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Pride 2025

Posted in History, LGBTQ+, Maynooth with tags , , , , , , , , on June 13, 2025 by telescoper

It’s 13th June, which means it’s almost halfway through this year’s Pride Month. I’ve been so busy that I am very late in posting about Pride 2025. I usually post something to mark Pride Month on 1st June (e.g. here). In fact I hadn’t even noticed the Pride Progress Flag flying on Maynooth Campus (between the Arts Block and John Hume Building) until today. I didn’t see anything on Maynooth’s social media about Pride either. I didn’t see the flag yesterday when I left the Science Building and assumed it wasn’t there. It was however raining heavily so my view may have been obscured by the rain on my spectacles, so I went back today to check. I am relieved it is there, as we need such symbols now more than ever.

With its origins as a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots of 1969, Pride remains both a celebration and protest. It’s more necessary than ever now because of the sustained abuse being aimed at trans people from all quarters, including those in political power and those sad losers who have nothing better to do that spend all day tweeting their bigotry on social media. Bigots will always be bigots, but the lowest of the low are those that masquerade as some sort of progressive while spouting their hate and prejudice.

Someone asked me the other day whether we still needed Pride. I replied that I think Pride will be necessary for as long as there are people who are annoyed by its existence. As well as a celebration and a protest, Pride is an opportunity for us all to show solidarity against those who seek to divide us. Though many LGBTQIA+ people in many countries – even those that claim to be more liberal – still face discrimination, hostility and violence, Pride Month always reminds me of how far we’ve come in the past 50 years but also serves as a reminder that the rights we have won could so easily be taken away. As I get older, I find I have become more and more protective towards younger LGBTQ+ people. I don’t want them to have to put up with the crap that I did when I was their age.

Latest issue of GCN
list of patrons

To mark this year’s Pride I decided to become a patron of Gay Community News, a free magazine that is, I hope, a vital resource to for the Irish LGBTQ+ community. I hope to take part in the Dublin Pride March on 28th June too. More generally, I would like to wish all LGBTQIA+ people around the world, but especially staff and students at Maynooth University, a very enjoyable and inspiring Pride 2025!

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Supreme Prejudice

Posted in Biographical, LGBTQ+ with tags , , , , , , , on April 16, 2025 by telescoper

On reflection it was inevitable that the UK Supreme Court would make the decision that it did today, i.e. to decide to deprive trans people of the protections from discrimination that they should have under the 2010 Equality Act. After all, the Court did not consult with a single trans individual or organization representing trans people in the course of its deliberations, preferring instead to base its conclusions only on submissions from known transphobic groups. That alone renders the process indefensible.

That said, the Supreme Court had to twist itself in knots in its judgment to find some semblance of an argument. For example, the judgment claims that the definition of “sex” to be used in the context of the Equality Act is “biological sex” which is “binary”. I paraphrase, of course, but it doesn’t really matter that the argument about biology is wrong – ever heard of intersex people? – because they don’t use it anyway. In fact the judgment does not even attempt to define in biological terms what sex is nor what is a woman is. The definition asserted is “sex at birth”, which actually means what is written on a birth certificate. As a matter of fact, my birth certificate actually says “Boy”…

Whatever is written on an official document is not biological, but bureaucratic, and also non-binary. Intersex people sometimes have “intersex” written on their birth certificate, a fact that thus refutes the binary claim, but sometimes they are arbitrarily assigned “male” or “female” with potentially damaging consequences. I used intersex merely as an example. Very few things in nature are actually binary, and sex – whether it be genetic, hormonal , gonadal or whatever – is emphatically not one of them, particularly not in humans.

Here’s a helpful graphic.

Shoe-horning people into binary categories is wrong not only because it fails to accept scientific reality but also because of the harm it causes to human beings worthy of acceptance and respect. People who dismiss the non-binary nature of sex and gender often say words to the effect that “oh I know there are exceptions, but there aren’t many of them”. But:

  1. if there are so few then why are you so obsessed with them?
  2. one exception is sufficient to refute what purports to be a logical argument!
  3. it’s precisely because trans people are a small minority that means they deserve legal protection.

Today’s judgment looks set to cast an already beleaguered group entirely to the wolves. You can bet your bottom dollar that there will be a tidal wave of follow-up cases targetting trans people with the specific intention of stirring up more hostility. The Supreme Court actually acknowledges the existence of transphobic hate and offers some words to suggest that trans people will still have some legal protections. There can be no doubt however that the judges know that their ruling will be seen as a green light for bigots and their rich backers to engage in still more bigotry. I also fear a rise in the already appalling number of trans suicides that the UK Government is trying so hard to conceal. I think it goes without saying and contrary to the claims of those who brought the case, this ruling does absolutely nothing to protect cis women.

I can’t understand the mindset of people that can look at the evidently complex and nuanced of human sexual identity and respond by putting on blinkers and insisting that it is what it clearly isn’t. Some people just seem to need their bigotry to survive in their joyless unimaginative lives. Whatever that mentality is the Supreme Court shares it. They didn’t listen to any contrary views. It was a foregone conclusion, a sham contrived by a group of reactionary duffers.

I have tried throughout this piece to refer to trans people rather than trans men or trans women. Obviously the ruling today was in response to a case brought by cis women who hate trans women. It will almost certainly lead to more trans women being harassed and victimized (as was the intention of the case). But there are at least as many trans men as trans women. Under the new ruling trans men will presumably be forced to use “women-only” lavatories and will run the risk of hostility should they do so. Trans women using “male only” toilets are likely also to be harassed. The Supreme Court knows this is what will happen, but apparently doesn’t care, and is content to go along with a trajectory set by far-right activists who won’t stop here.

It’s no consolation to my friends living on TERF Island, but at least in Ireland the law is a bit more progressive and better grounded in reality. It’s a grim day for trans people in the UK. All I can do is send a message of solidarity and point you to this list of resources for trans people and their allies. I know it’s only a gesture but I’m proud to share the Trans Pride flag here too.

Update: 27th April. The British Medical Association has just passed this resolution:

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R.I.P. Dr Ruth Westheimer (1928-2024)

Posted in Biographical, LGBTQ+, R.I.P. with tags , , , , , on July 14, 2024 by telescoper

I was very sad to learn yesterday of the death at the age of 96 of celebrity sex therapist Dr Ruth Westheimer, known universally as “Dr Ruth”. I remember her well from TV appearances back in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis when she was a staunch ally of the gay community. Her frank and non-judgmental approach to sex education – especially with regard to safer sex practices – probably saved many lives during that crisis. The fact that she looked like an archetypal little old lady made her use of explicit language rather shocking in a way but also extremely effective. I thought she was wonderful.

I actually had the privilege of meeting Dr Ruth. In fact, I had breakfast with her in a hotel in Reykjavik. We were both participants in a show called the Experiment Marathon which happened in 2008, before I started blogging. I still have the book of the event. Here is the list of participants, along with a picture of Dr Ruth during her contribution:

list of participants
Dr Ruth in 2008

Anyway, all the participants were staying in the same hotel for this event and on the morning of my talk I came down for breakfast to find the dining room rather crowded. There was a space, however, at Dr Ruth’s table. I recognized her immediately and was a bit nervous but eventually asked if I could join her. She was absolutely charming, very friendly, extremely talkative and delightfully funny. When I was able to get a word in, I told her how much admired her work during the AIDS crisis. She was also extremely tiny, well under five foot tall.

Dr Ruth was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Germany in 1928. When the Nazis came to power she was moved to Switzerland while her parents remained in Germany. Her father was murdered in Auschwitz; her mother also died during the Holocaust though nobody knows the details. She often said that her attitude during the AIDS crisis was informed by her knowledge that the Nazis murdered gay people too so she felt it was important to her show solidarity.

R.I.P. Ruth Westheimer (1928-2024)

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That was the Pride Lecture that was…

Posted in Biographical, LGBTQ+ with tags , , , , on June 5, 2024 by telescoper

I gave my talk yesterday as planned. I think it went quite well, although it did involve a few things I’ve never spoken about in public before, so it wasn’t exactly an easy talk to give. I guess about 60 or 70 people attended, mostly from Astrophysics. There was then a drinks reception and then I adjourned with organizer Jake Taylor and a couple of others to the King’s Arms for a few beers and a bite to eat.

I was a little bit worried ahead of the talk because I came down with some sort of bug over the weekend which gave me a sore throat and a bad cough. Fortunately, though, that passed quickly and I got through the lecture OK although I probably sounded a little hoarse.

Anyway, a big thank you to everyone in the Department who helped organize this event, and who looked after me so nicely before and after!

Some pictures were taken. Here is a selection:

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The Hate is still Out There

Posted in Biographical, LGBTQ+, Mental Health with tags , , on May 21, 2023 by telescoper

A few days ago I mentioned on this blog the case of a gay teenager in Navan being beaten up by boys from the same school; there was a news report here. Five youths were subsequently arrested but have now been released without charge. I felt a strong sense of dismay when I heard the news of their release, as the decision to let them go seemed to declare open season on homophobic violence. It may however because the assailants have to be treated as minors.

Press coverage related to this story has generally condemned the sharing on social media of a video showing the violent assault. There are quite a few people, however, including me, who think that the Gardaí would not have taken any action at all had they not been shamed into doing so by the publicity generated by the video.

Regular readers of this blog will probably understand why this case resonates with me: a similar thing happened to me way back in the 1980s. There are differences, of course. For one thing, I was rather older – in my mid-twenties rather than mid-teens. For another, the incident wasn’t reported to the police. There wasn’t any point in those days. The Brighton police at that time were notorious for dismissing complaints of gay-bashing despite the fact it was an endemic problem. People I knew who had reported such incidents usually found themselves being investigated rather than their assailants. In those days the law did not recognize homophobic offences as hate crimes. Far from it, in fact. Attacking a gay person was, if anything, considered to be a mitigating circumstance. This attitude was fuelled by a number of high-profile cases (including a number of murders) where gay-bashers had been acquitted or charged with lesser offences after claiming their victim had provoked them.

Another difference is that I didn’t go to hospital. I had a black eye, a fat lip and a lot of bruises, and had been unconscious for a time, but there didn’t seem to be any serious physical damage. The psychological effects were far from negligible, though, and I have experienced intermittent mental health problems ever since, sometimes needing to be hospitalized for psychiatric treatment. You can read about this here; a short summary is that I should have got help with this much earlier. The important thing now is that the boy who was targeted in Navan gets proper treatment and counselling. I wish him a speedy recovery.

Here’s something I wrote in 2010 after in the blog post describing my own experience of homophobic violence:

Now fast-forward about 20 years. Attitudes have definitely changed, and so has the law. Certain types of criminal offence are now officially recognized as hate crimes: the list treats sexual orientation as equivalent to race, gender, religious belief and disability in such matters. The Police are now obliged to treat these with due seriousness, and penalties for those found guilty of crimes exacerbated by homophobia are consequently more severe.

Recently, there are increasing signs of a backlash against LGBT+ people, most obviously in America but also here in Ireland. Much of this is fueled by toxic rhetoric of the Far Right who seem to want to target trans people. Social media, especially Twitter are awash with transphobic abuse and threats of violence for the reason that trans people are perceived to be easy targets. It’s up to the rest of us to make sure this strategy does not work.

I worry that the rights that the LGBT+ community has taken so long to win, could so easily be taken away. If we are complacent and pretend that everything is fixed because we have equal marriage then we will soon see those rights being eroded. LGBT+ people have to remain active and visible, show solidarity with one another, and keep pushing against all forms of discrimination, harassment and bullying wherever it happens. And the first step in doing that is to raise awareness that there is a serious problem.

I was reflecting on my own encounter with violence the other day. I try not to think about that very much, but I found myself wondering where the four guys who attacked me are now. They were about the same age as me, so will be around 60 now. Do you think the hate they expressed with their fists back in the 1980s has gone away? More importantly, do you think it reasonable that I should believe that? I don’t. The hate is still out there and will find its expression at the slightest provocation.

The reference to hate crimes in the above quote relates to the UK, of course. I was a little surprised to see that until very recently there was no legal definition of a hate crime in Ireland. Legislation has only just been introduced on this subject, with cross-party support. Among other provisions:

The new legislation will criminalise any intentional or reckless communication or behaviour that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or persons because they are associated with a protected characteristic. The penalty for this offence will be up to five years’ imprisonment.

The protected characteristics in the new legislation are: race; colour; nationality; religion; national or ethnic origin; descent; gender; sex characteristics; sexual orientation; and disability.

It remains to be seen how the new law works in practice.

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Pride Month 2022

Posted in LGBTQ+, Politics with tags , , , , on June 1, 2022 by telescoper

It’s 1st June 2022, which means that it’s the first day of Pride Month 2022. This year there’s actually going to be an in-person Pride Festival with a March and Parade in Dublin of which I’m planning to attend at least part, even if I am obviously too old for that sort of thing.

Anyway, I thought I’d flag this occasion with a selection of banners. Here is the traditional rainbow flag:

Here is the banner from Dublin Pride’s website, more accurately emphasizing the full spectrum of diversity covered by the term LGBTQIA+ than the original rainbow flag.

And here is the Pride Progress flag, hoisted today outside the John Hume Building on Maynooth University campus where it will remain for the rest of the month.

With its origins as a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots of 1969, Pride remains both a celebration and protest. It’s more necessary than ever now because of the sustained abuse being aimed at trans people from all quarters, including those in political power and those sad losers who have nothing better to do that spend all day tweeting their bigotry on social media. Bigots will always be bigots, but the lowest of the low are those that masquerade as some sort of progressive while spouting their hate and prejudice.

Anyway, as well as a celebration and a protest, Pride is an opportunity for us all to show solidarity against those who seek to divide us.

Though many LGBTQIA+ people in many countries – even those that claim to be more liberal – still face discrimination, hostility and violence, Pride Month always reminds me of how far we’ve come in the past 50 years ago. Recently my own celebration of Pride is very subdued as it tends to makes me feel old and irrelevant as well as worried that we might be headed back to the bigotry and intolerance of the past; the rights we have won could so easily be taken away.

As I get older, I find I have become more and more protective towards younger LGBT+ people. I don’t want them to have to put up with the crap that I did when I was their age.

I would like to wish all LGBTQIA+ people around the world, but especially staff and students at Maynooth University, a very enjoyable and inspiring Pride 2022!

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LGBTQ+ STEM DAY 2021! (#LGBTSTEMDay)

Posted in Biographical, LGBTQ+ with tags , on November 18, 2021 by telescoper

So here we are once again on LGBTQ+ STEM Day! Last year on this day I gave a talk via Zoom and remember hoping that the following year we could have an in-person event in Maynooth but alas that was not to be. Nevertheless I can at least use the medium of this blog to wish all LGBTQ+ persons working in STEM subjects around the globe a very enjoyable day. You can find out about events near you by checking here, looking for the hashtag #LGBTQSTEMDay on social media or by following the twitter account:

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JWST: Nice Telescope, Shame about the Name…

Posted in LGBTQ+, Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , on October 17, 2021 by telescoper
The JWST deployable mirror undergoing tests

I heard last week that the ship carrying the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) arrived safely in French Guiana and is now being prepared for launch on an Ariane-5 rocket at the European Space Agency’s facility at Kourou. Since the telescope cost approximately $10 billion there was some nervousness it might have been hijacked by pirates on the way.

I’m old enough to remember JWST when it was called the Next Generation Space Telescope NGST); it was frequently discussed at various advisory panels I was on about 20 years ago. Although the basic concept hasn’t changed much – it was planned to be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope working in the infrared and with a deployable mirror – at that time it was going to have an even bigger mirror than the 6.5m it ended up with, was going to be launched in or around 2010, and was to have a budget of around $600 million. About a decade ago cost overruns, NASA budget problems, and technical hitches led to suggestions that it should be cancelled. It turned out however that it was indeed too big too fail. Now it is set for launch in December total cost greater than ten times the original estimate.

I know many people involved in the JWST project itself or waiting to use it to make observations, and I’ll be crossing my fingers on launch day and for the period until its remarkable folding mirror is deployed about a fortnight later. I hope it goes well, and look forward to the celebrations when it does.

There is a big problem with JWST however and that is its name, which was changed in 2002 from the Next Generation Space Telescope to the James Webb Space Telescope after James E. Webb, a civil servant who was NASA’s chief administrator from 1961 to 1968.

It’s not uncommon for scientific space missions like this to be named after people once the proposal has moved off the drawing board and into serious planning. That happened with the European Space Agency’s Planck and Herschel to give two examples. In any case Next General Space Telescope was clearly never anything but a working title. Yet naming this important mission after a Government official always seemed a strange decision to me. Then news emerged that James Webb had enthusiastically cooperated in a McCarthyite purge of LGBT+ people working in government institutions, part of a wider moral panic referred to by historians as the Lavender Scare. There have been high-profile protests (see, e.g., here) and a petition that received over a thousand signatures, but NASA has ruled out any change of name.

The main reason NASA give is that they found no evidence that Webb himself was personally involved in discrimination or persecution. I find that very unconvincing. He was in charge, so had responsibility for what went on in his organization. If he didn’t know then why didn’t he know? Oh, and by the way, he didn’t have anything to do with infrared astronomy either…

It’s a shame that this fantastic telescope should have its image so tarnished by the adoption of an inappropriate name. The name is a symbol of a time when homophobic discrimination was even more prevalent than it is now, and as such will be a constant reminder to us that NASA seems not to care about the many LGBT+ people working for them directly or as members of the wider astronomical community.

P.S. As an alternative name I suggest the Lavender Scare Space Telescope (LSST)…

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The Killing of Samuel Luiz: why do you straight men do this?

Posted in Biographical, Brighton, LGBTQ+ with tags , , on July 10, 2021 by telescoper

This is a picture of Samuel Luiz, a young gay man who was kicked and punched to death outside a nightclub in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain, on Saturday 3rd July 2021. At least 12 men were involved in the vicious assault and they were shouting the word maricón as they beat him. The word is a derogatory term in Spanish for a gay man, roughly equivalent to “faggot” in English. At least four men (all between the ages of 20 and 25) have been arrested for this murder. Let’s hope some justice is served. Demonstrations were held across Spain to protest Samuel’s killing.

This attack came just a few days after the end of Pride Month and if nothing else shows how far we still have to go. People sometimes ask why we still need Pride, after all we now have gay marriage? Well, Spain has gay marriage, but mobs still murder gay men. Anti-gay hate crime is reportedly on the increase in Spain and probably elsewhere. The Government of Hungary has enacted specifically homophobic legislation

There’s nothing new about this kind of homophobic violence. Queer-bashing was endemic in Brighton when I lived there in the 1980s. I know. I was on the receiving end of a beating myself. There were only four assailants in my case, and of course I didn’t die. My physical injuries were relatively superficial, but it was a life-changing experience and not in a good way. The word that was ringing in my eyes as I lapsed into unconsciousness then was “faggot”, so reading about Samuel Luiz brought it back. Sometimes things like this make me want to go and live off-grid somewhere far away from people to avoid such thoughts intruding again.

Anyway, that experience on Brighton sea front left me convinced that however much attitudes and laws change there will always be men – presumably straight – who for some reason despise gay men so much that they want to inflict violence on us. I can’t rid myself of the belief a very large number of straight men would behave in that way if they thought they would get away with it. It takes me a very long time to trust a heterosexual man enough to call him a friend.

I wish I could understand what causes so much hate. Believe me, if thought about it a lot and for a very long time and it remains incomprehensible to me. Perhaps it expresses some kind of need to assert dominance, much as misogynistic transphobic, and racist violence does? Or perhaps just a form of tribalism like football violence? The one firm conclusion I have reached is that the people who do this sort of thing are utter cowards. Why else would they need a gang to beat up one person? And the people who just look on and don’t intervene are cowards too.

In a piece a while ago I wrote about my experience in Brighton:

I have to say that for quite a long time in this period my general presumption was that a majority of heterosexual people were actively hostile to LGBT+ people, and that would always remain the case. There were quite a few gay people in Brighton who felt the same and their reaction was to become separatists. The logic was that straight people were always going to be horrible, so to hell with them. You could drink in gay bars, eat in gay restaurants, live in a gay part of the town, etc, and thereby minimize interaction with the hostile majority. This seemed an attractive lifestyle to me for some time, but I gradually began to feel that if there was ever going to be a chance of things changing for the better, LGBT+ people had to engage and form alliances. That strategy seems to have worked for the wider community, and I applaud the many straight people who have become allies.

It’s easy to say you’re an ally but are you willing to stand up and be counted?

A comment below objects to the “you” in the title of this post. I thought very carefully before including it. The response “not all straight men are like that” is unhelpful for lots of reasons.

First, I know that. All gay people do. We already know not every straight man is a murderer, or otherwise violent. We don’t need you to tell us. Second, it’s defensive. When people are defensive, they aren’t listening to the other person; they’re busy thinking of ways to defend themselves. It’s a classic social media response. Third, people saying it aren’t furthering the conversation, they’re sidetracking it. The discussion isn’t about the men who aren’t a problem. Fourth – and this the most important point – nobody can really know which straight men are “like that” and which aren’t until it’s too late.

I would genuinely love to live in a society without prejudice on the grounds of identity but we’re not there yet. I don’t think it does any harm to hold a mirror up to the kind of stereotyping that many groups have to deal with on an everyday basis. You may not like being included in a generalisation but at least you’re not put in mortal danger because of your identity. It’s not you who is a target.

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It’s LGBT+ STEM Day! #LGBTSTEMDAY

Posted in LGBTQ+ with tags , , on July 5, 2019 by telescoper

So here we are again at LGBT+ STEM Day. This time last year I was giving a talk in Cardiff and in my post about that event I expressed a hope that we might be able to have a similar one in Maynooth this year. Alas that didn’t come to pass, and today I am just having a day off, but in any case I thought I’d express my gratitude to all the individuals and organizations responsible for setting up and supporting this day and send my best wishes to everyone celebrating it wherever you are!

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