You know what time it is, another Friday, another weekly LGBT+ News Roundup!
This week’s headlines are:
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie! released on Amazon Prime
New species of fly named after Drag Race’s Ru Paul
Australian Music Awards remove gendered categories
Protests in Madrid over anti-LGBT+ hate crimes
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie! released on Amazon Prime
The movie version of the West End musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is released on Amazon Prime today!
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is a coming-of-age musical which was inspired by a real life teenager from Durham in Northern England called Jamie. The story follows 16 year old Jamie as we learn about his dreams of becoming a drag queen, watch him perform in his first drag show and cheer on his triumphant arrival at his prom in a gorgeous dress.
The movie premier for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie took place earlier this week as UK drag royalty, including Lawrence Chaney and Ellie Diamond from Drag Race UK, walked the pink carpet. Bimini Bom Boulash took over the Everybody’s Talking About Jamie instagram account along with Max Harwood, who plays the title character in the movie, and the real-life Jamie who inspired it all.
New species of fly named after Drag Race’s Ru Paul
A new species of fly found in Australia has been named ‘Opaluma rupaul’ in honour of the Drag Race host.
The fly is as shimmering and colourful as the drag queen herself and Bryan Lessard, an entomologist (bug biologist!) for Australia’s Scientific Research Organisation, said naming the new fly was an “obvious decision”.
And this isn’t the first time that Bryan Lessard has named an insect after his diva icons. Almost 10 years ago, he named the Scaptia beyonceae fly after the queen of the Beyhive herself, Beyonce Knowles.
Bryan described the as having a “costume of shiny metallic rainbow colours” and “legs for days” and added that he hoped Ru would be flattered by the comparison.
Australian Music Awards remove gendered categories
Australian music awards the ARIAs has ditched gendered categories in order to be inclusive to non-binary performers.
The awards announced that, starting this year, they will be combining ‘Best Male Artist’ and ‘Best Female Artist’ into one award, simply called ‘Best Artist’. Instead of the 5 nominees which were chosen for each award in previous years, the Best Artist award will have 10 nominees.
This is a striking comparison to the BRIT awards, who planned to scrap gendered categories in 2019 but have yet to follow through on this and therefore excluded Sam Smith this year as they did not identify with the binary awards categories.
The ARIAs announced the change on Twitter and said that the change “reflects our commitment to embrace equality and the true diversity of the music industry in 2021” and their CEO Annabelle Herd said in an interview that “The time for separating artists based on gendered categories that exclude non-binary artists altogether has passed,”
Protests in Madrid over anti-LGBT+ hate crimes
Hundreds of people have once again gathered in Madrid to protest the rise in hate-crimes.
In a 2020 report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 41% of LGBT+ Spanish citizens said they have experienced harassment in the last 12 months. Members of the Spanish LGBT+ community have also seen a staggering increase in anti-LGBT+ hate crimes in the past year including Samuel Luiz, a 24-year-old nursing assistant, who was beaten to death for being gay on July 3rd 2021, and whose death sparked a wave of protests across Spain.
The most recent protests in Madrid took place on September 11th in Puerta del Sol, Madrid’s most famous square. Protesters demanded basic protection for LGBT+ people as they wore pride flags and waved signs reading ‘Justicia!’ (Justice).
COGAM (el Colectivo LGBT+ de Madrid /LGBT+ Collective of Madrid) joined up with dozens of other LGBT+ and human rights organisations to organise the protest with a banner which read “Against aggression, live without fear,”
Finally we’re finishing up with some positive news from very close to home!
Our very own Space Youth Project education volunteers, Mel Lane and James Canning, have been working with youtuber and children’s author, Olly Pike, to write a new book for kids, called What Does LGBT+ Mean? The book is aimed at children aged 8-11, but has also proved popular with adults wanting to understand more, and has already been called “revolutionary” by Pink News!
Packed full of information; questions and discussion ideas; and eye-catching, colourful pictures; the book has been very successfully trialled in schools. Although it is Olly, Mel and James’ names on the cover, hundreds of people were consulted, including one of our trustees!
“We wanted to make sure the book was factually correct and appealing to a younger audience, but also that people with lived experience felt the language and content represented them accurately”, said Mel. “We are very grateful for all the guidance, advice and suggestions we received, including from SYP Trustee, Eli Moore, who also features in the book.”
James said he wanted to write the book because he wished that he’d had it in school. “It would have made a real difference to how I felt about myself”, he commented.
After several years working with teachers and school students, we know that often teachers are keen to be supportive and inclusive to LGBT+ students but they lack the confidence and are concerned about things like using the wrong terminology. This book was written as a confidence- builder for teachers and other adults to start a conversation and provide a positive image of LGBT+ people to younger children.
The book launches at a popup shop on Oxford Street, London, on Saturday 25 Sept. Anyone is welcome to come along and join Mel, James and Olly between 1-6pm. A Dorset celebration is also planned for later this year so watch this space…!
