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Festival Newsletter

Festival Newsletter
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Welcome to our special Festival Edition of the
Staff Pride Network Newsletter

In an effort to showcase LGBT+ content from around the Edinburgh Festival, we are bringing you this supplementary edition of the Staff Pride Network Newsletter, featuring shows and performances from SPN members, as well as their friends and partners.

As always, we also want to celebrate the achievements of the diverse LGBT+ community across the university. So if you have any news, research or events that you would like to include in the newsletter (August issue due later this month) then please do get in touch – StaffPrideNetwork@ed.ac.uk.

A Message From Our Social and Events Officer
Alex Solomon
Hello Staff Pride Network!

I hope you won’t mind that I’ve temporarily commandeered our lovely newsletter to bring you this special Festival edition, packed full of events to watch out for.  Whether you’re looking for theatre, music, comedy, or even a night out, there’s something for everyone included below.

Want to get involved?
We’re also giving our members the opportunity to contribute to our weekly Festival Digest, by leaving a show recommendation or review using this form.

Simply fill out the form and we’ll do the rest – the Digest will be sent out to the network each Wednesday during the Festival, in plenty of time for you to check out anything that tickles your fancy.

So don’t be shy, share the love and send in your top picks!

Best wishes,
Alex
SPN Member Showcase
The events below feature the work of Staff Pride Network members.
4D Cinema
Artist: Mamoru Iriguchi, Operator: Gavin J. Pringle
(Theatre/Live Performance)

Returning for a limited run as part of the Free Fringe, ‘4D Cinema’ was a hit at last year’s Fringe, receiving 5 stars from the Scotsman and Broadway Baby, as well as a ‘Best Director Award’ from the Asian Arts Awards.

Sporting a projector and a screen around his head, performance maker and theatre designer Mamoru Iriguchi turns himself into a mobile cinema. He then performs with a host of Hollywood film stars by dint of black and white classic film clips, with special focus on Marlene Dietrich.

‘4D Cinema’ is a performance piece that explores what is live, and what is recorded and so fixed eternally on film. Iriguchi investigates what it is that films mean to us, in an age where new technology blurs actual and virtual realities.

Showtimes and info available: here

A Virus to End Humanity?
Dr. Liam Brierley (Lecture/Spoken Word)

We’re constantly threatened by outbreaks of diseases like SARS and Ebola.

Can we win the fight against a deadly unidentified infectious disease that has just been discovered at the Edinburgh Fringe? Or is the task of staying one step ahead now too much for scientists? How could this virus arise, where could it come from and what could it mean for you? How fast will it spread from our very feet to the rest of the world?

Join epidemiologist Liam Brierley to see if humans will win the struggle to survive.
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As part of the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas, Dr Liam Brierley will present ‘A Virus To End Humanity?’, an interactive pandemic scenario investigating where a newly discovered ‘Fringe virus’ might have come from, whether it could spread worldwide, and how it might be controlled. Liam is an epidemiologist with the Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, and completed his PhD within the Centre for Immunity, Infection & Evolution last year.

Tickets and info available: here

Eaten
Artist/Writer: Mamoru Iriguchi, Assistant Director: Gavin J. Pringle
(Theatre/Young Audience)

Written and performed by Mamoru Iriguchi, ‘Eaten’ is a highly visual, informative, bonkers, funny and sad show. Targeted at children 6-15 years old and their guardians, ‘Eaten’ will also appeal to folks older than 21, although 15-21 year-olds may be just too cool for school!

What if your food started talking back? Meet Lionel the lion. He’s just eaten a human called Mamoru for lunch. But Lionel hasn’t chewed his food well. So Mamoru’s alive and well in his stomach, and now wants to say hello. A strange friendship between the eater and the eaten starts to grow. Meanwhile, Lionel’s breakfast wants to say hello… from his bottom! Eaten invites children and grown-ups to the fascinating world of food chains, asking, “What should we eat?”, and “Who should eat us?!”

Tickets and showtimes available: here

Join SPN member Jerrard Doran, as he performs in two concerts with EMT (Edinbugh Music Theatre)!

The first concert, Fringe Fantasmic, is packed with sing-a-long favourites from kids’ films like Mary Poppins, Beauty and the Beast, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Aladdin, and The Muppets. The second, Anthems: The Movie Musicals, features some of the greatest hits to appear on both stage and screen, with songs from Rent, Cabaret, A Chorus Line, Les Miserables, Guys & Dolls, and many more.

The concerts take place at St Andrew’s and St George’s West Church on George Street from 8th-11th August. Fringe Fantasmic shows at 7:10pm and Anthems: The Movie Musicals at 8:40pm. Tickets to see one of the concerts are £12, £10 concession and £5 for children. Tickets to see both shows on the same night are available on a combo deal through cast members for £18, £15 concession and £7.50 for children. If you would like to book any tickets, please get in touch with Jerrard.Doran@ed.ac.uk!

Loud and Proud Fringe Concert
(Music/A Capella)
Scotland’s LGBT a cappella singing sensation is back at the Fringe! Loud and Proud presents its annual Fringe concert in support of Waverley Care, Scotland’s HIV and Hepatitis C charity. The choir, now in its 12th year, combines Scottish songs, songs from abroad, show tunes, gospel and pop classics – and more! A Fringe event not to be missed. Saturday 19th August at 7.30pm, St Cuthbert’s Parish Church, Lothian Road. Tickets are £14 / £10 concessions and are available now!

Tickets available: here

Friends & Partners Showcase
The events below feature the work of friends & partners of SPN members.
From Today, Everything Changes
The Oast Theatre (Theatre/LGBT/New Writing)
A new play
by Ian Tucker-Bell

Before Chris’s wife died, after over 30 years of marriage, she made him promise to be himself. But accepting he’s gay is only the start. Online dating is a whole new world; can this younger man really be interested in him? And how does he come out to his daughter? Written by first time Fringe author Ian Tucker-Bell and brought to Edinburgh by the Oast Theatre, this new play takes a refreshingly honest and tender look at a 60-year-old man coming out and finding love.

Tickets and showtimes: here

Limited run: 2nd-13th only!

If you love Donald Trump, you’ll hate this show! Get ready for a hilarious, thought-provoking, heartbreaking yet inspiring experience – in glorious four-part harmony and over-the-top drag!

America’s favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet (and Edinburgh, Off-Broadway and Vegas favourites!) return with their provocative new musical that takes a searing journey into Trumpism, racism, AIDS, giraffes, Bette Midler, oblong vegetables and so much more!

‘All-you-can-enjoy bundle of fabulousness; amazing voices’ (Scotland on Sunday). ‘Wonderfully smart and liberating; hilarious; lovably ribald’ (Times). ‘Hottest ticket in town; voices sweet as birdsong’ (New York Times).

Tickets and showtimes available: here

You Need People Like Me
Dean Hendry (Comedy/Stand-up)
It’s just like the famous ‘bad guy’ scene in Scarface, when Tony Montana rants that iconic phrase, ‘You need people like me…’ to a crowded judgmental restaurant. Just add a Scottish accent, a large dollop of 36 years worth of shame, sprinkle generously with some vulnerability, add a pinch of gay, an epiphany and you have it. Bon appetit! The world is Dean Hendry’s crowded judgmental restaurant. He’s the misunderstood bad guy and he’s finally OK with it, because actually, you need people like him. Trust us.

Tickets and showtimes available: here

Events
[SPN] August Coffee Afternoon
Wednesday 9th August – 1:00-3:00pm, Ground (Chrystal Macmillan Building)
Join us at our regular monthly coffee afternoon (in a slightly different venue this month due to the Festival).  Please drop in any time for a coffee and cake, catch up with your LGBT+ colleagues and meet some of our committee.  This month we will be joined by Professor Jane Norman, Vice-Principal for People and Culture.

Dive presents Homage
Saturday 26th August – 9pm-Late, Charlotte Square Spiegeltent
Promising to blow fresh glitter up the arse of any festival in their wake, Dive Queer Party are back with their sell out Fringe 2016 hit “Homage” with a special literary plot twist for Edinburgh International Book Festival. Chief weirdo Miss Annabel Sings is on a mission to the four corners of the rainbow, showcasing a smorgasbord of homegrown performance talent alongside a handpicked selection of international guest stars. Strap yourself in for a mind-blowing, fast-paced celebration of the heroes of queer culture from books, music, film and fashion from the past 70 years – in the year that also marks 50 years since the UK decriminalization of homosexuality. Follow this link for more info.

Dive presents The Last Night on Earth Cabaret Party
Monday 28th August – 7pm-Late, Charlotte Square Spiegeltent
Ladies, gentlemen and everything in between! Anarchic entertainers Dive Queer Party are conjuring the spirit of ’47 to stage a closing cabaret party of epic proportions. With fakery making the headlines and the rest of the world falling apart around our ears the glitter-spattered minds at Dive Towers have had time to reflect: what would we do on our last night on earth? Well this, obviously. Join Miss Annabel Sings, the Dive family and the queerest pick n mix of the Fringe as they conga their way into a brave new world – one where you can be whoever you want to be, however you want to be, whenever you want to be. It’s the closing night of the festival so party like it’s your last! Follow this link for more info.

[SPN] Monthly Social
Friday 1st September – 5:30pm, The Potting Shed
Continuing our monthly evening socials, join us after work to unwind and meet other network members. Conveniently held on the first Friday after payday.

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June Newsletter

June Newsletter
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Welcome to the new Staff Pride Network Newsletter

Over the past year the Staff Pride Network has been growing and evolving, and as such we felt it was time for a makeover to match! As well as a new image, we’ll be sending out a regular newsletter to keep you up to date with all the Network news and upcoming events, and to help you stay connected with your LGBT+ Colleagues and Allies.

We also want to celebrate the achievements of the diverse LGBT+ community across the university. So if you have any news, research or events that you would like to share with us then please do get in touch – StaffPrideNetwork@ed.ac.uk.

A Message From Our Co-Chairs
Sharon Cowan
Jonathan MacBride
The newly named Staff Pride Network (previously the LGBT Staff Network) was relaunched in September 2016, for LGBT+ colleagues and allies, and we are delighted to complete the relaunch today with a new logo designed by ECA student Kael Oakley.
Having discovered that the previous network had gone into abeyance, Jonathan MacBride explored the possibility of reinvigorating the static network with his now co-chair, Sharon Cowan. With the support of the UoE Human Resources team, VP for People & Culture Jane Norman, and committed volunteers, the new network has gone from strength to strength in its first year.
We have developed links with external organisations such as Stonewall Scotland and university LGBT+ staff networks such as Napier and LSE, as well as internally with the Disability Network. LGBT+ History Month in February saw a packed programme of academic, arts, social and other events, some of which were organised with the student LGBT+/queer groups BLOGS and Liberation+.
Future planned events include a UoE SPN Pride March contingent wearing our newly designed t-shirts with logo, while the rainbow flag flies over Old College, and trans awareness training for network members.
We are proud to provide a safe space for all LGBT+ identified staff and allies, and happily welcome anyone who wants to join the network to contact the committee at StaffPrideNetwork@ed.ac.uk.
News
Logo Competition Winner Announced
Congratulations to Kael Oakley, winner of our Logo and Branding Competition.

The Staff Pride Network was re-established in July 2016 but needed an updated logo and brand. Fashion Lecturer and Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) Staff Pride Network Rep, Emily Ford-Halliday, set an ECA-wide competition for Art and Design students to come up with a branding makeover that would encapsulate the networks’ values and purpose. Read More

And here is Kael’s winning design which is now the new logo for the University of Edinburgh’s Staff Pride Network!

‘Tis the Season to be Proud
Join SPN at Pride Edinburgh

Get your rainbow hats out of the closet and get ready for Pride Edinburgh 2017 which is now just a few days away. The 22nd annual pride scotia march starts at 12pm on Saturday 17th June. Meeting point for Staff Pride Network members (and friends of course!) is at 11am at the Scottish Parliament, beside the water feature. Look out for our new logo branded t-shirts.

 

Order Your SPN Pride T-Shirt

We hope you can join us this Saturday for Pride Edinburgh. We’ll be marching together so remember to order your Staff Pride Network T-Shirt. E-mail us at StaffPrideNetwork@ed.ac.uk with your size (M-L-XL) and we will save you one. Limited stock though, so hurry!
Edinburgh Frontrunners Pride Run
Early bird? Join/come and support other SPN members at the Meadows (eastern end) at 9am for the Edinburgh Frontrunners Pride Run before the march, including a cake sale in aid of LGBT Youth Scotland. Visit the web page for more details, here.
Pride Edinburgh 2017
Sat 17th June
For a full running order of the day’s events – visit the Pride Edinburgh website.
Events
Pre-Pride Edinburgh Coffee Afternoon
TODAY – 1-3pm, Teviot Library Bar (Side Room)
Join us at our regular monthly coffee afternoon and the first of our Pride Edinburgh events.  Please drop in any time for a coffee and cake, catch up with your LGBT+ colleagues and ask a committee member those questions you’ve been dying to have answered!

Pride Edinburgh
Saturday 17th June  – 11am, Scottish Parliament
Meeting point for Staff Pride Network members (and friends of course!) is at 11am at the Scottish Parliament, beside the water feature. Look out for our new logo branded t-shirts.

SPN Social
Friday 30th June – 5:30pm, The Potting Shed
Continuing our monthly evening socials, join us after work to unwind and meet other network members. Conveniently held on the first Friday after payday.

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The Dilemma of Having Your Face Tortured

By Gina Maya

Introduction

I came out as a male-to-female transsexual this year, meaning I identify less with the gender I was born and raised with, and more with its opposite. It’s a transition of many processes—administrative, cosmetic, hormonal, and social, to name a few—and it will take years; in some respects, a lifetime. Although I keep a weekly diary on my website (www.ginamaya.co.uk) on the ups and downs, I’ll try to use these newsletters to shed light on the more general processes involving my transition. I’ll start with the thing I want to get out of the way—the thing I’ve hated most: facial-hair removal.

 

It takes fifteen minutes and sometimes less. You rest in a dentist’s chair, wearing dark goggles while a smiling young woman lasers your facial hair. For the first few months, there’s only a 12-hour rash. Your jaw and mouth are blotchy, initially. With balm smothered over it, it looks like you’re melting.

You walk back from the clinic along busy Princess Street, looking down. Avoiding eye-contact because more than ever you look terrible, a swollen, red, rash-covered face that’s melting. You’re walking so fast your calves are hurting.

You continue to go to the clinic every six weeks. The pain gets worse with each visit; your feet press against each other and you hug yourself during the cosmetician’s polite conversation as she lasers your face. You’ve started taking taxis home, wrapping your face in a scarf like the Invisible Man. Soon enough you come out as a transgender woman.

Soon enough, you’re noticed in the street, you clearly don’t pass as well you thought. Your five o’clock shadow becomes your obsession, not the breasts or the groin, those things you can cover. It’s your five o’clock shadow, that’s what will decide the social reaction. You shave at least once a day. You touch up your layers of foundation constantly, in disabled toilets that become a second home to you.

October 2016. Ten months have gone by, the dark bristle almost gone. The NHS calls you, they’ll do it for free. But they need to know what they’re dealing with, so there’s one condition: come in with four days of facial hair growth on a bare, unmade face. We’re sorry, was that a ‘yes’?

 




Meet the Volunteers: Carol Dow; Community Ally

In August I attended the Stonewall Scotland training day for allies which was fantastic (and funded by the University). I wasn’t really sure what to expect but it was very empowering and uplifting; the trainers were lovely people with enthusiasm and commitment to their jobs. The day focused on how we, as allies, can support and encourage others to help promote an inclusive and supportive environment for everyone in the workplace. We did a little bit of roleplay which (after I overcame my initial shyness) was a lot of fun. One of the tasks we were set was to give a short presentation to the group of how our weekend went without referencing place, who we were with, or their gender; this was an example of how difficult it can be for LGBT persons being quizzed about their social life while unable to speak openly. The difficulty was eye-opening!

At the end of the day we all had to stand and make one commitment. I committed to wearing Stonewall’s Rainbow Laces for my Great Scottish Run 10K, for which I was raising money for PoTS UK — a charity that supports people with the condition Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. Rainbow Laces are part of Stonewall’s campaign to stamp out homophobia in sport; wearing them on my run combined and advertised two very different, but equally important, challenges.

On October 2nd I ran in the Great Scottish Run 10K in Glasgow, finishing in 1 hour 12 minutes. I’ve been training for this run for 5 months after a 28 year gap from running. It was an amazing experience and I raised over £1000 for PoTS UK. My youngest son has this condition. It has been life changing for him during what should be his introduction to independent adult life and it’s very hard to watch him have to come to terms with it.

Running 10K is nothing compared to the days he sometimes has.

We were 7 women (!) at the Allies training and we decided to stay in touch, and perhaps have some joint events across our respective places of work. I look forward to helping organise these. As someone with a sister who is a lesbian and a transitioning niece, I am well aware of the enormous difficulties my family have encountered and I’m enthusiastic to help support inclusion and acceptance at work. I am very proud to be part of this Staff Pride Network and to have run in my laces. They will be staying in my trainers.

SPN will be launching an allies’ membership to include all colleagues who agree with the network’s aims. More information is available at https:// www.stonewall.org.uk/our-work/campaigns/rainbow-laces.




Meet the Committee: Sarah Moffat; Bi Rep

As Bi Rep on the Staff Pride Network Committee I was very pleased to be asked to contribute a piece to this newsletter to mark Bi Visibility Day, which took place in September.

Growing up, I was grateful for bisexual erasure – for the way it protected me from the most vicious and violent forms of queerphobia, for the way it saved me from having to have painfully awkward conversations with my family about subjects which are deeply personal – but, as I’ve grown older, my desire for visibility and acknowledgement have become almost overwhelming. Particularly following my engagement to my partner Callum two years ago, I’ve found the repeated erasure of what is a significant part of my identity immensely frustrating and in response have begun to advocate increasingly loudly for the bisexual+ community.

Ultimately—while visibility isn’t for everyone and some would rather their private lives be just that—when Anna Paquin is still being asked on national television if she is now a “non-practising bisexual” after marrying her partner Stephen Moyer, and when members of the media are suggesting (not so subtly) that Amber Heard’s bisexuality might be to blame for Johnny Depp abusing her, I’m going to keep claiming my place in LGBTQ+ spaces. I will keep reminding people I’m not in a “straight relationship” and I will keep looking out for all members of my queer family.