LGBTQ+ History Month Festival 2025
Celebrate and discover LGBTQ+ lives from the past!
OutStories Bristol present a day of fascinating talks featuring stories of LGBTQ+ people in the Bristol region over the last 100+ years.
Programme
10.45am – 11.00am Welcome – Andrew Foyle, Outstories Bristol
11am – 11.40am Charley Wilson: Victorian gender rebel and the changing face of media – Lori Wylot.
11.40am – 11.50am Blast from the Past! Announcement of a new project
11.50am – 12.30pm A Crown of Friendship – Fabian Strachan Woodley – Jonathan Rowe
12.30pm – 1.30pm Lunch break
1.30pm – 2.10pm LGBTQ+ resources at Bristol Archives – Lucy Bonner and Alec Temple
2.20pm – 3pm What is she wearing? 20th century lesbian dress in the press – Kim Renfrew
3pm – 3.10pm Blast from the Past! Announcement of a new project
3.10pm – 3.50pm Bristol Switchboard – 50 Years On – Andrew Foyle.
3.50pm – 4pm Closing thanks
About the talks
Charley Wilson: Victorian Gender Rebel and the Changing Face of Media
Charley Wilson, a gender-nonconforming individual, defied societal norms in the Victorian era. This talk explores their fascinating life through the lens of 19th century media, contrasting it with representations of queer identities in the media today. By exposing the media’s shifting narratives, this talk challenges the idea that queer identities are a modern phenomenon. It uncovers a unique example of allyship, and fosters a deeper understanding of how the news continues to shape cultural perception.
Lori Wylot is a philosopher who loves circuses, mixed-media collage, and Judith Butler. They are currently researching 19th century ‘female-husbands’ with OutStories, and are more broadly interested in the relationship between power and identity.
“A Crown of Friendship” – Fabian Strachan Woodley
Fabian Strachan Woodley (1888-1957) was a Bristol born gay poet who was awarded the Military Cross for bravery in 1916. His work appeared in Men and Boys, the first anthology of homosexual poetry in the USA published in 1924.
Jonathan Rowe is a Bristol born and bred local historian who writes for OutStories Bristol and “Bristol Times” in the Bristol Post. He is Chair of Brislington Conservation and History Society and Secretary of his local amateur drama group for whom he regularly writes plays and pantomimes.
Bristol Archives – sources for researching LGBTQ+ history
Bristol Archives preserve official and historic documents relating to the City of Bristol going back 1,000 years. Alec Temple (Archives Officer) and Lucy Bonner (Senior Archivist) will introduce some of the key collections, series and individual documents which may be used to explore Bristol’s LGBTQ+ history before presenting case studies that demonstrate how archive sources can be used to explore LGBTQ+ lives. The guide to these resources can be found here: Bristol Archives Sources for Research: LGBTQ History.
What is she wearing? 20th-century lesbian dress in the press
Join in a whirlwind journey through nearly a century of lesbian dress, seen through the eyes of straight and dyke media alike. How were lesbians depicted? What were they wearing and where did they wear it? We’ll encounter aristocrats, bar toughs and gay libbers, butches, femmes and lipstick lesbians (including kd and Cindy of course), and find out about lesbian in-fighting over ‘what we should be wearing’.
Kim Renfrew’s talk is based on research that forms part of her PhD in lesbian dress at the University of The West of England (UWE).
Bristol Switchboard – 50 Years On
Bristol Gay Switchboard opened on 1 February 1975 using a private phone line in a back bedroom in Totterdown. This is the extraordinary story of a small team of volunteers who spotted the need for information and, with no support or external funding, created an organisation that flourished for the next 37 years. We look at how it began and the immense diversity of calls received and the help it offered. The talk will reveal how it grew to fill a need within LGBTQ+ communities.
Andrew Foyle is a Bristol author and architectural historian. He is a founder member of OutStories Bristol, with a background in LGBTQ+ history education and research.
Click here for the OutStories Bristol map about the early days of Switchboard at Dale Wakefield’s house in Hill Street, Totterdown.
BLAST! from the Past
BLAST are a group of Bristol lesbians who ‘want to celebrate our history’. They wish to hear from lesbian women who were involved in Bristol’s self-organised lesbian groups from the 1970s onwards, especially anyone happy to join BLAST or to share their stories and memorabilia.
BLAST wants to create a ‘map’ of groups, and to have quotes, stories and memories about what happened, what these groups meant and why they were important. They also want to collect any documents about the groups, like posters and newsletters, that can be contributed to a permanent archive that records this important history.
BLAST will be at M Shed on 22nd February to tell you more about this project. Alternatively contact them at [email protected].
Outstories Bristol would like to thank Quartet Community Foundation and the Courage Brewery Fund for funding the event.
