February is LGBT History Month

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans History Month takes place every year in February. It celebrates the lives and achievements of the LGBT community. A programme of events has been compiled by OutStories Bristol, Bristol Lesbian & Gay Switchboard, CycleOut Bristol, M-Shed, Gay West and Hydra Books.

The events at Hydra Books are :

Changing images of trans people in speculative literature – Cheryl Morgan

Thursday 2 February – 7:00 pm

The availability of magic and advanced science have allowed writers of fantasy and science fiction literature to explore issues of gender in their work. Hugo Award winning critic, Cheryl Morgan, explores how the way in which trans characters have been portrayed in speculative literature has changed as real trans people have become better known to the general public. Cheryl Morgan is, to her knowledge, the only out trans person ever to have won science fiction’s highest honour, the Hugo Award. Born in Somerset, she has lived in Australia and California and now resides near Bath where she runs a small ebook publishing company and bookstore. She blogs regularly at www.cheryl-morgan.com

Celebration of Lesbian and Gay Literature – OutStories Bristol

Tuesday 7 February – 7:00 pm

From love poems to sci-fi and satire – come and join us in an evening of readings from literature with LGBT themes. Bring your favourite poem or excerpt and share it with the audience. Tell us what it means to you and where we can find more like it. Help us raise the profile of this new bookshop in the heart of Bristol’s Gay Village.

Cross-dressers and the establishment in Victorian England – Juliet Jacques

Thursday 9 February 7:00 pm

The emergence of public cross-dressing in the 19th century industrial city caused great anxiety to the Victorian legal establishment and England’s new police forces alike. In this talk, Guardian and New Statesman writer Juliet Jacques (longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011) explores how those who cross-dressed were criminalised, most famously in the scandalous trial of Ernest “Stella” Boulton and Frederick “Fanny” Park in 1871, and how contemporary transgender identities began to evolve in response.

Juliet Jacques is a journalist and author, best known for writing A Transgender Journey for The Guardian – the first time that the gender reassignment process has been serialised for a mainstream British publication. She has also written for the New Statesman and TimeOut, and was longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011.

Exhibition – Lesbian and Gay Switchboard

Sunday 26 February – 4:00 pm

Bristol’s Lesbian and Gay Switchboard has been running for 37 years. Come and see an exhibition to celebrate its history at the bookshop. This will be followed by a party at 7pm at the Old Market Tavern for volunteers, friends and supporters of the Bristol Lesbian and Gay Switchboard.

This year marks the 40th anniversary since the national builders strike in 1972. Five months after the strike had ended 24 pickets who had visited building sites in Shrewsbury were arrested and charged with over 242 offences between them. They included unlawful assembly, affray, intimidation, criminal damage and assault.

Six of the pickets were received custodial sentences. Des Warren, Eric (Ricky) Tomlinson and John McKinsie Jones were sentenced to three years, two years and nine months of imprisonment respectively.

Ever since the trial the convicted pickets had maintained that they were the vistims of a policically motivated trial. As Ricky Tomlinson put it from the dock:

“I have heard the judge say that this was not a political trial, and just an ordinary criminal case, and I refute that with every fibre of my being. “

This year the Official Shrewsbury 24 Campaign, on behalf of the five convicted pickets who are still alive and Des Warren’s son, are submitting  the case the Criminal Cases Review Committee in the hope that it will be referred to the Court of Appeal. To find out more go to the new Shrewsbury 24 Campaign website that contains the background to the strike and subsequent trials as well as a recently unearthed film on the Shrewsbury picket’s made in 1974 by Michael Rossen, the former  Children’s Laureate and Radio 4 presenter.

Saturday 5 November – 11.00am startSt. Mary’s Institute, Stow Hill, NP20 1JJ

A Newport surgeon (Roger Morgan, re-enactor) will report on the injuries sustained in Newport on the morning of November 4th, 1839 and demonstrate how the wounded were treated.

And there will be ‘time travelling’ lecturers with ‘magic lantern slides’:

Karin Molson, on behalf of Shire Hall ‘Campaign’ Project, will show DVDs made with young people involved in ’active citizenshi’ that has been inspired by the Chartist Story.

Colin Gibson (archivist) on the survival and importance of Chartist Trial documents that Gwent Archives have been digitising during 2011.

Ruth Waycott and Les James, authors of a new book – Voices for the Vote: Chartism in south Wales - about the struggles of the Chartists to gain free speech and political rights for all.

Soup, rolls, coffee, tea available at good prices.

The Convention has no dealings with Truck or Tommy (Company) shops.

2.00pm at Newport Museum and Art Gallery

- The South Wales Record Society is launching its latest volume, William Downing Evans (1811-97): Poetry and Poverty in Nineteenth-Century Newport. Authors, Ian and Wendy Dear, will be talking about this Newport man who lived through the Chartist era and was local Registrar and Clerk to the Poor Law Guardians for half a century and strove to improve the town’s sanitation.

Details of this and other Newport events can found on their flyer.

thecomune.org.uk present Free event, Wednesday 6th April 19.00-21.00

80 Stokes Croft, Hamilton House, 5th floor Meeting room*

In mid-2010 a strike wave rolled through China’s factories, the most widespread and militant expression of China’s internal migrant workers so far. Their struggle shook the Chinese regime and provoked a world-wide debate about the end of the low-wage-model that stands behind China’s rise to the “factory of the world” and provides Europe and other regions with cheap consumer products.

We will look at the social conditions that stand behind the militant outbreak — the situation and struggles of different groups of migrant workers, such as construction, factory, domestic and sex workers, before examining the strike wave and its implications and discussing the formation of a new working class movement in China.

The discussion will also focus on new forms of reference, exchange and support that take into account the current phase of crisis and the increasing number of social struggles in different parts of the world.

The presentation with a short video from actual struggles will be led by someone who has lived in China and worked on publications on China’s migrant workers, including ‘Dagongmei — Women workers From China’s World Market-Factories Tell Their Story’ and ‘The Take-off of the Second Generation — Migrant Work, Gender and Class Composition in China’ (see www.gongchao.org).