menu

New website promotes Lesbian & Bisexual women on screen in the UK!

New website launches to promote and support lesbian and bisexual women on-screen in the UK.

BRINGING quality lesbian content into one central location, LesFlicks aims to make it easier for lesbian and bisexual women to find more content featuring stories that showcase and celebrate women and their relationships on-screen.

The website contains articles and news about past and upcoming releases, a database of films and a DVD shop for those who still like to buy a physical DVD.

In addition, a LesFlicks film bank will be available which will allow meet-ups, community groups, libraries, pride organisers and other organisations to access and licence a much broader range of films for screenings than is currently available. It will also make it easier to arrange for filmmakers to participate in introductions or Q&As around such screenings.

Later this year, a video on demand (VOD) service will be launched which will provide income to be reinvested into lesbian and bisexual filmmakers to help ensure a pipeline of content in the future. Pre-registration is open now and anyone who is signed up ahead of the launch will benefit from a free trial period when it launches.

Naomi Bennett, founder of LesFlicks, says: “I have a good network of lesbian and bisexual women who I could see were frequently seeking out content. I’ve seen a lot of films at film festivals or via press screenings that never make it to the mainstream or LGBT outlets and are not available to the public, or are extremely hard to find, which is a real shame for both the potential viewers and the filmmakers. I realised there was an opportunity to bring these two together for the benefit of all, so LesFlicks was born!” 

For more information, click here:

Twitter: @LesFlicks

Facebook: @LesFlicksMedia

Lesbian and bi women at increased risk of being overweight

New research from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and University College London (UCL) shows lesbian and bi women are at increased risk of being overweight or obese.

ON the other hand, the research indicates that GAY men are less likely to be overweight, and more at risk of being underweight, compared to their straight counterparts.

The study, published in the Journal of Public Health, is the first to investigate the relationship between sexual orientation and body mass index (BMI) using population data in the UK.

The research team pooled data from 12 UK national health surveys involving 93,429 participants and studied the relationship between sexual orientation and BMI.

Dr Joanna Semlyen
Dr Joanna Semlyen

Lead researcher Dr Joanna Semlyen, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “We found that women who identify as lesbian or bisexual are at an increased risk of being overweight or obese, compared to heterosexual women. This is worrying because being overweight and obese are known risk factors for a number of conditions including coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer and early death.

“Conversely, gay and bisexual men are more likely than heterosexual men to be underweight, and there is growing evidence that being underweight is linked to a range of health problems too, including excess deaths.

“We also found that gay men are significantly less likely than straight men to be overweight or obese.

“This study demonstrates that there is a relationship between sexual identity and BMI and that this link appears to be different for men and women.

“There are a number of possible explanations for these findings. We know that sexual minority groups are more likely to be exposed to psychosocial stressors, which impacts on their mental health and their health behaviours such as smoking and alcohol use and which may influence their health behaviours such as diet or physical activity.

“These stressors include homophobia and heterosexism, negative experiences that are experienced by the lesbian, bisexual and gay population as a result of their sexual orientation identity and are known to be linked to health.

“Until 2008, sexual orientation wasn’t recorded in health surveys. This means that until recently it has not been possible to determine health inequalities affecting lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

“Continued collection of data on sexual orientation identity within national health surveys allows us to measure the health of sexual minorities.

“We hope that policy makers and clinicians will be able to use this fresh evidence to provide better healthcare and tailored advice and interventions for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. We need longitudinal research to understand the factors underlying the relationship between sexual orientation and BMI, and research to understand more about being underweight, especially in this population.”

To read the research in full, click here:

X