LGBTQ+ History Month 2022!
Hello!
February was LGBTQ+ History Month in the UK. While we feel that every month presents new and exciting opportunities to celebrate our community, we wanted to bring in a special focus to LGBTQ+ history by hosting a series of enlightening and empowering talks to our Instagram in a series of IG livestreams.
In our 3 episodes we cover topics ranging from the importance of celebrating trans+ history and how this has shaped the current state of trans liberation (or lack thereof) around the world today. We also covered how we can meet the needs of LGBTQ+ elders by speaking with the UK's first ever LGBTQ+ retirement home - a topic we felt was important to focus on as without our elders, we wouldn't have the community that we have today. We also felt it was essential to focus an episode on black LGBTQ+ history and the need to celebrate this among all other celebrations of history and LGBTQ+ culture.
We hope our community had an incredible LGBTQ+ history month - please enjoy these videos featuring our very special guests!
Episode 1: Tonic Housing (The UK's First Ever LGBTQ+ Retirement Home)
In our first LGBTQ+ History month episode, our Marketing Manager (Maxine Heron) speaks with Danny Hibbs-Woodings about the UK's first ever LGBTQ+ focused retirement community - Tonic Housing! Learn about why the needs of LGBTQ+ elders may differ from the needs of elders from outside the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the mission Tonic has with pioneering a brighter future for ALL retirement communities!
Episode 2: A Lesson in Trans History with Shon Faye
You might recognise Shon as best-selling writer of The Transgender Issue, which launched in September of 2021. In a world where we rarely celebrate the milestones and successes of the trans community (particularly those that happened prior to labels such as 'transgender' and 'non-binary' existing), we wanted to hear from Shon about some of the pioneers within the trans community who have helped us get to where we are today.
Episode 3: The Important of Celebrating Black LGBTQ+ History
In our final episode in this series, we spoke with Marc Thompson about his two projects: Team PrEPster, and Black & Gay, Back In The Day. SO much of LGBTQ+ culture has come from many of the most marginalized and underrepresented people in our community. From drag to ballroom and the evolution of dance music, safe spaces have been essential to creating connections for people within the black LGBTQ+ community to be able to express themselves, perform and exist in spaces created from within the community, for the community. Watch out IG live to gain a better understanding on what exactly it meant to be black and gay back in the day, and how this led Marc to start Team PrEPster - an initiative creating better awareness on HIV testing and education on living with HIV for people within the LGBTQ+ community.
Thank you so much to our incredible guests for featuring in this series! We look forward to bringing lots more exciting community content your way soon.