Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London's Fierce History

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Opportunities to explore a curated selection of items from the LSE Library's Hall-Carpenter Archive Q: What do you believe is the value of documenting and celebrating past struggles to movements now? Specifically, I hope people will draw from the modes of expression that queer people have utilised to confront, respond and transform their situations living with rising LGBTQIA+ hate crime. The book records and disseminates artistic and activist processes to confront a variety of forms of institutionalised homophobia through workshops, performances, events, exhibitions, street interventions and community organising. It helps to build confidence, knowledge and skills to work with and challenge local and national governments to ensure social policies advantage the ongoing development of the LGBTQIA+ community. From coming out on Old Compton Street to soul-fire fights in Brixton, finding Heaven under the Arches to ACT UP protests in the streets, Dan Glass has curated a manifesto and maps for 'queerdos' across London. You will find freedom in these minces!' Glass: Love, power, fear, war, apartheid, peace, justice, freedom-fighting, education, emotions, Section 28, remembrance, amnesia, happiness, loneliness, AIDS, healthcare, abandonment, addiction, raves, ghosts, sex, friendship, creativity, local community building, global sex positive de-criminalisation, taking our purpose seriously as queers but not so seriously that we can’t laugh at ourselves.

Q: The book contains testimonies from LGBTQIA+ activists, business owners, volunteers and artists who speak to the histories (and herstories) you trace across London. Why did you feel it was important to include their voices in Queer Footprints? Glass: Ooooh controversial one. I left out a lot of movement tactics that relate to ‘identity politics.’ Not the kind of identity politics that results in positive affirmation of marginalised communities, but the kind of identity politics that result in a reductive ‘oppression olympics’, a race-to-the-bottom understanding of change-making whereby everyone ends up at a dead-end road. Because for fifty years the Gay Liberation Front have taught humankind this lesson in the most dazzling and spectacular fashion. Emerging from the Stonewall Uprisings in New York in 1969 it wasn’t long before they catalysed a movement here in Britain that lead to Pride today, but not as we know it. At the pumping heart of the GLF mission is the aim of ‘Absolute freedom for all’, a principled opposition against all oppression and to stand in solidarity with everyone everywhere facing discrimination and abuse. LSE Library organised a Picadilly walking tour and panel event on Friday 9 June 2023 to mark the book’s launch which featured a display of materials from LSE’s Hall-Carpenter Archives and panellists from the UK branch of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) , formed at LSE in 1970. Q: The book takes account of discrimination and pays tribute to victims of oppression, like those who died during the AIDS crisis. At the same time, the book is full of joy and vibrancy captured in anecdotes from queer bars, club nights and events in London over the decades. How did you strike this balance?

Queer Tour of Soho

The incredible nooks and crannies we’ve been denied knowledge of, the revolutionary movements and extraordinary people who’ve set up the pubs and spaces that have made us who we are.

Note: This interview gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The interview was conducted by Anna D’Alton, Managing Editor of the LSE Review of Books blog. As a grandchild of four Nazi Holocaust survivors I’ve spent my life trying to understand how we can overcome victimhood to generate deep empathy with everyone and the courage to continually fight the system rather than each other. I learn from many including Willem Arondeus, a queer Dutch anti-fascist. In 1943 he blew up a records office that the Nazis were about to pilfer and saved thousands of lives. Just before he was executed his last words were: ‘Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.’ Ever wanted to learn more about the pulsing heart of queer London's Soho? Dan Glass, author of ‘Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Fierce History', is here to guide you.Glass: It was a balance between 65 interviews with some of the legendary founders of Pride and the early members of the Gay Liberation Front along with multiple pioneers in social justice movements, who continue their journey for justice for all, and my own experience. The autobiographical elements came through speaking with my twin sister and finally allowing myself to remember what I went through as a child living under Section 28, the ruthless and barbaric legislation that wiped our identities as queers out of existence. I wanted to include all the unfurling and unleashing that happened since then on the streets and raves and bedrooms across London, and also uncover icons throughout history and across the world who paved the way for the Gay Liberation Front. It is helpful, however, to question everything if you think that an injustice to one is an injustice to all. As the late great popular educator Paulo Freire said, we must ‘read our own reality and write our own history’ to transform the world around us.

I would really like to do Queer Footprints collaborations in countries where it’s more at the sharp end of the knife because if we’re looking at equalising liberation across the world, then we need to do more work with [those] communities. To be able to do this in Russia, for example, or Palestine or in Uganda with my friends there who are challenging the latest tyranny. There was also reading lots of newspapers, reading other books like Queer London, Matt Houlbrook’s book which [covers] mainly 1918 to 1957, the era just before the one I write about. And also just keeping my ear open for other things – it was a process of active engagement.

Bishopsgate Institute Launch Party

Dan Glass is a living gift from our queer ancestry with an ability to write our present with an alternative view of our past. His experience has shaped the way we appreciate the world we live in and how we choose to question the past' Glass has used his vast experience as a campaigner to create something dizzyingly energetic. His writing isn't just informative; it compels you to act.’ Popular education says we are authors of our own reality; we just don’t ever really get to tell our own stories. One of the key tenets of the educational curriculum is ‘transformation starts with yourself, and then it role-models out’. I wanted to do Queer Footprints partly because the pandemic happened: we couldn’t do Queer Tours. I really wanted to challenge myself by writing it and expand Queer Tours into a written format. I was also aware that a lot of the people who I’m really inspired by are getting old and I wanted to record their stories. A truly rewarding read, full of insights and knowledge and intertwined with anecdotes from those who were there. The book is a goldmine for those interested in finding out about the queer history of the streets of London '

Sarah Schulman, author of ‘The Gentrification of the Mind’ and ‘Let the Records Show: A Political History of ACT UP’ Q: In 2017 you launched Queer Tours of London – A Mince Through Time, and Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Fierce History (2023) seems to build from that. What was the impetus was for both projects? This is why I say ‘herstory’ because I want to centre a feminist perspective through human-centred stories, that spark the flames for mass transformation for all. This is what can happen when we tell our own stories. LSE Library has been home to the Hall-Carpenter Archives since 1988. It’s an extensive collection of archives, ephemera and printed material documenting the development of gay activism in the UK since the 1950s. Stacey Clare, author of 'The Ethical Stripper: Sex, Work and Labour Rights in the Night-time Economy'Ever wanted to learn more about the pulsing heart of queer London’s Soho? Dan Glass, author of Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Fierce History, is here to guide you. The curation of Queer Footprints reaffirmed my belief in the power of people’s (or ‘popular’) education, and I learnt many new storytelling tools to enable this. NOTCHES: This book engages with histories of sex and sexuality, but what other themes does it speak to?