SPN at Pride Edinburgh

We invite members, allies and students to join us for the Pride Edinburgh March on Saturday 25 June!
The SPN marching troupe will be meeting at 11:30 on the day at Levels Café on Holyrood Road. Speeches start at 12:30 and the march moves off at 13:00.

If you can’t make it to Levels beforehand but still want to join in, just look for our marching banner – it will be 3 metres wide and looks like the image above!

For a quiet space after marching:

Members are invited to meet at the Informatics Forum from 14:00 – 17:00. Join us for refreshments and a marching troupe debrief! Please note that this private space is being facilitated for University of Edinburgh staff and students only. Entry will be via Robbie on the march, through the side entrance and building sign-in. Call/TXT/iMessage/WhatsApp (07905517428) or even teams message Robert (Robbie) Court to access later in the afternoon.

Note: We will keep this post up to date throughout the day and I’ll try and share our location during the march. 

Live updates:

Live location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/d8d45uCRVSKGdAi67

14:00 we’re meeting by the rino head / gift shop by informatics

12:40 were by the traffic lights

10:20 myself and the banner are now in levels cafe having breakfast so feel free if you want to be fashionably early.

8:44 Prepping for meeting at levels cafe. The refreshments are all ready at the informatics forum at the end of the Parade route. The banner has poles this year so wind permitting should be above the crowd. [fingers crossed].

Dear University of Edinburgh Staff Pride Network,

I am contacting you to say thank you for everything you have done over the past year to celebrate, support and promote the LGBTQ+ community.

As was stated during the awards ceremony, 2022 was probably the toughest year to select finalists and winners with over 1000 nominations being received and over 36000 votes being cast, all from the public. Although it was commiserations on the night his hopefully shows the amazing impact which you and your organisation is having within the community and how your actions have caused an individual to nominate you this year.

We strongly hope that you continue your amazing work and impact so that we will see you again at the Proud Scotland Awards 2023.

During the evening, you will be aware that we raised money to help support the delivery of Pride Edinburgh, https://prideedinburgh.co.uk/, and Glasgow’s Pride Mardi Gla, https://glapride.com/, and hope that we will see you showing your Pride, at either or both of the marches and events.

Again, from myself as the Chair of the Judging panel, congratulations on being a finalist in 2022 and thank you for being amazing!

Stuart McPhail

Chair | Proud Scotland Awards

https://proudscotlandawards.com/ 

Happy Pride Month 2022!

To celebrate, the Staff Pride Network is offering a limited number of t-shirts for free to network members.

We’ve got seven variations of the SPN logo available, representing a number of pride flags.

Check out the t-shirt designs (image file on SharePoint)

UPDATE 6 JUNE
Please note that the following logo variations are no longer available in June 2022 due to high demand:
Rainbow; Philadelphia; Bisexual
If you select one of the above variations, we will record this as an expression of interest for when we can next order a batch of t-shirts.

We hope to see you wearing your colours loud and proud on Saturday 25 June at the Pride Edinburgh march! We welcome you to join the Staff Pride Network marching troupe 😊

Complete this short form to request a t-shirt

Logo flag variation options available in June 2022:
Lesbian / Non-Binary / Trans / Intersex

We recognise that the sexualities and identities of all our network members are not represented by these flags – apologies that we can’t print more variations on this occasion!

With huge thanks to our colleague Gill Kidd who created this version of the t-shirt design! Logo designs are by Kael Onion Oakley.

• We have a limited number of t-shirts and size options, and will therefore respond to requests on a first-come-first served basis. Please expect to receive an email confirming the availability of your preferred t-shirt.
• If we run out of your preferred design and size, we can retain your details for when we can next order more t-shirts. We can’t guarantee that the next batch of t-shirts can be made available for free (sorry).
• We kindly ask that anyone who gets a t-shirt considers making a one-off donation of £5 – £15 (or whatever you can manage) to Pride Edinburgh. You can do so at the Pride Edinburgh march on Saturday 25 June – card machines will be available.
• If you are unable to attend the Pride Edinburgh march but would still like to make a donation, let us know via email.

Any questions about the t-shirts or the request form? Get in touch: staffpridenetwork@ed.ac.uk

The past few months have seen us have to wave goodbye to a number of events, instead finding ways to celebrate them separately and behind closed doors. Despite this, our Staff Pride Network still gathered (virtually) to mark Pride month, and to support each other during this strange time. Here, Jonathan MacBride, Co-Convenor of the Network, chats to bulletin about adapting their Pride plans to a digital environment. 

What has it been like organising the celebration of Pride during lockdown?

We’ve been glad to have the resources to host a virtual, Prideful, event to bring community members together to reflect, commemorate and celebrate.

Have you managed to take everything online successfully? Has it felt the same hosting events virtually?

There have certainly been varying levels of success and hiccups but we have continued our regular social events and increased our online offering with alternating weekly yoga and Qi Gong (Body Clock Flow). Weekly Wednesday online lunchtime catch-ups for all members have replaced monthly lunchtime events held at different campuses on the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th Wednesdays. Our monthly Evening Social on the 1^st Friday has moved online and drinks are much cheaper! Where conversations would have bounced around in person at these social events, people online want to contribute to the conversation but will often find themselves starting to talk just as someone else does. It’s different, it’s learning how to make it work, and that’s ok. Rather than fight it, we’ve embraced it and even organised an Animal Crossing event for IDAHOBT (International day against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia) where some members joined in on their Nintendo Switch and others watched on Twitch.

How has the Network managed to successfully connect and support each other when they’re unable to meet face to face?

Everyone on the committee and the entire volunteer team have continued to work together to deliver fantastic events, maintain an active social media presence and create interesting communications, while members have responded with generous event feedback, and liking, sharing and retweeting our communications. It motivates us to keep working with the University, attending strategy meetings and organising ever more for our LGBT+ colleagues and allies.

Can you expand a bit more of some of the events you had to alter to fit these lockdown circumstances?

Our Diversifying Wikipedia event on the 25^th anniversary of Pride marches in Scotland changed from face-to-face training in a WRB University room to Collaborate for the training, Collaborate side rooms for extra help, and a Discord for other support and questions for our special guests. I’d never heard of Discord before this and now I organise activism on one Discord and chat to friends while experimenting with acrylic paint on another! Event participants created new Wikipedia pages for LGBT+ authors, publishers, and historic and current Scottish LGBT+ bookshops (Lavender Menace Bookshop and Category Is Books, if you want to look up their handiwork!). The AGM in August (date TBC) will be online for the first time too!

Will you be continuing with any of these once things are back to normal?

What’s normal? I expect we’ll maintain a fully inclusive approach, making events accessible in-person and online. We’ll adapt and do our best.

Anything else you’d like to mention?

Pride Month is a time where our community comes together to celebrate the progress we have made towards being included and accepted and ending discrimination. We must acknowledge that the Pride movement is built on the shoulders of Black trans women activists like Marsha P Johnson and we are still fighting today to end racist, homophobic, biphobic and transphobic oppression.

BY CHARLOTTE DAVIDSON

How have you been celebrating Pride month this year? Let bulletin-magazine know in their comments here: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/bulletin-magazine/2020/06/30/reflecting-on-an-unusual-pride-month/

Article from bulletin-magazine: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/bulletin-magazine/2020/06/30/reflecting-on-an-unusual-pride-month/

Prior to the Pride Edinburgh march on Saturday 22 June, we’ll be meeting at Levels Cafe on Holyrood Road at 11.30am and plan to head to the march at 12ish for a 12.30 start. Join us at Levels so you can find us easily.

We are making placards for our beautiful posters so do let us know if you’d like to carry one. Look for the placards if you can’t get to Levels.

Time to get your beautiful UoE Staff Pride Network t-shirt for the march (or for your wall/presentation cabinet/sleeping shirt)! First round deadline is 10.30am Tuesday 4 June, so please get your orders in soon! Many thanks to April for organising this.

T-shirt order form

T-shirt payment

Cost price is £13.20 including VAT, so that’s all you pay.

Ideally you will be able to pick them up at a Central location by Friday 21 or we can send by internal mail. Closer to the time we may be able to deliver to other campuses.

The Everyday Cyborgs and Humanimals event on April 14th at the Filmhouse was the first public screening of four short films exploring fears, hopes and anxieties, as well as the everyday reality, of being not-fully-human. The films were made by local artists, creatives, and a group of young people, as part of the Animal, Mechanical and Me: The Search for Replaceable Hearts project led by Dr Gill Haddow in Science Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh and funded by the Wellcome Trust.

The project explores patient experiences and public reactions to using material from non-human animals or from implantable cybernetic systems to repair, replace or regenerate the human body. It seeks to bring patients’ experiences, anxieties, and wider questions around human identity and selfhood, to bear on conversations about recent developments in medical technology. The film screening was part of a more general attempt to showcase social science research at Edinburgh University to wider audiences, and to generate public awareness and debate about these issues.

We decided to wear rainbow lanyards in addition to the classic dark-blue one to promote a more inclusive public image of the University, but also to pay tribute to the LGBT+ contributions to academic thought around identity, selfhood, and embodiment, and around the figure of the cyborg in the Western cultural imaginary.

Pride Edinburgh is on Saturday 16th June 2018 and we have LOTS of plans! All are welcome to join us for the march, wear a Rainbow Lanyard and a University Staff Pride Network t-shirt and stay for the Queer AF cabaret.

We’ll meet at Levels Cafe, Holyrood Road from 11am in advance of the march moving off from the Scottish Parliament at 12.

We have set up an ePay link (https://bit.ly/2xrpIaz) and an order form (https://bit.ly/2xpWwRj) so you can buy a Staff Pride Network t-shirt for the march at cost price of £13.20, and we’ll send it to you internal mail. You can also collect from Central or Little France. With or without a t-shirt, feel free to wear your Rainbow Lanyard and join us to celebrate Pride and show solidarity with LGBT+ people around the world.

Once you’ve marched, applauded the speeches, visited the community fair in Teviot and Potterow and ceilidh-danced your wee heart out, SPN are proud to present a special Pride Edition of Queer AF Cabaret. Drag queen host Georgia Tasda will be joined by a selection of Edinburgh’s finest queer performers. The fun begins at 6pm in Teviot Underground. Free entry to all!