Past events

LGBT+ in Science - an LGBT+ STEM Day lunchtime panel

Thursday 18th November 2021, 12 - 1pm

What’s it like to be out in science? Our stereotypes of scientists might not include queer people, but this is changing. You’ll find LGBT+ people at the lab bench, in the lecture theatre, the library and in the clinic. LGBT+ STEM Day is an international day that celebrates and showcases the lives and work of those scientists. It also serves to highlight inequalities that persist and opportunities to make science and workplaces more inclusive. Join us as we discuss experiences of being of a marginalised gender or sexuality within science. This seminar is for everyone, so even if this isn’t a topic you’ve previously considered, this is the perfect opportunity to learn more about making STEM inclusive.

Facilitated by Duncan Astle (Chair, LGBT+ Staff Network) and Lucian Stephenson (LGBTQ+@cam Programme Co-ordinator), and hosted by the School of Clinical Medicine.

Panellists:

Camilla Nord PhD, (MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, School of Clinical Medicine)
Duncan Shrewsbury PFHEA, PhD, MRCGP (Senior Lecturer in General Practice, Department of Medical Education, Brighton & Sussex Medical School)
George Cronin MSc PGCTLHE (Biological Sciences Library Manager, Cambridge University Libraries)
Giugiu Barsuola MSc (PhD student, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Youth Worker at The Kite Trust)

What have we learned from LGBTQ+ Studies at Cambridge?

Monday 27th September, Alumni Festival 2021

Since its launch in 2018, LGBTQ+@Cam, a major new research initiative led by the Department of Sociology, has extended its reach across all six Schools and virtually every discipline. From the social sciences and humanities to the STEM subjects, the effects of the Q+ programme have been far-reaching and transformative. In part this is because of a new emphasis on inclusivity and diversity in research culture as a component of research excellence. The programme has also come to serve as an important hub for alumni and non-university partners to enable new connections with cutting edge academic research. In this session we will be discussing the lessons learned from the rapid growth of this new subject area, and in particular what they suggest for the future of the University in the post-COVID era.

Speakers:
The Rt Hon Lord Chris Smith PC (Pembroke 1969 and Master of Pembroke)
Professor Sarah Franklin (Fellow of Christ's College)
Matt Maddocks (Jesus 1996)
Dr Robert Pralat (Queens' 2011)
Elisabeth Sandler (Darwin 2017)

Watch the recorded panel here!

Queer Times

April 26 - 29th, 2021

Programme

For all its other faults, our current era continues to witness rapid social, legal, political and cultural change in terms of how we live and experience queer as a condition, a perspective, an identity or a practice. Queer is all of these things and many more. It can be a way in, a way out, or offer another way of being altogether. We can think of queer as an alignment, a divergence or an in-between space. These are queer times. These continue to be times in which queer is at once too open and too specific, too undoing and too tight a fit, too vague and all too identifying. What to make of the all queerness all around us? Queer Times offers an occasion to think in particular about how we use the academy as a space in which to reflect on these questions. It is a conference at which we will be celebrating three years of intensive work by lgbtq+@cam to build research links across the university and beyond, including links between the academy and the archive, the museum, the cinema, the theatre and our built environment. Let’s be clear, we’re going to be vividly queer. This is an occasion to think not only about the content of our work – our concepts, analytics, semantics and critiques – but also our style of practice. What difference does a queer perspective make to the work we do – in our classrooms and our departments, in our disciplines and our faculties, and in our own work as individual writers, artists and creative thinkers?

We were overjoyed to host such a high calibre of scholars and experts, and to see such radical, incisive and powerful conversations flourish.  Enormous thanks go to our contributors Campbell X, Topher Campbell, Waithera Sebatindira, Lola Olufemi, Christine Pungong, Siyang Wei, Abeera Khan, Hakan Sandal-Wilson, Naoise Murphy, Beatriz Santos Barreto, Eliz MY Wong, Geoffrey Maguire, Natasha Tanna, and Juliana Demartini Brito - and of course, to our esteemed audience, for engaging with and spurring on the discussions.
You can find captured livestreams of all panels on our Youtube channel here.

Q+STEM: Leading the Change

November 18th 2020, 12-1pm

Online

Studies of LGBTQ+ inclusivity, such as the one undertaken here at Cambridge last year, are useful in identifying specific ways in which LGBTQ+ people can be more fully integrated and included into the core work of the university. At the same time, there is an increasing focus on developing new types of research cultures in STEM subjects. Is QSTEM an area where these two questions merge, and what is the role of leaders of departments, labs, faculties or teams in creating more diverse, inclusive and non-traditional research cultures?

Panelists:
Neil Reavey, Astra Zeneca 
Lenna Cumberbatch, University of St Andrews
Sarah Cawley, Reaction Engines

Chair:
Professor Sarah Franklin, University of Cambridge

Queer Migrations

23-27 November 2020

Online

Critical debates in migration and diaspora studies have long ignored issues of sexuality and queerness. The figures of the migrant and the refugee have become normalised as cis-gender and heterosexual through cultural, political and media narratives, as well as in academic discourse. Mainstream references to LGBTQ+ migrants are exceptional and tend towards placing these subjects within a problematic Western-centric narrative of global mobility as ‘the movement from repression to freedom’ (Grewal and Kaplan 2001). The objective of this conference is twofold: firstly, to restore visibility to the queer migrant in cultural, sociological, political, theoretical and methodological debates on globality and migration; and secondly, to challenge the socio-political and racialised narrativization of the queer migrant experience as a journey from the ‘backward’ global South to the ‘progressive’ global North. In so doing, this interdisciplinary conference will itself perform a kind of ‘queering’, rupturing stable, linear and Western conceptions of migration, and rethinking the ways in which queer bodies are perceived, represented and choose to move and travel through space. 

Organised by Geoffrey Maguire, Leila Mukhida & Tiffany Page

Queer Parenthood

Tuesday 25th February, 6-8pm

Buckingham House, Murray Edwards

This panel will consider queer parenthood, exploring how the experiences and situation of queer parents differs across countries and contexts, as well as some of the history of queer of parenthood. We are lucky to welcome four panellists to this event: Dr Marcin Smietana, Dr Linda Layne, Susie Bower-Brown, and Dr Robert Pralat.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2817846734946471/
Co-organised with CamQueerHistory

Queer activism under the rise of the right

Saturday 1st February, 3:30-5pm

Gonville & Caius College

The rise of the right is a global phenomenon of the last few years, with far-right groups increasing their political influence and even gaining control of governments around the world. Increasingly authoritarian states include many regional and world powers whose spheres of cultural influence extend well beyond their borders. What are the experiences of queer activists in this worsening atmosphere? How can and should pro LGBTQ+ rights movements respond and adapt? Our speakers this afternoon will each give a short talk exploring a particular national perspective. Following this, we will invite questions from the audience and widen the discussion to queer activism under the rise of the right around the world—including in the UK.

Speakers: Beatriz Santos-Barreto, Olenka Dmytryk, Ceylan Yıldız
Chair: Hakan Sandal

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1246326878900493/
Co-organised with CamQueerHistory

Start of Term Drinks

Thursday 23rd January, 5:30-7:30pm

Wine Bar, University Centre

Join us for our usual start of term drinks! All welcome.

Bird la Bird's Travelling Queer People's History Show

Thursday 7th November, 19:00-20:30

McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College

Bird la Bird’s Travelling Queer People’s History Show is a spoof lecture which takes a DIY punk approach to history.

Beginning in the vast prison that once stood on the site of today’s Tate Britain, and lovingly traces the lives of queer prisoners across centuries and continents. Flinging the doors of the queer past open she lays bare the interlocking histories of the British Empire, class exploitation and homophobia and links this to contemporary issues of global LGBTQI refugees.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/403112980360930/

Book your free ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bird-la-birds-travelling-queer-peoples-history-show-tickets-77483702841

Out at Cambridge: LGBT Staff Welcome Event

Tuesday 29th October, 18:00-20:00

McGrath Centre, St Catharine's College

The LGBT+ Staff Network and lgbtQ+​@cam invite you to the launch of 'Out at Cambridge'.

Members of the lgbtQ+​@cam team will present from their report describing LGBT+ staff and student experiences at Cambridge. Copies of the report will be available.

Plus, find out what the University has to offer its LGBT+ staff and meet colleagues.

To book your place, please click here 

Queer Cambridge Audio Trail: Launch event

Thursday 24th October, 17:00-18:30

Mill Lane Lecture Room 7

Join us to celebrate the launch of this exciting new queer Cambridge audio trail. Created by Dr Diarmuid Hester (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in English) this free, self-guided one-hour audio trail reveals the rich and often radical history of LGBTQ+ Cambridge. Explore the city’s long-forgotten queer spaces and places, guided by the memories of queer people and queer Cambridge writing by the likes of E.M. Forster, Edward Carpenter, and Ali Smith. Produced by David Bramwell and funded by a University Diversity Fund Award. Supported by lgbtQ+​@cam and the Faculty of English.

Uprising!: The Stonewall Riots at 50

Saturday 19th October, 3-4:30pm

Old Library, Pembroke College

How did a street riot change LGBTQ+ history? Join three leading historians to explore Stonewall's meaning, impact, and legacy. Featuring Professor Simon Hall (University of Leeds), Professor Jonathan Bell (UCL), and Professor Nan Alamilla Boyd (San Francisco State University).

A FLY Girl's Guide to University

Friday 11th October, 15:30-17:30

The Pitt Building

Being a woman of colour at Cambridge and other institutions of power and elitism

Join us for the book launch of this publication by Lola Olufemi, Waithera Sebatindira and Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan.

Start of Term Drinks

Tuesday 8th October, 17:30-19:30

University Centre Wine Bar

Join us for celebratory start of term drinks!

Queer STEM

Friday 5th July, 14:00-17:00

Newton Room, Pitt Building

On International LGBT STEM day, lgbtQ+​@cam are hosting an afternoon of talks and a panel aimed at bringing together STEM researchers from different disciplines to discuss how the QSTEM agenda can be taken forward, and in particular how we can move from a general inclusion and diversity agenda to the question of what an LQBTQ+ perspective might contribute to scientific research.

2-3pm: Flash talks

"How the diagnosis of homosexuality shaped psychiatry", Camilla Nord (Neuroscience)
"Perspectives that Matter: Queer Users and Digital Creativity", Kiona Niehaus (Goldsmiths)

3-3:30pm: Break

3:30-5pm: Panel on "Next Steps" 

Chair: Jeremy Sanders (Chemistry, former PVC for E&D)
Sara El-Gebali (European Bioinformatics Institute)
Nick Bampos (Chemistry)
Noah Tate (Royal Society of Chemistry)
Elizabeth Wynn (Babraham Institute)

Free, unticketed event, all welcome!

https://prideinstem.org/lgbtstemday/

https://www.facebook.com/events/1436670793141974/

Queer & Trans Global Activism

Thursday 20th June, 17:30-19:00

Waterstones, Sidney St, Cambridge

*Free, ticketed event, book here*

QTI Coalition of Colour are holding a queer qandi fest in June and we are co-organising a panel on queer and trans global activism.

50 years after the Stonewall riots, spearheaded by Black and POC trans activists, we wish to celebrate and acknowledge the work, importance and involvement of QTI of colour in the lgbtq+ movement. We will do this by organising queer qandī fest, a four-day festival with talks, workshops, film screenings and art exhibition. We hope to raise awareness about representation, intersectionality and ways to move forward and build bridges in the era of identity politics and disenfranchisement.

More details about the weekend here: https://qti.home.blog/queer-qandi-fest-20-23-june/

https://www.facebook.com/events/454646171747520/

The University and Radical Change

Friday 14th June, 16:30-18:30

Jane Harrison Room, Newnham College

*Please note this is a venue change*

*Free, ticketed event, book here*

Raewyn Connell, one of Australia's leading social scientists, is Professor Emerita at the University of Sydney and a life member of the National Tertiary Education Union. She is the author of Southern Theory, Masculinities, and other books.

In this talk, Raewyn will invite you to think about the shape and sources of our problems in higher education, local and global; the resources (some unexpected) that we have for dealing with them; and post-colonial, democratic pathways into a different future. These are themes of her new book The Good University (Zed books 2019): 
https://www.zedbooks.net/shop/book/the-good-university/forthcoming/

https://www.facebook.com/events/2132574963516728/

Disclosure: LGBTQ+ at Cambridge

Friday 17th May, 17:00-18:30

Mill Lane Lecture Room 2

The 2018 Stonewall Report on discrimination towards lgbtq+ students at British universities suggests that 42% disguise or conceal their lgbtq+ identities due to fear of hostile or unwelcome reactions to disclosure. Based on this report, we are exploring how students and staff at the University of Cambridge manage their lgbtq+ identities within the university community. Join us for this talk by researcher Elisabeth Sandler to hear some initial results. All welcome!

Start of term drinks

Tuesday 7th May, 17:30-19:30

Cambridge Brew House (top floor)

Brew House pub, top floor. All welcome! Come join us for a drink and talk about what queer things are going on this term.

Queer Classicisms

2nd May, 18:00-20:00

Fellows' Drawing Room, Murray Edwards College

"Performances and Wine Reception: Queer Classicisms" at the Queer Art of Feeling conference, as well as co-organised with Andrew Webber (University of Cambridge Equality Champion).

Performances:

Emma Johnson (London) and Evan Silver (Cambridge), Odd Odysseys: Queering the Classics

Naomi Woo (Cambridge) and Sophie Seita (Cambridge), Beethoven Was A Lesbian

https://queerartoffeeling.wordpress.com/programme/

Beyond Binary

Friday 1st March 2019

Alison Richard Building

Conference: Keynote with Susan Stryker

Registration: £5 (inc. lunch & refreshments)

Combining art and performance with theory, film, science and literature, this multi-disciplinary symposium born of subversive parentage will celebrate the freedom of ‘moving across socially imposed boundaries from unchosen starting places’ (Stryker, 2016). On the 25th anniversary of Stryker’s now classic queer text ‘My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamonix’, this symposium revisits trans and queer as a disruptive technologies of gender, identity and thought. Our series of panels and speakers look both back to consider how the challenge to gender binarism has affected models of nature, tradition and the biological, and forward to the queer futures built on the monstrous promises of jarring transitions.

Book now: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/28386 

Queer in Africa: LGBTQI Identities, Citizenship and Activism

5th March, 13:00-14:00

Room 1, Mill Lane Lecture Rooms

Surya Monro is a Professor in Sociology and Social Policy based at the University of Hudderfield. Surya has published substantially in the fields of gender and sexuality, notably on LGBT and Intersex issues. She is the author of Gender Politics: Citizenship, Activism, and Sexual Diversity (Pluto Press 2005) co-author of Sexuality, Equality and Diversity (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), author of Bisexuality (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), co-author of Intersex, Variations if Sex Characteristics and DSD: The Need for Change (University of Huddersfield 2017) and co-editor of Queer in Africa (Routledge 2018). She is currently working in the area of Intersex rights, and continuing scholarly activities in the area of LGBT issues.

TRASH! Waste and Excess in Queer Cultures

Saturday 16th February 2019, 10:00-17:30

Faculty of English, University of Cambridge

Symposium

An interdisciplinary symposium exploring the significance of trash, waste, and excess to LGBTQ+ lives and cultures. Free but booking essential. Reserve your place here.

co-organised with the Faculty of English

Queer History

Friday 1st February 2019, 17:00-18:00

Nihon Room, Pembroke College

Delivered by original Gay Liberation Front (GLF) Activist and co-founder of Gay News Andrew Lumsden, this talk begins just prior to the Labouchere Amendment of 1885 and works forward to the modern day. The talk will stop off at significant moments in Queer History in this time period, with emphasis on the Labouchere Amendment and on the activities of the GLF in the early 1970’s. The talk will end by looking at the modern context, and will allow ample room for questions to be answered by the speaker.

co-organised with CamQueerHistory

Teaching Trans

22nd January 2019, 15:00-17:00

Darwin Room, Pitt Building

This workshop is designed for people who are teaching on Trans topics to share insights, syllabi, experiences and challenges. Although a relatively new component of the taught curriculum, Trans issues are an increasingly significant research area in many disciplines, and one in which students have considerable interest. This workshop is intended to support and promote a positive teaching environment, in which Trans issues can be addressed in a constructive and inclusive manner, and is being organised in response to popular demand. The workshop is open to all including students, staff, administrators, tutors, supervisors, etc. Our goal will be to produce a short leaflet on Teaching Trans we can use to support colleagues who can’t attend, and to help generate an ongoing dialogue about this topic. 

Start of term drinks

17th January, 17:00-19:00

Wine Bar, University Centre

Open reception.

Rafiki: a film screening and panel

Wednesday 28th November 2018, 4-7pm

Bateman Auditorium, Gonville&Caius College

We are thrilled to show this incredible 2018 Kenyan film, a story of friendship and love between two young women. The film was banned by Kenya's Film and Classification Board due to its "homosexual theme and clear intent to promote lesbianism".

This panel event will investigate the ways in which Africans championing LGBTI+ rights and stories can disrupt the project of postcolonial nation-building. Following a screening of ‘Rafiki’, panellists will examine the question of why homosexuality specifically has become such a target and on what grassroots work is currently being done by activists and story-tellers in East Africa to shed light on the marginality of sexual minorities and eradicate homophobia and heterosexism.

Joining us on the panel will be:

Dr Roseanne Njiru, a visiting fellow to the University of Cambridge's Centre of African Studies, and a lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences and Development Studies at The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, and whose doctoral research is on gendered HIV transmission in marriages in Kenya.

Jessica Horn, Deputy Director of the African Women's Development Fund, who worked on the model for UHAI the first queer led grantmaking fund in Africa which focused on East Africa, and who also developed an activist training curriculum for east african LGBTI activists which was used to train a new cadre of advocates in the region.

Olusegun Sangowawa is currently a Chevening Scholar at the University of Sussex, studying for an MA in Social Development. He has extensive experience working with Gender and Sexual Minority groups in Nigeria around empowerment, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights including HIV and AIDS. He is a board member of Bisi Alimi Foundation and Women’s Health and Equal Rights Initiative. He is also an expert sexual diversity trai

Dr Sara Ahmed: 'Queer Use'

Wednesday 7th November 2018, 5:30-7pm
Lecture Room 3, Mill Lane Lecture Theatres

We are delighted to host Dr Sara Ahmed, one of Britain's leading writers on queer feminist and critical race studies, and author of eight books including Queer Phenomenology and Living a Feminist Life. Sara will give a public lecture on 'Queer Use' based on her new book 'The Uses of Use' coming out with Duke in 2019.

Dr Nanette Gartrell: 'U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study – From Reagan to Trump'

Thursday 18th October 2018, 5-6:30pm
Bateman Auditorium, Gonville&Caius College

The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study has been following a cohort of planned lesbian families for 32 years. Dr. Gartrell will provide an overview of the study results in the context of the political backdrop in the U.S. from the time that the study began to the present, including data from the most recent wave of data collection (6th)—when the offspring were 25 years old.

The lecture will be one hour, and it will be followed by a drinks reception.

co-hosted by the Centre for Family Research

Stonewall: LGBT in Britain - University Report

Wednesday 10th October 2018, 12:30-1:30pm
Darwin Room, Pitt Building, Trumpington Street

This year Stonewall conducted the "LGBT in Britain: University Report" which shows that "for many lesbian, gay, bi and trans students, the [university] experience can be marred by discrimination, exclusion and abuse because of who they are."

The report is extensive, and we will be joined by Pete Mercer from Stonewall who will talk us through the results. He will be joined by a panel to discuss the findings.

Dr Miriam Lynn (University of Cambridge, Equality & Diversity Consultant, chair)
Pete Mercer (Stonewall, Senior Account Manager)
Dr Natasha Tanna (University of Cambridge, Lecturer)
Dr Nicki Ward (University of Birmingham, Lecturer)
Rob Noon (NUS, LGBT+ officer)

There will be tea, coffee and biscuits from 12:15. The Darwin Room is just off the Pitt Building’s reception area. Everyone, university and non-university alike, are welcome to this event.

Come to lgbtQ+​@cam's first event of the year! Co-organised with Equality&Diversity at Cambridge University.

co-hosted by Equality&Diversity

A Research Workshop

A network event

Friday 8th June 2018, 2-6pm

An opportunity for LGBTQ+ / Queer / Gender&Sexuality research groups around the country to get together. Our aim with the workshop was to get to know other LGBTQ+ research groups, and to discuss the possibility of building a mutually supportive network.

Queer Kinships

A talk and a play

Wednesday 25th April 2018, 3-7pm

Join us for a talk, a drinks reception, and a performance of Scene, as part of an ongoing series of events for lgbtQ+​@cam.

This event is free and open to all, but seats at the play will be limited to 30, and will be first come first served. You can RSVP to: hls56@cam.ac.uk

Kevin Jennings: "What's the Use of Queer Studies?"

A talk

Monday 15th January 2018, 5-6:30pm

Kevin Jennings has a quarter-century of experience is popularizing LGBT history. In 1994 he co-founded the US LGBT History Month (now observed every October) and also authored *Becoming Visible: A Reader in Gay & Lesbian History for High School and College Students*, the first book of its kind. He then helped write and produce *Out of the Past*, the first documentary on LGBT History designed for classroom use, which won the 1997 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary. Most recently he has been an Executive Producer of The Lavender Scare, a documentary on the McCarthy-era witch hunts for LGBT federal employees in the US. Kevin is the founder of GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) and a former Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration. Jennings is now the President of the Tenement Museum, America's foremost museum dedicated to telling the stories of immigrants to the US.