‘Gay life is better now. Absolutely’: five generatns on g out and what me next | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
• ‘GAY LIFE IS BETTER NOW. ABSOLUTELY’: FIVE GENERATNS ON G OUT AND WHAT ME NEXT
• SEARCHG FOR SILVER LAKE: THE RADIL NEIGHBORHOOD THAT CHANGED GAY AMERI
• GAY QATARIS PHYSILLY ABED THEN RECED AS AGENTS, MPAIGNER SAYS
• WHICH ONE OF THE 'GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY' IS GAY?
• FROM THE ARCHIVE, 24 JANUARY 1976: GUARDSMEN GAY MAGAZE RECEIVE MARCHG ORRS

THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS

Met police want to intify man after attack south London that is beg treated as homophobic. Met want to intify man after attack south London, which is beg treated as homophobic. Frankly, I’d have served a prison jt for him to hold my hand, like he did his off-whe Vxhall Nova on the drive there, breakg only to change, he took me for strawberry cir the Gloucter, a pub at the park’s edge, takg my tremblg hand his and reassurg me: “It’s actually a gay bar.

Gay pubs are far more than bars; they’re refug.

‘GAY LIFE IS BETTER NOW. ABSOLUTELY’: FIVE GENERATNS ON G OUT AND WHAT ME NEXT

On Sunday, the first a new seri of rabow plaqu will be stalled at the Gloucter – now the Greenwich Tavern – cementg s place gay home the workg-class Medway area of Kent, where we met when he sold me a phone cred rd at the lol petrol statn, “queers” like were wily perceived as predatory, perverted, spic or simply scum. ”After the strawberry cir, served by a man a tight whe vt – the only other gay man I’d seen real life – the squiggly summer sunlight ma a strobe effect through the park’s tre. The first time I saw wh him, when I was 18, I realised he had echoed the love story of the two protagonists, who also had their first kiss the twilight of Greenwich Park’s tre, and their first experience of a gay pub at the Gloucter.

The explanatn for his obssn is now clear: there was such a pcy of same-sex love stori that this was the first time many young people had seen a same-sex kiss, or peeked si an actual gay bar after dark. The project remds people “that we have always been here, good tim and bad, ” David Robson of the London LGBT+ Foms’ Network said when the plaqu were film and my own story were workg-class gay love: not dandyish and sheltered by the polse of privilege, but the btal realy of beg perceived a non-mascule boy.

It was a powerful and rarely told tersectn – and one that, even more rarely, ends rather happily, wh a betiful scene of fiance and acceptance played to a Mama Cass waltz on the sk I disvered that I wasn’t the only wi-eyed baby gay my boyiend had been chasg through those ancient chtnuts that summer.

SEARCHG FOR SILVER LAKE: THE RADIL NEIGHBORHOOD THAT CHANGED GAY AMERI

For me, the plaque honours that private moment as well as the shared history of the LGBTQ+ ’s the msage I’d impart to anyone who thks such symbols are meangls, as the unique social history of the UK’s gay bars is endangered by gentrifitn, hook-up apps, the st of livg crisis and even assiatn. Like many workg-class, closeted gay boys, I’d hi unr the glovebox of my boyiend’s Nova when we drove back om the park, lt anyone saw.

It whispered to ckney-accented gay boys like me: there are others like you.

From Florida’s so-lled “don’t say gay” bill and Alabama’s ban on genr-affirmg healthre, a total of 28 stat have troduced more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ measur that seek to turn back the clock on our hard-earned eedoms and lim our abily to live almost feels like the past 60 years of activism, heroism and radil tn by queer folks have been undone.

GAY QATARIS PHYSILLY ABED THEN RECED AS AGENTS, MPAIGNER SAYS

And Reprentative Marjorie Taylor Greene recently tweeted that she will be “troducg a bill to make illegal for children to be exposed to Drag Queen performanc” misguid efforts to monize LGBTQ+ folks reek of s-old homophobia and transphobia that have placed a mented time warp and tapulted back to an era before Stonewall and before the advancement of the morn queer liberatn, even though buyg a rabow clutch om Coach might provi some momentary athetic pleasure, the way forward the midst of such rampant and vic attacks on queer and trans liv is through llective anizg, not llectg Pri merch. And to my younger self who hated beg gay: all is fiven, says i newspaper lumnist Eleanor Margolis.

It was no longer illegal to have gay sex England and Wal if you were over 21, but was still owned upon.

WHICH ONE OF THE 'GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY' IS GAY?

Gog to all the gay nightclubs.

FROM THE ARCHIVE, 24 JANUARY 1976: GUARDSMEN GAY MAGAZE RECEIVE MARCHG ORRS

It was like you were gay the club, then you me out of and put your at back on and you went to nial about .