Edition 41

Refugee Women of Bristol: Bridging Cultures

Susannah Eley works with Citizens Advice and has come to know the women of Refugee Women of Bristol. Here, she reflects on what the charity means to them: the community they’ve built, and their strength in the face of a hostile immigration system

‘If you see it, you can be it’: The cricket club creating a more inclusive game

In love and in limbo: Queer migrants who found love in a hostile environment

A group of people dancing together in a nightclub with pink walls

Features

Joy as resistance: Inside the club night changing Bristol’s queer scene

With violence and political hostility towards trans and queer people on the rise, club night Soft Butch has become a vital space for community, connection, and liberation

Features

Kill the Bill prisoners are fighting repression from behind bars

A woman with blonde hair works on her laptop at a table in her garden with her child in a pushchair in the foreground

Features

Meet the Bristol author helping women write their way through early motherhood

Cock-throwing, dog-tossing and bare-knuckle boxing: the brutal history of Pancake Day in Bristol

Shrove Tuesday is a minor holiday at best these days. But turn the clock back, and both animals and humans in Bristol would have had a lot more than pancakes to worry about as Lent approached.

Project helping new dads cope with parenthood faces uncertain future

Dad Matters, set up in 2024, has been supporting men across Bristol to navigate the tricky challenges of early fatherhood – but the council is now working out if it can continue funding the service.

‘Like riding a wave – then the water cuts out’: Bristol’s TV workers hit by redundancies as companies close down

In a perfect storm caused by streamers, social media and Hollywood strikes, talented Bristol screen workers are being left in the cold by redundancies and companies shutting up shop, making a competitive industry even tougher for new and diverse talent.

Filton 18: ‘The more you oppress people, the more they will rise’

The British state is treating Palestine Action activists who targeted an Elbit Systems Israeli arms facility on the outskirts of Bristol like terrorists – subjecting them to repressive sanctions in jail as they await trial.

Are self-swab kits ‘the start of the end of sexual violence’, or could they cause more harm than good?

Against a backdrop of chronic underreporting of sexual assaults, thousands of self-administered rape test kits have been distributed across Bristol, targeting university campuses. But are users, already coping with trauma, being given the clarity they need to make informed choices?

No silver bullet: why we should stop criminalising young people and start investing in them

Anti-knife violence campaigners and youth workers speak out on school exclusions, the reasons children are carrying knives, and why the police must stop ‘victim-blaming’ kids.