, “between 4,000 and 8,000 Irish women travel abroad every year, and many more avail of illegal abortion drugs and unsafe abortions.”

This is compounded by the World Health Organization who report that “70,000 pregnant people die around the world every single year from illegal abortion. They leave behind 220,000 kids, since 61% of those seeking abortions are already parents.”

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Images courtesy of Louise Hannon.

Video courtesy of Trade Union TV Ireland.

I am between two minds with this whole (non)issue. On the one hand, it’s rather disturbing the amount of publicity her sex life seems to generate, especially when she’s championing “going back to men”, just as her new book, Nice to Meet You, is hitting shelves nationwide.  Coincidence?  I think not.  On the other hand, who are we to judge?  We’re a special part of society that strongly teaches the rest of the world about acceptance of who we are, regardless of the person we love, so how come it’s OK to be ‘disappointed’ with Jessie J?

Recently, Jessie J told Metro that:

“the bisexual label irritates me. The only thing I want to be defined by is my music and personality.” 

Hold on one tiny minute there Jessie, you’re the one who labelled yourself as bisexual from the start.  Has it never crossed your mind, Ms J, that some of your fans are inspired by your confidence and the way you wore the ‘bisexual’ badge in the public eye?  Although it’s a nice idea to only be judged and defined by your music and personality, that will never be the case as you’re defined by you as a complete package, and not just certain aspects.  We take note of your clothes, diet, and approach to work, social life, and yes, who you love.  When I learnt about Jessie J being in a long term relationship with a girl, and that the song ‘L.O.V.E’ was written about said lady, the meaning completely changed for me.  I respected and admired her bravery that she portrayed through her lyrics, such as “love doesn’t choose a boy or a girl”, which was like a breath of fresh air to have such a strong sentiment about the universality of love in the mainstream.  Jessie was a modern day hero for the LGBT society, but her comments about going back to men doesn’t have to ruin that.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

I fully understand that some people might feel let down and disappointed that their favourite pop star who was also in a long term relationship with a girl has now decided to date men again, and stating this as easy as if she’s just flipped a switch.  Coming out in the first place is a battle in itself, and then having to deal with the aftermath can also be rather difficult in some instances, so Jessie’s publicity flippantly parading around that Jessie’s now got men on her radar is a little insensitive.

However, let’s flip this over and think about it from another point of view.  With all the troubles that we face in this world from different groups, shouldn’t we practise what we preach and love and accept Jessie J for who she is?  Surely we’ve got bigger fish to fry than worrying about Jessie J’s next date?  If she wants to date a man, then so be it, no point in crying over it as I believe we should be putting that energy into positive things.  We’re part of an incredible group in society where we are so loving and accepting, but when one member states they’re going to switch teams for a bit we instinctively switch to the defensive.  Come on now ladies, deep down we all know that she’ll be missing out and she’ll be back.  Let’s leave her to it, and let’s hope her publicity will start behaving in a more sensitive way in future.

Going to university is scary/exciting for everyone, but if you think you might be something other than totally heterosexual, you’ve probably also got some extra worries.

Sure, everyone knows that uni is a great time to explore new experiences. But what if you’re so far in the closet that the mere thought of talking to an actual gay person makes you feel faint? What if you’d no sooner walk into a gay bar than an iron bar?

Gay chicken is not the answer. (Google it. Don’t worry, no nudey pictures). Just follow these 10 tips for a stress-free first year as a gay student:

1. Not studying in Brighton, Manchester, London or Glasgow? Don’t fret. Contrary to what TV says, gay people do live in other towns too. Living in a town with zero gay bars can sometimes be an advantage, as you might find that your uni’s students make more effort to organise their own LGBT events.

2. Not sure how to come out to your new friends? Let posters do the talking. Walking into a room plastered with pictures of Megan Fox may give them a clue.

3. Join a team, any team. Football, rugby and hockey are the stereotypes, but really any sport that involves a large team of women running around is a good bet (even netball).

4. If and when you go to LGBT events, beware Facebook tagging. Maybe all you’re out to all your friends and family, but if you’re not, don’t let pictures of drunken canoodling do the job for you.

5. Not interested in gay bars? If you’re in a city, even if it’s not a very gay one, have a look on Facebook to see what’s happening locally. LGBT book clubs, comedy nights, knitting groups – there’ll be something out there for you.

6. Even if you meet your soulmate in freshers’ week, don’t forget to also make other friends. It might be tempting to hide away and nest together, but it’s not healthy.

7. If you have a girlfriend, don’t do everything together, otherwise people will always get your names confused. Plus, and a little more importantly, you need separate friends and interests to avoid ‘the merge’.

8. Join your uni LGBT group. Join, even if you think you’re too cool not to, even if you already have some gay friends, even if you’re frightened of other gay people. Especially if you’re frightened of other gay people. Most people you will meet at uni will be straight, so the LGBT society is a quick way to make more gay friends.

9. It’s ok to go to an LGBT event with a friend for moral support, but you can’t hide in the corner and ignore everyone else. If you do, and if your friend is of the same gender as you, people will think you’re together. If your friend is of another gender to you, people will still assume you’re together, and worse, that you’re straight tourists.

10. Sometimes LGBT groups can be dominated by super-confident loudmouths. Don’t be intimidated by them. And definitely, definitely don’t snog them on a night out.

Are you a student? Have you got any extra tips, or info on what’s worth doing at your uni?

Here is a woman who, all her professional life, has lived in a stereotypical ‘man’s world’ and has come out very much on top.

Not only has she equalled the achievements of the most successful men in her field, but she has arguably bettered them.

First as a jockey, and now as one of television’s most sought-after presenters, Balding has paved the way for a new wave of female talent, chomping at the bit (excuse the pun) to take advantage of the groundwork she has laid.

But, hang on… I just can’t see the hordes of female talent… sorry, maybe it’s because I’ve mislaid my binoculars… no, no… it’s because they’re not there. Well, they are there, but they’re not there. In the spotlight.

 Balding the Trailblazer?

In a recent interview with the Times, Balding bemoaned the lack of females on television and in newspapers. And whilst I agree whole-heartedly with her admission that the Olympics was fantastic for showing off female talent, it is clear that there is still a long way to go.  Further still, perhaps, for gay female talent.

If I asked you to name me 3 well-known, British lesbians in popular, mainstream light entertainment I bet you would get as far as Clare, Sue Perkins… and then grind to a halt. I know I did. Ok so I know there’s a few of you going hoarse as you scream, “HEATHER PEACE!!” at me, but with all due respect to our favourite hot-cop, I can pretty much guarantee that if I asked any non-lesbian who she is, they would be mystified until I identified her as, “that English teacher from Waterloo Road. The one without the stubble.”

 Bring back the girls

A recent Lesbilicious article discussed the issue of a lack of ‘out’ lesbians in the Olympics. Clearly this is a problem, but is one that is so much more wide-spread. And it’s a problem because of a snowball effect: more female talent needs to come through into the spotlight, so any gay women are emerging from a smaller pool to start with.

Factor into that the issue that many women are scared to come out anyway, either because their fame is partly based on their attractiveness to men, or else just because they are scared of prejudice and resulting career damage, and the end product is virtually no gay females on our screens or in our newspapers.

I mean, what would happen to Nigella’s fame if she suddenly came out? For legal reasons, I am in no way suggesting that Nigella Lawson is gay. I’ll leave that assertion for my own fantasies…

In her Times interview, Balding recalled an incident, before she came out to her parents, when she showed them an article about Ellen DeGeneres, stating that she admired her greatly but not explaining exactly why.

In many ways, both Balding and Perkins have the same charm and ‘likeability’ factor on-screen as DeGeneres. People love them. And why? Because they are highly skilled, professional presenters, with whom we as an audience feel comfortable and content.  They are household favourites across the land. And all of this, regardless of their gender or sexuality.

 Time for change

The more I read interviews like Balding’s in the Times, and the more I watch TV programmes like Hilary Devey’s Women at the Top, the more I am torn. Part of me is inspired by the publicity that these successful women are giving to the issue of their lack of successors, but another part of me is appalled that we need these ‘boosts’ at all. There is no push to get more men to do anything. They’re just getting out there and blithely doing whatever they damn well want. And good on them. But, come on, ladies, let’s do the same. Let’s all work, male and female, to create an environment where there is no glass ceiling, no gender prejudice, but lots of opportunity. For everyone.

I’ll end as I began; I love Clare Balding. For who she is and what she does. The Olympics proved that she is indeed a national treasure and was confirmation that it isn’t just me who would much prefer to see her on our screens than Gary Lineker or John Inverdale. Let us celebrate this strong, professional, classy and talented woman, and join her campaign to support and elevate all those like her. Arise, Dame Balding.

Photograph: Nisha A

Dear Seth,

As I write this you are days old. You are so small and so fragile and oh so beautiful and already you are very, very loved. Your tiny eyes must be struggling to process all the visual noise around you and trying hard to make sense of it all. It’s pretty overwhelming, I know, but hang in there kid. You’ll get used to it. Being new in town is daunting, hey? All these people that want to meet you and cuddle you must seem terrifying now, but believe me, they mean well.

What do you make of the world so far? I know it’s wet and miserable today but soon you’ll see that it’s a beautiful place full of wonder. It’s a very different place in 2012 to the way it was when I was born. You’ll probably never make a telephone call from a phone box and when you’re a bit older you’ll sit wide eyed and disbelieving when you realise there was a time before the Internet existed. You might never know what a cassette tape was or watch a VHS, and you’ll never taste an Opal Fruit, drink Creamola Foam or push a Push Pop.

Your Mummies are cool, hey? They are two of my best friends in the whole world and we’ve had some great times together. Mamma B and I used to stay up to all hours before you were born drinking and dancing and setting the world to rights. When you’re older and you can come on one of our legendary boy’s night’s out. Would you like that? You’ll soon realise that there’s more to your mummies than just boobs and milk and you’ll see that they are both incredibly special people who love you more than you will ever be able to comprehend, even if you live to the ripe old age of 100. I remember when they told us they were having you, we went out for dinner and when they showed us all the little picture of you in Mamma E’s tummy, I couldn’t stop the big fat tears rolling down my face. You couldn’t have asked for two more wonderfully supportive and caring parents Seth, honestly, and I know the three of you are going to be so, so happy together.

When you are a bit older, having two mums won’t be a big deal and when you start school there will probably be other boys and girls who have two mums or two dads and no one will bat an eyelid. You won’t believe that there was a time that people didn’t understand that what’s important is love and that the gender of your parents is irrelevant. But there was, not long ago. Before you were born, some people thought having two mums or two dads was weird and even wanted to stop them from having a family. People like your mummies weren’t even allowed to get married or have the same rights as your aunties and uncles. In some countries, your mummies would even go to jail just for loving each other. Crazy, eh? When you get to high school, you might learn about the Stonewall riots, the decriminalisation of homosexuality or Section 28 but it will be so alien to you it’ll seem like fiction. The world wasn’t always so bright, little man, and for a long time people had to hide who they were but we’re trying so hard to make it better for you. So you’ll never know what it’s like to be hated because of who you love.

The very same week you were born, this second rate actor called Rupert Everett even said that he couldn’t think of anything worse than having two gay dads. Rupert’s mum isn’t supportive and loving like yours are, and she doesn’t like her son being gay. She thinks children need a father and a mother, and even said that: “In the past, I have said that I wish Rupert was straight and, I probably still feel that. I’d like him to have a pretty wife. I’d like him to have children.” I’m sure you’ll have a few choice words for them when you learn how to talk.

Everett isn’t the only one, unfortunately. There’s a man called Alan Duncan who is the Minister of State for International Development who says he’s “seriously uneasy” with families like yours. I don’t need to tell you this, but there’s a wealth of evidence that shows growing up with two mummies actually found children like you doing better academically and something big and important called the American Psychological Society concluded in 2004 that: “lesbian and gay parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide supportive and healthy environments for their children.”

It’s like Patrick Strudwick says: “Love, in whatever form, nurtures. Fear, in all manifestations, stunts and deforms.”

When you’re at school, you might start noticing girls or you might start noticing boys. Either way, Mamma B and Mamma E will be there for you. They will never want you to be anything other than yourself or tell you that they wish you were anything else but happy. Seth, you are the luckiest little boy in the world. Never stop believing that you can be anything or anyone that you want to be. You’ve got so much opportunity at your feet and two wonderful parents that will have your back whatever may be. The world you’ve just come into is far from perfect, but we’re working on it, and by the time you’re my age, I hope that prejudice will be a thing of the past.

Love you little one,

Carrie x