Peterson Toscano

Having spent 17 years and over $30,000 on three different continents attempting to change and suppress his gay orientation, Peterson Toscano presents a lively lecture about the ex-gay movement and the often-tragic outcomes of pursuing such a change.

Peterson will also explore issues of gender and gender variance by looking at transgender Bible characters in his play Transfigurations–Transgressing Gender in the Bible.

There will be time for a Q&A Session

This is a one off oportunity to see this American performance artist in Belfast, not to be missed!

http://www.petersontoscano.com
http://www.beyondexgay.com/

The Space, QUB SU, Thursday 28th May, 7.30pm. Open to all.

AGM

Thursday 7th May, 8pm Club rooms (3rd floor of SU will be the AGM (annual general meeting) where you can hear the current society officers give their reports of this year and then the fun begins electing the new commitee! If you would like to be involved in the society next year, make it better, do different things, then put your name forward for President, Secretary or Treasurer and make it great!

Any student can nominate themselves for a position and you don’t need to have been an active member this year, just have a drive to make it better next year (and there’s loads of help and advice on hand if you don’t know anything about running a society!!) Really anyone can do it so why not give it go and get something really amazing to put on your CV!

All nominations must be emailed to site@qublgbt.org.uk by thursday 7th may at 5pm and include your name, student number and position you’d like to nominate yourself for.

Taboo

QUB SU’s gay night, Taboo, returns this Wednesday 18th March. The straight-friendly gay night was a massive success back in November at its launch.

For a trial period, QUB SU will hold Taboo every Wednesday, and with good attendance will be amoungst only a handful of universities to host a weekly gay night within their union.

Come along, benifit from the drinks promos and chill out in a friendly and inviting space for all to enjoy!

Bunatee Bar (downstairs SU) Free before 10pm doors 9pm.

NUS-USI LGBT Conference

The NUS-USI LGBT Conference will be taking place in UUB campus between 12-4pm this Wednesday, 18th March.

Come share your views on NUS-USI and help to make it better and more interactive for LGBT students next year. All welcome, meeting at 11:30 outside QUB SU to walk/taxi down.

QUB LGBT President runs for VP Equality & Diversity

Sarah Boles, current LGBT Soc President, will be running for VP Equality and Diversity in the elections next week. If elected she will be the first openly gay candidate to serve on the SU Executive at Queen’s, a title she says has been too long in coming.

We’ve waited a long time to have someone represent us at the highest level in the Students Union and I would love to be the first person to do so. LGBT issues have come a long way in the past couple of years and I’ve had the privilege to be involved with the society and the larger LGBT community for the past three years.

Highlighting the need for a safe space to report hate crime and gender neutral facilities, Boles further added

We need to create an open minded Union where everyone can feel safe and secure without having to face those drunken comments from random people walking home or to be able to walk hand in hand with the people we love without verbal persecution.

Sarah’s manifesto as well as the other candidates are available online via the su website www.qubsu.org
Student elections take place next Tuesday and Wednesday (3-4th March) on Queen’s Online.

The Convention on Modern Liberty

Presented by Amnesty International NI and Queen’s University Belfast, School of Law.

Modern Liberty Convention, Belfast

Venue: Room 212, Peter Froggatt Centre Queen’s

Belfast will be live-linked to the Convention on Modern Liberty, a major event taking place in London on Saturday 28 February 2009. The Belfast event is sponsored by Amnesty International and Queen’s University School of Law. The central event is being sponsored by Rowntree Foundation, openDemocracy, Liberty and The Guardian.

Belfast will join by live, big-screen, link, a plenary session in the morning with a panel of nationally distinguished speakers from across the political spectrum discussing ‘Citizens and the state: the crisis of liberty’.

Meanwhile, in Belfast, there will be two sets of four parallel sessions in the morning and afternoon, each focused on a different question relating to modern liberty and human rights in Northern Ireland, nationally or internationally. The panels are being sponsored and organised by a range of interested organisations and bring together activists, academics, politicians and others.

There will be a final plenary session live from London on ‘How do we secure modern liberty?’ with another great line-up of speakers. We hope to round off the day’s discussions with a drinks reception.

Tickets £12/£6 Student

Find out more here

Quiz this week!

This Thursday, 26th Feb the society will discuss bullying and its effects on LGBT students to end LGBT History Month at Queen’s.
Afterwards we’re having a ‘gay quiz’ with fabulous prizes of special VIP tickets to Kremlin’s GOSCARS this Friday (27th).
Drinks and nibbles will be provided.
Come along, think of a team name and win your ticket!
Club Room 2, Top Floor of the SU at 8pm.

Rainbow project survey

Dear Friend,

As you may be aware the Rainbow Project, with the support of the Northern Ireland Policing Board LGBT Reference and PSNI LGBT Independent Advisory Group, are currently carrying out research into homophobic hate crime in Northern Ireland.

For any of you who have Gaydar or Gaydar girls profiles, you will get one weeks free membership for completing the survey. Please take a few moments to complete it with as much detail as possible to ensure the best result, and to give us the best opportunity for the changes which we are trying to implement in relation to Policing in Northern Ireland.

Also, can I ask all those organisations to forward this link out on your own mailing lists. I, along with the steering group, am concerned that we will have low numbers of women completing the survey due to the majority of the publicity being through Gaydar and Gaydar Girls and Gaydar having a much higher membership. Because of this can I ask LASI and Lesbian Line to try their best to get as many of their members/service users to complete this as possible.

Thank you all for your support to date on this issue and I look forward to having a strong response to report to you on.

The link to the survey is http://survey.qsoft.co.uk/wsb.dll/4/rainbowproject.htm

John

John O’Doherty

(Equality Officer)

The Rainbow Project

2-8 Commercial Court

Belfast

BT1 2NB

t: (028) 9031 9030

f: (028) 9031 9031

e: john@rainbow-project.org

w: www.rainbow-project.org

Meeting with the VP Equality & Diversity

This Thursday, 19th Feb, at 8pm we’re meeting with the VP Equality & Diversity, Shane Brogan to talk over LGBT issues in the union. He’s kindly providing sandwiches, tea and coffee so come along and share you’re opinion.

At this meeting we’ll also be discussing our social calendar if there’s anything you want to do come along and share, we’ve a massive budget this semester so if you want to go down to Dublin, go ice skating, bowling or even to the zoo then bring all of your suggestions with you and tell us how to spend the money!

Afterwards we’ll head down to Bar Sub like usual for a wee social tipple. See you on the Top Floor of the SU at 8!

Blood Wedding

This week final year drama undergraduates are producing gay playwright Frederico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding at the Drama and Film Centre. This is a great opportunity to see a widely underproduced but beautifully lyrical play. The play runs from Tuesday 17th – Thursday 19th Feb at 7:30. £5/3 conc.

We’re going to see it on Wednesday 18th and meeting in the foyer of the QFT at 7pm, don’t miss out!

**This was first advertised at ‘Yerma’ but I got the plays wrong, same playwright, different play! -Sarah