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LETTER TO EDITOR: Thank you for supporting people with HIV

I would like to say thank you to the Rainbow Fund and everyone who raises funds for it.

Presenter the Broadcaster Andrew Kay
Presenter the Broadcaster Andrew Kay

The grant of £8.082 which Lunch Positive has received for 2017-18 will have a huge impact on over 140 people who use and volunteer for Lunch Positive.

We are especially grateful that the fundraising community and the Rainbow Fund understand and support the changing needs of people with HIV, and that they value grassroots community based services that are provided for people with HIV by people with HIV.

Lunch Positive is all about bringing people together within an accepting, non-judgemental supportive community space; sharing food, conversation, support and friendship; and providing specialist support were needed.

Advanced ill-health, challenging life circumstances, HIV stigma, social and economic disadvantage are sadly still enduring factors for many people, and we aim to provide support around these at all levels. On behalf of our wonderful volunteers and members – thank you for helping us do this!

Best wishes,

Gary Pargeter, Service Manager at Lunch Positive

Entertainers raise £4,207 for LGBT+ community safety initiatives

Dine With The Stars raises £4,207 for The Brighton & Hove LGBT Community Safety Forum (B&H LGBT CSF).

Barry Nelson and Davina Sparkle present cheque to Gavin Kerruish from LGBT Community Safety Forum for £4,207.
Barry Nelson and Davina Sparkle present cheque to Gavin Kerruish from LGBT Community Safety Forum for £4,207.

Now in its sixth year, Dine with the Stars, the brainchild of ‘Baz’ Barry Nelson (formerly of Queens Hotel, Queens Arms and now the Burgershack at Bar Revenge) returned to the Jurys Inn Waterfront Hotel in Brighton on Thursday, October 12 for a spectacular evening of food, entertainment, dance and fundraising.

All profits from the evening went to the Brighton & Hove LGBT Community Safety Forum, a volunteer led Community Non Profit Organisation who among the many services they provide, make Pride in Brighton & Hove accessible for all people with disabilities.

The evening consisted of a sumptuous three course dinner with performances by Lola Lasagne, Dave Lynn, Kara Van Park, Maisie Trollette, Sally Vate, Spice and Poola May, along with top vocalists Jason Lee, Gabriella Parrish, Krissie DuCann, Jennie Castell and was hosted by Davina Sparkle.

Tickets for the evening were just £29 per person. £12 from each ticket went directly to the B&H LGBT CSP totalling £2,412. A further £1,195 was raised by the raffle with another £600 in the auction raising an amazing £4,207.

Davina Sparkle
Davina Sparkle

Joint organiser, David Pollikett, aka Davina Sparkle, said: “We have all been very disturbed at some recent high profile hate crimes, especially in our wonderful City. It’s more important than ever to report these crimes, and to have a support network for people affected by them. Brighton is a wonderful, eclectic mix of people and to keep our brilliant ‘LGBT Capital’ title, we need to support each other and our wonderful support groups like the B&H LGBT Community Safety Forum.”

AJ Paterson
AJ Paterson

AJ Paterson from the Brighton & Hove LGBT Community Safety Forum, added: “We are overwhelmed by the kindness and support given by the performers, hotel staff and everyone who donated prizes. Those attending were so generous taking part in the raffle and auction on top of purchasing their entry tickets. We really are very grateful. The money will be put to good use delivering our projects in and around Brighton & Hove”

The Brighton and Hove LGBT Community Safety Forum currently work on issues of Community Safety, Personal Safety, LGBT homelessness, Hate Crime, Domestic Abuse, Disability Awareness/Access and Workplace Discrimination Advocacy.

They are also instrumental in the planning and delivery of Access for more than 700 people with disabilities at Brighton Pride, Disability Pride, The B&H Anti Hate Crime Vigil, International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia & Transphobia and the B.Right.On Festival celebrating LGBT History Month every February.

They also support the delivery of The Brighton & Hove World AIDS Day Vigil on December 1 and The Brighton Bear Weekend Picnic every June.

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For more information about the LGBT Community Safety Forum, click here:

Sophie Cook joins RadioReverb

A brand new, weekly radio show launched last night (Wednesday October 25) on RadioReverb addressing local issues and served up with an eclectic mix of music and chat.

Sophie Cook: Photo Pete Jones

Media personality Sophie Cook joins the team at RadioReverb with an exciting new talk show called Sophie Cook Talks.

The show will feature tunes from Sophie’s own record (she refuses to call them vinyl) collection spanning the entire history of popular music, from Gil Scott Heron to Portishead, from Etta James to The Libertines, alongside her unique brand of insightful comment about the local news stories that affect our lives.

Each week Sophie will joined by regular studio guests to educate, inspire and entertain her listeners.

Commenting about the new programme, producer and presenter Sophie Cook, said: “During my first year at secondary school a friend brought a copy of The Who’s seminal album Quadrophenia into class and said ‘you’ve got to hear this!’

“From that moment I was hooked, music, and Brighton, were now my first loves.

“I’ve still got the copy of that album that I bought the following week, along with some 500 or so others that I’ve bought in the intervening decades.

“Over the years I’ve been privileged to work in the music industry and have spent the past decade photographing Peter Doherty and the Libertines, and even got to shoot my heroes The Who. To be given an opportunity to play my favourite tunes alongside speaking about the issues that really matter is a dream come true.

“I can’t think of a better place to do it than in this amazing city that we call home, and on the city’s most diverse radio station, the wonderful Radio Reverb.!”

Sophie stood for the Labour party in the safe Tory seat of East Worthing and Shoreham at the recent General Election.

She polled 20,882 votes, slashing the majority of Tim Loughton the sitting Conservative MP in half to just 5,106 votes, delivering a 19.8 swing to Labour, their biggest in the country.

Station Director Tracey Allen, added: “We are delighted to welcome Sophie Cook to RadioReverb and we are looking forward to hearing her on the airwaves every Wednesday at 5pm talking about the issues that matter in Brighton, Hove and beyond!.

“Sophie is well-known by all the movers and shakers in the city and brings with her a huge amount of experience, knowledge of music and even more diversity to the station.”

You can catch Sophie, her chat and her tunes, every Wednesday at 5pm on DAB+ on-line and at 97.2FM

To check out Sophie’s show page, click here:

Other ways to listen will be via the Listen Again button at www.radioreverb.com

BOOK REVIEW: A Marvellous Party by Ian Elmslie 

A Marvellous Party

Ian Elmslie 

Ian nails the most important mantra of LGBT history here: ‘Unless we share our stories, our history is lost’ and this wonderful funny, engaging and downright salacious memoir follows our author Ian on his one man journey from family home to the heart of the gay cabaret scene, and the characters he met on the way, and boy are they characters. Elmslie has met a delightful and astonishingly curious range of famous people and he name drops better than Elaine Paige and is far more generous and authentic with his praise.

He shows his respect and joy of the Queer icons who have inspired him, and given him the strength to get through the the tough times,  he shares the things he has learned and with insight and amusement and some honest passages that are heart-warming.

Elmslie was born in the same hospital as Quentin Crisp, although a few years later… and like that wonderful Legendary Queer he retains the ability to be candid and funny which endears the reader to turning another page to learn more.

He spent more than a decade as one half of the award-winning musical comedy duo, Katrina and The Boy crossing the country entertaining and meeting just about every and anyone there was to meet.

 

Elmslie is a very generous and warm writer, his prose engages and this book is as funny as is it entertaining.  Recommended, this sparkling memoir is a warm, charming and funny delight of a read and this handsome suave author the person I most want to get stuck in a lift with this winter season.

Out now

£10

For more info or to buy the book see the publishers website here: 

Toupie Lowther: Her life by Val Brown: Book Launch

Val Brown

Toupie Lowther: Her life

Book Launch

The Marlborough Theatre

A very pleasant evening at the Marlborough Theatre last week as local author Val Brown launched her new book. This book is an insightful new biography of Toupie Lowther who appears as a walk-on character in many biographies of Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridg but is a most fascinating woman in her own right.

Val shared some insights into her research of the book and showed some archive images and film footage of Toupie. Her sporting enthusiasms included driving, motorcycling, weightlifting and jiu-jitsu, along with parties, arts and just about every other pursuit that you can imagine a well off women of her times would follow. Fast cars, fast living then retiring to Pulborough; contradictive and mysterious she even and she crossed the Alps on a motorbike with her god-daughter Fabienne Lafargue De-Avilla riding pillion.

With the outbreak of the First World War Toupie became one of the organisers of an all-women team of ambulance drivers who undertook many dangerous missions to transport wounded soldiers near the front lines of battle in Compiègne, France

Toupie was a close friend of writer Radclyffe Hall and her partner, sculptor Una Troubridge. Although after the publication of Hall’s novel The Well of Loneliness in 1928 this friendship seems to have been strained.  The protagonist, Stephen Gordon, was based on Toupie Lowther, and this seems to have caused a rift in the friendship although her sexual orientation was no secret among her family and friends.

The full house were appreciative of Val’s hard work in bringing the life of Lowther into a clearer focus, although acknowledging the limitations of her research on someone who’s determined to keep their private life private Brown showed that with determination and an eye for the interesting lead you can unearth some fascinating information into the lives and history of noted lesbians and their circle.

Val closed with a questions and answer session which left the audience wanting more and then processed to sign and sell out the books brought with her.

For more information or to buy the book see the publisher’s website here.

Out now £8.99

 

Autumn issue of Pink Humanist ready to download

The latest issue of The Pink Humanist, an online magazine published by the UK LGBT charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) is ready to download.

It features topics of special interest to those who identify as atheists, freethinkers, humanists, secularists and sceptics in LGTB+ communities and those who support them.

The magazine’s editor is Barry Duke who also edits the Freethinker, the Voice of Atheism in the UK since 1881.

In the latest issue human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell writes of the gains made across the world by LGBT+ activists, but in a separate piece Chris Coates examines moves in the United States by the Trump administration to empower right-wing, homophobic organisations which are determined to turn back the clock on equality issues.

Pink Humanist editor Barry Duke, who left Brighton in 2010 to settle on the Costa Blanca and helped organise Benidorm’s first Pride and several subsequent events, reports on the latest celebrations in September.

Barry reminds his readers, that: “as we blow whistles, wave rainbow flags and dance in the streets, let’s pause to consider the plight of those living in places where being gay remains a criminal offence – 74 countries in total. It’s an appalling fact that 12 of them have the death penalty for homosexuality.“Until they learn that LGBT+ rights are an integral part of human rights, these countries should be ostracised and denied the billions in foreign aid that they receive from the ‘decadent’ West.”

The issue also has feature articles on bisexuality, and the adoption of the lambda sign by gay liberationists in the US in the 1970s.

There is also a review of Humanist Andew Copson’s latest book, Secularism: Politics, Religion and Freedom, and an introduction to St Sukie de la Croix’s humorous fantasy novel, The Blue Spong and the Flight from Mediocrity.

Other items in the latest edition include a report of the export of homophobia to Romania by US hate groups, and a profile of one of Canada’s most hated street preachers, Matthew Carapella.

The current, as well as past issues of the magazine can be downloaded in PDF format from The Pink Humanist website. (www.thepinkhumanist.com)

To download the magazine as a PDF document, click here: go to “Archived Issues” then “Back Issues” and place the cursor on any cover. In the top left corner of the cover you will see “click here to download pdf”.

Additionally, individual articles can be accessed directly from the site’s home page. These contain all relevant hyperlinks.

Raffle to help save The Madeira Terraces

To raise awareness of the plight of The Madeira Terraces, concerned residents of Kemptown have got together via Facebook and organised a Grand Raffle and Auction with the aim of raising £20k towards the ‘Save Madeira Terraces’ fund.

Derek Wright, Jax Atkins and other local residents have led an awareness and clean-up campaign encouraging other residents and businesses alike to support them. This group already organises monthly de-weeding and clean up days to ensure the Terraces are not forgotten or neglected.

It was a natural next step to get the whole community involved with the raffle. Local business have given over 250 prizes so far and are also selling the £1 raffle tickets. The raffle will be drawn at The Cricketers Pub, Black Lion Street on the November 24, from 5pm-8pm. Everyone is welcome to attend.

To see the list of prizes and to buy raffle tickets, join the ‘SAVE MADEIRA TERRACES GRAND RAFFLE & AUCTION’ on Facebook.

Those not using Facebook should lookout for posters in pubs, cafes and bars saying ‘Save Madeira Terrace Raffle Buy Your Raffle Tickets Here’. Some gay owned establishments are also selling them.

Rainbow Chorus Chair to speak at The Village MCC this Sunday

Finola Brophy, Chair of the Rainbow Chorus will be the guest speaker at The Village Metropolitan Community Church on Sunday October 29.

Finola lives in Worthing with her partner of nearly 30 years, Liz, though she spends a lot of time and energy in Brighton committed to improving Brighton and Hove’s LGBT+ voluntary and community sector.

She identifies as many things including; lesbian, Irish, disabled, feminist, activist, socialist, atheist, cancer survivor, partner, mother, granny… and more.

She has a degree and social work qualification, and her goal is to use her skills and experience to help identify unmet needs, to redress the balance, and challenge homo/bi/transphobia.

Finola is currently on the Working To Connect management committee, Older and Out advisory group and is the Chair of The Rainbow Chorus which has doubled in size, become a registered charity and become much more inclusive under her leadership.

She is active in the development of a national and international LGBT+ choral movement and earlier this year received a Golden Handbag Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her services to the LGBT+ communities.

The Village MCC Brighton and Hove is a church created by LGBT+ christians, their families, friends, and allies, a Metropolitan Community Church called to support the LGBT+ communities in whatever ways it can offering a safe space where anyone can feel at home, fully affirmed in their sexuality and gender identity.

Church members are active in the larger community, offering emergency aid and support to the homeless and vulnerably housed.

Their minister, Rev. Michael Hydes, offers spiritual direction and pastoral care. You are welcome to join then for worship every Sunday evening.


Event: Finola Brophy: Guest speaker at The Village Metropolitan Community Church

Where: Somerset Day Centre, 62 St James’s Street, Brighton

When: Sunday, October 29

Time: 6pm

More information click here:

‘Art on the underground’ unveiled at Brixton Tube Station

Art on the Underground unveils artwork by late artist David McDiarmid at Brixton Underground station.

Art on the Underground has teamed up with not-for-profit gallery Studio Voltaire and This is Clapham, to celebrate the work of late Australian artist and activist, David McDiarmid who is well known for his work on issues relating to queer identity and HIV/AIDS.

Rainbow Aphorisms (1993-1995), are a series of short and bold statements set on full rainbow backgrounds which reference McDiarmid’s experience of the AIDS crisis. This is the first major presentation of the artist’s work in the UK.

The vibrant, rainbow coloured artworks, THE FAMILY TREE STOPS HERE DARLING, DON’T FORGET TO REMEMBER and GIRLFRIEND OUR LIFE IS ONE OF LIGHTS AND SHADOWS, will be displayed above the entrance to Brixton Underground station and at stations across London.

David McDiarmid
David McDiarmid

Speaking about his work in 1992, McDiarmid, said: “I wanted to express myself and I wanted to respond to what was going on and I wanted to reach a gay male audience.

“I wanted to express very complex emotions and I didn’t know how to do it … I was in a bit of a dilemma. I thought, well, how can I get across these complex messages. I didn’t think it was simply a matter of saying gay is good.”

Eleanor Pinfield, Head of Art on the Underground, added: “Art on the Underground enriches people’s journeys on the Tube each day with innovative approaches to public art. By partnering with Studio Voltaire on their first public project, we can bring the complex, colourful works of ‘Rainbow Aphorisms’ to a new audience across London, challenging familiar messaging around HIV / AIDS.”

Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture & Creative Industries, said: “I’m delighted that David McDiarmid’s colourful, poignant and powerful works will be displayed across London’s largest art gallery – the London Underground. McDiarmid was a trailblazing gay activist and the Tube network is the perfect way to showcase his messages about living with HIV/AIDS to a wider audience, particularly in the run up to World Aids Day in December.”

Over the course of a year, artworks will also appear on Studio Voltaire’s facade and neighbouring LGBT+ venue Two Brewers, and other temporary locations across Clapham and Brixton.

The project has been mounted with the support and involvement of the David McDiarmid Estate in Sydney.

There will also be a number of public events held – for more information click here:  or here:

FEATURE: Transitioning with Sugar – HIV & Me

Ms Sugar Swan looks at her relationship with HIV as a trans woman.

Ms Sugar Swan
Ms Sugar Swan

I’ve been HIV+ for the majority of my adult life. I was diagnosed in my early 20s shortly after the death of my mother. I didn’t take her death very well and ran away to Europe for three months where I undertook some risky sexual practice as I was in a dark depression. Most traumatically I was gang raped by four men who took it in turns to rape me multiple times which left me not only with mental scars, but physically torn.

On my return to the UK, I was diagnosed with HIV along with three other STIs that were quickly eliminated through modern medicine. Given my experience and the trauma to my anus, my diagnosis was inevitable.

As I approach 40 I can honestly say that HIV in relation to my health isn’t something that I think all that much about, if at all. I’m very lucky that I was diagnosed early before the virus had a chance to damage my immune system and I’ve responded extremely well to HAART. Thanks to religiously regular testing we can pinpoint my diagnosis to the three-month period that I was out of the UK.

Nowadays it’s seen as best practice to get newly diagnosed HIV+ people started on HAART quickly after diagnosis for a few reasons. One being to protect the person’s immune system and another that bringing a HIV+ person down to an undetectable viral load makes them one of the safest people a HIV- person can have sex with, as having an undetectable viral load is statistically a safer way of preventing the spread of HIV than condoms.

Having an undetectable viral load means that HIV cannot be passed by seminal or vaginal fluid. Yes that’s right, I’ll say it again for those who are hard of understanding – having an undetectable viral load means that HIV cannot be passed by seminal or vaginal fluid. Got it? Good. Let’s move on.

Post-diagnosis, in the days when it wasn’t best practice to put people on HAART immediately, I was monitored every six months and never saw a fall in my CD4 count or a climb in my viral load.

I was one of the lucky ones that coexisted with HIV without it bringing secondary infections to my body. When a new medical trial came out, although I wasn’t seen as needing HAART at the time, I was asked if I’d be prepared to take part in the trial of a new drug regime.

Being the kind of person that I am, and thinking of my mother’s death and the people before her who trailed the cancer treatments that afforded her some extra years, I thought that if I tried something experimental it could help those in the future. I signed up to the trial without hesitation.

Some 10 years later and I’m happy to report that after the initial two-year trial I’m still on that same combination of drugs and I’ve been undetectable since I started. I’ve a super high CD4 count of over 1,000 (greater than many a HIV- person). It warms my heart when a newly diagnosed person turns to me for support around medication and its side effects and I ask what combination of HAART they’ve been recommended and they report it’s the same regime that I was a guinea pig for, that works so well for me and that I still adhere to.

I’ve a very healthy immune system and HIV hasn’t held me back from doing anything. From a medical point of view I’m one of the HIV success stories. Unfortunately from a social point of view, especially as a trans woman, the same cannot be said.

Pre-transition, living in Brighton, and being viewed as an MSM (men that have sex with men), I found living with HIV pretty easy. There was very little stigma. MSM in Brighton are pretty clued up about HIV in my experience and disclosure of one’s status, whilst sometimes leading to sexual rejection, was fairly simple.

There’s a large community of MSM with HIV in Brighton and finding people to talk to, confide in, make friendships, have intimacy and relationships with, was pretty straight forward. There’s always been a huge push on education around HIV within the MSM community which I’ve been part of while working in THT’s Ship Street offices for many years seeing clients one to one to help them navigate the world.

It’s impossible to go for a drink in a gay venue without being educated with posters everywhere and free condoms and lube. There’s a lot of education on PeP and PrEP and freely available information on support groups and networks. The message is loud and clear, it’s getting through and that’s great. Living as an out and proud positive MSM was achievable.

However, things haven’t been the same since transition. I’ve felt like I’ve been forced back into the HIV closet and that’s somewhere I stayed in early transition. Living as a trans woman, in my opinion, carries a lot more stigma than living as a HIV+ MSM.

Living as a trans woman with HIV feels like you may as well just give up! Awareness is next to non-existent. Dating is a whole new minefield and people are completely shocked that I’m positive. Sexual rejection rates are much higher, which leaves me asking why?

I believe the answer is education. Sexual health awareness isn’t as highly publicised in other communities as within MSM. This means I’m left to educate people myself and after giving them trans 101, giving them STI and HIV 101, that is, to those who hang round long enough to listen, I’m spent.

I realised that there was a huge gap in education which led me to think that the sexual health needs of HIV+ trans women were not being met. This in turn lead me to Professor Rusi Jaspal who is working on The EXTRA Study (EXperiences of TRAns women living with HIV) and it’s the first UK study to explore HIV+ trans women’s experiences of living with HIV.

I was interviewed by Prof Jaspal for this study and he’s working to address the gap in knowledge around HIV in trans communities. Global studies suggest that trans women are at higher risk of HIV infection than other groups in society (up to 49% more likely); however, there’s no UK data at present.

It’s suspected that stigma around both HIV and being trans and worries of interactions between HAART and HRT, are keeping trans women away from coming forward and being tested.

I felt honoured to have taken part in this most valuable ongoing research. Having been a service user of the Claude Nicol Centre and Lawson Unit since 2002, it wasn’t long into transition that I was made aware of ClinicT.

ClinicT, a sexual health service for trans people, is run by Dr Kate Nambiar, Clinical Research Fellow & Speciality Doctor in Sexual Health and HIV Medicine. I find ClinicT a great resource – for me it’s a one stop shop where I can have my HIV and HRT blood levels checked at the same time as having a sexual health screen.

I asked Dr Nambiar about the service offered at ClinicT and she told me; “I was really glad to be able to start ClinicT. From a personal point of view, as a trans woman, I had spent a lot of my life running away and hiding from being trans. I think it was a personal revelation to be in a position where I could give something back and use not just my knowledge as a doctor but also my experience living as a trans woman.” 

Dr Nambiar’s words resonate with me as running and hiding from being trans and now being in a position to give back, using my experience as a trans woman, is something that we both put into our work.

It’s my hope that by coming forward, outing myself so publicly and speaking of my experiences as a trans woman living with HIV, that I’ll bring other trans positive people out to talk about this, to take part in Prof Jaspal’s study, to go to ClinicT to get screened and ask for the help they need to navigate both sexual health and trans specific healthcare services. Failing that, just contact me and we can go for a cup of tea and share our experiences.

I look forward to seeing you at the WAD vigil at the AIDS Memorial on New Steine, Friday Dec 1 at 6pm!

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