Reflecting on Activism and Social Change this LGBT+ History Month

Published on 7, February, 2025

This LGBT+ History Month, Adam Dawkins, Deputy Academic Registrar and Pride Staff Network Senior Sponsor at the University of Sunderland, has shared his reflections on this year’s theme.

“Each year, LGBT+ History Month picks a theme to focus its events. The 2025 theme is Activism and Social Change. This has got me thinking about the many forms and outlets of LGBTQ+ activism, and how these have changed.

My short time as the Senior Sponsor for the Pride Staff Network, has included discussions with colleagues on the nature of activism in our community.

A common thread is the need for LGBTQ+ activism - in whatever form that might take – more than ever, through a shared goal to improve the experiences of LGBTQ+ colleagues here at the University. This must include them feeling safe, valued and that they belong, and their voices are amplified and reflected in our decision-making.

Our LGBTQ+ community is a valued and visible part of the University, both where it wishes its diverse and distinctive needs to be heard, but also an integral part of University life. 

Our Students’ Union has an LGBTQ+ Society run by and for LGBTQ+ students and allies, coupled with a thriving Pride Staff Network which is the LGBTQ+ staff forum for LGBTQ+ colleagues and supporters.

The Pride Network meets monthly in a flexible mode to enable members to attend its core discussions. At its core is a space to connect, belong, bring forward ideas and issues to take forward to improve the workplace experiences of our LGBTQ+ staff, plan events and activities in our calendar.

It also regularly invites in community-based speakers from organisations oriented towards supporting the LGBTQ+ community regionally and beyond, a number of which we have made and maintained valuable links.

More widely, all staff are able to access free wellbeing and counselling services, and students can access our dedicated, professional in-house Wellbeing Team’s services from professional advice and support, themed group sessions and workshops, 24/7 online support and a range of self-help resources.

The global history of LGBTQ+ activism has charted a continual but choppy course on the journey for equal rights and recognition. Whilst we have come a long way, our current times show that we have further to go.

When we think of LGBTQ+ protest, famous flashpoints, such as New York’s 1969 Stonewall Inn riot in reaction to one police raid too many, spring to mind. In the history of UK queer activism, protest groups such as OutRage! stridently delivered their stated mission of ‘radical, non-violent direct action and civil disobedience’.

Across two decades, their high-profile, inventive acts of protest achieved many wins. This included helping to repeal Section 28, forcing the police to take ‘queer-bashing’ and homophobically motivated murders seriously, and turning the tide on the demonisation by government and the mainstream media of 1000s of gay and bisexual men dying from HIV-AIDs.  

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We are now witnessing the rolling back of LGBTQ+ rights in many countries at an alarming rate, including in so-called democracies. In these contexts, activism can literally be a lifesaver, where there is no choice but to confront, and bring global attention to oppressive regimes.

Activism often gets a bad press. In the era of misinformation, acts of civil or social disobedience can easily be distorted by those who seek to push minority communities further into the margins. This serves an agenda to isolate rather than integrate, divide rather than unite. 

I feel privileged to have benefitted from the brave and committed activists who have fought for hard-won but easily lost LGBTQ+ rights. Without this, I and many others would not be able to be ‘quietly’ activist in our own ways.

There is a lot to be said for quiet activism. It can bring about steady social change and acceptance. Quiet activism may not have its natural home near the mouthpiece of a megaphone, on placards or at demonstrations, but it weaves its own course in and through the mainstream, whether that’s through a person being ‘out’ in the workplace or wider society, or many other activities which make members of the LGBTQ+ community visible and help challenge stereotypes.

In the North East, we find quiet activism in our LGBTQ+ community organisations, such as Curious Arts and its use of performance of all forms to explore and celebrate LGBTQIA lives and identities.

Another example which our Pride Network recently heard from is the vital work of Waythrough, which provides young LGBTQ+ people in County Durham, Sunderland and South Tyneside with counselling, gender identity and support around sexual health advice, hate crime reporting and - as importantly - a place to belong.

These organisations embody the positive spirit and impact of quiet activism, often by virtue of their very existence where resources are scarce. Sadly, funding cuts and gaps has played in a role in some key North East organisations having no choice but to shut up shop, including the LGBT+Fed, which recently held its final AGM after two decades of valuable regional LGBTQ+ community development. Perhaps quiet activism should take to the megaphone after all.

Each year LGBT+ History Month reclaims erased and silenced historical figures, to recognise their contribution to social change.

The 2025 roll-call includes Ivor Cummings who has connections to the North East and epitomises quiet activism at its most effective. Ivor was born in Hartlepool in 1913, after his father came to the North East from Sierra Leone to be a doctor at the RVI in Newcastle, where he met Ivor’s mother.

Ivor rose through the ranks of the British Civil Service at a time when this was unheard of for a mixed-race, gay man. Ivor played a key role in supporting those arriving from the Caribbean on Empire Windrush to build a new life in the UK with housing and jobs. It’s likely that Ivor’s sexuality and race led to him being written out of the history of Black British contributions to Windrush.

To finish on a positive note in the present and even closer to home, we have passed on the University’s congratulations to a talented young student at St Anthony’s Girl’s Catholic Academy in Sunderland, who created the winning design for the national LGBT+ History Month Schools badge competition.”

Every year, Schools OUT invites young people to design its official badge for LGBT+ History Month to help raise awareness and continue the work of the charity to ensure safe and inclusive environments for young LGBTQ+ young people in education.

You can buy your badge here in support of the Schools OUT charity.