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LGBT Brighton and Hove
£4.50£16.10 (-72%)
LGBT Brighton & Hove is an exploration of the development of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community from its earliest accessible beginnings. As well as the personal memories and experience of local LGBT people, the book includes accounts from the History Centre’s comprehensive archives while literature is used to inform a representative sample of stories of the area’s prominent LGBT writers, artists, musicians and philanthropists from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the present day. There are accounts of prominent court cases, of wartime, and of mid and late twentieth century events, memories and personal experience. The book shows how LGBT people strove to ‘make change happen’ both individually and through forming organisations for mutual support and with specific aims. Later chapters draw on the personal stories of local people, including ‘Coming Out’, ‘Civil Marriages’ and the progress of ‘Brighton Pride’ from its difficult, political beginnings in the early nineties, to the celebration of today, attracting both goodwill and visitors from all over the world. There is still some way to go for LGBT people and the issues that still affect them – even in Brighton and Hove – but this book is an encouraging reflection on the change and progress that has already been achieved.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Amberley Publishing, First Edition (15 Nov. 2009) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 128 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1848687176 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1848687172 |
| Dimensions | 16.51 x 1.02 x 23.39 cm |
by John R
It is inevitable that books of LGBT history are reliant on unsatisfactory press cuttings from “straight” publications when researching previous times. However this author continues to be reliant on the local paper, The Argus, for more recent times rather than speaking to some of us who were around at the time. As a Gay Liberation Front activist in the early 1970s in Brighton I found the section I found the section on the 1970s totally inaccurate or wrong. The author states that there may have been a pride event in Brighton in 1973. Indeed there was. A group of over 30 of us marched round Brighton Town (as was) Centre on Auguust Bank Holiday Monday. GLF did far more than that. It was actively campaigning to promote Gay Pride and encouraging people to come out. Much attention was paid to changing the attitude of the commercial gay scene. Each weekend we sold the newspaper gay News outside the Heart and Hand Pub in Ship Street and sometimes outside other venues. All the Gay venues were closeted and refused to sell the newspaper as did almost all newsagents. Gay News was entertaining and political and was vital in raising gay self esteem. GLF also helped organise big dances at the Royal Albion Hotel. They were very popular as most clubs would not allow same sex dancing. As an 18 year old I was very grateful to GLF. I was not allowed to join Campaign for Homosexual Equality and I was not allowed to drink in most of the clubs as the age of consent was 21. GLF did not give a damn. There is a story to be told about LGBT activism in Brighton and Hove. This book has so many gaps and inaccuracies (many of which I have not listed here). It fails at the most basic level.