Nicola Fern - Digital Learning Developer

The most accessible kinds of LGBT history I have come across are communicated through some really excellent TV and film (such as Pride, It's A Sin, The Nilsen Files), rather than because of any effort to include it in a broader educational context.  When I was at school, Section 28 was in force - from when I was 8, through to past the time I left school.  Certainly, nothing of LGBT history or life was mentioned at the time.  There are organisations seeking to redress this balance, and I was able to take part in a project in Wolverhampton some years ago documenting contemporary LGBT+ life and how it has changed for the future (https://www.youtube.com/user/LGBTWOLVERHAMPTON/videos).

I think the first LGBT figure I really connected with was Alan Turing, an incredible person who was persecuted in the UK despite his enormous contributions during WWII.  I live in Manchester, and when I first came here I went to his statue in Sackville Gardens to sort of commune with him.  I feel a deep sense of injustice about the past in terms of how people like me were treated.

I think we also have to remember that LGBT+ history is not dead - it is still being written and re-written.  In particular, we need to take care that particularly trans and genderqueer people are not written out of our shared history, or their right to exist questioned. We have been, and should remain, together in solidarity.