A couple of things I want to talk about in the Queer space.
Tomorrow sees us usher in February - LGBT History Month. I'm hoping that this year I actually get to some of the Manchester events. There are a couple of interesting looking events going on - I'm particularly interested in That's Gay? towards the end of the month. If any of you are anywhere near Bletchley Park (Milton Keynes) then I recommend visiting it for Alan Turing Day on 28th February. In fact I urge anyone and everyone to visit Bletchley Park generally.
I'll also be reading Foucault's History of Sexuality... just as soon as I've finished Discipline and Punish and my OU Cousework and in between the weekly gigs I have lined up. Oh, and the Social Attitudes survey which was published recently.
On the subject of social attitudes, I happened to catch a confused.com testimonials advert the other day. Normally these adverts (and their previous campaign) are bloody irritating things. This one though, I happened to spot what looked like a gay couple appearing completely normal. Not the butt of any jokes. No big deal made. The title on YouTube is even more positive: "Family Testimonial - Multi Product". The two guys weren't friends, they were family. We've moved from "pretended family relationships" to actual families. And now I've done being all positive, normal service shall resume: Still only seen it the once on telly though...
I do want to talk about Julie Bindel appearing at a London-based panel discussion thing: Queer Question Time. But you know what, I can't be arsed. You know I think Julie Bindel is transphobic and man hating. Her brand of feminism is the sort which unfairly causes a backlash against all feminism. Quite rightly, people went down to protest at her inclusion. This is good. This is democracy, this is debate.
As someone who has spent a couple of days in the past week supporting ORG events around the Digitial Economy Bill in part because they were happening outside of London, Chris Ashford's perspective on his Law and Sexuality blog was very refreshing: this event was very London based. Very "parochial". Let's stop having London speak for all of us.
Alex
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