Category: news

Guest post by our microbiologist collaborator Rebee Penrice-Randal

June is Pride Month; a month that celebrates and honours those within the LGBTQIA+ community and recognises their ongoing fight for equal rights and acceptance. During this year’s Annual Conference, held in Liverpool, UK, the Microbiology Society’s member-led group, Queer in Microbiology, hosted their fourth LGBTQ+ Networking Event, in collaboration with the collective artists group, Flow.Walk.Drag. Champion, Rebee Penrice-Randal, reflects on their experience at the event and the importance of such events in ensuring microbiology is inclusive and accessible to all.

As Pride Month arrives, we reflect on our fourth LGBTQ+ Networking Event at this year’s Annual Conference in Liverpool; a space where identity, inclusion and scientific curiosity intersect. Over the years, this event has grown into a vital part of Conference; providing a welcoming environment for LGBTQIA+ scientists and allies to connect, share experiences, and explore the ways diversity enriches our field. The group have previously published their experiences of running an inclusive event at conferences.

Organisers of the LGBTQ+ Networking Event

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We’re excited to be part of Pint of Science Festival 2025! FWD will be at the Glitch in Waterloo on the 20th of May (Tuesday) alongside two other amazing speakers. Under the banner of Paths to Progress: Walking as a tool to reconnect us to our natural world, we will be sharing how walking can help us reconnect with nature, boost conservation efforts, and spark communities to take positive climate action and fight for ecological justice. 

Sign up for your free tickets here.

A few images from the Queer MicroSoc Social show, presenting our fabulous micro drag artists Branden Curtis (cholera) and Laura Wyatt O’Keeffe (E. coli).

The Flow.Walk.Drag. team has given careful thought to the principles and ethical approach of the project. As a participatory project, co-created with multiple collaborators, including workshop participants recruited in Margate and Liverpool, we are attentive to our responsibilities to our co-creators and the communities we work in. 

Our project centres joy and play, using drag and creative participatory methods. Yet we are exploring difficult topics that have the potential to evoke distress among those we work with. FWD’s themes may evoke disgust, anger and other difficult emotions, and may generate conflict and backlash as we explore themes of contagion, pollution, exclusion, and our relationships with microorganisms. Working with people as collaborators and co-creators is always a complex process, as we navigate a range of needs, perspectives and expectations, and respond to issues that arise. 

To do this work with care and integrity, we have established an ethics infrastructure for the project which includes a Code of Ethics and an Advisory Board. This infrastructure guides our work, setting out principles and processes that act as ethical coordinates, helping us to think through our approach to every element of the project and to respond to issues as they arise. 

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Our final workshop focused on themes of movement – moving together and creating movement. The group gathered in CAMP on Margate’s Northdown Road for snacks and drinks before walking to the Southern Water Pumping Station, a 40-minute walk along the coast. The high wind dominated the experience, reminding us of a key principle of the project: to be humble and in awe of nature. As we walked, we talked about the sea foam, complex feelings of (dis)ease and being un(safe) in the water, and the clarity of light that made visible the wind turbines off the coast. 

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