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George Street barbers to raise money for Sussex Beacon

OS Barbers in George Street will once again be raising money for the Sussex Beacon on Friday, August 4.

For the third successive year, barbers, George and Joe will be donating all the takings from the haircuts they both do, all day.

Haircuts will cost £14/£10 for students. No appointments are needed and the salon is open from 10am – 7pm.

You will find the boys at OS Barbers, 52 George Street, Kemp Town, Brighton, BN2 1RJ: Tel. 07548 351901

Study suggests routine HIV test is offered at GP surgery for new patients

A new study published in the Lancet today shows that HIV testing on registration with GPs in areas with a high prevalence of HIV is cost-effective, and even cost saving.

Conducted jointly by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, researchers found that offering HIV tests to people when they register at a new GP surgery was cost-effective and helps save lives.

The study looked at a trial conducted at GP surgeries in Hackney, London, where patients routinely received rapid fingerprick HIV tests as part of their standard health check during registration. Researchers found it led to a four-fold higher HIV diagnosis rate.

Kat Smithson
Kat Smithson

Kat Smithson, Director of Policy and Campaigns at NAT (National AIDS Trust), said: “NICE guidelines have recommended for some time that GPs in high prevalence areas offer HIV tests on registration. We urge commissioners to take heed of this new evidence and to work with GPs to roll this out in more places.

“The good news is that NAT has observed increasing investment in HIV testing in primary care settings such as GPs in recent years but barriers have still remained to implementing it across the country. Public health budgets are under extreme pressure so this further evidence of cost effectiveness is very important for making the case for investment.”

Dr Michael Brady, Medical Director for Terrence Higgins Trust, added: “One in seven people living with HIV do not know that they have it. Undiagnosed HIV infection puts individuals at risk of preventable illness and death, disproportionately contributes to onward transmission and is an unnecessary burden of cost to the NHS.

Dr Michael Brady
Dr Michael Brady

“Effective HIV therapy means people can now expect to live a normal lifespan and won’t pass the virus on to anyone else. But testing and early treatment is essential to be able to benefit from this. We urgently need new approaches to HIV testing that are delivered at scale and targeted at those at risk. Testing in General Practice is a key component of this because, whilst people living with undiagnosed HIV are not accessing existing HIV testing services, they do visit their GP and there are many missed opportunities to test.

“The UK’s national HIV testing guidance has recommending HIV testing in General Practices in high prevalence areas since 2008. HIV testing guidelines from NICE recommend the same. This important research demonstrates this approach is cost effective, and may even be cost-saving. I hope that policy makers, commissioners and healthcare providers act on these findings and invest in HIV testing in primary care. We have the tools to end HIV transmission in the UK but we won’t achieve that without scaling up testing in General Practice and other community settings.”

University honours diversity campaigner

A champion of business and diversity has been honoured by the University of Brighton.

Miranda Brawn: photo by Jim Holden

Miranda Brawn, award-winning businesswoman, banker and barrister received an honorary Doctor of Letters during the university’s summer graduation ceremonies at the Brighton Centre.

Miranda, CEO of the Brawn Diversity Leadership Foundation, campaigns for an equal and diverse workforce and promotes all forms of diversity including gender, race, disability and LGBT+.

She said: “I feel deeply privileged … this university plays an essential part to develop skills and the talents of potential and diverse world leaders.

“My values and work match the university’s commitments where diversity and inclusion are core values.  We are both helping to champion and nurture inclusivity, diversity and equality to the highest levels across all sectors to deliver change.

“The university has helped many students from across the UK and the globe to become a future success with a genuine focus on diversity and equality.”

Miranda advised graduates: “Follow your dreams to find your perfect career and be open to unexpected opportunities … continue to work hard and smart, take risks, focus and network, exercise persistence and determination, believe in yourself, listen well – and success will surely follow.”

OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar – my memories of past Prides

Sugar Swan: Photo Hugo Michiels
Ms Sugar Swan: Photo Hugo Michiels

Sugar Swan reflects back on her Pride experiences over the last 20 years.

My first experience of a Pride event was back in 1997, some 20 years ago. A fresh-faced 16-year-old kid, who knew she was trans but only in her wildest dreams did she think she could transition, made her way to Clapham Common for Pride London. I was absolutely terrified as I made my way there with my cis girlfriend. She was the first person who I confided in who understood my gender feelings. Following a string of disastrous teenage relationships with men, she was my first real partner. Being bisexual herself, we had a beautiful open relationship where we really did have it all. We didn’t know the word Poly at the time but we knew that we were different from other people and we embraced that.

As we got closer and closer to the event we were surrounded by more and more queer people all making their way to the park in high spirits. I couldn’t help but notice amongst the crowds that we didn’t really fit in. The crowd was mostly white, gay and male. There were very few women and even less trans and BME representation. I was happy though, I was surrounded by queer people, covered in glitter, intoxicated on love, and I felt the love, from my girlfriend and from the friends and sexual partners we met along the way.

I hark from the London home counties, in a small village between Ascot Racecourse and Windsor Castle. Schooled in the very depressing satellite town of Bracknell, consisting of council estates and office blocks, I was beaten to the ground and kicked in the stomach for being different. We were lucky to have found each other. We were very much the minority. Unfortunately that was our first and only Pride together, as she died some months later in a car accident that would shape my future.

After her death and my subsequent recovery period following the car accident I was terribly bereft and consequently pushed my gender identity deep down inside. I presented for the next 15 years as a cis gay man to most of the outside world, as that is what they read me as, and at the time I thought it was easier to live that lie than to find the strength to transition.

During the two years following her death I attended Prides in London but they were never the same. I felt like no one understood me, no one got me. That was until I was fortunate enough to find myself, at 19 years old, working in a call centre and meeting an established group of queer alternative and goth friends that included my life long friend and short time show biz partner, Spice, and my beloved companion for the rest of his life, Mouse. They both knew that I was a girl from the very beginning, I didn’t have to explain myself, they just knew, I didn’t have to hide my breasts from my first puberty.

“The crowd was mostly white, gay and male. There were very few women and even less trans and BME representation”

My Pride experiences were very different in the 20 years since that first one back in 1997. Back then I stood out. I was notably different from everyone else, but as the years went by I blended in more. By 2001 I was establishing myself on the drag circuit with Spice and we were atop open buses in the parade and performing in the cabaret tent in Preston Park and at the village street parties. Drag afforded me a certain invisibility around my gender and sexuality, or so I thought. I clearly wasn’t fooling anybody as it came as no surprise when I came out last year.

During those 20 years of moving down here and religiously being part of Pride, be that as an entertainer, a barmaid, or a spectator, I still felt out-of-place just as I did back in 1997 on Clapham Common. I always felt that I didn’t see many other people I could really relate to, people I could see myself in. The trans community was almost invisible at many of the Pride events I attended. These included events both here in Brighton, London, and across Europe.

I struggled with how whitewashed and corporate everything was and how Prides the world over seemed more about brand names and white muscled guys in speedos as the main line of advertisement. Where was the fat representation? The black people? The trans people? Lesbians? Bisexuals? The Disabled? I guess we weren’t deemed beautiful enough to represent Pride, which has led me to ask the question of late, Where is my Pride?

I still recognise that Pride events across the globe are a right of passage for many a young queer that have never been in a large group of like-minded people. It’s important for them to have that experience of love and acceptance on a mass scale. Therefore I support Pride events but believe that greater representation of the umbrella is paramount.

This is something that’s just as apparent today as it always has been. Following the worldwide debates over the inclusion of black and brown stripes to the Pride flag of the city of Philadelphia back in June, the banning of the Jewish Pride flag in the Chicago Dyke March, and most recently Pride London’s horrific cis hetero led advertising that was dutifully pulled following uproar within days of launch. These three separate Pride events this year opened up frank and honest discussions about minority representation at Pride events and whether ‘Pride’ across the globe has lost its way and has forgotten that it is supposed to be about the marginalised people, not just those who conform to the gay masses. There is an increasingly diverse LGBTQIA umbrella and we’ve been under represented for too long. It’s this new-found awareness by the masses, fuelled by the advent of social media, that brings me hope. Hope for a brighter tomorrow, where trans women, especially those of colour, are back in the forefront of the Pride movement, for that is its roots.

“The crowd was mostly white, gay and male. There were very few women and even less trans and BME representation”

Dr Brightons quiz to raise money for Rainbow Fund

Dr Brightons will be raising money for the Rainbow Fund at their annual pre-Pride Pub Quiz on Thursday, August 3.

Entry is just £2 per person with a maximum of 5 people to a team. Get there at 7.30pm for an 8pm start. There will be a raffle and prizes galore.

Dr Brightons will be adding money raised during the quiz evening to the grand total of monies raised at their Sunday night comedy events.

The Rainbow Fund makes grants to LGBT/HIV organisations who provide effective front line services to LGBT+ people in the city.


Event: Dr Brightons pre-Pride Pub Quiz

Where: Dr Brightons, 16 – 17 Kings Road, BN1 1NE Brighton

When: Thursday, August 3

Time: 7.30pm for a prompt 8pm start

Cost: £2 per person. Maximum of 5 people per team.

Gay men’s experiences of masculinity

James Ravenhill
James Ravenhill

“I don’t want to be seen as a screaming queen”

When people ask why I chose to studygay masculinities’ for my PhD, I think back to the time my car broke down on the A23, and the rescue service sent along this good-looking, thirty-something man to help: a knight in fluorescent armour. The car was fixed promptly, but as I headed home, I couldn’t stop thinking about my interaction with this guy.

Why had my voice dropped by an octave as I described to him what had happened? Why had I talked about the names of car parts that I knew nothing about? And what was with that feeling of blind panic when he’d asked me to “try and turn her over”?

As I drove home, I realised that I had unconsciously activated a well-rehearsed mode for managing a particular social interaction: a conversation with an unknown (straight) man.

In fact, I don’t know if the man from the AA was straight, but that doesn’t really matter. What interested me was my reaction to my stereotyped assumption about him. I guessed he was straight and, without thinking, I started performing a certain masculinity that I thought he might find acceptable, right there on the hard shoulder.

This was not necessarily about hiding my sexual orientation; rather it was motivated by a wish to avoid that familiar feeling of ‘difference’, or perhaps even inferiority. In Western society, heterosexuality is normative and things that are normative are more socially-desirable. Therefore, as gay men we must negotiate who we are in a cultural context where heterosexual versions of masculinity are more valued. So how do we respond? What strategies do gay men use to construct an identity that they experience as valued in a heteronormative society? How do gay men’s beliefs about masculinity influence their experiences of being men, and being gay?

It was these questions that I addressed in my PhD research, supervised by Dr Richard de Visser at University of Sussex. The research findings suggest that masculinity in its traditional and normative sense is central to many gay men’s identities. Such men value their hairy faces and bodies, their sporting prowess, their muscularity, and their ‘top’ self-labels (or at least, others’ assumptions that they are tops). Masculine behaviours can have compensatory value – for example, men who want to avoid the stereotype of femininity associated with being a ‘bottom’ may find themselves spending a lot of time in the gym, to make up for their perceived ‘transgression’.

A core part of a commitment to normative standards of masculinity is anti-effeminacy: being gay might be acceptable, so long as ‘gayness’ is not too visible. Some might argue that masculine men are simply more sexually appealing, but we need to ask ourselves why. Perhaps gay men have internalised the messages they have been exposed to throughout their lives that set out what ‘being a man’ should look (and sound) like.

Masculinity should look heterosexual; heterosexual masculinity is opposed to effeminacy; anti-effeminacy is therefore normative, and even desirable for some gay men.

However, some of the men I spoke to as part of my research contested the importance of masculinity, claiming that it is too unpredictable and inconsistent to be meaningful. Whether a man is perceived as masculine depends on what he is doing, where he is doing it and who is watching – perhaps it’s just easier to be unconcerned. Other participants in my studies suggested that because straight men seem to be increasingly feminised (hence the rise of the ‘metrosexual’ man, and of the ‘bromances’ often depicted in Hollywood movies), gay men may face less pressure to conform to heteronormative standards of masculinity. Perhaps the gap between heterosexual and gay masculinities is narrowing.

Even men who have a strong sense of masculine identity and traditional beliefs about masculinity may value opportunities to display non-masculine or effeminate behaviours. Some of the men I interviewed described feeling “relieved” when they were out on the gay scene, because certain gay spaces provide the opportunity to “let go” from the masculine gender performance they feel obliged to enact in everyday interactions. Masculinity may be valued in many social contexts, but being camp can have value too – perhaps because it’s experienced as frivolous, irreverent and fun, or perhaps because it’s a way for some gay men to ‘own’ their gayness.

The findings from my PhD research offer some insights to how gay men’s behavioural practices may be guided by their responses to messages about what it takes to be ‘a real man’ in contemporary UK society. As gay men, we may feel that we cannot truly achieve a valued masculine identity, and this could have implications for our well-being. Perhaps instead we need to critique normative expectations of what it means to be ‘a man’ and what it means to be ‘gay’, and simply embrace who we are.

This project was supervised by Dr Richard de Visser at University of Sussex.

James Ravenhill, University of Sussex,
www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/134643
Twitter #JamesElZorro

 

 

Peer Action needs a new treasurer

As part of its ongoing reorganisation, which includes the relaunch of a new website, Peer Action, the HIV charity is looking for new volunteers to join the present board of trustees to help move the charity forward.

They are in particular need of a treasurer whose responsibilities will include:

♦ Day to Day running of the accounts and reconciliation.
♦ Invoices and purchases
♦ Preparation of quarterly reports for the Rainbow Fund
♦ Preparation of annual reports.

Trustee responsibilities include:

♦ Attending six meetings a year
♦ Representing Peer Action at other LGBT+ events when available
♦ Participation and promotion of Peer Action events
♦ Actively participating in the direction Peer Action is now taking

If you feel you can offer your skills and time, would like to make a difference and volunteer for a progressive HIV charity, contact Gareth Lloyd – Chair of Trustees at chair@peeraction.net

You may also contact the chair via a dedicated phone number 07 860 800 045 (this number is only answered when volunteers are available so please leave a message if no one answers).

Closing date for expressions of interest is Friday, September 1.

Is your dog microchipped?

Every year Brighton & Hove City Council’s animal wardens collect around 200 stray dogs across the city.

The number of strays generally peaks during the summer – with hot weather, children off school and more people at home, it’s easy for doors or gates to be left open by mistake, or for dogs to wander from their owners at a picnic or summer event.

With this in mind, the council’s animal wardens are reminding dog owners to make sure their pet is microchipped and has a tag with contact details on the collar. Both are legal requirements and mean the animal’s owner can be quickly be traced.

It’s also really important to keep microchip and tag information up to date if you change your address or change your phone number, the more contact numbers you include the greater chance of getting your dog back quickly.

Wardens regularly find strays where the microchip contact details are out of date.  Details can be updated by contacting the company which holds your pet’s microchip information.

Unfortunately, not all strays can be reunited with their owners. The council collected approximately 200 stray dogs between April 2016 and April this year, while the majority were reunited with their owners, 39 had incorrect chip details and 33 of them were unclaimed.  Once they have been thoroughly checked and assessed at kennels, where possible they are re-homed through local animal rescue centres.

If you are thinking of getting a dog, the animal wardens suggest going to a re-homing or rescue centre.

For more information about microchipping, click here:

To visit the animal warden team page on Brighton & Hove City Council, click here:

REVIEW: Tori Scott @Marlborough Theatre

New York based singer and actress Tori Scott brought her one woman show Thirsty, to the Marlborough Theatre, on Wednesday (July 26) and gave Brighton its finest cabaret event of the season.

Described by Provincetown Magazine as “the Bette Midler of the new millennium”,  Tori Scott has in fact much, much more to offer. She sings the socks of Bette of with a repertoire of songs ranging from standards to show tunes, all perfectly arranged to profile her voice as the magnificent instrument it is.

A raconteur, more than a comedienne she effortlessly chats her way through the evening. It is like engaging with your big sister – one minute she encourages you close to her breast to share a little secret – then she opens her mouth and blows you away with her mighty voice. That voice, has a huge range, is crystal clear from top to bottom and loses non of its finesse as she effortlessly belts out the big notes.

While her show is clearly aimed at a gay audience her appeal is much wider and I would love to see her work in a much larger venue where a talent of this size deserves to be presented.

The structure of the show is sophisticated and clever as are the quality of the medley/arrangements. Back to Back and House of the Rising Sun sent shivers down my back. Rainbow High and Buenos Aires brilliantly showed off how technically secure her vocals are and highlighted the importance of the musical director to such a performer. Her keyboard player Jesse Kissel was quite simply brilliant and the quality of their musical partnership was highlighted in the cool and contemporary medley La Vie En Rose/Wrecking Ball/The Man That Got Away, that quite simply took my breath away.

Remember the name Tori Scott, I will for a long time.

Tori is Live at Zedel in London this evening at 9.15pm

To book online, click here:

 

PICTURE DIARY: Isle of Wight Pride

Isle of Wight staged its first Pride on July 15 and what a fantastic event it was, embodying everything a great pride should aspire to.

It is a huge responsibility to stage any public event, but the organisers of IOW Pride, just about got everything right, except they forgot to provide a dressing room for the drag queens, who took it all in their stride and encamped in the coast guards office behind the main stage. Not a single complaint, it was that sort of day!

What made this event unique and different from other Prides is that it was staged on the sandy beach in Ryde. The weather was overcast most of the day, but it did not rain and everyone who turned up seemed determined to have a great time. The atmosphere was infectious with smiling faces everywhere and people who did not know each other, just chatted together. It was lovely to watch.

I have rarely felt so safe at a Pride anywhere in the world and everyone was so nice to the many visitors who had made the trip over from the mainland.

I arrived by special hovercraft charter from Southsea with Miss Jason and other VIPs, direct onto the beach, close to the main stage and festival site. The hovercraft blew sand everywhere including over La Voix who was performing on main stage. It was quite an entry to the island for Miss Jason, the press pack and singers from the Southampton Gay Men’s Chorus.

Earlier in the day thousands took part in and watched the Pride Parade progress through the centre of Ryde, bringing the town to a standstill for a few hours. The parade was visible, loud and proud and included walking groups from statutory services, the unions and LGBT+ allies.

Back at the festival site on the beach, thousands were entertained by the iconic Scottish singer Horse, Nicki French, Allan Jay, Miss Jason, The Freemasons and La Voix among many others.

Peter Tatchell addressed the crowd and spoke of the importance of still spreading the equality message across the country and bringing Prides to new locations each year.

The Community Village was very popular and gave me my favourite moment of the day – watching a mature drag Queen entertain people in the tea tent playing the spoons. It was pure magic!

If you are going to throw a party, make sure you throw a good one. The organisers got everything just about right, from their communications to the media before the event to their first class organisation on the day. Congratulations to everyone involved and here’s to IOW Pride in 2018.

Photos by Robby Dee and James Ledward

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