Love month, LGBTQ+ history month, youth homeless appeal, Femfest 2023, Estonian sauna, gay slang

Issue No. 34 - February 2023

Bear Carnival 2023 18-26 March, Gran Canaria, Spain

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It’s love month & UK LGBTQ+ History Month, too

Welcome to PinkUk’s February news. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner on 14 February, we hope all those looking for partners or celebrating their partnership have a great time.

February is also LGBT+ History Month in the UK. So some history on why it takes place this month: in February 2003, a notorious, homophobic law called ‘Section 28’, introduced by the Tory government in the 1980s at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, was finally repealed.

The law forbade the education or promotion of LGBTQ+ issues or same-sex relationships by local councils, which then ran most services such as state schools and municipal libraries.

It has echoes of a new law in Florida dubbed ‘Don’t Say Gay’ which imposes restrictions on what schools can discuss on LGBTQ+ issues. In the United States, LGBTQ+ History Month is commemorated in October to coincide with Coming Out Day. The theme in the UK this year is #BehindTheLens which celebrates the LGBTQ+ communities’ contribution to cinema, film and photography. It highlights the legacy of LGBTQ+ film directors, cinematographers, screenwriters and other film professionals. You can read more about this in a new article on LGBTQ+ history looking at the persecution of gay wartime code breaker Alan Turing.

We also have an emergency appeal from akt, a UK youth charity which helps young homeless LGBTQ+ people access safe accommodation. Akt is named after Albert Kennedy, a gay 16- year-old who died in 1989 after falling off a multi-storey car park in Manchester in what appeared to be a homophobic attack.

Finally, check out our latest features and opinions. 

Have a great, love-filled month and pinkest love from our team xx
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PinkUk forums

We are making our forums a password protected part of the site, with a minimum age of 18. As well as providing increased security for all, it also ensures that the main site can be safely accessed by young people who may need our information.   Our first step is to make the forums only accessible to member who have signed in. Members need to be aged 18 or over to create a member's account.

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Featured venue: Sauna Club 69, Tallinn, Estonia

According to Sauna Club 69’s entry in PinkUk’s listings, the venue is “...the only gay and swinger sauna club in Tallinn [capital of Estonia].”

Well, that’s clear!
The venue offers much more than just a sauna. It boasts a fully-equipped bar, a dance floor, jacuzzi, swimming pool and “a lot of playgrounds for adult males” as well as two saunas. So if you like sexy Baltic guys, this one is for you. It has regular gay men’s nights with 300 square metres of space for male fun. The venue’s crew says Sauna Club 69’s parties are well-known across the Baltic States. If you’re heading to the Baltics on a break or for any other reason, this looks a place to add to your itinerary!

By the way, for those of you who like poppers, our friends at PopperSuperShop have an informative article on PinkUk on the latest poppers brands in the UK market.

More info about Sauna 69

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Featured event/pride: Femfest 2023, Brighton, UK

FemFest, a fringe arts festival in Brighton, takes place 6-12 March 2023 in the week of International Women's Day. The organisers say, “This is Brighton's only arts festival that advocates for and showcases the work of women, trans and non-binary performers.” Wow, Fem-cool.

More info about FemFest 2023

Prides/LGBTQ+ events

So far, for this new year, we have 119 pride festivals listed in the UK and 438 LGBTQ+ prides events in 40 countries worldwide for 2023. Keep us posted if you have a pride festival or event that needs promoting.

See all the prides/LGBTQ+ events we have in February, Add an LGBTQ event to PinkUK

We have 3,335 LGBTQ+ venues listed in 76 countries. Add a venue to PinkUk

Scene, recently relaunched with its fabulous new print copy. We are proud to support them.  See their latest edition. 
Scene is the top UK, free to read, online, LGBTQ+ magazine.