Rescheduled: Lunch ‘n’ Learn: Casslighting – Historical Lessons for Fighting Institutional Homophobia and Transphobia

Join us for another instalment in our Lunch 'n' Learn series. Dr. Chris Parkes (Senior Lecturer, Department of History) will look back on the history of institutional LGBTQ+ prejudice, exploring past backlashes and how queer communities resisted:

In the decade after Time magazine announced a ‘transgender tipping point’ in 2014, popular and institutional transphobia skyrocketed around the world. Though sudden and ferocious, such backlashes are hardly unprecedented. The familiar pulse of liberation, consolidation, and retreat beats a steady rhythm through the queer past, with the anti-trans panic of the 2010s-2020s only the latest rendition.

In this hour-long workshop, Dr Chris Parkes recounts the history of anti-queer backlashes of the recent past with a focus on state institutions as sites of homophobia and transphobia. Dr Parkes will examine the similarities and differences between, among other periods, the Lavender Scare, the rise of the Christian Right, and the AIDS epidemic, and how those…