Cilia-Lgbtqi+ Scotland Research Newsletter | October 2020 |
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CILIA-LGBTQI+ SCOTLAND RESEARCH NEWSLETTER | OCTOBER 2020 | | Prof. Yvette Taylor + Dr Matson Lawrence | NEWS + EVENTS RESEARCH Fàilte, hello and welcome. About the project: Our 3 year project (2018-2021) – entitled ‘CILIA- ACTIVITIES Welcome to the second of LGBTQI+: Comparing Intersectional + OUTPUTS our CILIA-LGBTQI+ Scotland Lifecourse Inequalities among research newsletters, LGBTQI+ Citizens in four European updating you about our Countries’ – is a partnership work and activities for the between research teams based in CILIA-LGBTQI+ research in Scotland, England, Portugal and Scotland. Germany, and is funded by NORFACE. For more info, see: https://lgbtqilives.wordpress.com/ Yvette Taylor + | OCTOBER 2020 | Matson Lawrence WELCOME Welcome to the second CILIA-LGBTQI+ Scotland Research Newsletter of 2020. We are writing this – from our home offices, sofas, repurposed desks – in unprecedented, unexpected, unknown times. It would be remiss not to acknowledge the gravity of this year, and the serious and ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on a great many people’s lives, health, wellbeing and livelihoods. Like many, we had a very different idea of what 2020 would look like, and we had a rather different idea of what we would be doing with the CILIA-LGBTQI+ project. We had planned to host a two-day project meeting in Glasgow for CILIA-LGBTQI+ research partners from Germany, Portugal, England and Scotland. We had intended to share our findings about LGBTQI+ school experiences as part of a CILIA-LGBTQI+ panel at the British Sociological Association Annual Conference in Birmingham, and to present at the European Sociological Association Conference in Portugal. We had also planned to co-deliver an event with our STEM Equals colleagues on LGBT+ networks in higher education, now re- scheduled as an online event in October. As in previous years, we had been excited about our Engage with Strathclyde event in May, exploring LGBTQI+-inclusive education policy. However, the far-reaching impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have altered these plans; cancelling some, putting others on hold, all the while adapting, changing and moving increasingly online. And we are happy to report that we met our European project partners, on zoom, mid-September! Despite the upheaval of this year, the CILIA-LGBTQI+ project is still very much progressing, with events, podcasts, blogs and – importantly – analysis. In this newsletter, we’ll update you on project news and activities since our last update in January 2020, and share what we are planning moving forward. 2 Yvette Taylor + | OCTOBER 2020 | Matson Lawrence A NOTE ON TERMS We use the acronym ‘LGBTQI+’ to denote lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex people and identities; the ‘+’ denotes the broader range of minoritised sexualities, genders, and variations in sex characteristics. Screenshot from a CILIA-LGBTQI+ project meeting in September 2020, including team members from Portugal, Germany, England and Scotland. And another ‘welcome’… This year we have welcomed Dr Maja Andreasen to the CILIA-LGBTQI+ Scotland research team. As a newly- minted ‘Dr’ from the University of Strathclyde with expertise on social media analysis, gender-based violence and feminism, we are delighted to be working with Maja in 2020. Dr Maja Andreasen A LOOK INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Page 4 New CILIA-LGBTQI+ Podcast launched Page 5 The UK LGBT Action Plan: a look behind the celebratory rhetoric Building Queer/Class Lives: A Community Workshop Page 6+7 UK Legislative Lives: Illustrating Intersectional LGBTQI+ Lifecourse (In)equalities Page 8 Dynamics of Inequality Across the Lifecourse (DIAL): DIAL Summer School DIAL Policy Brief No. 1 ‘Toward A Gender-Equal Europe’ Page 9 Over Half A Million Words: Analysing LGBTQI+ Lives Page 10 New Courses for Professional Lifelong Learning Call for Abstracts: Queering Sharing Page 11 LGBT+ Networks in Higher Education: Building connections, making change 3 Yvette Taylor + | OCTOBER 2020 | Matson Lawrence In this podcast series, Yvette Taylor speaks to CILIA-LGBTQI+ NEW CILIA- user group members, and others met in the course of the research – whether that’s in utilizing the facilities and events LGBTQI+ space, for example, at Glasgow Women’s Library, or in learning about new activities such as the LGBTI+ Elders PODCAST Social Dance Club. The podcast features an overview by Yvette, and interviews with Dr Churnjeet Mahn, University of LAUNCHED Strathclyde, Lou Brodie of LGBTI Elders Social Dance Club, and Professor Sharon Cowan, University of Edinburgh. We hope listeners will enjoy the contributions made which includes thinking through questions of feminism, nationalism, identity and how access and usefulness are negotiated in the course of the CILIA project, as it compares lifecourses across time and place. Listen to the podcast series and read the full blog post here on our website, and watch out for new podcast speakers! PERSPECTIVES FROM THE PODCAST Dr Churnjeet Mahn, CILIA-LGBTQI+ user group member, University of Strathclyde: “We often hear about Scottish exceptionalism and how social issues are dealt with more inclusively or progressively in Scotland. And there may be good reasons for why this is true, for example, the legal educational, cultural institutions in Scotland are quite distinct. And we have different structures and funding, but does this make a difference, are we doing something better? And the only way to understand this is to think comparatively with other nations and to sync across the life course. Is this an enduring feeling or experience or a modern phenomenon or performance? …Scottish civic nationalism has side-stepped the inherent racism of ethnic nationalism, but it doesn’t mean that it has no strings attached for non-white populations.” 4 Yvette Taylor + | OCTOBER 2020 | Matson Lawrence The UK Government LGBT Action The UK LGBT Action Plan: a look behind the Plan: Discourses of progress, enduring stasis and LGBTQI+ celebratory rhetoric lives ‘getting better’ Yvette Taylor talks about her research Matson Lawrence & Yvette Taylor (2019) with Matson Lawrence, looking behind in Critical Social Policy the celebratory rhetoric of the UK Government’s LGBT Action Plan Our article examining discourses of published in 2018. Yvette also discusses ‘progress’ in the 2018 UK Government LGBT Action Plan has been published in emerging findings from the project and the journal Critical Social Policy. The LGBTQI+ people say about their lives and article can be accessed here (e-mail us how they view the ‘progress’ claimed in if you do not have access to this journal the plan and more widely by politicians. and we can send a copy). You can listen to the podcast episode on the DIAL website. BUILDING QUEER/CLASS LIVES: A COMMUNITY WORKSHOP March 2020 @ Glasgow Women’s Library In March, just before lockdown, Yvette organised a workshop with Strathclyde Global Engagement Fellow, Dr Matt Brim, at Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL). Yvette first met Matt whilst undertaking a Global Engagement visit to New York City, with Matson, in 2019, also participating in many of the ‘Stonewall @ 50yrs’ events. The reciprocal workshop at GWL invited participants to discuss the places of queer/class intersections in their lives. Participants had much to say about this and discussion included naming and describing structures—such as community groups, academic formations, and political affiliations—that support queer/class identity, thought, cultural production, and social action. Enduring questions include ‘What does identity with and support for queer and class communities look like and how does it persist?’ ‘What are our stories of places where queer/class connections are minimized or resisted, and how might we innovate from within those sites to create more liveable queer/class intersections?’ There has been some attention to the place of class in LGBTQI+ communities and CILIA-LGBTQI+ will continue to attend to these complicated matters of identity, history and inequality. An important question to attend to is how is middleclass done, mobilised and un-done in the context of queer and how, for example, education and employment impact the story of 'coming out' and 'getting on'. 5 Yvette Taylor + | OCTOBER 2020 | Matson Lawrence UK LEGISLATIVE LIVES: ILLUSTRATING INTERSECTIONAL LGBTQI+ LIFECOURSE (IN)EQUALITIES In collaboration with artist Samia Singh, we have created an illustrated timeline of key legislative moments for LGBTQI+ people in Scotland and the UK, interweaved with experiences of CILIA-LGBTQI+ interviewees. In attempting to convey some of the LGBTQI+ lives made possible and rendered impossible over time it is easy to fall into a simple narration of progress; that things are ‘getting better’, that younger generations are less homophobia and transphobic, and that queer lives have come out from underground, uplifted by legislation (see our article here). This illustrated timeline, designed by Samia Singh, represents some of the key social and legislative moments remembered by CILIA-LGBTQI+ interviewees (even when they had not lived in those times). The ‘underground’ at times appears vivid and vibrant, understood and often celebrated, even when not personally experienced, or endorsed – whether that be in the introduction and subsequent repeal of Section 28/2a, or in same-sex marriage entitlement. The images and accompanying text highlight some of what is often seen as part of LGBTQI+ lifecourse and political imagination; things remembered, welcomed and reacted to, as moments of care, connection and controversy