54 | SATURDAY | 30.04.22 | The GuardianCULTURE VISUAL ARTSVISUAL ARTS
‘This is for everyone’
Britain’s fi rst LGBTQ+
museum is a bold
attempt to celebrate
queer history in all of
its forms. At a time
when the community
is under attack, we need
it more than ever
I
t is little over half a century
since homosexuality was
partially decriminalised in
England and Wales , a period
defi ned by both progress and
trauma. When Lord Arran
co-sponsored the bill that ended the
total criminalisation of same -sex
relations between men – after his gay
brother had killed himself – his
p r e a m b l e w a s b l e a k. “ N o a m o u n t o f
legislation will prevent homosexuals
from being the subject of dislike and
derision, or at best of pity, ” he declared.
After the Sexual Off ences Act was
passed in 1967, convictions of gay menKing’s Cross , both for London ers and for
those visiting by rail. It’s an important
milestone for a minority that has only
enjoyed widespread public acceptance
and signifi cant legal protections for the
briefest of periods , and is, in a sense,
still blinking in the light.
Queer Britain has come together with
impressive speed. In 2017 , its director
Joseph Galliano visited the Queer
British Art exhibition at Tate Britain and
“realised you could create a blockbuster
exhibition around queer subjects”. As a
former editor of Gay Times, he tapped
into his connections with LGBTQ+
organisations and queer activists and
artists, and when he spoke to potential
funders, Galliano met constant
astonishment that such a museum did
not already exist. Relationships were
quickly built with the culture sector- such as the Tate and National Trust –
and donations began to pour in. Far
from the national lockdowns proving
an obstacle, the shift to digital helped:
it was easier to get 500 people on a
Zoom call than crammed into a room.
“Our donors stood by us,” says
Galliano, while a membership system
allowed for people to contribute what
they could aff ord. “You see people
welling up as you’re talking about the
vision of the museum,” he says.
One of the key tests of this museum
is representation: LGBTQ+ spaces
remain dominated by white, middle-
class cis men (guilty as charged!). The
trustees and advisory board refl ect
a laudable attempt to counter that
with a n impressive A-team of LGBTQ+
luminaries, such as the lesbian activist
Lisa Power , Huddersfi eld-born Black
artist and curator Ajamu X , Liv Little- founder of gal-dem , the magazine for
women and non-binary people of
colour – and the indefatigable trans
author Christine Burns. As Galliano ,
ushers me into the museum – for now,
three rooms of photograph s serving
as a holding pattern before its big
s u m m e r e x h i b i t i o n o p e n s i n J u l y – t h e
commitment to that mission is clear:
queer families of colour adorn the
walls. Why is this so important?
Because the oppressed can be
oppressors, too ; research by Stonewall
in 2018 found around half of Black,
Asian and minority ethnic LGBTQ+
people suff ered raci al discrimination
f r o m l o c a l L G B T Q + n e t w o r k s.
“We built a board to make sure
that there’s proper leadership
structures that are diverse in
themselves, as well as bringing in
Word s: O wen JonesQueer and now
(Clockwise from right)
anti-censorship
demonstrations in
1977; a show offor gross indecency actually increased ,
and gay people were still characterised
as would-be sexual predators and
threats to children. During t he 1980s
HIV/A ids pandemic, attitudes towards
gay people hardened and a moral
panic culminated in the passing of
section 28 , banning the “promotion”
of homosexuality in schools.
Nevertheless, in this period LGBTQ+
people fl ourished culturally and
artistically, and from the 90s onwards,
hostile attitudes crumbled as anti-gay
laws were struck from statute books.
Yet as a reminder that progress is
far from linear, Britain is in the grip
of another moral panic , this time
directed at transgender people. And
while today’s LGBTQ+ communities
are more united in defi ance of
government policy that any time since
section 28 ( more than 80 organisations
pulled out of a government conference
over its refusal to ban trans conversion
“ t h e r a p y ” ) , h o m o p h o b i c a n d
transphobic hate crimes are surging.
So this really is an opportune
moment to launch what is ,
astonishingly, Britain’s fi rst national
LGBTQ+ museum , established by the
charity Queer Britain. Opening on
5 May , the space is ideally situated insolidarity outside
the Admiral Duncan
pub in 2016; the
new King’s Cross
museum space