Join at any of the launches. pre-order the book for yourselves, library, institution and join us the flagship launch. Queer Footprints – A Guide to Uncovering London’s Fierce History at The Bishopsgate Institute alongside UK Black Pride on the evening of the 27th of May!
Friday May 19th 2023 – facebook event here – organised by ACT UP London activist Drew Hawkinson
Join us for a special one hour conversation between Winnie Ssanyu Sseruma and Dan Glass to celebrate both their new books! Together we will be exploring solidarity between LGBTQ+ people and African communities in the fight for health equity. You don’t want to miss this!
We will be celebrating the soon to be released ‘Our Stories Told By Us’ Celebrating the African contribution to the UK HIV response. The remarkable book led by Black African women out spring 2023 co-authored by Angelina Namiba, Charity Nyirenda, Memory Sachikonye, Rebecca Mbewe and Winnie Ssanyu Sseruma
British LGBTQ+ activist Dan Glass from ‘ACT UP London’ will discuss his new book, “Queer Footprints: A Guide to London’s Fierce History” which serves as a whirlwind tour of the legendary queer movements and moments that have happened all across London, from the Gay Liberation Front, to ACT UP London and the HIV/AIDS crisis, to the Rebel Dykes of Brixton. Along the way we will uncover more about the legendary queer activists that called London home and come to appreciate the unique ties that bind queer history through space and time. Follow him @danglassmincer.
About the Speakers
Dan Glass is a healthcare and human rights activist, performer, presenter and writer. In 2014, Dan revived the London chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Dan has been recognized as Activist of the Year; with the Sexual Freedom Awards and was announced as a BBC Greater Londoner for founding Queer Tours of London – A Mince Through Time.
Winnie Ssanyu Sseruma is a freelance international development consultant based in London, working on access to healthcare for black communities in the UK and in Sub-Saharan Africa. Winnie has twenty years of experience as an HIV treatment activist. She previously served on the board of the Terrence Higgins Trust and led the African Health Policy Network, where she started FFENA, a network of black HIV-positive men and women in the UK that engages in research and advocacy on policy issues impacting the lives of people living with HIV in the UK and across the world. Winnie was born in the UK, grew up in Uganda, and went to University in the USA where she earned a Sociology degree. She has been living with HIV for years. Her new book, Our Stories Told by Us, co-authored and led by Black African women living in the UK, details and celebrates the African community’s contribution to the UK HIV response.
Attendees can pre-order “Queer Footprints: A Guide to London’s Fierce History” online here or purchase a copy at Gay’s the Word, London’s first and only independent LGBTQ+ bookstore, just minutes from LSHTM’s campus (66 Marchmont St, London WC1N 1AB).
Speaker
Dan Glass is an AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) healthcare and human rights activist, performer, presenter and writer. Dan has been recognised as ‘Activist of the Year’ with the Sexual Freedom Awards and was announced a ‘BBC Greater Londoner’ for founding Queer Tours of London – A Mince Through Time. His book United Queerdom: From the Legends of the Gay Liberation Front to the Queers of Tomorrow was Observer book of the week. Dan recently founded self-defence empowerment programme Bender Defenders and Queer Night Pride to confront rising hate crime. Follow him @danglassmincer.
Room
Manson Lecture Theatre
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Keppel St
London, UK
WC1E 6DP
Admission
This event free and open to all LSHTM staff and students. Visitors must sign in at Reception.
Contact
Drew Hawkinson (drew.hawkinson1@student.lshtm.ac.uk) for more information and accessibility requests.
Wednesday 7th June – ‘The Pansies Are in Bloom’ Trafalgar Square Tour – Facebook link / Outsavvy ticket link
‘The Pansies Are in Bloom’: Trafalgar Square tour, followed by a Q+A with leading Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) activist, Andria Mordaunt, at Stanfords bookshop in partnership with OUTbound – TfL’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans (LGBT+) Staff Network Group.
Ever wanted to learn more about the queer history of Trafaglar Square? Dan Glass, author of ‘Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Fierce History’ ,is here to guide you.
Highlights – tour stops include stories from campaigners that led to ‘Sexual Offences Act’ that partially decriminalised homosexuality in 1967; ‘The Order of Chaeronea’, a secret society of homosexuals; The Gay Ultradisco at Heaven Nightclub and the birth of the modern HIV / AIDS movement for justice; Oscar Wilde’s statue; politicians and activists that overturned ‘Section 28’ which banned the promotion of homosexuality in public institutions; first person testimony from trailblazing protests including ‘The Teenage Turn-in’ at Charing Cross police station; The Gay liberation front (GLF) Youth Demo against the unequal age of consent; AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) ‘die-in’ protests at the height of the AIDS pandemic; London Trans Pride and more.
Andria Mordaunt is a long time grass roots activist of 45 years standing. She began her “trouble” making with the Women’s liberation movement under the Guidance of Marya Efthimiou, who was busy resisting male violence in the 1970s. A decade-plus later, she became an AIDS Activist, promoting Harm Reducing Drug Policies internationally, (as opposed to Criminalising PWUDs-people who use drugs. She also served in the Welfare Working Group of OCCUPY London after her LSE MSc in Social Policy. By 2019, she needed to move sideways to protect herself from the constant HIV & Overdose-Related deaths. She has been more active with the Resistance Movement trying to make govt and corporations take the Climate Emergency seriouslyShe is 62, and has a wonderfully-savvy 15 year old daughter
Tour meeting point – Embankment Station – 4pm
Nearest wheelchair accessible stations with platform access – Tottenham Court Road or Green Park
PRAISE FOR QUEER FOOTPRINTS PUBLISHED BY PLUTO PRESS – Pre-order here
The strength and the beauty of this book is its resolute and joyful nod to queer history, the multiplicity of our stories and the ongoing, transformative process of our queer footprints which continue to add layers onto the city I was lucky enough to grow up in. London, through the eyes of Glass, is ever-changing but always radical’ – Juno Roche.
This electrifying book is an adventure book through London’s untold queer past. Every page is packed with inspiring, moving and downright hilarious secrets just itching to be uncovered – and with the riotously entertaining Dan Glass as your mincing tour guide – you’ll have an absolute blast as you do. A word of warning: after reading this, London will never seem the same again’ – Sam Arbor, Film Director
Queer Footprints is your back pocket guide to our queer/LGBTQIA+ histories, full of joy and ammunition to claim without any shame our beautiful queer futures – Tash Walker, host of The Log Books podcast and Co-Chair of Switchboard LGBT+ Helpline (2018 – 2022).
21st June 7-10pm – ACT UP and Positively UK Speed dating – Pride Special! Facebook event – ACT UP and Positively UK Speed dating – Pride Special! @ Curzon Cinema Soho
Join Positively UK and ACT UP at Soho Curzon Cinema, who will be hosting a speed dating night for HIV+ people
This is a celebration of LOVE, UNITY and COMMUNITY for everyone who deserves it particularly those on the frontline of hostile stigma and austerity. Come and join us and make love shine in all our lives – all supported by our fabulous ACT UP glamorous assistants – so that we confront the barriers that stop us all loving ourselves, admiring each other and thriving in our communities.
ABOUT US
ACT UP – (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power) are ‘United in Anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis, along with the broader inequalities and injustices that perpetuate it’.
‘Positively UK provides peer-led support, advocacy and information to everyone living with HIV to effectively manage any aspect of their diagnosis, care and life with HIV’
WHY?
Without sexual freedom and access to healthcare for all there is no decent Pride. So join us and celebrate how sexual freedom has been catalysed in London Town. Real change and real support came from us! It was the hundreds of people at the ‘die-in’ protests in Trafalgar Square, it was brave friends abseiling in protest into Parliament, it was the radical refusal of nurses working on AIDS wards to leave the dying alone, it was dykes donating blood, it was Queens on support phone lines throughout the night, it was clandestine meetings in the back of bookshops, it was booksellers resisting police raids, it was Whitney Houston singing at AIDS rallies in Hyde Park and so much more – all are covered in ‘Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Fierce History’. by ACT UP activist Dan Glass, who will be smooching whoever will have him live on stage on the night.
WHAT WE WANT
ACT UP is calling for national action to confront the Conservative Government’s lethal austerity programme that combined with pharmaceutical greed and political inaction, forces HIV/AIDS education, prevention and support services to shut down. . With bigoted comments like this Government’s Hostile Environment that regularly detains HIV+ migrants without access to medication – want us to turn against each other and hide away in fear – but we won’t let it happen.
LINE UP:
6pm – Doors open and welcome from ACT UP activists and glamorous assistants from across the world.
6.30 – 7pm – Queer Footprints short reading.
7-10pm – HIV Speed Dating
10pm – Join us as we cause mayhem in Soho.
Together we will vajazzle stigma, expose pharmaceutical greed and revel in the anger, sweatiness and fabulous fierceness of the global HIV+ community. So often, we are stigmatised in our society; treated as passive recipients of resources, or silenced and invisibilised altogether.
PRESS / CONTACT: Please email actuplondonhealthcareforall@gmail.com for all press enquiries, collaborations and any questions.
DRESSCODE: Dress to Impress!
ACCESSIBILITY: The venue is fully accessible. There will be ACT UP’s glamorous assistants at your service all night should you need anything.
TICKETS: Early bird £5 Unwaged £5 Waged £7.50 Solidarity £10. All profits go to the Positively UK Hardship Support Scheme – The Hardship Support Scheme provides financial support to help people living with HIV in times of crisis. Limited spaces – book your ticket here
If you have issues being able to afford to attend this event EMAIL US and we will sort it. Let us know and we will add you to our list.
Paying forward/drinks tickets for people in the asylum process or those who are homeless will be available on the night.
Got a question or want to be involved? Please email us at actuplondonhealthcareforall@gmail.com
ACT UP London 