I’m just back from an evening event in City Hall, Bristol, at which LGBT History Month was giving the civic push off the gangway. Peter Main, the city’s first openly gay Lord Mayor, and George Ferguson, our first ever elected Mayor, were both in attendance. (For Americans confused about the difference, George gets to make the decisions, while Peter gets to wear the bling or, as Peter explained it to me, “he’s the power and I’m the glory”).

Also launched at the event was a new Diversity in Schools project aimed at teaching the city’s kids to respect cultural diversity. George, in his speech, noted that one of the first debates he attended as a young councilor was about whether the city would allow LGBT groups to meet on council premises. Now here we were teaching our kids to respect them. Kudos also to Annabelle Armstrong-Walter, the city’s LGBT equality officer, who talked about trans awareness being a key issue for her this year.

Of course you always get someone who is outraged. We got an angry “Lesbian Feminist” complaining about how few women were at the meeting. This confused a lot of people as the numbers were close to 50:50. I think what she meant was that there were very few wimmin there. There were female-identified persons, but some were not lesbians, some were lesbians but not feminists, some were femme and, shock horror, there was even the Evil Trans Agenda, infiltrating our feminisms with their cunning Patriarchal tricks. None of those count as Real Wimmin. And this, of course, is a major reason why so many young women these days say they are Not Feminists. Sigh.

Still, the vast majority of the evening was very positive. Lots of different LGBT social groups got to give a pitch (including me doing Out Stories because the boys and butches were all still down the M-Shed with their power tools putting the finishing touches to the exhibition). And at the end were got a short concert from the fabulous Sing Out Bristol choir. The final song they did was Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” from Transformer (in fact I think it was the b-side for “Walk on the Wild Side”). It’s a wonderful song, and ideal for a choir. I can’t think of a better way to get ear-wormed.

Tomorrow I have to be up at the crack of dawn so that I can be at the M-Shed for 10:00am. The official opening of the exhibition is at 11:00. I have to make a speech. That can’t be too hard, right?