Ï㽶ÊÓƵ

Celebrating LGBT+ month

Celebrating LGBT+ month

February is LGBT+ History Month, an opportunity to reflect on LGBT history locally, nationally and internationally. This year’s theme is “Poetry, Prose and Plays” and we are shining the spotlight on five key historical figures.

Keep up to date with activities via our staff and student channels.



Anne Lister

Anne Lister (1791-1840)

"I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any love but theirs"

Lesbian

Anne Lister was an English landowner and diarist from Halifax, West Yorkshire. She lived in and inherited the deeds of Shibden Hall, where she lived with her partner Ann Walker. She wrote certain parts of her diary in code - the parts where she discussed her relationships with other women. These passages were decoded by Helena Whitbread in the 1980s and a BBC series about her life titled was released in 2019.


Alok Vaid-Menon

Alok Vaid-Menon (1991-)

"We have been taught to fear the very things that have the potential to set us free"

Transfeminine, they/them

Alok is an American performance artist, poet and activist. They have received the prestigious Live Works Performance Act Award and released their inaugural poetry chapbook (2017). As well as making several TV appearances, Alok has created a gender-neutral fashion line and modelled at New York fashion week. They are best known for opening dialogues about shame, trauma and violence against trans and gender non-conforming people of colour.

Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter (1844-1929)

"Let your mind be quiet realising the beauty of the world and the immense boundless treasures that it holds"

Gay

Edward Carpenter was a socialist activist in Sheffield from the 1880s. He was also a gay man, living with his partner George Merrill. This was daring and uncommon – Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trial created a climate of hysteria around homosexuality. Carpenter nonetheless tackled the subject in both the influential ‘The Intermediate Sex’ (1908) and ‘Homogenic Love’ (1894).

Audre Lord

Audre Lorde (1934-1992)

"There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives"

Lesbian

Audre Lorde was an American writer, feminist and civil rights activist. Audre is known for campaigning for an intersectional approach to feminism and expressing her identity as a black woman throughout her poetry. Her work considers how what we say is ‘coloured’ and in ‘From a Land Where Other People Live’ (1973), Lorde lays bare the racism and classism of the feminist movement in just four sharp sentences.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

"But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure."

Bisexual

Shakespeare would’ve been unlikely to identify as homosexual or bisexual, as these words were not yet part of the lexicon. However, male pronouns, as well as gender-based and homoerotic themes are found throughout his work – particularly . Shakespeare may have been married to a woman, but his work suggests a more ambiguous sexuality.