Page 7 - Spring 2015

The first National Festival of LGBT
History is now just around the corner!
The schedule is nearly completed, venues
booked, and volunteers primed to present three
centuries of history for adults and children of
all ages.
Manchester is hosting this first ever national
festival focused on exploring, exposing, and
discussing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans
(LGBT) history. The Festival is over five days,
and will be at Central Library’s Archives+, the
People’s History Museum, and many venues
throughout Manchester. The event will be
showcasing new popular research into LGBT
history, and celebrating LGBT representation
in film and comics with a German film
retrospective and an open discussion about
comic books.
The introduction and promotion of LGBT
History Month (UK) by Schools OUT UK in
2005 has significantly enhanced and further
validated awareness of and interest in LGBT
and Human Rights Campaigns of the second
half of the 20th century. The associated and
growing interest in ‘LGBT History’ has created
a growing public demand for readings of that
past, that has in turn encouraged popular and
academic research into that past. However,
despite the increasing popular demand for such
history, it is still an area of study that in the
UK is very much in its infancy compared to the
remarkable advances made elsewhere.
In recognition of that growing historical
interest and to further ‘boost’ the study of
that past, Schools OUT UK in concert with
other like-minded organisations and groups are
launching this festival.
There are several Festival themes that
deliberately seek to bring together and promote
academic and popular scholarship of this
important but neglected part of our common
past.
Trailblazing campaigners speaking at the
event include Christine Burns MBE (Press For
Change),Peter Tatchell (Gay Liberation Front),
Mike Jackson (featured in last year’s smash hit
“Pride”), Stuart Milk (chair of the Harvey Milk
foundation) and veteran ex-politician Linda
Bellos OBE.
Other events include the launch of The
Campaign for Homosexuality’s biography at the
inaugural Allan Horsfall Lecture, lessons for all
ages delivered by Schools OUT UK, a theatre
performance of A Very Victorian Scandal by
Pagelight Productions, and a film festival, with
many more surprises to be announced.
All main festival events are FREE! More
popular events will be ticketed: full schedule
and information on the event’s website -
lgbthistoryfestival.org
www.fyne.co.uk
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