Queer Beyond London: LGBTQ+ lives since the 1960s | Professor Matt Cook

Queer urban life has changed dramatically in England over the last seventy years. Shifts in the economy, culture, attitudes, and technology have all played their part in this. London has often been used as the barometer for these changes, suggesting they were experienced in similar ways across the nation. But looking at Leeds, Manchester, Brighton and Plymouth shows instead that LGBTQ scenes, communities and identities could instead feel very different from place to place. This lecture,  marking the UK’s 20th LGBTQ+ history month, asks why this was the case and what it has meant to be  ‘queer beyond London’ in the period since the 1960s.