By Vikki McCann-Rogers, Communications Officer
This Friday (1 July) is 50 years since the very first Pride march in London. 2,000 people took part. Now, more than one million people take London’s city streets to celebrate, and Pride events take place all over the world. To mark the occasion, I spoke to our Chief Operating Officer, Robert Kerse, about his very first Pride.
What do you remember about your first Pride march?
It was a mixture of being really life-affirming, because there were lots of other people like me, but I was apprehensive as well. I just didn’t know what to expect. I went to the Brighton and the Manchester ones about a week apart and I finally felt a sense of belonging.
I’ve been to Pride in London about five years in a row, and Bristol Pride whenever I’ve been here. I’ll be at the Bristol Pride event this year with my husband and our dogs.
We’ve clearly made incredible progress through the years. How important is it that we still celebrate pride today?
I think it’s hugely important for two reasons. Firstly, it’s still not always easy for everyone come out. So, it’s important for those people to see others like them, from different walks of life, and different identities. Secondly, some parts of our community are hugely privileged in this country. That’s certainly not the case for all of our community or LGBTQ+ people in other parts of the world, including countries not far away from here.
Pride started as a real protest movement – do we still have a fight on our hands?
I think we do have a fight on our hands for parts of our community, yes. And I think if you are privileged enough to be able to be out and safe, then that gives us a huge obligation in terms of fighting on behalf of others. That’s what people did before us, to give us the position that we have now. So yes, I feel a big responsibility
Do you feel a responsibility to be a role model here at the University too?
I do, and it’s something I need to be continually conscious of. You never quite know who in the room might be trying to find some kind of affinity with you or is making their own decisions about themselves or somebody close to them.
So yes, it is incredibly important. There will be people in our community who are not yet out; who perhaps are not in the kind of circumstance where they feel they’d be accepted; who maybe fear loss or hardship if they did come out. What we can do through role modelling is really important – it can give people hope.
Do you think being gay has had any impact on your work or on your career?
Sometimes people don’t know how to take me when they first meet me, but I think I’ve become less conscious of that over the years.
I also think people sometimes make a special effort to acknowledge my sexuality for whatever reason. I’m always quite touched by that.
However, personally – given I’m a middle class, Oxbridge educated white male – the fact that I don’t tick the heterosexual box can take some of those edges off. A sort of leveller in some ways. I think because I’ve had the challenges of coming out the world is not as black and white for me as it might have been had I not been gay. That kind of struggle and difference helps me to be more empathetic with other people than I might have otherwise been.
I remember realising as a gay woman in my 20s that you don’t just ‘come out’, you have to keep doing it. Every time you meet someone new, or start a new job. Do you think that’s still as relevant now?
I think it’s still hugely relevant, but I’d hope the world is different than when I came out 20 years ago; I think certainly as a gay man it is much easier now. For other parts of the Community, there’s still quite a long way to go, I think.
When I first came out though – which does seem like a long time ago – I was pretty blessed by both my family and friends. A lot of people were very surprised though.
If I’m honest, I would say I still get a bit nervous about it in some circumstances, because everybody wants to be accepted and not singled out or identified for their sexuality.
What else can we do to help people feel they can bring their whole selves to work?
I think it’s talking about difference, whatever that difference is. I’ve always found any kind of equality, diversity and inclusion training I’ve undertaken where people tell you face to face what life’s like and challenge your preconceptions the most valuable.
We’ve done this previously with our frontline colleagues and our trans students. Experiential training is really, really important. You can’t ever walk in somebody else’s shoes, but the closer we can get to giving people access to those experiences, the better.
I’m looking forward to seeing you at Pride on 9 July and marching together as a Bristol community.
Me too. For me personally, I feel it’s really important to be with colleagues and students at such an important event for our community; but also to remind myself of everything that’s happened before us. The people who have paved the way. And the fact that there is still much more to do.
Of course, it’s always a really good atmosphere as well. An incredible buzz of so many LGBTQ+ people and supporters altogether. Whether it’s your first, tenth or even your fiftieth Pride – come and join us; come and march with us; and join an incredibly important party.
I’m sure many of you have watched, or at least heard about, Netflix’s newest hit Heartstopper. If you haven’t, it’s the story of two guys at an English secondary school who end up falling in love, and is adapted from the graphic novels of the same name by Alice Oseman. It consists of an amazing cast of LGBTQ+ characters going through issues that will be relatable for most LGBTQ+ people. It does this in a way which makes it incredibly heart-warming and doesn’t follow the usual tropes of many LGBTQ+ love films which tend to end in heartbreak.
Love, Victor – a spin off from the 2018 film Love, Simon (which itself was adapted from the book Simon vs the Homosapien Agenda by Becky Albertalli) – is airing its third and final season this month. It follows the story of Victor as he begins life at a new school, whilst also starting to question his sexuality. Whilst the first season focuses on the idea of sexuality and coming out, the second and third seasons explore the idea of life of a young LGBTQ+ person after coming out.
transgender characters – even if some of their identities weren’t really referenced within the actual show at all and those that were referenced weren’t until the last season. It focusses on Adora as she joins the Rebellion to fight the Horde, after gaining the power to transform into She-Ra – a 6ft warrior woman. If you want a show that is fun and silly and yet still provides strong characters and emotional moments, then it is definitely worth a watch. The Owl House follows Luz the human as she stumbles through a portal into the Demon Realm, where she trains with Eda the Owl Lady in the ways of magic. Luz herself is
bisexual, and the show also features an array of LGBTQ+ characters – including Raine Whispers who provides notable non-binary representation. The show is made by Disney – a company who have been lacking in any form of LGBTQ+ representation in the past. These two shows allow children to grow up seeing LGBTQ+ representation on their screens, which is vital for young people to see that its okay to be LGBTQ+, whether they are LGBTQ+ or just allies.
Bly Manor is a horror show on Netflix that tells the stories of the many people – both living and dead – who inhabit Bly Manor, when a new au pair arrives at the house. Whilst being haunted, an LGBTQ+ romance blooms. Our Flag Means Death is a recently released action/comedy about pirates from director Taika Waititi. Hilarious hijinks ensue when Stede Bonnet leaves the life of an American aristocrat to become a pirate
captain and then meets the feared Captain Blackbeard. The show features a diverse range of LGBTQ+ characters (with prevalent non-binary, gay and bisexual representation). Sense8 follows a group of 8 people from around the world who one day are suddenly able to communicate with e
ach other through a psychic link that forms between them. It features a diverse set of LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ characters who are all well written with meaningful relationships and impact on the plot. These sorts of shows normalise LGBTQ+ characters by not really focussing on the fact thatthey are LGBTQ+. The characters are LGBTQ+ but aren’t treated any differently for it, which makes them well-written characters who provide some very good representation.
I did a master’s in social work at Bristol University and I guess my dissertation and work as a student social worker inspired me to do what I’m doing now. Alongside this, the project also stems from personal and professional experiences of male bias and seeing how this plays out time and time again in research, practice and day-to-day life.
It’s quite a few things really. Even though there is research that might talk about autistic women or autistic people, it might not even report on sexuality or race. If you just talk about the LGBTQ+ community specifically, research shows that mental health outcomes are poorer, and then you throw autism into the mix and it’s even poorer again. So yes, it would be great to raise awareness, not just about getting support, but knowing that the support is there. The funny thing is that although there’s all this medicalised talk going around with autism, the way you get a diagnosis is through behaviour. So it’s a very socially diagnosed label and a lot of people don’t realise they’re entitled to social care support.
I started my PhD in a different area of research, looking at alternative economies. I think it was something like 2012, 2013, and I just came across RuPaul’s Drag Race. I got hooked to the point that I nearly stopped finishing my PhD! I watched all the series that were out there, and I kept watching it again and again and again!
I am an advocate of Pride as a protest, I think that’s the function of Pride, rather than having a parade of corporate sponsorships. Effectively, as they became a brand, they also become more commercialized. I think Pride is a bit of a crossroad in terms of what it represents. Pride really has to reconfigure what they stand for. 
Yes, there are the very young people! Though we don’t yet have many of them in our research interviews. We have people more or less my age, that went through being in the closet when they were younger, that hardship there. And we’ve interviewed older people, who have been through the same thing, but they’re also really attracted to this fabulousness of drag queens!
I think that, within academia, there is a real appetite for understanding how laws, social structures and cultural practices negatively impact the lives of LGBTI+ populations. In recent times, the UK, particularly our different funding bodies, has been good in terms of providing resources for LGBTI+-focused research, and in encouraging and creating relevant conversations within academic spaces. At present, there are numerous academics across the UK who are undertaking really important studies into the lives and experiences of LGBTI+ communities.
In the first of this week’s blogs focusing on research we are talking to the vibrant Dr Sarah Jones, a lecturer and researcher in the Department of History. Dr Jones’ teaching in 
The big motivation behind the Jenny project is the fact that queer histories, and especially trans histories, are often told through what we would consider regulatory bodies, so we tend to hear about people when they’re arrested, or oppressed in some way, or when horrible things are happening to them. And that’s obviously a really important thing to look at and understand, but it also means that you don’t really get that much of a sense of these people as real, living people. History has often tended to focus on victimisation, oppression, and persecution – what Tom (Marshman) wanted to do is think about different ways we could look at the archive and build a more rounded, human story about someone like Jenny. Just a wonderfully complicated person living a complicated life in a complicated moment. 