It is becoming increasingly evident that many LGBT+ people face financial and material problems in later life. Despite this, there has been little research to date as to why these problems are so prevalent.
On 25 February Tonic Housing is publishing a major study, entitled Precarious Lives, that explores financial and material hardship among LGBT+ people in London aged 50 and above. There are four themes in their research:
Discrimination – They look at the long-term impact of discrimination on the financial wellbeing of older LGBT+ people, and at the intersectional nature of this problem.
Social isolation – They explore the high levels of social isolation, and the low expectations of institutional support, among older LGBT+ people, and how these affect financial wellbeing.
Long-term health conditions – They look at the high levels of disability among older LGBT+ people, how disability can increase social isolation, and how both impact financial health.
Financial stress – They show how living in London is a mixed blessing for older LGBT+ people, exploring factors such as the precarity of life in the private rental sector.
Launch / Webinar
Precarious Lives will be launched with a webinar. This 90-minute event will be on Tuesday, 25 February at 10.30am – 12.00 noon.
The report will be published on Tuesday 25 February, and will be available from that date.
Credits
The first phase of Precarious Lives was organised by the charity Opening Doors, which sadly closed in February 2024, after which Tonic took on this important project. They would like to thank all of the older LGBT+ people who answered the survey and took part in the focus groups and interviews, as well as the panel of specialists in the Advisory Group. Precarious Lives has been funded by Trust for London.
LGBT+ Stories on BBC iPlayer
This LGBT+ History Month dive into comedies, dramas and documentaries celebrating the LGBT+ communities in all its fabulous forms.
There are lots of programmes on the BBC iPlayer including:
Gentleman Jack
Halifax, 1832. Anne Lister shakes up her shabby ancestral home, determined to restore its fortunes and find herself a wife.
Gentleman Jack Changed My Life
Six British women rediscover their sexuality, come out to themselves and their families, and rekindle long-lost love after watching drama series Gentleman Jack.
Gateways Grind: London’s Secret Lesbian Club
Sandi Toksvig goes behind the iconic green door of one of the most famous lesbian venues in the world, The Gateways Club.
HIV, PrEP and Me
Dan Harry explores how a drug that has contributed to a steep decline in HIV rates among gay and bi men could help end new HIV infections across the UK.
Olly Alexander: Growing up Gay
Documentary in which Years and Years frontman Olly Alexander explores the mental health issues faced by members of the LGBT+ community.
A Change of Sex
Groundbreaking BBC series that follows Julia Grant’s life as a transgender person, from her first year living as a woman to her gender reassignment surgery and beyond.
🎵 Season Just Announced! Live at Lunchtime 2025 🎵
All concerts are free, unticketed events in the Stalls Foyer – just turn up!
Run Remedy
Friday, 2 May 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
Chetham’s School of Music
Friday, 9 May 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
The Apple Sellers
Friday, 16 May 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
Lorena Paz Nieto & Helen Glaisher-Hernández
Friday, 23 May 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
Dimitra Ananiadou & Richard Whalley
Friday, 30 May 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
Music for the Mind and Soul: Jonathan Mayer & Kousic Sen
Friday, 20 June 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
Hannah Brine
Friday, 11 July 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
Union Chapel Jazz Band
Friday, 1 August 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
Canter Semper
Friday, 5 September 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
Duo Gimeno-Sanchís
Friday, 12 September 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
So Many Beauties Collective
Friday, 19 September 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
Tracey Browne
Friday, 26 September 2025 – 12.45pm to 1.30pm
In addition to the above there are free concerts (with a ticket) at the Royal Northern College of Music, 124 Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9RD.
Get tickets via box office 0161 907 5555 on Mondays and Thursdays from 2.00pm to 5.00pm or via the website rncm.ac.uk
The upcoming concerts are:
Monday, 24 February – 1.15pm – Violin and piano duos by Brahms and Wieniawski
Thursday, 27 February – 1.15pm – Kai Strobel directs the RNCM Percussion Ensemble
Monday, 3 March – 1.15pm – Piano music by Chopin and Beethoven
Thursday, 6 March – 1.15pm – RNCM Guitars with director Craig Ogden
Monday, 10 March – 1.15pm – Two duos from the Popular Music course
Wednesday, 12 March – 1.15pm – European Chamber Music Academy Recital
Thursday, 13 March – 1.15pm – Kleio Quartet performs Bach and Bartok
Monday, 17 March – 1.15pm – Duos by Mangani, Mellits and Bowen
Thursday, 20 March – 1.15pm – Harp students perform
Monday, 24 March – 1.15pm – Soprano and piano duos by Burleigh and Falla
Thursday, 27 March – 1.15pm – Chamber music from Silja Trio and Palmieri Piano Quartet
Monday, 31 March – 1.15pm – Sonatas by Schubert and Harberg
Thursday, 3 April – 1.15pm – Rob Buckland directs the RNCM Saxophones.
Also The Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama at The University of Manchester have a dynamic arts programme. There are 20 music concerts, open to the general public, free of charge and no booking necessary. For details see: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/mhc
Happy Valentine’s Day! from Out In The City to YOU!
We’ve always been here!
Edmund White on lust, love and literature
‘I thought it was quite normal to take a break from writing and have sex with 20 men in a truck’ … American novelist Edmund White at home in Chelsea, New York, December 2024. Photograph: Amir Hamja / The Guardian
“I think the French are best in bed, because they’re the most perverted,” the great American author Edmund White divulges from his book-crammed apartment in Chelsea, New York. In France, he says: “All kinds of vices are allowed and encouraged. Although I’ve had wonderful sex with English people,” he adds, kindly.
Is there any sex act at which he would draw the line? “Um, no,” says the 85-year-old, barely pausing to consider the question.
White is certainly an authority on the subject of sex. For a full 20 years, he reckons, he “tricked” with three different men each week. In fact, he has had so much action that this pivotal figure in gay literature – who has written more than 30 books and whose 80s trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels starting with A Boy’s Own Story is a key plank of the queer canon – has now devoted an entire memoir to his sexual exploits. It’s called The Loves of My Life. Why not The Shags of My Life? “Somewhere in the book I say that, like Jean Genet, I never experienced sex in a pure state,” he says. “I always had some affection for the person, or felt some love.”
‘I moved to France, partly because I wanted the party to go on’ … White by the Seine, Paris, 1986. Photograph: Rue des Archives / Louis Monier / Writer Pictures
There was certainly plenty of love to feel. In New York during the 70s, the author writes: “I thought it was quite normal to take a break from writing at two in the morning, saunter down to the piers, and have sex with 20 men in a truck. When I wrote that I’d had sex over the years with 3,000 men, one of my contemporaries asked pityingly: ‘Why so few?’”
The Loves of My Life tears down taboos on virtually every page and is frequently hilarious. “When I started the book I thought, this will never be published,” White says. “But I got a wonderful review in Harper’s magazine by a man who identified himself as heterosexual but said: ‘This book made me wish I were gay.’ That seems very funny to me. In the 70s, straight critics would greet my work with the words: ‘I, comma, a heterosexual …’”
Over the course of his long life, White has seen homosexuality go from a terrible secret whose disclosure could ruin lives, through gay liberation, AIDS, apps such as Grindr and the sexual fluidity of Gen Z. The Loves of My Life details White’s sex life, from his youth as a recklessly horny gay teenager in the repressive 50s to his current relationship with Rory, a younger man with whom he interacts mainly on Skype. “He keeps annoying me, wanting to have sex, but I don’t really want to do it,” White says, adding that age has now extinguished his libido. “Most people my age who want to remain sexually active take male hormones, but I can’t because I have a heart problem.”
“Rory was my student,” says White, who has been a professor of creative writing at Princeton University since 1998. But surely it’s an abuse of power to have sex with people you’re meant to be supervising? “Well, in all my years of teaching in maybe 10 different universities, I never had sex with a student while he was a student,” he replies.
Was there anything White didn’t put in the book because it was too shocking? “So many of my novels have been about sex or contained lots of lurid passages,” he says. “I didn’t want to repeat anecdotes from previous memoirs” – this is his fifth (the previous one, The Unpunished Vice, was about his life as a voracious reader) – “so I came up with new ones.”
Characters include Keith McDermott, the gorgeous star of the stage play Equus, who lies in bed beside him but doesn’t put out (“I was content to have that constant access to his beauty and company”); the alarming gerontophile Pedro, who beats him up in drunken rages; and the bearded “satyr” he meets in a 70s bathhouse who “impaled me as if he were a warrior-priest and I an unstoppable vampire” – their furious congress in the bushes on Fire Island leaves White with poison ivy welts all over his body.
Others in the book’s teeming cast include a meth-addicted Mormon hustler he takes to the Edinburgh books festival (“he enjoyed it thoroughly”); a heterosexual hippy who flees midway through the act; a Scottish sadist who sports a cock ring under his sporran; two women he gets engaged to in his 20s and whom he hopes might turn him straight; and stoned friends with benefits “feasting on hard cock” in 70s New York. There is a furtive encounter in a Spanish bullring during the Franco era (where he gets robbed at knifepoint by a man who knows that White can never report him to the fascist authorities without disclosing his then-illegal sexual behaviour), and alfresco frolics on Hampstead Heath during trips to London, where, he says: “I must have felt or been felt by hundreds of men.”
Michael Carroll, his husband and partner of almost 30 years, gets a passing mention or two, but White says he is loath to write about him in case he loses this precious relationship. Like Vladimir Nabokov, he says: “I’ve always thought that writing about someone is the kiss-off.” Sex during marriage isn’t something White’s otherwise comprehensive book covers, either. “Michael has a full-time lover who lives with us,” the author says. “We’re very, very close, but not sexually.”
‘I always felt the best gay bars in New York were the hustler bars’ … White in New York, 2000. Photograph: David Corio / Getty Images
While the book has plenty on sex as hedonism, there’s not much on sex as an expression of tenderness or intimacy. “Well, I hate cuddling,” White says. “I would rather die than cuddle with somebody. I just find it cloying and annoying, somebody who strokes your hair when you want to be left alone. I was fortunate that when I wrote The Joy of Gay Sex” – a pioneering sex manual published in 1977 – “I collaborated with Dr Charles Silverstein because I think if I wrote it alone it would have been called The Tragedy of Gay Sex. He brought in the warm, cuddly part.”
White adds that his interest in sex with someone tended to wane after the initial excitement, an exception being Aaron, the Mormon hustler. “I probably had more sex with him than anybody, even though I had to pay for it.”
White is unashamed about paying for sex and has done so since his teens. The first sex workers he hired were Kentucky “hillbillies” who charged $10 a time. In his 30s, by which time he was a writer, he would order a sex worker to come over to his place at 3.00am. “That would keep me at my desk until then. You’d call up the madam and say: ‘I want a six foot two blond,’ and he’d say: ‘Hold on, doll’, arrange it all and then the most exciting moment would be hearing the footsteps on the staircase.”
In the 80s, he would holiday in a Cretan village where “everyone was available for a price, even the mayor”. What does he say to the accusation that paying for sex is exploitative? “Well, who’s exploiting who, I wonder?” White says. “I always felt the best gay bars in New York were the hustler bars, because while everyone was giving each other the cold shoulder in normal gay bars, in the hustler bars everyone was jabbering away because they were either buying or selling. It was partly mercantile, but it was also a ‘we’re all in this together’ kind of feeling.”
White’s sexual obsession started when he was growing up in a well-to-do family in Chicago. “I would be horny all the time,” he says. “I would look up the word ‘homosexual’ in the dictionary and get very excited just by seeing it.” Queer representation was almost nonexistent: the first book he read that had any kind of gay theme was Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, about an ailing writer’s obsession with an adolescent boy, “which isn’t very positive, but it is about desire. I read also Plato quite young, which was eye-opening about love between members of the same sex.”
He lost his virginity at 13 and the most alarming passages in The Loves of My Life are the ones in which White remembers encounters with much older men. He also describes seducing schoolmates, such as the “underwashed” youth of whom he writes: “I’d been telling him that gays gave better blowjobs than girls and, with scientific curiosity, he pulled out a musty boner. When we’d finished, he said with ruthless objectivity: ‘That wasn’t that much better.’”
‘I always had this rebellious streak’ … White in London, July 1983. Photograph: Graham Turner / The Guardian
White found his tribe in 60s New York. One June evening in 1969, he and a friend came across a disturbance in Greenwich Village at a dodgy mafia-run gay bar, the Stonewall Inn. “We noticed there was a police wagon and all this brouhaha, and we stayed and watched the riots. I was such a middle-class twerp that I kept saying: ‘Come on, guys, relax! You know that you’re breaking the law?’ Before Stonewall, White writes in the book, gays had always fled from the cops for fear of being arrested and jailed, but “these Stonewall African Americans and Puerto Ricans and drag queens weren’t so easily intimidated. They were used to fighting the police.”
The Stonewall riots launched the gay liberation movement and, White writes, “inaugurated an epoch when partners of the same sex could claim, maybe for the first time in history, their common humanity, their dignity, their rights”. Gay culture went overground and the gay populations of New York and San Francisco boomed, along with several other cities White went on to explore for his riveting 1980 travelogue States of Desire: Travels in Gay America.
Then on 3 July 1981, the New York Times ran a piece with the headline: “Rare cancer seen in 41 homosexuals”. It was the first knell of AIDS, a pandemic that would lay waste to those nascent gay communities and go on to kill an estimated 42 million people. White was one of five co-founders of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first organisation aimed at combating AIDS. “I knew I should take the whole thing seriously,” he says, “but I moved to France, partly because I wanted the party to go on, for myself at least, and then it caught up with me there too.”
White was diagnosed HIV positive in 1984. “I wasn’t surprised, but I was very gloomy,” he says. “I kind of pulled the covers over my head and thought: ‘Oh gee, I’ll be dead in a year or two.’ I did have a number of opportunistic diseases, like shingles, but it turned out that I was a slow progressor.” White’s T-cells, which fight infection, were declining, but much more gradually than those of other people with HIV, “and by the time they got dangerously low there were the new drugs, and so I survived. But I didn’t think I would.”
For White, sex and erudition have always gone hand in hand, so one final question. Are people better off reading lots of books, or having lots of sex? “Well, it depends on their age,” White replies. “If they’re as old as I am, then books are a bit better. But if they’re young, they should have lots of sex.”
The Loves of My Life was published on 28 January by Bloomsbury, £20.
Manchester’s gay village in 1995, presented by David Hoyle for Granada TV:
LGBT+ History Month Archive Exploration at People’s History Museum
We explored this year’s theme of “Activism and Social Change” by delving into the People’s History Museum’s incredible archive collections.
Collection of Mark Ashton
These included the archive of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), collection of Mark Ashton, the co-founder of LGSM, papers of Michael Steed, former chairman of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and papers of Hugh Fell, former secretary of the North West Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Equality. There were copies of Gay News – Europe’s Biggest Selling Independent Homosexual Newspaper.
The documents included the following article:
Lesbian Line (This article was written by G in 1979)
“A woman rings the line. As she talks it is like hearing a voice from the past. The same desperation. Isolation. Pain. Loneliness.
And before long … ‘perhaps it is just my cross to bear in life. I had just better get on with it.’
Stop. How can I make this woman understand? How to make her see her lesbianism in a positive light? It is beautiful. I am a lesbian, I know. Set yourself free. Come and see us, see for yourself … don’t hang up on yourself. The bonds break slowly. Words come more easily. The woman’s voice rises to a pitch and finally … she laughs. Good.
150 Calls
That is what Lesbian Line exists for. This is who it exists for. The first telephone service for women run by women.
We get 150 calls a week on average – most of them from first-time callers. The need is great and if only we had enough money, we could probably double or treble that number.
Lesbians are everywhere – from John O’Groats to Lands End. In launderettes surrounded by kids while hubby puts his feet up by the fire; 18-year-olds in the arms of incredible hulks trying to pretend they don’t have feelings; in colleges; on buses; in hospitals; on television in parliament – everywhere.
Perverted Notions
We are black, white, brown, yellow, fat, thin, Jewish, catholic, atheist, whatever.
I felt like that woman on the phone once too! Judging myself a freak because of other people’s perverted notions. Wasting my life and love away so that I could glide in white down some aisle to keep society happy.
Then at last I came out to myself – and that is the most important way of coming out. And I remember the beginnings …
‘We can cure you,’ the male psychiatrist said. ‘We can give you electric shock treatment if you want.’
I just stared blankly at him. A feeling of nausea gripped me. ‘Sick, sick’ I kept thinking.
Finally I asked him, academically: ‘And have you any idea who I would be afterwards?’
He did not answer. Any negative feelings I had about being a lesbian disappeared in that moment. Rage became my most dominant emotion.
‘I am a lesbian,’ I said clearly, ‘and I want to stay that way,’ – and I got up and left the room.
Four words, but those four words – ‘I am a lesbian’ said proudly and defiantly were enough. I was on my way.
It sounds corny, but the re-birth had started. My first real words as ME. Years of growing up in a world of heterosexuality fell away. A new world opened up.
Life begins here, whether you are 21 or 65!
Lesbian Line is itself only two years old. It was born when women working with men on other gay telephone lines broke away to form their own group. Only women are really equipped to talk to and help other women. Many men, gay or not, still view women negatively. Many lead very different life-styles to women.
It might become clearer if I tell you that that male psychiatrist was also gay (as I later discovered). Not, of course, that all gay men would act this way – but there is a difference.
Back to the phone. Eureka! The woman says she will come to one of our afternoon socials, perhaps even to a disco.
I can’t help feeling this is the start for her. Maybe it will be her, some time in the future, on this end of the line helping other women to do the same. Perhaps it will be her going out giving talks to groups about our work, writing articles, spreading knowledge.”
We then joined a guided gallery tour, which included various banners and other items.
ASLEF Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Members Banner 2005
The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) is the train drivers’ union. In 2000 ASLEF established equalities committees for its members, to represent women, LGBT people and people of colour. The committees’ roles were to challenge ignorance and prejudice within the union.
In December 2001, the union’s LGBT Representative Committee distributed ‘Facing Points’, a newsletter for LGBT members. The title refers to members ‘facing up’ to their true identities, and being proud of who they are.
The newsletter highlighted the committee’s key aims to outlaw homophobic bullying in the workplace and to establish legal protections for trans people.
Lesbians & Gays Support The Miners Banner, 1984 (made by Mark Ashton)
Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) was formed during the Miner’s Strike in 1984. LGSM’s main aim was to raise money for the striking miners and their families.
The group raised about £20,000 with events such as the benefit concert ‘Pits and Perverts’. This money helped miner’s families survive the winter.
Although small, this campaign group was significant. A bond formed between miners and the LGBT+ community, which lasted long beyond the strike. Miner’s groups were outspoken supporters in the 1988 campaign against Section 28, government legislation which banned schools and local authorities from ‘promoting homosexuality’.
On the banner’s reverse is the first verse of ‘Solidarity Forever’, a song composed in 1915 by American Ralph Chaplin, inspired by a miners’ strike in West Virginia, featured alongside a caricature of the UK Prime Minister at the time of the 1984 to 1985 Miners’ Strike, Margaret Thatcher.
Queer Treasures at Manchester Central Library
This is the first of a short series of articles about queer treasures that are currently to be found in the Archives held at Manchester Central Library.
‘An Urning’s Love’ by John Moray Stuart-Young
In his seminal book on the Uranian Poets, Timothy D’Arch Smith highlighted the work of the Manchester-born writer, John Moray Stuart-Young. ‘Uranian’ was the name D’Arch Smith applied to a group of British poets who were active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and whose work celebrated love between males. The name ‘Uranian’ was taken from Plato’s Symposium, where the male lovers of their own sex were regarded as devotees of ‘Aphrodite Urania’, who represented the purest, most devoted and selfless of lovers. It was also a word used by some of the poets that D’Arch Smith studied to refer covertly to male same-sex love. Ancient Greek models of male friendship inspired almost all of these writers, but many were also influenced by the work of those early German pioneers in the study of Sexology, such as Karl Heinrich Ulrich, Adolf Brand and Magnus Hirschfeld. And, in 1862, Ulrich coined the word ‘Urning’ to refer to a man who exclusively loved other males – hence the book’s title refers to those males loved by the poet. (*1)
Stuart-Young’s life story would warrant a series of articles in itself. However, briefly, he was born as plain ‘John James Young’ on 3 March 1881 in Ardwick into a poor working-class family; on leaving school he worked as a clerk until, in 1899, he was sentenced to six months hard labour at Strangeways, following his conviction for fraud. Throughout his life he claimed to have had an intimate friendship with Oscar Wilde, who was the subject of a number of his writings. Shortly after leaving prison he went to work as a palm oil trader in Nigeria and died at Port Harcourt on 28 May 1939 from throat cancer. Despite the ignominy of his early life in Britain, in Nigeria he lived successfully as a trader and as a poet, enjoying a number of personal relationships with other males. When he passed away he was lauded in the Nigerian press as a literary giant.
‘An Urning’s Love’ is a beautifully produced volume of homoerotic poetry, interspersed with essays. Printed in 1905 and bound expensively in vellum with gilt floral decorations, Stuart-Young produced the book whilst staying in Ardwick Green. The Central Library Archives holds copy no 2 (of a limited edition of 50 autographed copies), which was presented to the Library by Stuart-Young himself on 3 March 1906. The book has gilt-edged pages and is illustrated with coloured engravings, rubric page-framing and photographs. The title page bearing the motto in French, ‘Rien n’est vrai que le beau’ (Nothing is true but beauty), pays homage to Plato’s philosophical writings. Stuart-Young writes that the book was dedicated in particular to Daniel Derow ‘in memory of those wonderful days when we stood together on the threshold of manhood and chiefly because you remain my friend, loyal and tried’ (p7). Sadly, little is known now about Derow, though clearly he was hugely important to Stuart-Young. In his Introduction, Stuart-Young pays fulsome tribute to Oscar Wilde (whom he sometimes refers to by the anagram of ‘Osrac’), and to ‘those thousands of dreamers, to whom Nature has given a tender feminine soul encased in a masculine form’ (p7). He goes on to define ‘Urnings’ as ‘nature’s paradoxes, men who seem women, women who appear to be men, of whose company Sappho, Michelangelo and Shakespeare were members, and who will continue to appear so long as the world exists’, and lauds Oscar Wilde as ‘the veritable Urning of our times’ (p8).
His panegyric to Wilde reaches its zenith in his essay on him entitled ‘Osrac, the Self-Sufficient’ (*2) which details Oscar’s life and works and reproduces letters and an autographed picture he says he received from Wilde, which bears the inscription, ‘September 1894 Oscar Wilde to Johnnie’ (p18). A few of the poems in the volume are addressed to women, which conveniently acts as a cover for the many that are addressed to men. Also, the word ‘Urning’ was not understood by the general public, so publication would not readily receive public censure. But certainly it was familiar to a literate minority who knew much about that love that dare not speak its name.
A few of his poems reference his early sojourn in Africa and, in particular, one of the later poems in the book, entitled ‘A Glimpse’, praises the beauty of his closest Nigerian friend, Ibrahim, and is addressed to him. The poem praises Ibrahim’s physical beauty and adds –
‘But rarer than these treasures superfine,
Thine eyes, indifferent to the girls, in sweet repose to mine’ (p140).
Thankfully, the days in which homosexual men were regularly sent to prison for expressing their love has now passed, but, especially during this LGBT History Month, it is good to look back and remember those who spoke out, however covertly, to articulate the beauty of our love and to celebrate it and, in doing so, gave others the courage to love.
(*1) Ulrich referred to women who loved other females by the word ‘Dioning’.
(*2) ‘Self-Sufficient’ also references the work of Adolf Brand, who, in 1896 in Germany, started a magazine called ‘Der Eigene’; originally an anarchist magazine, it soon because the world’s first magazine devoted almost entirely to homosexual love. ‘Eigene’ in Brand’s concept of the word, could also be translated into English as ‘self-sufficient’.
‘Radiant’ an illuminating biography of Keith Haring
“Radiant” is an illuminating biography of the talented artist Keith Haring, who made his indelible mark during the 1980s before dying of AIDS at age 31. Brad Gooch follows Haring from his childhood to his early days in New York City painting artistic graffiti, to his worldwide fame and friendships with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The eldest of three children and the only boy, Haring learned to draw early on from his father. Art quickly became a lasting obsession, which he pursued fiercely. Growing up in a small, conservative town, he was drawn to countercultural movements like hippies and religious “Jesus freaks,” although he mostly found the imagery and symbols appealing.
He studied commercial art in Pittsburgh but later dropped out, spending several years working and learning at the Pittsburgh Arts and Crafts Centre, before moving to New York City in 1978. Studying painting at the School for Visual Arts, he also learned about video and performance art, making interesting projects. He also began drawing images on subways and blank advertisement backboards. One of his most distinctive was the Radiant Baby, a crawling baby shooting rays of light.
Gooch begins the biography with his own encounter with this public art, which felt colourful and “extremely urgent.” It had to be done guerilla-style, before the authorities could catch him, and they were frequently painted over. He was arrested a few times.
Ironically, a few years later Haring would be paid huge sums and flown around the world to create large-scale art on public property. People were amazed at how quickly he worked, even in terrible conditions. Sometimes at these events, while a crowd was gathered, he would draw and give away the artwork. Knowing that his art in galleries sold for incredible amounts, he enjoyed occasionally frustrating the art world’s commercial desires.
His Pop Shops also revealed Haring’s competing impulses. Opened in 1986, first in New York and later in Tokyo, they put his art on all sorts of merchandise, including T-shirts and posters. On the one hand, they allowed ordinary people to buy his work at reasonable prices. However, they also earned him more money and increased his public image.
He made art for everyone. His best-known pieces, featuring babies and dogs, are colourful and family friendly. Some even consider it “lightweight.” He eagerly created murals and artwork for elementary schools and neighbourhoods. But he also made art with social and political commentary and sexual explicitness. “Michael Stewart – USA for Africa” depicts a graffiti artist’s strangulation by New York City Transit Police officers. He painted “Once Upon a Time…” for the men’s bathroom of New York City’s Lesbian & Gay Community Centre.
Haring worked nearly right up to his death in 1990. The Keith Haring Foundation keeps his work in the public eye, while also funding non-profits working with disadvantaged youth and AIDS education. Gooch captures Haring’s complexities; he befriended graffiti artists of colour and dated working-class men, but was sometimes ignorant about how his wealth and fame affected these relationships. Well written and sympathetic, the book can sometimes overwhelm in detail about life in the 80’s and Haring’s celebrity friends.
‘Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring’ By Brad Gooch 2024, Harper, 502 pages £18.67 (Amazon Hardback)
This week we travelled by tram to The Trafford Centre, where we dined at The Mardi Gras before heading to Paradise Island for a session of crazy golf.
Golf is a tee-rific game and it was a par-fect day for crazy golf. A round of golf is always a fairway to start the day. I brought an extra pair of pants in case I got a hole in one.
To putt a long story short, we split into six teams. The first thing you have to do is address the golf ball. Hello, ball! Crazy golf is different from ordinary golf – it’s a hole new ball game. In our teams we all had equal opportuni-tees, but fore-tune favours the bold.
Our top golfer was Michael B with a round of 45. That putt a smile on his face!
It wasn’t tee-dious at all as having fun is par for the course. It was an un-fore-gettable experience, and we all had a tee-rific time.
This week is Greater Manchester’s Hate Crime Awareness Week. It’s a time dedicated to raising awareness of hate crime and how to combat it. The week takes place between Monday 3 February to Friday 7 February.
What is hate crime?
Hate crime isn’t a single offence – it’s when crimes like assault or threats are driven by anger towards:
Race or religion
Sexuality
Disability
Transgender identity
Hate crimes can include:
Threats and harassment
Physical attacks
Property damage
Encouraging others to commit hate crimes
Examples of hate crime include:
Someone assaults you using homophobic language
A brick is thrown through your window with racist graffiti
Online abuse targeting your identity
If hate is the motive, it’s a hate crime. For example, if someone attacks you because they think you’re Muslim and you’re not, it still counts as a hate crime.
Find out what support you can get if you’re the victim of hate crime here.
Loud and Proud: Amplifying LGBTQ+ Voices
Jean is the Treasurer for Oldham Pride. This podcast is a candid, personal account of her experiences growing up and the issues she faced before and after coming out.
The podcast was produced by Oldham Pride to help to support and acknowledge Greater Manchester’s Hate Crime Awareness Week 2005.
Each episode was recorded at Billington’s Oldham, which is a registered safe space and hate crime reporting centre
February marks LGBT+ History Month, giving a space to celebrate the rich tapestry of LGBT+ history and the people who shaped it.
Here is a list of ten books exploring LGBT+ history from a range of perspectives:
The Stonewall Reader
This powerful anthology chronicles the 1969 Stonewall uprising through diaries, articles, and firsthand accounts. Featuring voices from activists on the frontlines, The Stonewall Reader provides a vivid portrait of one of LGBT+ history’s most pivotal moments. A must-read for understanding how the fight for equality gained momentum.
Queer Ancient Ways: A Decolonial Exploration – Zairong Xiang
Queer Ancient Ways takes a decolonial approach to queerness, exploring how ancient cultures embraced diverse sexualities and identities. It presents a much-needed challenge to Western-centric narratives of LGBT+ history and offers a fresh perspective on queerness through time.
Outrageous – Paul Baker
Outrageous delves into the history of Section 28, the legislation that banned the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools. Paul Baker examines its damaging impact, the protests it sparked, and how it shaped a generation of activists. Through personal anecdotes and sharp analysis, this book is both a history lesson and a rallying cry.
Queer Heroes of Myth and Legend – Dan Jones
This celebratory collection revisits myths and legends from around the world, highlighting queer figures and themes. From gods and goddesses to epic warriors and lovers, Dan Jones reclaims these stories and centres queerness within them. If you enjoyed learning about the Ancient Greeks in school, this one’s for you.
The 2000s Made Me Gay – Grace Perry
The 2000s shaped a generation – and continues to do so. Grace Perry reflects on how the TV, films, and music of the era influenced LGBT+ identity and representation. Full of humour and heart, this book explores how queer millennials navigated coming of age during a period of cultural upheaval.
Moby Dyke – Krista Burton
Krista Burton’s Moby Dyke is an irreverent and hilarious exploration of queer culture and identity. Through a collection of witty essays and observations, Burton provides insight into what it means to be queer today while connecting her experiences to broader historical and cultural contexts.
Bad Gays – Ben Miller and Huw Lemmey
Not all queer historical figures were saints. Bad Gays embraces that complexity, examining villains and antiheroes to explore sexuality, identity and power. This fascinating take on LGBT+ history highlights the contributions of less-admirable but equally significant figures.
Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World – Gregory Woods
Homintern investigates how LGBT+ cultures influenced and liberated the modern world. Gregory Woods explores the networks of LGBT+ creatives and intellectuals who shaped art, politics, and beyond. A more academic read, but richly rewarding and thought-provoking.
Fabulosa – Paul Baker
Fabulosa focuses on Polari, the secret slang of the mid-20th-century gay community. Paul Baker delves into its history and cultural context, revealing how this unique language gave LGBT+ people a way to express themselves in a hostile world. Funny, poignant, and richly detailed, it’s an ideal read for LGBT+ History Month.
Revolutionary Acts: Love and Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain – Jason Okundaye
Revolutionary Acts explores the experiences of Black gay men in Britain. Tackling themes such as love, identity, and community, this book is both a celebration of brotherhood and a powerful commentary on navigating an intersectional identity in a complex world.
Whether you want to learn more about our history, celebrate LGBT+ culture, or uncover the hidden past of our queer ancestors, there’s something for everyone here.
Fifty years ago, on 2 January 1975 a telephone rang for the first time. It was a helpline – the Manchester Gay Switchboard – and was situated on the stairway in a rented Longsight flat.
Terry Waller, a local activist, with friends had discreetly handed out leaflets advertising the service at gigs and student nights. It’s difficult to envision a time before the internet, with information now available at our fingertips, but things were just not spoken about. There were no role models on television and no sex education in schools. Library books on the subject of homosexuality were hidden on the reserve book shelf. Some of us felt we were different, but we didn’t have the words.
The phone line served a very important service – a chance to speak to other lesbian and gay people to get information and advice.
There have been name changes and relocations over the years, but to date it’s estimated that more than 250,000 people have rung up, registering more than 3.7 million minutes worth of advice and support.
I volunteered for the service in the late 70’s when it was situated at 178 Waterloo Place – a basement belonging to the university. I had “come out” to my parents at age 16, but they encouraged me to believe that it was “just a phase”, so I told them that I was volunteering for Samaritans!
The helplines included “Lesbian Link”, “Friend” and the “TV/TS service”. Nowadays we say “Transgender”, but the acronym stood for “Transvestite/Transexual”. Bob Crossman was our first paid worker, and later he became the first openly gay Mayor in the UK, serving as Mayor of Islington from 1986-1987.
Sometimes people rang up who were suicidal, but other times it was for information such as locations of gay pubs. The service is continuing 50 years later and is still necessary.
February is LGBT+ History Month
In 2025 we are celebrating 20 years of UK LGBT+ History Month, organised by Schools OUT, and this year the theme is: Activism and Social Change.
Schools OUT was delighted to launch the UK LGBT+ History Month 2025 theme from Conway Hall in London – a place steeped in history from the conference of doctors that led to the founding of the NHS, to speakers such as George Orwell.
A list of LGBT History Month events in Manchester include:
Community Café / Digital Café at LGBT Foundation;
Lights, Camera, Pride! – free film at Manchester Central Library;
The Big Gay Pub Quiz Takeover at Contact Theatre;
Queer AF Comedy Night at Contact Theatre;
Alan Turing’s Manchester – Lunchtime lecture at House of Books;
LGBT+ History Month archive exploration & guided gallery tour at People’s History Museum;
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, two women fresh with degrees in journalism, met in Seattle in the early 1950s. Martin and Lyon quickly became romantically involved, and moved together to San Francisco in 1953. Despite the rising prevalence of gay and lesbian bars in the North Beach neighbourhood, Martin and Lyon found themselves feeling isolated, without a community of other lesbians. “It wasn’t like we had a community. It was like there were places to go for entertainment and there was a certain ambiance, but there was not the sense of community that we have developed since.”
Phyllis Lyon (left) and Del Martin (right), mid-1950s – Photo: qualifolk.com
When Martin and Lyon were invited by a friend of a friend to join a small, secret lesbian social club, they jumped at the opportunity. The first social meeting of eight lesbians took place in 1955, and out of this meeting the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) was born. The group named itself after the poetry collection Songs of Bilitis by Pierre Louys, a work that depicts a fictional lesbian woman who lived alongside Sappho in Ancient Greece.
Rise and Politicisation
The 1950s was a time permeated by fear for gay people in the United States. When the DOB was founded, it served as an outlet for lesbian women to congregate socially and safely. However, as the social club gained popularity in the San Francisco area, it quickly began to turn its focus toward more political interests in the homophile movement. In the first issue of their publication, The Ladder, members of the DOB wrote, “with discussion came broader purposes and the club was formed with a much wider scope than that originally envisioned.”
The homophile movement began with the inception of the Mattachine Society, a group founded in Los Angeles in 1951 by homosexual men intending to spread awareness and educate the public on matters of homosexuality. The DOB mirrored the Mattachine Society and its homophile principles in many ways: both groups were founded with social intent, turning later towards the political; both groups urged their constituents to participate in psychological studies and to work to actively educate the masses against the stereotype of homosexuals as “sick”; both groups worked to combat the fear that permeated the community during the 1950s due to widespread bigotry, frequent police raids on gay and lesbian bars, etc; and both groups emphasised the concept of “fitting in” to the larger heteronormative community rather than embracing difference in sexuality and gender. However, the DOB focused their efforts primarily on the causes of women and lesbians, and at times members resented their representation as “auxiliary” to the Mattachine Society.
By 1960, the DOB had spread throughout the United States, and the organisation’s first national convention, publicised by the DOB as “Ten Days in August,” took place at the Wickham Hotel in San Francisco, and was deemed a success by members of the organisation.
The Ladder
As the DOB began to gain traction, they decided to begin publishing a small newsletter for members of the organisation. The first issue of The Ladder was published in October 1956. The first issue had the express intent of attracting new members, and included a copy of the DOB’s statement of purpose.
The Ladder
October 1957 issue of The Ladder
Subsequent issues of The Ladder contained various articles, interviews, group event calendars, advertising, group bowling outings and even pieces of short fiction and poetry written by members of the DOB and other contributors.
The Ladder was generally met with praise. Its popular “Readers Respond” section, in which readers could send messages to the editor and have them published in the following month’s issue, included numerous praises and expressions of gratitude sung by readers. One such grateful reader was “L H N” a playwright from New York, who wrote in the May 1957 issue to say,
“I’m glad as heck you exist … Women, like other oppressed groups of one kind of another, have particularly had to pay a price for the intellectual impoverishment that the second class status imposed on us for centuries created and sustained. Thus, I feel that The Ladder is a fine, elementary step in a rewarding direction.”
L H N was Lorraine Hansberry Nemiroff, whose play A Raisin in the Sun made its debut on Broadway two years after her message was published in “Readers Respond”. Hundreds of other women across the United States echoed Nemiroff’s eager readership, until The Ladder ceased publication in 1972.
Demise
By the mid-1960s, the political culture around homosexuality and protest was changing; the homophile movement and its call for assimilation gave way to the activism and celebration of identity of the pride movement. A new generation of lesbians was taking power in the Daughters of Bilitis, with Shirley Willer taking over as the first national president elected from outside of San Francisco in 1966. The rise of the feminist movement throughout the United States also caused tension among group members, who began to split ideologically between emphasising gay rights and women’s rights. When Barbara Gittings took over as editor of The Ladder, some members of the DOB criticised Gittings for her active incorporation of gay male contributors to The Ladder, feeling she was beginning to stray from The Ladder’s intents as a magazine with specific lesbian interest. Gittings was controversially removed from her position as editor in August 1966, and, along with other members of the DOB, began working with more general gay rights groups; some former DOB members helped to found the Homophile Action League in 1968. Around this time, Martin and Lyon began working closely with feminist activist group National Organisation for Woman (NOW), turning their attention away from the DOB. The DOB leadership attempted another national convention in Denver in 1968, with a turnout of less than 30.
In 1970, the national mailing list for The Ladder was stolen from the DOB’s San Francisco office by Rita Laporte. Laporte, a former member of the DOB, began publishing issues of The Ladder with a new team, without support of the DOB. Many members of the DOB felt scandalised by Laporte’s actions, and rejected her explicit focus on gender over sexuality when she wrote in The Ladder’s August / September 1970 issue, “With this issue, The Ladder, now in its 14th year, is no longer a minority publication. It stands squarely with all women, that majority of human beings that has known oppression longer than anyone.”
Due to controversies in leadership and direction, The Ladder published its last issue in 1972. Though it had officially split from the DOB in 1970 after Laporte’s theft, the demise of The Ladder signified the end of the DOB for many women in the group. Some chapters continued meeting occasionally, but the close of the original San Francisco chapter in 1978 marked the DOB’s formal demise.
Martin and Lyon remained active figures in both the women’s rights and gay rights movements, and made the news for an historic moment in 2004 as the first homosexual couple to be offered a marriage certificate in San Francisco.
Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco presiding at the nuptials of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, long-time partners and lesbian activists, who after more than 50 years together could finally say, “We’re married.” Sadly, Del passed away just over two months later on 27 August 2008.
How we met: ‘Ben told me he now identified as a trans man. I had been waiting for it to happen’
Anna, 51, and Ben, 55, met at a friend’s birthday brunch in 1993. After she split from her girlfriend, Anna begged one of Ben’s friends to set them up. They now have three children and live in Oakland, California.
‘She sees the world differently to me’ … Ann and Ben in Oakland, California, in 2019. Photograph: Courtesy of Ben and Anna
In late 1993, Anna was invited to her girlfriend’s birthday brunch in San Francisco, where they were both living. “We were dating casually at the time,” she says. “We went for a crepe party with a big group of people at her place.” She remembers spotting Ben straight away, who at that time identified as a woman.
“I saw Ben wearing glasses and thought they were adorable,” she says. “I remember thinking we’d be together one day.” They chatted briefly, but Ben didn’t show much interest.
“Anna was dating a good friend of mine,” he says. “And I was living in Long Beach, finishing my graduate school studies in pathology.” After the brunch party, they went their separate ways and he didn’t expect to see her again.
In spring 1994, Ben moved to Sacramento in northern California. By then, Anna and her girlfriend had split up. “I was still thinking about Ben and begged one of his friends to set us up,” she remembers, laughing. He was reluctant at first because of Anna’s previous relationship with his friend, whose birthday brunch it had been. However, he says: “She was fine with it, so I decided to go and see her.”
They met in San Francisco a few weeks later and spent the day walking around the city visiting craft markets, before sharing some tacos. “It was a super sweet date,” says Ben. “She was really cute. I was really happy to be with her.”
The following week they met again for a cinema date. “It was a scary movie, so good for snuggling,” says Ben. Afterwards they kissed for the first time.
‘He’s a great artist and an amazing parent’ … Anna and Ben in April 2022. – Photograph: Courtesy of Ben and Anna
They dated until Ben moved to San Francisco in early 1995. “I’d never thought about having a long-term relationship before Ben, but we were so happy together,” says Anna. Things became more serious and the couple moved into a shared house in 1996, before holding a special ceremony the following year. “We made up our wedding, which is what gay people did back then as same-sex marriage wasn’t actually legal,” she says.
In 2001, their first child was born, followed by twins in 2002. “Rather than going to a sperm bank, we decided to ask a trusted friend, Tex, to be a donor,” says Anna. The family moved into a house in Oakland with Tex in 2004. “He has a separate flat but we’re all really close. He is an uncle to the kids,” she says. Later that year, Ben and Anna attempted to formalise their relationship, after the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, now governor of California, announced plans to legalise same-sex marriage in the city. “We queued for hours but our paperwork was rejected two months later.” Within a month of the announcement, 4,000 same-sex couples tied the knot in San Francisco but then the California Supreme Court ruled all the marriages invalid. “[Mayor Newsom] didn’t actually have the power to make that change,” says Anna.
Two years later, Ben told Anna that he no longer identified as a gay woman, but as a transgender man. “The process was more of an evolution than a line drawn in the sand,” he says. “My gender presentation had not changed, but I made the decision to have hormones and surgery so that my body could match that. My transition isn’t a binary one, but it’s a shift in how I feel and how I’m seen in the world.”
For Anna, this wasn’t a surprise. “I was waiting for it to happen. Everyone we knew was very accepting of different gender expression, so it wasn’t foreign to me at all. I wanted him to feel comfortable.” In 2014, they were finally able to marry legally, surrounded by friends and family. “We also have a wedding celebration every year, on the anniversary of the one that was disallowed,” says Anna.
After nearly 30 years together, she still appreciates the way her partner keeps her grounded. “I have ADHD, so my brain can be everywhere. He is very fair and always honest. He doesn’t always do the easy thing but he does the right thing. He’s a great artist and an amazing parent.”
Ben appreciates Anna’s creativity. “She knows what’s in her heart and she is never afraid to share,” he says. “She always shows up, and I love how she sees the world differently to me. It helps me see things I’d never notice.”
Out in the City 