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  • COLUMN | Why a transgender woman wants to be MP

    Why the time is right for me to stand for parliament.

    Sophie Cook and labour supporters

    In the 1980s at the height of the Cold War, I was stationed in West Germany with an RAF Tornado squadron.

    Suffering from Post Traumatic Stress having saved the life of a colleague following an explosion, I was filled with an acute sense of injustice at the way the world operated.

    This was Thatcher’s Britain, the miner’s strike, rioting on the streets, section 28 and a war in Northern Ireland.

    I would lose myself in political books trying to discover a more caring model of society, one in which people were treated with respect no matter who they were.

    I already knew that I was transgender, even if I didn’t have a name for it at that point. I know that there was something about my identity that just didn’t feel right.

    The mental anguish of my gender dysphoria coupled with the post-traumatic stress led to depression, and then self-harming and suicide attempts.

    As I became more aware of what my trans identity meant I realised that any political ambitions that I might have had, were out of the question, with politicians being outed for their sexuality what chance did a bisexual transgender person have.

    Even when I came out in 2015 I was still terrified that by being true to myself that I would lose everything, my career in football, my family and most of all, my children.

    By being true to myself I’ve lost a lot, my entire family turned their backs on me at the very moment that I needed them most, but my children have been amazing and I regularly see my two youngest kids.

    When I came out I faced a choice, to either hide or to stand up and try to make a difference.

    I began speaking about my journey and very soon found myself speaking at venues like Wembley Stadium and the TUC.

    My story moved people, not because it was unusual but because it included universal messages of fear, loss and redemption.

    I was offered a job in television and I saw this as an opportunity to continue the work that I’d done years before with my newspaper, to educate and inspire people to change the world around them.

    In 2016 I was approached to stand for local political office but was barred from this opportunity unless I gave up the TV work and so, reluctantly, I had to decline.

    And then Theresa May called a snap general election, the plans that I’d had to potentially stand in 2020 were thrown into overdrive and I declared an interest in becoming a candidate.

    The country needs a change, years of austerity have left whole communities desperate and lost.

    I’ve been out on the streets of Brighton, speaking to voters and they feel isolated and unrepresented by the Tory government.

    The reception to me, as a trans woman, has been positive with many declaring that it’s time for greater diversity in parliament.

    The time is right, the time is now and we must all work together to achieve a more caring, more diverse society where everyone can live free from fear and where no one suffers from prejudice regardless of their gender, sexuality, gender identity, race, religion, disability or wealth.

    And that is why I am standing to be a Labour Party candidate.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • What does being gay mean to you?

    We’re asking our readers what being gay means to them.


    We want to hear the good the bad and the ugly of being gay in 2017 Britain.

    Maybe your sexuality was the best thing you ever realised about yourself?

    Maybe it took you a long time to accept?

    Did you know from a really young age?

    What did you feel when you came out to your first person?

    Use the form below to let us know. We’ll publish the best responses later in 2017.

  • Gay Britannia to rule the airwaves as BBC announces a raft of LGBT programming

    The BBC have announced that they are to broadcast a season of programming to mark the 50 years since homosexuality was partially decriminalised in the UK.

    CREDIT: BBC

    Led by programming on BBC Two and Four, with other content across BBC radio and online, the Gay Britannia season will feature bold and provocative stories, celebrating the LGBTQ community as well as challenging existing preconceptions and prejudices. The season will also cast a fresh light on the history of gay Britain, as well as highlighting just what it means to be gay in Britain today. Contributors announced today include Andrew Scott, Val McDermid, Olly Alexander, Sandi Toksvig, Susan Calman, Stephen K Amos, and Simon Callow.

    On BBC Two, the season ranges from the compelling dramas Against the Law, starring Daniel Mays as journalist Peter Wildeblood who was found guilty of homosexuality in the 1950s in the explosive Montagu Trial and the first screen drama from best-selling British novelist Patrick Gale: Man in an Orange Shirt starring Vanessa Redgrave to important and timely documentaries such as Is It Safe to be Gay in the UK? which uses testimony and found footage to explore the rise of attacks on lesbian, gay and transgender people.

    What Gay Did for Art celebrates the contribution lesbian and gay people have made to popular culture, the visual arts, literature, theatre and film on BBC Two whilst Prejudice and Pride: The People’s History of LGBTQ Britain, presented by Susan Calman and Stephen K Amos on BBC Four, reveals the precious mementos and memorabilia that have the changed the lives of LGBTQ people over the last 50 years. Also on BBC Four, Gluck charts the modern British history of female homosexuality and its representation in culture, literature, fashion and art through the untold story of the celebrated artist Gluck who defied the gender and sexuality definitions of her time; and Mark Gatiss offers his and other writers’ responses to the 50th anniversary of The Sexual Offences Act in Queers.

    On BBC Three, Olly Alexander, lead singer of Years and Years and a powerful voice on LGBTQ rights, explores why the gay community is more vulnerable to mental health issues, as he opens up about his own long-term battles with depression in Olly Alexander: Growing Up Gay.

    Highlights on BBC Radio include Val McDermid presenting Queer Britain on Radio 4, exploring the many ways that the LGBTQ community was accepted, tolerated, despised and ostracised and how this was reflected across culture, society and politics. On Radio 2, a two-part series will celebrate out and proud LGBTQ performers who utilised their sexuality to push boundaries, defining the sound of their generation. On Radio 3, the drama Victim will trace the bravery behind the 1961 film of the same name that was the first English language film to use the word ‘homosexual’.

    Patrick Holland, BBC Two Channel Controller, says

    “This is a rich and compelling set of programmes that challenge us all. From the heart-breaking testimony of the men who lived through the years before partial decriminalisation in Against the Law and Patrick Gale’s intensely personal Man in an Orange Shirt to a documentary revealing the experience of people facing discrimination in the UK today, this season is a powerful examination of how far we have come whilst also exploring how much further we have to travel.”

  • RADIO | Crimes Of Passion, BBC Radio 3

    Crimes Of Passion

    Broadcaster: BBC Radio 3

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    Crimes of Passion, a double-bill of Joe Orton plays (The Erpingham Camp and The Ruffian on the Stair) will be recorded in front of an audience in the Radio Theatre to mark the 50th anniversary of Orton’s death.

  • RADIO | Victim, BBC Radio 3

    Victim

    Broadcaster: BBC Radio 3

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    Victim traces the bravery and pragmatism behind the development of the eponymous 1961 British film, which was the first to seriously address homosexuality. The film was written by a woman (Janet Green), made by refugees from Ealing Studios and starred matinee idol Dirk Bogarde in the gamble of his career. It is often credited with helping to break the taboo and change public attitudes to the law.

  • RADIO | Coming Out From The Shadows, BBC Radio 4

    Coming Out From The Shadows

    Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    On the 50th Anniversary of the groundbreaking 1967 Sexual Offences Act, the campaigner Peter Tatchell takes a sceptical look at its impact on Britain’s gay communities.  Although it was a major staging post in the long and tortuous fight for the decriminalisation of male homosexual behaviour in Britain, Peter will show that in the years immediately were far from friendly towards homosexuality: for example, convictions of men for same-sex offences increased dramatically. Peter will go on to examine discrimination against homosexuals in areas such as employment and housing in the 1970s, and he revisits the fierce battles in the 1990s for the reduction of the age of consent for homosexuals from 21 to 16.

    Drawing on extensive archive from the last fifty years, Peter will chronicle the continuing struggle for equal rights for Britain’s LGBTQ communities – a story that takes us right up to 2017.

  • RADIO | Queer Britain, BBC Radio 4

    Queer Britain

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    Val McDermid presents the story of British homosexuality running up to the landmark Sexual Offences Act of 1967.  Using ground-breaking work from a new wave of young historians, this series brings a new perspective to the history of homosexuality, exploring the many ways that the LGBTQ community was accepted, tolerated, despised and ostracised, and how this was reflected across culture, society and politics.

  • RADIO | Queer Icons, BBC Radio 4

    BBC Radio Four presents: Queer Icons

    Broadcast date: TBC

    Front Row is marking the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation with a landmark project, Queer Icons. 50 leading figures will choose an LGBTQ artwork that is special to them.  

    From the ancient Greek poetry of Sappho to the Oscar-winning film Moonlight, from the music of George Michael to the plays of Oscar Wilde, they will explore the works of art throughout history that have expressed what it is to be gay or queer. 

    These short pieces will be broadcast on Front Row and on other Radio 4 programmes in July, and will be collected together online.

  • TV | Storyville – Queerama, BBC 4

    Storyville – Queerama

    Programme Length: 70 mins

    Broadcaster: BBC 4

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    A BBC Storyville BFI archive film about a century of gay rights, desires and history with a soundtrack by John Grant and collaborators.

  • TV | Queers, BBC 4

    Queers

    Programme Length: 15 mins x8

    Broadcaster: BBC 4

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    Eight new and established writers respond to the 50th anniversary of The Sexual Offences Act in Queers, a series of monologues curated by Mark Gatiss.

    Focussing chiefly on the gay male experience, the monologues begin in 1917 with ‘The Man on the Platform’ – the story of a soldier returning from the trenches of the First World War and reflecting on both his attraction to another man and a very particular childhood memory. Other stories include Jackie Clune’s ‘A Perfect Gentleman’ in which we meet Bobby, a dandy with a very unexpected secret and Brian Fillis’ More Anger’ which examines the journey of a young gay actor in the 1980s.

    Taking in 1957’s Wolfenden Report, the HIV crisis and the 1967 Sexual Offences Act itself, these 15 minute monologues will mark and celebrate some of the most poignant, funny, entertaining, tragic and riotous moments before and after the ’67 Act and the very personal rites-of-passage of British gay men through the last 100 years.

    Queers is being produced in partnership with The Old Vic who will stage all eight of the monologues in July, in the run up to the television transmission.

  • TV | Gluck, BBC 4

    Gluck

    Programme Length: 60 mins

    Broadcaster: BBC Four

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    British artist Gluck (Hannah Gluckstein) was a well-known painter of the 1930s who painted aristocrats, judges, socialites and flower arrangements. The British establishment, including the Royal Family, flocked to her shows. What is perhaps surprising for the time is that Gluck also dressed as a man, had numerous female lovers and called her exhibitions ‘one man shows’. So what did 1930s upper-class society make of Gluck? This film tells the untold story of a celebrated artist who defied the gender and sexuality definitions of her time.

    From the use of the word ‘invert’ in Hall’s infamous book The Well of Loneliness to the word ‘sapphist’ used by upper-class bohemians in the 1930s, female homosexuality wasn’t clearly defined in Gluck’s time – the word ‘lesbian’ not yet widely used. As well as Gluck’s personal story, this film explores the modern British history of female homosexuality and its representation in culture, literature, fashion and art – from fashion glamorising of an androgynous look to Gluck’s most iconic painting Medallion, a double portrait of herself and her lover Nesta Obermer, which Gluck called her  ‘marriage portrait’.

    With exclusive access to part of the Gluck archive, the film will include interviews with Gluck’s relatives, official biographer Diana Souhami and leading experts in fashion, art and sexual politics alongside Gluck admirers including Sandi Toksvig.

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