PR Date: Friday, 7 February 2020 - 10:00am
North Hertfordshire Museum is celebrating LGBT+ History Month (February 2020) with a small display illustrating the diversity of people in the history of the district. Dealing with characters such as Baldock’s ‘female husband’ landlord of The Sun and the Roman Emperor Elagabalus, and themes like the introduction of Civil Partnerships in 2005, it aims to show that LGBT+ people are a visible and vital part of our community. After centuries of criminalisation, discrimination and invisibility, initiatives such as this show that LGBT+ people are not a new phenomenon.
Curator Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews will be giving a talk relating to the exhibition on Friday 6 March at 1.00 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. Tickets are available from the North Hertfordshire Museum ticket webpage or from the Museum reception.
The Museum Service has not previously collected items relating to LGBT+ history, so what we can display is limited. We will happily accept as donations items such as flyers for gay nights held in North Hertfordshire venues, photographs, written memoirs… anything that helps to tell the story of local LGBT+ people.
Starting as an educational initiative by Schools OUT UK in 2005, LGBT+ History Month has grown to be a national event supported by schools, colleges, museums and local authorities. Although we like to think of our society as tolerant and welcoming of diversity, there has been in increase in homophobic hate crimes in recent years, with 21% of LGBT people (41% of trans people) experiencing a hate crime or incident in the past 12 months. Discrimination affected 10% of LGBT people looking for property to rent or buy and 17% of those visiting a café or restaurant.
North Hertfordshire District Council (NHDC) is committed to promoting equality, creating a harmonious community and doing its best to prevent discrimination.
Keith Hoskins, NHDC’s Executive Member for Enterprise and Co-operative Development, said: “It's great the lives and contribution of the LGBT+ community are being recognised and celebrated in our district.
"I'd encourage the community to get involved by getting in touch and contributing items, such as clothing, or objects that reflect different aspect of their lives.
"By getting involved, LGBT+ lives will be better represented in the museum collections”.
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