Being Gay in Public Life

The Daily Politics had Stonewall head honcho, Ben Summerskill, as their guest today.  It acted as a reason for the programme to explore  being gay in contemporary public life.  The whole show is available via the BBC iPlayer, but the relevant clip can be viewed here.

Gaydar in Youth Drive

You've probably noticed my blogging is starting to drop off a bit. I'm desperately behind with a book and in order to avoid my publisher chopping my balls off I'm focusing my efforts on writing at the moment. That said, I wanted to share the latest move by the networking site (i.e hook-up site) Gaydar.

Gaydar.co.uk became the definitive place to create an online gay identity and arrange a quick fuck but which seems to have been displaced in recent times by newer sites such as fitlads - particularly among young gay guys. Young gay guys inevitably pull in older gay guys and as more and more of Gaydar's features have vanished behind a pay wall in recent years, the site needs to keep pulling in people who will pay to spend hours of their life sitting online waiting for their dream slim smooth twinky guy to message for a quick fuck (...or so I imagine...). How, the guys at Gaydar must have thought, can we get them to keep giving us their money? Then someone had an idea - target the students- give them free membership!

And so it came to pass...meet GaydarU, the site for students aged between 18 and 23 to join the site. Like student banking, thwe hope is no doubt that they will stick with the site when they graduate and cough up to access everything. In the meantime, the vultures will be re-incentivised to keep paying to circle.

Finally - a contest I could win!

Fabulous story in the Guardian today about a new beauty pageant in Venezuela. The piece reports that 'to be overweight is one social transgression. Venezuelan men who cannot face the gym but want to show off at the beach get abdominal implants, yielding impressive if fake six-packs. A more serious taboo is to be gay. Venezuela outlaws discrimination based on sexual orientation but there is widespread homophobia, including police harassment. Caracas's gay scene is inhibited compared to other Latin American capitals such as Buenos Aires, Bogota and Mexico City.'

The full story can be viewed here along with a video supporting the piece.

Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, 30 March- 1 April 2010, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK.

Gender, Sexuality and Law Subject Stream Call for Papers

As in previous years, I’m circulating this first call for papers early so as to enable international speakers to finalise their travel plans.

The stream seeks to draw together socio-legal scholarship from across the globe, featuring scholars from a range of disciplines relating to the broad theme of gender, sexuality and law.

Past papers have considered sexuality and education law, queer theory, same-sex marriage, gender and parenthood, sex work, domestic violence, public sex, sexuality and the media, religion and sexuality, international comparisons, and theories of gender but papers pertaining to any area of gender, sexuality and law will be considered.

Last year the stream also benefited from a wonderful film by award winning New Zealand film maker Susan Potter. Following conference feedback, I am keen to create a space for film, poetry and the arts as part of the stream this year and would welcome proposals that address these activities in addition to the usual academic papers.

I am happy to discuss any proposals prior to submitting an abstract or activity proposal.

Abstracts and activity proposals (no more than 250 words) should be sent to chris.ashford@sunderland.ac.uk by January 29th 2010 although sooner submission is typical and preferred. This will help with conference planning and enable me to give confirmation to those speakers who need confirmation for funding and travel submissions.

The SLSA conference website is not yet active but a link will be on the main site in due course. This can be located at: http://www.slsa.ac.uk

Equality Bill 2009

The Government's new Equality Bill has it's first reading on Monday and LGBT Labour are asking for views on the bill via Twitter as part of an apparent effort by Labour to promote something that isn't to do with the economy. They are running with the slogan 'Make Equality a duty, not an option' which will do much to tackle the ever growing vision of a controlling Government. Meh, perhaps not.

It even has it's own campaign website which can be viewed here. Given there wasn't much of a campaign for the bill the Government now appears to be manufacturing a campaign for the bill, which they will then satisfy as if by magic with this wonderful bill. To be fair to Harriet Harman in particular the bill does include some provisions that have been floated for some time but they've been pulled into a rag bag that is the Equality Bill.

The bill apparently focuses upon two aspects of the LGBT agenda - bullying in schools and transgender equality. Teachers will have to promote equality. That seems a sensible aim but what does that mean - what about someone who challenges civil partnerships and marriage on queer lines? What scope is there for questioning? I'm keen to see how the legislation has been drafted on that issue. Yes, school bullying is an important issue and as a former school governor, I'm well aware of the importance of anti-bullying policies but the Government needs to make sure it helps schools, teachers, parents and LGBT youth rather than introducing a well meaning but badly drafted clause that fails to help.

'Gender reassignment' will be covered in the Goods and Services legislation. I'm not sure what that exactly means but it sounds a sensible step. I did have some serious concerns about the Goods and Services legislation but I have to admit they do not appear to have been realised. That said, nor do they appear to have made a major impact.

The bill will also apparently include provision to amend 'the laws surrounding discrimination and incitement to hatred will be extended to cover ‘affiliation’ with the transgender community. Given that transphobic discrimination occurs just as much to those considering or beginning gender reassignment as to those who have already undergone reassignment, this will be an important part of tackling inequality and levelling-up the law to align with other forms of protection'.

Again, this sounds interesting and I'll be keen to see how the legislation is finally drafted.

Mr Gay World 2009

The Irish Independent brings news today that it's Irishman Max Krzyzanowski (doesn't he sound so Irish? Apparently he's of Polish descent) has won the title Mr Gay World 2009 in the global competition, hosted this year in Canada. At the risk of throwing stones whilst living in a glasshouse, having taken a look at the other entrants, I can't help but thinking that the criteria is not merely about looks? The MGW site can be viewed here.

Gay in Beirut

Many thanks to Ahmed for providing this wonderful link that examines Beirut's gay community. I do not claim to know much about being gay in an Arab country but I do know that is something many international scholars seem to have in common. It's an issue that is rarely discussed at international academic events despite the examination of a variety of other cultural environments and yet as this video highlights, it really ought to be. Ahmed also used to link to the marvellous Mithly journal which examined gay Arab life but sadly came to an end - bring it back guys! You can view the video here.

LGBTQQI

Julie Bindel wrote a fantastic piece in the Guardian yesterday. She argued that as a lesbian she 'no longer want[s] to be lumped in with a list of folk defined by 'odd' sexual practices. She notes with some flare, the evolution of the term 'LGBTQQI' (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer, Questioning and Intersex). On a personal level I have sympathy with her although I find any of the labels troublesome which I guess makes me queer (which is a sort of paradox in itself but that's quite enough for a Sunday morning...). On a political level, as I learnt at the recent LGBT lives conference, it does make a difference to the battle for equality. Trans rights are seen as having progressed further in Scotland than England & Wales due to their inclusion in LGB activism. The 'T' seems to make a big difference.

All this follows the Stonewall awards and the nomination of Julie Bindel for an award. According to Pink News: 'Activists from transsexual, transgender and queer organisations from London, Liverpool and Manchester held a noisy protest against "Stonewall's refusal to withdraw their nomination of Julie Bindel for Journalist of the Year, a journalist know for her anti-trans opinions and writings."'. The full list of awards can be viewed here.

For the protesters, Stonewall simply doesn't reflect their interests but then it doesn't really pretend to. It is focused around lesbians, gay me and bisexuals and as I've long argued I don't think it even does that particularly well. I wish they'd start sticking their neck out on the subject of public sex and then men who engage in it (whatever label they ascribe to themselves) but because that doesn't produce the same cosy images as civil partnerships I doubt they will do.

Yet for all of that, there is a real danger that the coalition that has enabled the progress that has been made on LGBT rights comes unstuck and that wouldn't help anyone. Like Bindel I don't like being lumped into this one group but I like the alternative even less.

TV Gay Kiss

Now the course is up and running I'll be posting more regularly! In the last workshop we had an interesting discussion at one point about gay characters in television and film, so it struck me as timely that the Pink News carried a story relating to this subject over the weekend. Eastenders (which you'll have to forgive me I gave up watching some years ago) included a scene where two male characters kissed in last Tuesday's episode. This has been controversial in the 80s and 90s for the soap but what surprised me was that the BBC had 145 complaints, some complaining that the kiss was shown before the watershed.