Author: Cheryl

Wonder Woman – The Extras

~ Cheryl

The Blu Ray disc of Wonder Woman promises more than 2 hours of bonus content. That’s small by Lord of the Rings standards, but quite impressive otherwise. So what do you get in all that?

To start with there is all the usual stuff. The Director, Patty Jenkins, talks about her vision for the film. There are extended scenes, and a blooper reel. The main thing you learn from this is that Gal Gadot has an absolutely amazing smile that she doesn’t get to use much in the film. We also got some contributions from Greg Rucka and Liam Sharp, who were the creative team on the comic when the film came out. I’ve known Liam for a long time and it is great to see him doing so well, and producing such amazing art.

But there are other things too. There’s a section on the training that the Amazons went through. I had no idea that many of the people playing the Amazons were top-class professional athletes. That didn’t excuse them from a formidable training regime. Just watching all of those women working to get themselves to a peak of physical fitness was hugely impressive.

Then there is a segment called “The Wonder Behind the Camera”, which is partly the creative team on the movie talking about their work, but also follows a group of teenage girls who want to get into the movie business when they have a day on the set. It is inspiring stuff.

My favorite segment, however, is one called “Finding the Wonder Woman Within”. It is a series of interview snapshots with a bunch of high profile women: women from Hollywood, women writers, women from NASA, sports stars such as Sloane Stephens and Danica Patrick. All of them talk abut what it means to be a wonder woman, and the theme is very much one of the battle for equality. Nothing is actually said about the child occupying the White House, but it is very clear that everything he stands for is under fire here. All of this is set to a backdrop of some amazing poetry from Mila Cuda, who is the Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate.

I’m not quite sure what I expected from this disk, but I’m damn sure I didn’t expect to find terms like “gender identity” and “non-binary” being bandied about in the extras for a superhero movie.

Well played, women of Hollywood. Well played indeed.

I, Replicant

~ Cheryl

Well, BladeRunner 2049 was interesting. It is visually stunning though, as has been noted elsewhere, very white and rather full of naked boobs.

What struck me most about it, however, probably won’t strike most of you as important, because you haven’t spent your entire life being told that you are not “real”.

I felt rather sorry for Joi, even though she’s a manufactured stereotype virtual sexbot. I don’t suppose I would have fallen in love with Ryan Gosling, because he has all of the emotion, charm and charisma of a congealed lump of lard in the bottom of a roasting tin waiting to be washed up. He seems to have taken the idea of playing an emotionless, baseline replicant very seriously. But I certainly related to her desperate desire to be real.

The main point, however, is that trans people are replicants. We look like humans, we feel like humans, we bleed like humans, but we are constantly told that we are not “real”. We live among you, and most of the time you can’t tell one of us from one of you. Yet many of you hate us, claim that we are dangerous, and want to get rid of us. If we do ever come to the attention of the authorities, we are probably doomed. And we don’t have super powers to make up for it.

I miss you, Roy Batty.

WorldCon Academic Track Podcasts

~ Cheryl

Worldcons are such busy events that huge swathes of activity can take place within one without you being aware of them. I spent very little time in the academic track at Helsinki, and consequently I had no idea that a series of podcasts was being recorded. There are now five available. I’m not sure if there will be any more.

I have listened to two of them. The one with John Clute and Gary K Wolfe about estrangement is hardcore LitCrit. I think I probably need to listen to it again to follow it all. However, I can say that it has some very interesting points to make about the changing approach of science fiction to ecological disaster, and about the nature of weird fiction.

The one with Andrew M Butler and Aino-Kaisa Koistinen about gender in films and TV is also very interesting. It goes off the rails slightly when they try to talk about going outside of the gender binary, but there’s some great discussion of Wonder Woman and Doctor Who.

Two of the others look at other cultures. Aliette de Bodard and Emmi Itäranta talk about writing fiction in a second language, while Ken Liu and Stanley Chan talk their own work, which means Chinese S&F. There’s also Edward James & Jyrki Korpua on epic fantasy. All worth a listen, I think.

OutStories AGM

~ Cheryl


Everything went smoothly yesterday. Our cunning plan of having the AGM coincide with a really interesting talk ensures that we always get a quorum for the one important meeting of the year. My thanks to Dr. Jen Grove for a fascinating talk, and to the Institute for Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition at Bristol University for providing us with the venue and refreshments.

I’d like to pay particular tribute to my friend and colleague, Andy Foyle, who stood down from his role as co-chair at the meeting. Without Andy, OutStories wouldn’t exist, and he’s the only professional historian among us. He has done amazing things for the organization in the passed, and we will very much miss his presence.

Jen’s talk covered a range of topics, from why a Platonic Relationship is so called, to the wisdom or lack thereof of using the Greek tradition of pederasty when advocating for LGBT+ rights today. I have an audio recording of the talk, and I’ll be releasing that, along with the slides, once Jen has OK’d the rights on all of the images she used.

One thing that struck me from the talk was the misogyny of EP Warren (the talk’s subject) and other 19th century gay activists. John Addington Symonds once wrote that he considered himself more manly than straight men, because he did not consort with women. Warren refused to allow women into his home (except for servants, of course).

This seems rather odd to me, because both men idolized the Greek tradition of the symposium. Yet when we see such events depicted on vases they generally have female figures in attendance on the men (see the example above). Generally such figures are assumed to be hetairae (high class sex workers), which would suggest that these gatherings were not, in fact, bastions of homoerotic activity. Bi erasure much?

What amused me most about the talk, however, was the revelation that Warren had been furious when his beloved Oxford University had allowed its Dreaming Spires to be polluted by the presence of female students. My mirth was, of course, a direct result of the fact that Germaine Greer has just been complaining bitterly about Oxford allowing trans women to attend a women-only college. Gender separatists with daft notions of biological essentialism are the same in whatever era you find them.

Wanted: Translatable SF

~ Cheryl

Over at the SF in Translation blog, Rachel Cordasco has put out an appeal for information about top notch speculative fiction in languages other than English that people think ought to be translated. There is, undoubtedly, a huge amount of material out there. Much of it will be very good, but the English-speaking world needs to know about it. If you know of a work that you love, and you think would do well in English, please let everyone know by posting a synopsis at Rachel’s site.

Classical Erotica in Bristol

~ Cheryl


This is to remind you all that the OutStories Bristol AGM takes place tomorrow in The Old Council Chamber, Wills Memorial Building, Queens Road, Bristol. Our guest speaker will be my good friend, Dr. Jen Grove, who will tell us all about E.P. Warren, the man after whom the Warren Cup (pictured above) is named. It is free to attend, and it is only from 2:30pm-5:00pm so there is plenty of time to pop into the Zine & Comics Fair as well. Full details here.

Well Done B&NES

~ Cheryl


Yesterday I represented The Diversity Trust at a small celebration at Bath Guildhall to celebrate the fact that Bath & North East Somerset Council is once again #1 on the Stonewall Education Index. Huge thanks to Chair of the Council, Cherry Beath, for organising this, and special thanks to Kate Murphy for piloting the whole effort.

Given the level of hysteria being whipped up against trans people, and trans kids in particular, at the moment by the mainstream media, it is really encouraging to see a local council put so much effort into safeguarding trans kids (as well as LGB kids). Here are a couple of examples as to why this is important.

Firstly here’s a study showing that pressure to conform to gender stereotypes is causing mental health problems in young people the world over. That, of course, doesn’t just apply to trans kids, but the fanatical insistence on biological determinism by anti-trans campaigners doesn’t help.

And secondly here’s an academic paper showing that treating trans kids with love and respect, rather than forcing them into cruel “conversion therapy”, significantly improves their mental health. You wouldn’t think that needed saying, but the number of news articles and social media posts we have had recently accusing loving parents of trans kids of “child abuse” for failing to try to “cure” them is just horrific.

So well done, B&NES, and thank you! You are making a significant difference to the lives of local trans kids.

Scythians at the British Museum

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments


As I had to be in London all day Saturday I took the opportunity to travel a bit earlier than I needed on Friday and check out the new Scythians exhibition at the British Museum. This was a research trip, because many people believe that the Schythians were the original source of the Amazons legend. More of that later. First the exhibition.

The most obvious thing you see when you go in is that this exhibition was mounted with the assistance of the Russian government. Many of the items on display are from the Hermitage, and there is a lot of material about how early research into Scythian history was encouraged by Peter the Great. There’s even a big portrait of Peter to emphasize the fact. Of course Scythian territory is now almost entirely within the Russian Federation, which is a bit of a nuisance for those of us who can’t read academic papers in Russian, but I rather suspect that the Scythians are “Russian” in much the same way as the Celts are “English”.

The other obvious thing is that the Scythians were very fond of bling. There is loads of lovely gold jewelry on display. Personally I prefer some of the horse coverings. The Scythians clearly felt that their horses should look as good as they did.

I very much enjoyed getting to see all of this, but I was a little disappointed with the way that the write-ups tended to reinforce Western ideas of gender stereotypes. There are a couple of places where the text mentions that Scythian women rode horses, and could be fierce warriors. However, Scythian women are almost always shown wearing full-length dresses which are completely impractical for horse riding. Where a set of women’s leggings are displayed, they are described as “stockings”.

There is also an unspoken assumption throughout the text that warriors are men, despite the fact that large numbers of burials of Scythian women have been found with horses and weapons. One does have to be careful not to assume this means a “warrior grave”, but some of these women show clear signs of being wounded in face-to-face combat (as opposed to being cut down while running away, which is the usual way of dismissing wounds as evidence of women warriors).

I couldn’t see any mention of the Amazon legend in the exhibition, though a couple of books on the Amazons were on sale in the gift shop. The exhibition book excuses this by quoting Herodotus as saying that the Amazons regarded themselves as distinct from the Scythians. However, the term “Scythians” is about as precise as the term “Celts”. It refers to a group of peoples united by common language and culture. It seems entirely likely to me that all Herodotus meant by this was that the Amazons he met refused to acknowledge the local Scythian king as their overlord.

Anyway, I am glad I went, and I did pick up a few valuable bits of information from the exhibition. Now I need to get round to writing a presentation for next February.

Today on Ujima – Art, Literature, Feminist SF and Vampires

~ Cheryl

Today’s show was full on culture, starting off with the fabulous Amy Powell from Bristol Art for All, an amazing organization that looks to provide cheap or free art courses that anyone can be involved in (even a total klutz like me).

Next up we had Amy Morse from the Bristol Festival of Literature previewing all of the fabulous events they have lined up for this year. The Festival is bookended by Bristol Horror Con (on Friday 13th, naturally) and by BristolCon (on the 28th). Of particular interest will be Stories of Strong Women – Unconventional Heroines on Friday October 20th. This features not only me, but also Lucienne Boyce, Virginia Bergin, Jean Burnett and Becky Walsh.

You can listen to the first hour of the show here.

Talking of Virginia, she was my guest for the third segment of the show. Most of the discussion focused on her latest novel, Who Runs the World, which is a YA take on the classic “world without men” trope.

And finally I welcomed Anna and Orla from the Food and Theatre Company who specialize in immersive dining events. In October they will be staging Loco Lost Boys in the tunnels beneath Temple Meads station, where the audience can enjoy a fine meal and hopefully avoid becoming a tasty snack for the local vampires.

You can listen to the second hour of the show here.

It being Black History Month, I decided to have all of the music from amazing black women who are no longer with us. We did the whole gamut from Josephine Baker to Whitney Houston. Here’s the playlist:

  • Aretha Franklin – Respect
  • Josephine Baker – Blue Skies
  • Billie Holiday – These Foolish Things
  • Big Mamma Thornton – Let Your Tears Fall Baby
  • Bessie Smith – A Good Man is Hard to Find
  • Ella Fitzgerald – Everyone’s Wrong But Me
  • Memphis Minnie – Doctor Doctor Blues
  • Whitney Houston – Love Will Save the Day

On the subject of Ujima, we are running a fundraiser for disaster relief in Dominica tomorrow night at the Watershed. It is 10:00pm – 1:00am, so not the sort of time I can be in Bristol, but if you are around please consider dropping by.

Creative Histories, the Blog Series

~ Cheryl

As some of you may remember, back in July I attended the Creative Histories conference at Bristol University. One of the things to come out of that will be a series of blog posts on Will Pooley’s Storying the Past website.

The full list of posts making up the series can be found here. As you will see, mine is not due up until November 22nd, but there will be loads of great material before then. Many of the posts are based directly on papers from the conference, and I’m looking forward to catching up with those papers I wasn’t able to see. I am, of course, particularly interested in the use of “choose your own adventure” games as a means of teaching history. My post, however, is nothing to do with my paper (which was on steampunk). Instead I talk about who gets to do history, because they are assumed to be objective, and who gets told that their work is too subjective and can’t be considered. This is all directly relevant to what I talked about at the Trans in Academia conference on Saturday.

Update: I had the date of my appearance in the series wrong. It should be November 22nd. I have corrected it above. Apologies to anyone who saw the wrong date.

Congratulations, Grimbold

~ Cheryl

The British Fantasy Society’s annual convention, FantasyCon, took place over the weekend. Awards were given out. Not all of my friends who were up for things won, but I am delighted that Grimbold Books won for Best Independent Press. Sammy wasn’t able to be there (I understand that she’s kind of busy with baby production at the moment), but Jo Hall and Roz Clarke were on hand to pick up the award. Jo is the Commissioning Editor for Kristell Ink, the fantasy imprint, while Roz provides a lot of editing support. Also on hand to collect the trophy were Joel Cornah who hosts the Grimcast, their in-house podcast, and Pete Sutton who is their newest author.

Well done, everyone. Thoroughly well deserved.

Trans in Academia Conference

~ Cheryl

On Saturday I was in London to give a paper at a very special academic conference. It was specifically for trans-identified people to talk about their research, and their experiences of life in academia.

Before I go any further, however, a brief word on terminology. The official title of the conference was Trans, Intersex and Gender Non-Conforming in Academia 2. I’ve been using trans as a very loose umbrella term because the whole thing needs a bit of unpacking. Firstly, while some intersex people do end up transitioning gender, many of them are perfectly happy with the gender they were assigned at birth. Therefore they should not be included in the term “trans”. Gender Non-Conforming is a relatively new term that is being used to indicate those people whose presentation is outside of social gender norms, but who are happy with the gender that they were assigned at birth. Again those people don’t strictly count as trans, but they are generally discriminated against as if they were trans. Yeah, I know, it is complicated.

I’m not going to say too much about individual papers and presentations, because the conference maintained a media blackout. Some of those presenting were concerned about their own safety, or the safety of their families, if it became known that they had attended. However, I can make one general point.

A lot of the issues we covered dealt with policy in various forms. There was policy to keep trans people safe in an academic environment, policy in the health service, and policy within areas control by the government (passports, prisons, legal gender recognition). In all of these cases it was very clear that there is a lot of good policy around, but that policy was useless if it wasn’t backed up by enforcement. All too often, policy exists, but most people ignore it, and those with the power to enforce it don’t have the will to do so.

Aside from that, I got to meet lots of interesting people, found some more trans historians, and had lots of conversations about science fiction. It was fun day, and the whole thing was very well run by Sahra Taylor. We need to do this again, and next time we need to make sure that Sahra (or whoever else is in charge) gets more support.

Ahoy London – Conference on Saturday

~ Cheryl


Look at this awesome free conference on trans, intersex and gender non-confirming people in academia. It features fabulous folk such as Jay Stewart, Meg-John Baker, Sophie Labelle, Natacha Kennedy & Kat Gupta. And me, I’m afraid, but the program is double-streamed while I’m on. Come along and say hello. Booking details here.

Special thanks to Sahra Taylor for doing all of the hard work of organising this, and to Mollie for the best accessibility provision I have ever seen at a conference.

Podcast Workshop in Bristol

~ Cheryl

On Thursday October 12th my Ujima colleague, Miranda Rae, and I will be running a Podcasting for Beginners workshop at the BBC offices. Here’s Miranda’s blurb:

Want to launch your own Podcast but not sure where to start? Or perhaps you have already started one but would like to improve it or develop it further? If either applies, this is the workshop for you! Podcaster, producers and broadcasters Miranda Rae (Radio 4, Radio 5, Sony Award Winner, Galaxy Radio, Ujima Radio) and Cheryl Morgan (Publisher, Critic, Hugo Award Winner) will guide you through a three hour crash course that will leave you with all the confidence and know how you need to get going with your very own podcast!

YOU WILL LEARN:
What makes a great podcasting story
How to conduct a good interview
How to get your Podcast out there
Branding your Podcast
Basic technical skills (Recording/Editing)
Recording a Skype Call
What equipment and software need to produce a Podcast

That’s 6:30pm to 9:30pm on Thursday, 12th October. A bargain at £30 per head. There’s a Facebook event with booking details here.

September Fringe: Chloe Headdon & Anna Smith Spark

~ Cheryl

Thanks to some very fast work by Tom Parker we have Monday’s Fringe readings available already.

Our first reader for September was Chloe Headdon, who had so impressed us in the April open mic.

Ever since she was little Chloe has wanted to be either a writer or a knight, so she now combines a bit of both. Chloe’s work is inspired by myths and legends, especially King Arthur, medieval history, and the British landscape. She is currently working on a young adult fantasy novel as well as other short stories. In her spare time, Chloe practises Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) and can regularly be found fighting people twice her size with swords.

Chloe read from the opening chapters of her novel. Before she got going, I introduced a guest from the USA.

Next up was Anna Smith Spark. She lives in London, and loves grimdark and epic fantasy and historical military fiction. Anna has a BA in Classics, an MA in history and a PhD in English Literature. She has previously been published in the Fortean Times and the poetry website www.greatworks.org. Previous jobs include petty bureaucrat, English teacher and fetish model.

The first book in the Empires of Dust series (The Court of Broken Knives) was published by Harper Voyager in June 2017. Anna read from the opening chapters of the book.

Finally there was the Q&A. I talked to Chloe about hitting people with big swords and her job in the heritage industry. I have huge admiration for her willingness to get in an arena to fight Francesca Terminiello. I talked to Anna about epic poetry, studying ancient history, what she feeds her shoes, and whether she had any advice for Chloe about getting published. Then Justin Newland asked a philosophical question about history and we discovered that, with three historians on a panel, the discussion can go on for ever. The conversation touched on the sex life of Alexander the Great and tasteless bathroom conversions in historic buildings.

Pete Sutton previewed this year’s Bristol literary festivals, of which BristolCon will of course be a part. The festivals seem to be breeding as we now have a horror convention and a poetry festival in October as well as the Festival of Literature. There are rumors of a festival devoted to Westerns as well.

There is no Fringe next month, but there will be an open mic at BristolCon. The guests for November are Jonathan L Howard & Baylea Hart.

Trans: It Isn’t Simple

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Apologies for another lecture, but I’ve been doing training today so my brain is in that mode.

This particular post was sparked by something I saw online today. Someone, I’m pretty sure a cis person, was stating authoritatively that gender identity is fixed by the age of three. I think they were trying to be helpful, trying to say that trans people can’t be “cured”, but it is more complicated than that.

Personally I can’t date knowing that I was trans further back than starting school. I didn’t have much to go on. There were no girls my age near where I lived. We’d only just got a TV. I’d been pretty much on my own. Even so, all that I knew when I started school was that there was something wrong.

I have a friend who didn’t realize that he was trans until he started puberty. I have another who didn’t realize that she was trans until she was middle-aged. Both have since undergone significant medical treatment. They are no less trans than I am. I also know people who have elected not to have medical treatment, but have transitioned socially. They too are trans.

The idea that there are simple and definitive diagnostic tests for being trans was one of the things that held me back from transitioning for around 20 years. I read a lot, and I wasn’t certain that I’d be accepted as a patient, or indeed that transition was right for me. Nowadays we’d say that I was Questioning, but kids these days get to experiment, without having to make irreversible decisions about their lives, which is good.

Insistence on a simple, diagnostic test also plays into the TERF myth that anyone who starts a transition process, and either decides to stop at being non-binary, or back out to their assigned gender, was somehow “misdiagnosed” and has been forced into transition by pro-trans fanatics. Many people need to experiment, and the purpose of treatment should be to find what works for the patient, not to force everyone to follow a particular path. (And certainly not to force people into roles that reinforce the gender binary, unless those roles are what they are comfortable in.)

I know that “it’s complicated” isn’t an easy thing to explain. People tend to prefer easy answers. But sometimes it is an important thing to explain.

Farah on Heinlein

~ Cheryl

For some time now Farah Mendlesohn has been working on a book about the work of Robert A. Heinlein. We have chatted about it occasionally, and I have been itching to read it. However, Heinlein produced a lot of work, and the resulting book was so long that Farah hasn’t been able to find an academic publisher willing to take it. Consequently she has decided to go through the crowdfunding publisher, Unbound. Farah needs to raise enough money to get Unbound to publish the book. Any excess raised is being shared between The Foundation for America’s Blood Centres and Con or Bust. You can support the project here.

Picacio Sales for Disaster Relief

~ Cheryl

Hugo-winning artist, John Picacio, is making some of his work available in a sale to benefit disaster relief for those affected by the earthquake in Oaxaca, Mexico on September 7th, and victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. There are five original works of art available for sale. A portion of the sale price of each one will go to the disaster relief effort of the purchaser’s choice. For details of the items available, see John’s blog.

OutStories AGM and Queer Classical Erotica

~ Cheryl

The OutStories Bristol AGM will take place on Saturday, October 7th at Bristol University. Some of you may remember that last year we had a fabulous talk from Dr. Jana Funke about Radclyffe Hall, which is still available in audio here. This year’s talk promises to be equally good.

Edward Warren is best known for giving his name to the Warren Cup, a Roman goblet which is decorated with explicit scenes of men having sex with each other. Warren was a passionate collector of Classical antiquities that provide evidence of same-sex relationships in past times. Dr. Jen Grove of will talk about Warren’s work, the objects he collected, and their use in advocating for LGBT rights both in his time and now.

Full details of the event, which is free to attend, are available here.

Forthcoming Appearances

~ Cheryl

Here are a few places where you will be able to find me in the coming weeks.

First up we have BristolCon Fringe on Monday, featuring the legendary Anna Smith-Spark, owner of the deadliest shoes in the writing business, and Chloe Headdon, one of the best readers from the last open mic event. As usual I will be hosting, and interrogating the readers afterward. I may ask Anna what her shoes eat.

If you happen to be in London, on September 30th I will be at this conference on being trans, intersex and gender non-confirming in academia. I’ll be talking about trying to do trans history when many historians believe that people like you didn’t exist before the 20th Century.

October sees the annual Bristol Festival of Literature and we will once again be doing the ranty feminist author panel. I may talk a bit about Space Marine Midwives. And Dreadnought, always Dreadnought.

I won’t be at BristolCon this year as I will be in Bologna for an academic conference. I’m also doing one in Melbourne early in November, though only by Skype. If you are interested in either, let me know.

And on November 4th, if all goes according to plan, I will be at LaDIYfest in Bristol. Watch this space for details on what I might end up doing there.