Louise Wallwein MBE, a renowned and award-winning poet, playwright and performer, gives the 11th annual LGBT History Month lecture This lecture contains strong language. Louise Wallwein MBE, a renowned and award-winning poet, playwright and performer, gives the 11th annual LGBT History Month lecture organised by the University’s LGBT+ Advisory Group and the Equality and Diversity Unit. Louise has written and performed plays for National Theatre Wales, Contact, The Royal Exchange, Sydney Opera House, Red Ladder, Sheffield Crucible and BBC Radio 3 and 4, and an award winning one woman show on the wing of a WWII Shackleton aircraft in Manchester. Louise has undertaken writing residencies in Queensland and at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, and is a BBC Contains Strong Language Poet in residence. Louise has achieved many accolades in her career but more recently her work to ‘make excellent art co-created with and for the people’ was recognised when she was appointed as an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2018 for services to Spoken Word Music and outstanding achievement in the Community. Last year Louise won the Manchester Culture Award for Best Performance for her play Hidden which was created through a programme of public engagement and creative enquiry into the lived experience of young onset dementia.

Ozanne outlines clear evidence of the harm that certain teachings have caused the LGBT community and what can be done to address this major safeguarding issue affecting young LGBT Christian teenagers today. The harmful effects of prejudice and discrimination on the LGBTI community have been acknowledged for some time by the medical professions, however few have been able to provide evidence of the role that religion can play in fuelling this. Jayne Ozanne is a well-known gay evangelical who works to ensure full inclusion of all LGBTI Christians at every level of the Church. She is Director of the Ozanne Foundation, which works with religious organisations around the world to eliminate discrimination based on sexuality or gender in order to embrace and celebrate the equality and diversity of all.

2018's annual lecture, organised by the LGBT+ Staff Network, will be delivered by Asad Dhunna, a London based marketing and communications director. Asad has written for various publications including the Guardian and the Huffington Post. Asad’s blog explores his faith and sexuality, and he also started the podcast Muslim Pride: www.asadd.net and he also started the podcast Muslim Pride.

Activist and author CN Lester talks about the need for queer/trans history in a world that too often forgets that variations in gender and desire have always been with us.

Ruth Hunt, Chief Executive of Stonewall and alumna of St Hilda’s, gives the 2015 LGBT History Month Lecture.

Best-selling author Val McDermid gives the 4th annual Oxford University lecture for LGBT History Month about her own experiences as a gay woman.

Andrew Hodges (author of Alan Turing: The Enigma) delivers a lecture on Alan Turing, the founder of modern computer science. This is the third annual lecture for LGBT history month. The British mathematician Alan Turing, whose centenary falls this year, was the founder of modern computer science. He was also the chief scientific figure in the Anglo-American codebreaking effort in World War II, centred on Bletchley Park. His life as a gay man illustrates the harsh oppression but also the growing consciousness of that era.