February is LGBT+ History Month, a celebration of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. But according to author, journalist and queer historian CJ DeBarra, vital parts of the past could soon be lost to time if action isn’t taken.
Author and journalist CJ DeBarra
This month is LGBT+ History Month, a perfect starting point to learn about the struggles and achievements of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. But even as we reflect on the long journey towards equality and freedom, more important to remember now than ever in a climate of rising intolerance, large parts of the past are in grave danger of being lost forever.
Queer history has always been a hidden one. For decades, the illegality, the shame and stigma placed upon the community meant that rumours of ‘theatrical men’, ‘masculine women in suits’ or ‘those types of bars’ were passed on by word of mouth only. To write something down in the age where blackmail and police raids were rife was risky, potentially leading to imprisonment.
So, instead, we must largely build our picture of those times from the memories of those who lived through them. However, many of those witnesses, those who remember the partial decriminalisation in 1967 and the dark years before it, are now in their eighties and nineties. They won’t be around forever and we are, simply put, running out of time to document their stories.
I founded the Notts Queer History Archive for exactly this reason: to record such histories. As a local news journalist, and sometimes the only queer person on staff, I was often called to cover stories from my own community. It was here I heard stories of lesbian lines, secret clubs, backrooms used as meeting rooms and the development of groups like the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) and the Gay Liberation Front (GLF).
To date, I’ve interviewed 165 people as part of my archive, and have uncovered some fascinating and inspirational stories as a result. But it’s a drop in the ocean and it breaks my heart to think we’re now fast approaching an age where there will be no one left alive who remembers life before legality.
In fact, much has already been irretrievably lost to time. Interviewing LGBT+ individuals from before the 1960s is now pretty much off the cards as they have long since passed away. I am left to root through the archives to dig out little nuggets of queer histories.
And in a further blow, women’s stories are notably absent in the written record. The horrendous law against homosexuality that convicted men like Oscar Wilde certainly caught many men in towns and cities, with newspapers gleefully printing the names and addresses of the victims, but it’s not the same with lesbians. The law didn’t single out women like it did men.
That’s not to say that lesbians had an easier time of it. As part of my research, I heard how women moved into the backrooms of pubs buried deep within working-class communities to avoid potential confrontations. One elderly lady told me of how she would walk around the block several times so no one would see her go into the pub while countless women described the pain of losing friends to AIDS in an era where no help was offered. Instead, they rolled up their sleeves and set up grassroots organisations to step in where no one else would.
But these records are few and far between. Occasionally, a woman’s lesbianism would be mentioned in a court proceeding, making the local newspapers because her sexuality was the grounds of a divorce proceeding or child custody order, but such accounts are the exception, not the norm.
And if women’s history is more erased than men’s then the gaps in the past of transgender people are larger again. Stories are there but they’re hard to find. When I came across some tantalizing diary extracts that had, thankfully, been printed in the newspapers in the 1990s, it was a champagne moment. It was the tale of a trans woman who had transitioned in the sixties – one of the earliest to do so. Although her surgery was stopped by a heart condition, she transitioned and lived her life as fully as possible. I have since been gifted a copy of her diaries by the person who wrote the articles back then. It adds a little more to the bigger picture but I’m painfully aware that not many LGBT+ people would dare to keep diaries because of the risk of incrimination, and for every one discovered, another has ended up in the skip, cleared out unwittingly by families when an elderly loved one dies.
So the race is on to capture the oral histories and make sure everyone’s voice is heard before we are left only with silence. Grassroots archiving and community preservation are vital. Our stories, in particular those from outside London, are fading, and it’s up to those in the LGBT+ community, and those supportive of the community, to fix this. We cannot assume someone else will do it when the reality is that local archives hardly have enough funding to preserve their area’s history in general, let alone that of the communities within the community.
You don’t need a degree in history to get started. It’s as simple as visiting our elders and pressing record on our phones while we ask about their lives. If I can do it, anyone can …
Author and journalist CJ DeBarra is a leading authority in queer history, culture, and rights, as well as an advocate for neurodiversity and disability rights. They are the author of NeuroQueer, a personal exploration of sexuality and relationships as a non-binary, neurodivergent individual, and a forthcoming three-part series on queer history in Nottinghamshire.
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