January is nearly over (finally) and February is LGBT History Month. It is a month-long annual observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, and the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements.
There are an abundance of events happening across the country, we have listed a few that are definitely worth checking out!
3 February York LGBT History Month 2017 launch night
Celebrate the start of York LGBT History Month with a fun evening out. The launch night will feature a quiz, a bar serving soft and alcoholic drinks, live music, films and speeches – plus an opportunity to network with local LGBT organisations and councillors.
4 February Club Kali LGBT History Month Celebration
Club Kali celebrates our journey as a LGBTQ community with a social party! A night of entertainment by our host, games, surprises and dancing as Club Kali DJ’s Spin you Around the World in 80 Tunes from Bollywood, to Hollywood and those familiar dancefloor classics! A one off celebration to bring out your inner sparkle!
9 February Sutton House Queered: The Launch
Throughout February, Sutton House will host a variety of artworks from LGBTQ people, including a photographic exhibition of black trans activist Munroe Bergdorf by photographer Sarah Moore; artworks by Sutton House and Breaker’s Yard volunteer Kev Clarke, and drawings by a member of over 55 community group the Recycled Teenagers, Victor Zagon.
Visitors will also be able to experience a sound installation in the Gardrobe, thought to be the oldest toilet in Hackney, to launch our gender neutral toilet.
Moonlight Screening – Q&A With BlackOut UK
11 February We Raise Our Hands In The Sanctuary
Combining dance, drama and the club sounds of the 1980s, We Raise Our Hands in the Sanctuary tells an uplifting story of the power of gay friendship and the enduring importance of queer spaces. Disenchanted by the London gay disco scene of 1981, two best friends build their own underground club where devotees can escape the racism, hardship and homophobia that stalk the city’s streets. But just as they make it big, ambition, addiction and the dawning onslaught of AIDS threaten to tear their friendship apart.
13 February Screening of The New Black documentary
The University of Hertfordshire will be screening ‘The New Black’, a documentary that tells the story of how the African-American community is grappling with the gay rights issue in light of the recent gay marriage movement and the fight over civil rights.
The film documents activists, families and clergy on both sides of the campaign to legalize gay marriage and examines homophobia in the black community’s institutional pillar-the black church and reveals the Christian right wing’s strategy of exploiting this phenomenon in order to pursue an anti-gay political agenda.
16 February Screening of Born This Way
Documentary portrait of the gay and lesbian underground in Cameroon.
Born This Way steps outside the genre of activist filmmaking and offers a vivid and poetic portrait of day-to-day life in modern Africa. Lyrical imagery, devastating homophobia, the influence of western culture and a hidden-camera courtroom drama mysteriously coalesce into a story of what is possible in the global fight for equality.
22 February Birmingham LGBT History Festival: Under Your Nose, plus Q & A
Where and when was the world’s first Black Lesbian and Gay Centre opened?
Here, in Britain, back in the turbulent 80s of Thatcherism, AIDS, and Section 28. Under Your Nose documents the struggles to set up this safe space.
LGBT Symposium: Minority within a Minority
To celebrate LGBT History Month, join The Equality Office and a panel of LGBT Champions to discover what it’s like to be a minority within a minority. Key speakers will reveal the challenges and opportunities they believe minority groups of the LGBT community face, followed by questions and answers from the audience.
25 February Coming Out – The Royal Society of Literature
Fifty years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality, Dean Atta, Neil Bartlett and Maureen Duffy talk about how changing attitudes to homosexuality have been reflected in literature and performance.
Rainbow Noir’s 4th Birthday Party
This is an event for people of all colours and creed to get together in celebrating our community and how far they’ve come in just four years.
If you are hosting an event please let us know.