Celebrating Pride in Maritime day 2023. Queer seafarers

 

 

Dutch gay seafaring steward from the SS Rotterdam looks at his voyage album, late 20C. He's helping in the Amsterdam Maritime Museum research project, 'Queer Spaces at Sea. Queer culture on merchant ships 1950 - 1980

Celebrating Pride in Maritime Day, Tues Feb 28 2023. This year join in some wonderful opportunities to celebrate queer seafarers and their place in maritime heritage: 

• exhibitions
• talks
• events .

So why not try:

1. Seeing two European exhibitions on now till summer (both with English subtitles)

# Bergen, Norway: ‘Queer Lives at Sea’ https://sjofartsmuseum.museumvest.no/norsk/utstillinger/skeive-sjoefolk/

# Amsterdam Maritime Museum, Netherlands. As yet 'Queer Spaces at Sea. Queer culture on merchant ships 1950 -1980' is in its early stages. 

Bob van de Poll, Curator of 
 Amsterdam's Queer Spaces
at Sea project

Curator Bob van de Poll invites you to:

• Join in if you have memories. 
• Read/hear stories. 
• See the first-ever film of LGBT+ crew reminiscing about the oddly out -and-proud ships' subcultures in those early days.

Queer Spaces at Sea' is part of the wonderful new exhibition, Humans at Sea: https://lnkd.in/eDxTKH55.

2. Helping develop Pride in Maritime Day 

It’s only the second year of its existence. Tuesday 28 Feb 2023. So let’s big it up. And join in the Diversity in Maritime UK discussion at https://bit.ly/PrideEvent28Feb2023.

3. Catching this info, in talks, posts and films throughout LGBT+ history month. I’ll be sharing stories about:

Wendy at his piano in Hull, lifting spirits as he did
at sea.Picture courtesy Harriet Jones. 

# Entertaining 4 sanity@sea:  Roy ‘Wendy’ Gibson: steward, Falklands Conflict hero, and Hull’s answer to pianist Liberace 

You can hear about people - especially queer seafarers - who raised shipboard morale by making music and theatre. 
Discover how the exceptional gay-affirmative sub-culture on late 20C ships enabled some LGBT+ people to boost their mental health despite gruelling homophobia ashore. 

Show-biz style fun kept you sane at sea! Watch this space and social media for updates.

#  Comparing Europe’s queer maritime past 
New stories are emerging of Norwegian, Scandinavian and Dutch LGBT+ seafarers’ lives at sea. 
Compare revelations of below-decks fun and work, love and tourism, on late 20C ships of different countries. Watch this space and social media for updates on venues and dates.

1968: Yes, gay seafarers were aboard seemingly the queerest Dutch ship, Rotterdam, with two other ships of the Holland-America Line (Maasdam and Ryndam) at the Wilhelminakade in Rotterdam

For a roundup including Canada's exhibition on gay seafarers see also https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/whats-on/stories/rainbow-sea-swelling

Celebrating the first ever Pride in Maritime Day on Mon 28 Feb 28, 2022.

Celebrating the first ever Pride in Maritime Day on Feb 28, 2022. https://www.maritimeuk.org/events/events/pride-maritime-day/ 

Let's join with all the LGBTQ+ seafarers and their allies ashore and afloat to mark this fine day. Maritime UK is leading the initiative. 

 

Grabbing a quick taster

I'm proud to have been part of revealing the brave and tragic history. If you want a quick taster about the challenging gay maritime past that led to this now-proud present, try: 

# Seeing my zoomed whirlwind tour talk about this history, step by step, 1600-2000 at bit.ly/queermarhist. It includes cross-dressed women whose relationships may have been non-heterosexual, like shipwright Mary Lacey (pictured below). 
 

# Browsing my reading list of books and articles about queer seas, at  www.academia.edu/37107492/Queer_Seas_bibliography_doc

# Reading my (lite, illustrated) introduction to the subject at http://www.jostanley.biz/the_sea_and_lgbtqi.html 

Exploring further 

I'm celebrating 20 years of researching, writing and explaining about this subject. This period was prefaced by me thinking for over two decades before that, 'Somebody's got to write up this history. But it should be written by a gay seafaring man, not me.' 

Finally I went ahead. You can see what I've written up by looking at: 

# my articles: get links via http://www.jostanley.biz/the_sea_and_lgbtqi.html 

# the "Hello Sailor" exhibition that Merseyside Maritime Museum mounted, then toured. See the Youtube tour of it at bit.ly/HomotopiaHello 

#  the seminal book Paul Baker and I wrote:  "Hello Sailor, https://www.proquest.com/docview/2132054178/$N" 

# my blog on gender and the sea: https://genderedseas.blogspot.com/

You can help by joining in

Do you want to take part in a rainbow seas history network, exploring the diverse maritime past? 

A few of us in maritime museums throughout Europe are thinking of getting together for this purpose. 

If you want to talk about joining in please contact me privately via my website, www.jostanley.biz

LGBTQI+ maritime events Feb 2021

Despite lockdown, online events are happening in February, LGBTQI+ History Month. And long term plans are also underway too. See here for listing, and do tell me if you think something else should be here.

FEBRUARY

 9 (Tues):Live events, cost free, hosted by Maritime UK website, 12.00 -14.00. Free. 

12.00. Come to my 20 minute illustrated online talk: LGBT+ maritime history: a whirlwind tour of a jigsaw, 1800-today

12.30. Zoom talk by Charlotte Paddock of the National Maritime Museum on its LGBTQI+ history events and more

To book click on https://www.maritimeuk.org/priorities/people/diversity-maritime/events/pride-maritime-lgbt-history-month-webinar-9-february/

10 (Wed). 6.30-20.00. National Maritime Museum /OUTing the Past . Focusing on non western LGBT+ experiences. https://www.rmg.co.uk/see-do/LGBT 

20 (Sat): 14.00 to 17.30.   Transgender Awareness & Understanding training course  Fact- based video presentation is delivered by two trans people and is a fully accredited CPD course. Normally, places are £45.00 plus VAT, but for LGBT+ history month there's £5.00 off. Quote MARITIME-UK. This event is not only for people in maritime. Michelle Clarke (co-presenter) is  a former captain so has special maritime knowledge. They will also be offering the course on many future occasions. Book at nationalgendertraining@gmail.com. 

From 24 (Wed) and then online:The Mother Mirror, directed by Anju Kasturiraj, National Maritime Museum. A video and moving image experiment exploring the ideas of 'fish out of water', chosen families, and migration. https://www.rmg.co.uk/see-do/LGBT

TO BE ARRANGED 

Various regional hosts with Outing the Past offer all sorts of speakers to various regional hosts for online events. For list of available talks, Feb to Sept, see https://www.outingthepast.com/otp-2021-festival-gazette. 

For a timetable of events see https://www.outingthepast.com/otp-2021-festival-gazette.

From March films of all talks will be available on YouTube. Later see https://lgbtplushistorymonth.co.uk/ 

The only maritime talk so far is my presentation on Mick Belsten, a seafarer, Gay Liberation Front activist, and gay media worker. (Pictured below, far right). Venue TBA. 

HAPPENING AFTER LOCKDOWN, BUT GET IN TOUCH NOW

TRANS PLAQUE. Plans are afoot to put up a blue plaque to Michael Dillon, one of the first FTM trans people. He became a Merchant Navy doctor in the 1950s. (See blog at  http://genderedseas.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-first-ships-doctor-to-transition.html). Contact me if you wish to be part of the team working on the plaque.  

RESEARCH GROUP. The National Maritime Museum is organising  a community history project inviting LGBTQI+ maritime people to research its archives. Contact Charlotte Paddock cpaddock@rmg.co.uk.

MEMORIES WANTED. In 1994 there was an LGBT+ group for the Merchant Navy, called Shore Leave, and with an address at Stonewall. Would anyone who remembers Shore Leave get in touch with Nautilus official Danny McGowan, chair of the Maritime UK Pride in Maritime Network: dmcgowan@nautilusint.org. See https://www.nautilusint.org/en/news-insight/news/wanted-memories-of-maritime-lgbt-group-shore-leave/

MEDWAY HISTORY EVENTS. Not only Chatham sailors and marines and dockyard workers but people of Medway communities In Kent. If you are interested in sharing your story, or
researching others', contact the LGBTQIA+ History of the Medway Towns Project via the organiser, Rob Flood, at 07776 170751 or rob@feetontheground.co.uk.

VIRTUAL TOURS PROJECT. I'm planning a memory project linking veteran seafarers and current workers in maritime, called Mapping Our Rainbows Seas. The aim is to create a  guided virtual tour of places of significance to seafarers LGBT+ history, including  popular pubs in ports, places where courts-martialed sailors were hanged, and 'virtual pink plaque sites' where significant maritime workers lived or worked.