Military Pride

MILITARY PRIDE
An Imperial War Museum North touring exhibition
Showing at Salford Museum & Art Gallery until 31st August 2011.
Mon – Fri 10am-4:45pm Sat & Sun 1-5pm FREE

PAGE 1 Introduction
PAGE 2 Timeline
PAGE 5 Personal stories from the display

INTRODUCTION

Military Pride maps personal experiences across forty years of changing laws and evolving social attitudes toward homosexuality. It presents a unique snapshot of military life for gay men and women.

When homosexuality was decriminalised in civil law in the UK in 1967, it remained illegal in the Armed Forces. For the first time, there was a legal discrepancy between being a gay man or woman in civilian life and in the military. This did not change until 1994 and even then Service personnel still faced dismissal on the grounds of their sexuality until the ban was fully lifted in 2000.

Despite this, some of those who served in the British Armed Forces, in environments as varied as Northern Ireland, the Falklands, the Balkans and the Gulf, were gay. The contributions and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender men and women may be seen as a largely ‘hidden history’. Military Pride is made up of extracts from first hand testimonies. It tells, in people’s own words, their individual accounts of serving in the RAF, the Royal Navy and the British Army.

The Imperial War Museum was founded on a mission statement with the aim that:

 ‘every individual, man or woman, soldier, sailor, airman or civilian who contributed, however obscurely, to the final result, may be able to find in these galleries an example or an illustration of the sacrifice he made or the work he did, and in the archives some record of it’ (Alfred Mond,1920)
Meet the Curator
Friday 26th August 2pm FREE
Join James McSharry, co-curator of Military Pride, to celebrate the contributions of LGBT communities in the Armed Services and have a closer look at this exhibition.

Salford Museum & Art Gallery, Peel Park, Crescent, Salford M5 4WU
Tel: 0161 778 0800  Email: salford.museum@salford.gov.uk Web: www.salford.gov.uk/museums

Published: 11-Aug-2011: (650)