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Brighton & Hove Green Party to host fundraising Quiz for BMECP

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Brighton & Hove Green Party will be hosting a quiz over Zoom on Wednesday, July 1 at 7.30pm with 50% of the money raised going to the Black and Minority Ethnic Community Partnership (BMECP), who are collecting for a food bank that operates primarily on behalf of the BAME community in the city

Brighton & Hove Green Party say: ‘Preparations for the third instalment of our Zoom pub quiz series are underway! Will we be asking about powerful women throughout history? About intricacies of the colour green? About what Caroline got up to as a youngster? There’s only one way to find out…’

Every ticket is the same, giving one person entrance to the quiz, but you can choose what to pay between £1 and £20.

To buy a ticket, click here

For more info on BMECP

Dine with the Stars raise £850 for the Brighton Rainbow Fund

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Dine with the Stars brought glitz and glamour to living rooms last night, raising £850 for the Brighton Rainbow Fund in the process.

Organised by the Brighton & Hove Community Safety Forum and hosted by Davina Sparkle, the glittering online event featured some of the scene’s brightest cabaret stars, including: Miss Jason, Kara Van Park, Gabriella Parrish, Jason Lee, Dave Lynn, Stephanie Von Clitz, Suspiciously Elvis, Mrs Moore, Alfie Ordinary, Jamie Heward, Jennie Castell and Sandra.

Chris Gull, Chair of the Brighton Rainbow Fund, said: ‘Wow! That turned out to be an epic evening, full of outstanding sessions from more than a dozen of our uber-talented local performers who, let’s be honest, must be having a tough time at the moment with closed venues, cancelled gigs, and no certainty of when things will be getting back to “normal” for them. 

‘Despite that, as always, they all agreed without hesitation to be involved in this fundraiser, raising vital funds for the local LGBTQ+ and HIV projects which the Brighton Rainbow Fund support through our grant programmes. Thank you to them, and to the audience who donated so generously.’

The Brighton Rainbow Fund who give grants to local LGBTQ+/HIV groups who deliver effective frontline services to LGBTQ+ people in the city. More info, visit their website: 

The Brighton & Hove LGBT Community Safety Forum works with the LGBTQ+ community to address and improve safety and access issues throughout Brighton & Hove.

More info, visit their website: 

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City Council: £130,000 agreed for youth projects

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Grants from Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC) worth a total of £130,000 have been agreed for 32 youth projects in Brighton & Hove after nearly £200,000 of funding was requested from local organisations following a call out in April.

BHCC’s original intention was to distribute half the funding now, and to invite bids for the rest later in the year. However, due to the high level of quality applications, BHCC has decided to allocate all the funding in this round of bidding meaning there will now not be a second round of funding in the autumn.

This is also in recognition of the impact of Covid-19 and the need to direct funds as quickly as possible to youth services in the city.

The bids were evaluated by a panel of young people representing a range of youth projects in the city. The young people chose to back projects focused on supporting young people with special educational needs, and those from the BAME and LGBTQ+ communities.

Panel member Sophie said: ‘It was wonderful to see how many different projects were happening locally, with many offering support to those most in financial, emotional, or educational need.’

Many of the projects reach out to disadvantaged young people, concentrating on improving mental health. This includes helping young people recover from the impact of Covid-19.

Cllr John Allcock, chair of BHCC’s Children, Young People and Skills Committee, said: ‘We were delighted to get so many high-quality bids from so many excellent projects.

‘Our young people have worked really hard to evaluate all the applications. They spent a lot of time discussing the merits of each one, to enable them to decide who will receive funding.

‘The 32 projects they have selected will be of great benefit to young people in the city.

‘I’d like to thank all the young people who have been involved for all the hard work and expertise they have put in.’

City Council respond to Reading Attack

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Cllr Nancy Platts, Leader of Brighton & Hove City Council and Leader of the Labour Group, Cllr Phélim MacCafferty, Convenor of the Green Group, and Cllr Steve Bell, Leader of the Conservative Group, have released a joint statement in response to the murders of James Furlong, David Wails and Joe Ritchie-Bennett in Reading on Saturday, June 20.

Statement:

Brighton & Hove City Council’s thoughts and prayers are with the families of the three people who lost their lives, and for those who remain seriously injured following a terror attack in a Reading park on Saturday 20 June.

The last few months have been hard for everyone. Covid-19 restrictions have prevented us from being outside and meeting with family and friends. The shocking attack on innocent people – many of whom were probably enjoying being in a beautiful open space in good weather for the first time in many months – is heart-breaking.

We say thank you to the emergency services who acted so swiftly to prevent further harm and to members of the public who did all they could to help.  This must have been terrifying incident to witness and be part of. Our thoughts are with you too.

It has been confirmed that all three victims were members of the LGBTQ+ community.

We stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community of Reading who have lost their friends in this appalling attack and acknowledge the concerns this has caused to the LGBTQ+ community in our city and elsewhere.

Brighton & Hove has a strong tradition, built up over decades, of offering a home to people seeking sanctuary and we have officially been a City of Sanctuary for five years. This means everyone that comes here is welcome and supported so that they can contribute to the diverse life of the city.

We must foster a society where all lives are lived openly, authentically and free from prejudice or fear of being targeted. A society where we respect and accept the beliefs and faiths of our communities and work to help and support them on an everyday basis.

We will come together and oppose all forms of prejudices, hate, extremism and terrorism, wherever it takes place, whatever form it takes and whoever is targeted.

We stand together strong – united in compassion with all communities in the city.

The attack in Forbury Gardens was captured on mobile phones. Out of respect for those deceased and injured, along with their loved ones, please do not circulate this footage on social media – this will be incredibly distressing.

Reporting hate incidents

One Voice members urge everyone to be aware and are encouraging residents and communities to report any homo, bi or transphobic, racist, religiously motivated or other hate incidents within our communities.

Organisations can also use the Counter Terrorism Police’s online training package ‘ACT Awareness eLearning’ for advice on Protective Security and how to respond

Please report hate incidents on the Safe in the City website 

You can also get information on the Safe in the City website about preventing terrorism and extremism

Tel Aviv to celebrate Pride Month 2020

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Tel Aviv Pride Month takes place every year in June, with a surge of gay-friendly events taking place across the city. This year however, in light of the coronavirus pandemic, the four largest pride parades in Israel – Haifa, Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva and Tel Aviv – jointly decided to postpone their prospective parades, hoping they will be able to take place later in the summer of 2020.

Pride Month, June 2020, will still be marked in Tel Aviv via virtual and alternative celebrations and the whole city is already filled with Pride flags:

Queer Artists And Drag Queens City Takeover on Thursday, June 25, all day

Celebrate the many colours of Tel Aviv with over 100 drag queens and queer artists taking over the city’s streets in honour of Pride Month. Throughout the day, live shows will surprise passersby in central locations around the city, including open spaces, restaurants, local businesses and rooftops.

Pride Month Virtual Tour on Thursday, June 25 at 8pm
Zoom Link

Tel Aviv is going viral for Pride Month with a virtual tour through some of the city’s queerest landmarks. Explore the city’s queer history and culture, engage with local divas and discuss some of the open questions around LGBTQ+ life in Tel Aviv.

In addition, the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality announced on Sunday that unmarried couples, including same-sex couples will be registered as family units, which will make bureaucratic processes at the municipality, such as the enrolment of children in the city’s educational institutions, easier.

Ron Huldai, Mayor of Tel Aviv, said: ‘Even if we cannot hold the traditional Pride Parade this year, we will mark Pride Month with alternative events.

‘Tel Aviv, which has already been acknowledged as the world’s most gay-friendly city will continue to be a lighthouse city – spreading the values of freedom, tolerance and democracy to the world.’

Etai Pinkas-Arad, A City Council Member in charge of the LGBTQ+ Portfolio: ‘By recognising unmarried same-sex couples as a family unit, The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality clearly states that equality is a basic right. The community’s long road to equality continues – pride and love will prevail.’

Tel Aviv’s Pride Parade is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading LGBTQ+ events, attracting thousands of visitors from around the globe. Last year’s parade attracted over 250,000 people from around the world and Tel Aviv was voted by Logo TV as the Best International City for Pride and by the Independent as one of the Best Holiday Destinations for LGBT Travellers.

Stay up to date on Tel Aviv and additional Pride events here: 

Trans Pride Brighton Online seek acts for their live-stream Main Stage

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Would you like to perform on the live-stream main stage at Trans Pride Brighton 2020?

Since Covid-19 is preventing Trans Pride Brighton from having a gathering this year, Trans Pride Brighton Online on Saturday, July 18 from 1pm will be a day dedicated to the empowerment of all trans, intersex and gender variant people.

The organisers are very open minded about performances, so whether you want to sing a song from your bedroom or share a pre-recorded video you have made, get in touch!

Requirements for Main Stage:

1. You can either live-stream your performance using your preferred streaming platform or send a pre-recording.

2. For poetry and spoken word, your work should be a celebration of trans and gender identity.

3. The main stage live-stream has to be family friendly and therefore adaptations will be required. (i.e. no swearing, discussion of adult themes and nudity.)

4. Local and international trans/non-binary/intersex people will be given an opportunity to participate with trans, non-binary/intersex BAME people (black, Asian, and minority ethnic) along with disabled people will be given a higher preference.

5. Cisgender (i.e. non-trans) artists are welcome to participate but only in partnership with trans, non-binary and intersex members.

6. You will be required to send all lyrics and poems in a word or PDF format, so Trans Pride can give it to their British Sign Language Interpreters.

If you would like to apply, please send the following to info@transpridebrighton.org by midnight on Tuesday, June 30:

1. A brief description of your act.

2. How many people are in your act and their pronouns.

3. Whether you are live-streaming your performance of sending in a pre-recorded video.

4. Conformation that you identify as trans, non-binary or gender variant.

Stage Rules: 

In order to make the event a safe space, for everyone to feel included and for the day to run smoothly, please note the following rules:

Please respect everyone’s pronouns and identities. If unsure check with the person first or use gender neutral pronouns (they/them).

Please respect people from minority groups, any racism and bigotry will be severely dealt with.

No cultural appropriation will be tolerated, this includes white people with dreadlocks, yellow face, blackface, wearing of other cultures’ traditional dress etc.

Please make sure that you are aware of your time slot. If you aren’t sure, contact a stage manager who will be able to confirm your slot.

No playing over your allocated time limit, your sound will be cut at the end time. This is to ensure that the next performers are not jeopardised by late running.

Please make sure that you are not intoxicated. Anyone who is deemed intoxicated will be removed from the livestream.

And lastly, enjoy yourselves!

For more info on Trans Pride Brighton, visit their website here. or follow them on Facebook @TransPrideBrighton

Galop responds to government plans on trans legislation

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Galop, the UK’s LGBTQ+ anti-violence charity, has responded to Government plans to scrap reforms of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), which would have enabled trans people to change their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis. The response is:

‘The Government’s alleged plans outlined in a recent Sunday Times article to abandon planned reform of laws protecting trans people and to actively legislate against trans women are deeply concerning to us.

‘All women deserve safety and dignity, whether they are trans or cisgender and whatever their sexuality. Women-only services are specialist spaces for and by women, with an increasing number having a positive history of working with trans women. Galop supports safe and inclusive services for all women.

‘Galop’s daily experience of supporting LGBTQ+ people facing violence and abuse leads us to be deeply apprehensive about the impact of these plans on our clients.

‘Trans women, and particularly black trans women, can face extremely high levels of violence and we are keen that government action should not excuse or legitimise the climate of hostility growing toward trans people in the UK.

‘Trans people are at particularly high risk of experiencing domestic abuse and sexual violence; with access to specialist services being essential to their safety and recovery.

‘Transphobic hate crime has also been rising year on year, with reports showing trans women to be at particular risk. The most recent set of Government data showed a concerning 25% increase in hate crime towards trans people, which was disproportionate to the overall 10% rise in hate crime. We foresee that these plans will lead to a greater increase in hate toward trans people by further legitimising the false belief that trans women pose a threat.

‘That these plans have been reported during Pride month and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement shows disregard for the fact that black, Asian, minority ethnic and refugee trans people, particularly black trans women, already experience shockingly high levels of violence.

‘We are concerned that these plans, if true, will not only negatively impact on trans women who experience violence or abuse, but also gender non-conforming cisgender women’s access to services and public toilets. There is no safe and dignified way to police the anatomy of someone accessing a service.

‘Galop welcomes the reported plan to ban gay ‘cures’, however the absence of an equivalent ban on trans ‘cures’ is unacceptable.  There is robust evidence that so-called ‘conversion therapy’ is actively harmful, whether it is targeted at sexuality or gender identity. There is no reason trans people should be left out of protections against this abusive practice.’

More info on Galop.

Brighton’s rough sleepers offered HIV and hepatitis screening

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Some 200 people sleeping rough in three hotels in Brighton due to the coronavirus pandemic are being offered hepatitis and HIV tests.

Brighton charity the Martin Fisher Foundation set up the screening programme, which started on Monday, June 22, in partnership with the not-for-profit organisation EmERGE M-Health, saying it had created a “once-in-a-lifetime chance to reach out to this hard-to-find group”.

Finger-prick tests are being offered to homeless people living in the Britannia, the King’s and the Brighton hotels and participants are being given a £5 food voucher for their time.

Outreach workers from Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust and the Terrence Higgins Trust are working with support workers from homeless charity St Mungo’s to provide the tests.

The MFF said dried blood spot sampling (DBS) was the “preferred testing method” and gave “highly accurate” results, adding that the HIV virus could now be controlled and not passed on with the help of just one tablet a day.

It added that hepatitis C was now “completely curable” with one tablet a day for up to 12 weeks.

Dr Jaime Vera, consultant HIV physician at Brighton and Sussex University Hospital, called the screening programme a “unique opportunity to engage with a group that struggle to access testing for infections in traditional healthcare facilities”.

Reading Terrorist Attack: LGBTQ+ Community Mourns

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The third victim of the Reading knife attacks has been named locally as David Wails, a scientist and LGBTQ+ community supporter. Michael Main, a friend, described David as person who “always made people smile. We had a lot of banter, it’s sad to know he’s gone so early.”

James Furlong, a local teacher of history and his friend Joe Ritchie-Bennett, who worked for a Dutch pharmaceutical company, have also died. Messages on an online condolence book said that David “was an incredibly accepting man. He was open about his sexuality as a gay man and made it ok for more of us to be as well. He will be dearly missed.” Joe, am American who had lived in the UK for 15 years was a widower whose husband had died previously from cancer. “I`m happy for them that they`re back together “ a friend told the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

The Reading Chronicle has online books of condolences opened for each of the men:

Tributes to Joe Ritchie-Bennett

Tributes to David Wails

Tributes to James Furlong

A statement from Reading Pride CEO Martin Copper said “It is with deep sadness that I write this. Friends of Reading Pride have been taken too soon due to the actions of an individual. The individuals taken were personal friends of mine. They were supporters of Reading as a community and of Reading Pride. James, Joe, and David were true gentlemen. Each with their own unique personality. They were regulars of the Blagrave, a community pub, whose regulars will be in mourning.They were a support network for individuals, and I know they will be sorely missed by many.We will come together as a community. We will work with local authorities as well as with the families and friends of the victims. We will work to make things better and assist if there is any shortfall in any aspect of this atrocity. Love Unites, and we must rally together as a community. We must be there for each other.”

A minutes silence was held outside the Blagrave Arms. Ahead of the silence a friend of the victims, Jamie Wake, told reporters “The LGBT+ community and our allies, here in Reading, are close family, and we’re stood here outside the Blagrave, a place we call home, and a safe space for so many members of our community. A place that today we have all been drawn to as we unite together, to mourn as one.”

 

Stonewall said “Our thoughts are with those affected by the attack in Reading on Saturday. It’s heartbreaking to hear two of the victims were LGBT. But we can’t let Islamophobic, racist and xenophobic rhetoric be used to divide us. We must stand together to make progress.”

The brutal, unprovoked stabbings which left three people dead and a further three wounded took place in the town`s Forbury Gardens on Saturday evening. A man was apprehended  on Saturday and initially arrested on suspicion of murder. He was later detained under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The Police have stated that they are not looking for anyone else in relation to the incident.

The statement from Reading Pride:

 

Ponyboi: Award winning film starring out intersex artist

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Not to be missed short films by Forbes

‘Ponyboi’ is the world’s first narrative film to be created by and starring out intersex artist in cinema history. The film was run at 40 film festivals, including Tribeca Film Festival and won Grand Jury Prize of Best Short Film.

Directed by GLAAD award winning filmmaker, actor and intersex activist River Gallo & Caribean-American filmmaker Sadé Clacken Joseph.

It was executive produced by British actors Stephen Fry, Academy Award-winning actress Emma Thompson and intersex executive producer Seven Graham.

Ponyboi is streaming live now here:  on Omeleto TV  a youtube channel where you can watch the best short films live. You can check out the award winning Omeleto’s other offerings here:

“As an intersex activist, I made Ponyboi out of a desire to empower people. I wanted to empower. I wanted portray a beautiful intersex character, so that for the first time audiences would see themselves in our struggles and triumphs. I now believe more than ever stories from artists of colour and the LGBTQIA+ community are vital to our culture.”

In 2019 Gallo received the ‘Rising Star Award’ at the GLAAD Media Awards. They were named one of the “Most Exciting Queer People to Follow” by Out Magazine, and made PAPER Magazine’s list of “100 People Taking Over 2019.” They were also the cover star of 2019 Fall/Winter issue UK ​HUNGER Magazine ​shot by RANKIN. Gallo, along with Joseph, are both CEOs and co-founders of ​Gaptoof Entertainment​, a multi-media production house in Los Angeles, which focuses on intersectionality and creating inclusive spaces for POC, LGBTQIA+, and womnxn narratives.

Later this month, Gallo will co-star in “Love, Victor” on Hulu, a spinoff of the film “Love, Simon”

Instagram @rivergallo

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