There will be a Q&A following the screening led by Stephen Whittle OBE (Professor of Equalities Law) with Dr Lucy Burke, Dr. Jeannine Goh and Dr Andrew Irving.
Panel Bios
Stephen Whittle OBE, PhD, MA, LLB, BA is professor of Equalities Law at Manchester Metropolitan University. In 1975, aged 19, Stephen set up the UK’s first local trans support group in Manchester. The same year he transitioned to living as Stephen. In the 1970s and 80s he lost many jobs because of being trans. In 1985 he decided things would only change if trans people became lawyers. He qualified in law in 1990 and in 1992, Stephen was a co-founder of Press For Change (PFC), the UK’s transgender lobbying group. PFC fought cases at the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights to gain legal recognition for Trans people in the Gender Recognition Act 2004. In 2010, PFC also achieved full protection for trans people under the UK’s Equality Laws.
Stephen has been an advisor to the UK, Irish, Italian, Japanese and South African governments, the Council of Europe & the European Commission. He advises lawyers and regularly writes court briefs, or is an expert witness in courts across the world. In 2015 he was appointed special advisor to the Parliamentary Women & Equalities Committee Inquiry into Transgender Equality.In 2005 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE, 2005) in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list for his work on transgender rights.
Stephen and his wife Sarah married in 2005 after Stephen gained legal recognition as a man, but have been partners for 37 years. They have 4 children by donor insemination; the eldest has graduated and is teaching in China, the others are currently at University.
Dr Jeannine Goh is the director of Awespace, a Manchester-based collective working towards creating better ways of living and being. She is an associate lecturer for The Open University in psychology and childhood, and an honorary research fellow in psychology at The University of Manchester. She is a dedicated and passionate yoga practitioner and is presently working on a book demystifying the ancient mystics.
Dr Lucy Burke is principal lecturer in the department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University, an associate of the Monash Centre for Ethics in Medicine and Society (part of the NGO Global Reconciliation) and an associate fellow of The Critical Institute (Valletta). She teaches and researches in the areas of critical medical humanities, cultural disability studies and contemporary literature, film and critical and cultural theory. Her work explores dementia and ageing and cognitive difference from a number of perspectives including the critical analysis of cultural representations of dementia and learning disability and the role of cultural practices, primarily narrative fiction, poetry, drama and film, in shaping and challenging attitudes and perceptions.
Her most recent work also explores the use and evaluation of arts based practices in work with older people with dementia and younger learning disabled people. She is currently working on a four-year AHRC funded arts-based Connected Communities Project with young disabled people, and is on the advisory board for a new Scottish Film Education Project that seeks to explore the development of film and filmmaking as a means to address the experiences of young people with a diagnosis of autism. She is also chair of the steering committee of the Big Lottery funded A-Level Playing Field project with OnSide youth zones across England, which sets out to achieve equality of access and experience for all young people who want to attend the youth zones, regardless of their additional needs.
Dr Andrew Irving is director of the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Recent books include Whose Cosmopolitanism? Critical Cosmopolitanisms, Relationalities and Discontents, (2014 with Nina Glick-Schiller. Berghahn Press); Beyond Text: Critical Practices and Sensory Anthropology, (2016 with Rupert Cox and Christopher Wright. Manchester University Press), The Art of Life and Death (2016 University of Chicago) and Anthropology and Futures: Researching Emerging and Uncertain Worlds (2017 with Sarah Pink, Juan Salazar and Johannes Sjoberg. Bloomsbury).
Recent media works include the play The Man Who Almost Killed Himself (2014) in collaboration with Josh Azouz and Don Boyd, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival and concurrently live-streamed to Odeon Cinemas and BBC Arts. Other media works include the New York Stories Project (2013), which is currently hosted on more than thirty websites including Scientific American, The Smithsonian, Wenner Gren and National Public Radio.