2025: 28 June - 13 July

Pride Day: Sat 12 July

LGBT+ History Month 2023 Begins

It’s LGBT+ History Month and this year’s theme for LGBT+ History Month is #BehindTheLens: celebrating LGBT+ lives both onscreen and those working behind it. In a time where LGBT+ lives are gaining legitimate representation in the media, we also encourage you to look ‘Behind the Lens’ and observe LGBT+ people’s lived experiences and perspective. We’re teaming up with the Watershed for 3 special screenings in partnership with Queer Vision, the Bristol Pride Film Festival this month:

27 Jan - 2 Feb: All The Beauty and The Bloodshed

Oscar®-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) presents a stirring portrait of renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin, focussing on her fight against Big Pharma.

Goldin is most known for her intimate, explicit photographs of friends and lovers in the LGTBQ subcultures of 1980s/90s Boston and New York, as well as the effects of the HIV/AIDS Crisis.

Tickets

9 Feb: Joyland

A conservative family in Pakistan is torn apart when a son falls in love with a transgender erotic dancer, in director Saim Sadiq’s riveting queer drama.

Tickets

10 Feb - 16 Feb: Blue Jean

Blue Jean is the story of a PE teacher in the North East grappling with the reality of her own sexuality under Section 28 – a law banning the overt promotion of homosexuality. England, 1988 – Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government are about to pass a law stigmatising gays and lesbians, forcing Jean, a PE teacher, to live a double life. As pressure mounts from all sides, the arrival of a new girl at school catalyses a crisis that will challenge Jean to her core.

At a time when petitions are again circulating calling for the removal of LGBT+ education in schools calling back to Section 28 this is a poignant and timely moment to look back at the lessons we can learn.

Tickets

LGBT+ History Month is a great opportunity to learn about our community’s story and get involved. There are plenty of other exciting events to look forward too in Bristol:

14 Feb: Switchboard with Astro Zenica

Live show at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery - This specially created show by radical performance artist, Astro Zenica, draws on archives at Bristol Archives and oral histories relating to the city’s historical Bristol Gay and Lesbian Switchboard of the 1970s and 80s. As a love letter to the LGBTQ+ community (it's perfect for Valentine’s Night!)

Tickets

15 Feb: Julie d’Aubigny: The blade-wielding bisexual icon

Online talks - Julie d’Aubigny, aka La Maupin, has a larger-than-life track record. And although some parts of her story are lost between fact and fiction, her open love of both genders has made her a historical bisexual icon.

Join us for an exploration of Julie’s life, how her swordfighting intersected with ideas of queerness in early modern France and how she has inspired new LGBTQ+ and feminist retellings.

Talk by Claire Mead, hosted by Cheryl Morgan

more info here

21 Feb: Researching the 'Cavalry Maiden' - Aleksandr Aleksandrov

Online Talk - Aleksandr Aleksandrov was a hero of the Napoleonic wars. Ukrainian by birth, he had signed up as a teenager to fight for Russia against the French invaders. His bravery earned him several medals, including receiving the Cross of St. George from the Tsar himself. But Aleksandrov was not quite what he seemed. His birth name was Nadezhda Durova. He had a husband and a son.

After the war, Aleksandrov continued to live as a man. He became friends with the novelist, Pushkin, who encouraged him to write an autobiography. This was later published as The Cavalry Maiden. Since then, Aleksandrov’s story has often been portrayed as that of a brave woman disguising herself as a man to fight for her country. But recent research into Aleksandrov’s personal archive tells a very different story, and one that will be very familiar to trans people today.

Talk by Cheryl Morgan, hosted by Kim Renfrew.

more info here