Author Archives: David Ledain

A Queer Museum?

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Kind permission Joseph Galliano

LGBTQ people have influenced every aspect of culture and history with their incredible stories and contributions, but they have consistently been air-brushed from the history books. A new museum, Queer Britain, is seeking to put this right with the first dedicated site specifically designed to preserve, explore and celebrate our culture, and is due to open in central London in 2021.

The concept was launched by co-founder Joseph Galliano in 2018 at the Café Royal, where Oscar Wilde first met and fell in love with Lord Alfred Douglas. Many museums, archives and personal collections already have items in their catalogues synonymous with the LGBTQ story. Now, a mammoth task is underway to understand and ultimately pull together artefacts and records to create a new focal point. The aim is for the museum not only to be a bricks and mortar building but that it should also utilise cutting edge digital technology and have a strong educational responsibility and ethos. It will be a place used by everyone, regardless of their sexuality or gender identification, to explore the culture they have been born into or wish to understand.

But why is a museum like Queer Britain important when young people today have so much freedom and understanding about their gender identity and sexuality? It is true, that in the past twenty years great improvements have been made in our society and through anti-discrimination laws, but in our rightful seeking of equality we are also in danger of losing sight of why those battles were fought in the first place. Who were the men and women who came before us and lived through times when homosexuality was illegal? Their stories, and those of the generations before them, must be preserved and told. Ignoring history or simply allowing it to fade into the shadows, risks letting those same prejudices and intolerances rear their ugly heads again and again.

‘When you’ve been told you don’t exist, you go looking for clues,’ says Galliano, ‘The problem is that our histories have been so often written in the margins.’ The museum will, he says ‘validate and show people of their own existence.’ He intends the museum to be a catalytic space, a hub within the mainstream where LGBTQ stories can be seen and heard in permanent displays and through different exhibitions that cannot be adequately told in other museums.

The highly successful LGBTQ tours at the V&A, and soon to be modelled at the British Museum, are testament to the thirst there is for such knowledge. Museums have a unique place in our society, they show us who we were, give us the opportunity to explore who we are and empower us to decide our future. Queer Britain promises to serve as that place.

Why The Lack of LGBT Book Prizes?

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LGBT, LGBT issuesIf you imagine that finding a traditional publisher for a first-time unknown author is hard, think scaling the north face of the Eiger when it comes to LGBT writers. Equality has given us many opportunities in life, but in the world of publishing it has strangely reduced our chances. For while most publishing houses these days have LGBT authors and books on their catalogues, they are reluctant to take on too many and certainly when it comes to risky first-timers. Publishing, like any business, is driven by profit margins, and since gay authors and LGBT themed books are limited in their sales revenue, any manuscript landing on a publisher’s desk with a rainbow theme running through it, stands even less of a chance than the thousands of others already in the slush pile. Once, traditional publishers wouldn’t touch overtly LGBT books. Thus, it was left to independent presses to print small numbers, but which at least meant they were going into the shops, if only to be tucked away on a shelf at the back. Today, though the stigma of books dealing with a sexuality other than ‘the norm’ no longer holds sway, still the readership is relatively small and does not translate into big enough profits for the main influencers, the publishers who are supplying the highstreets and airport shops.

What percentage of book sales are LGBT? I scoured the internet for information but could find nothing. Someone must have these figures?

The scarcity LGBT bookshops seems also ironic, given the diversity we so enjoy today. There are only two in the UK (correct me if I’m wrong); Gay’s The Word in London, and Category Is Books in Glasgow. While LGBT only bookshelves are disappearing from the high street, independent bookshops such as the two mentioned provide much needed havens in which gay men and women can browse quietly and mix with other LGBT people. But why are there not more of these oases in our cities and towns? Are we missing something? Have we let the mainstream absorb so much of our culture that we are in danger of losing our identity and risk being ignored altogether? Is this what equality is?

Women in literature faced a similar dilemma when in 1992 a group of people from all areas of the literary world got together to discuss why The Booker Prize shortlist the previous year had not included any women writers. This was puzzling since 60% of books published were by women and yet they had been so underrepresented. The group discussed the value and purpose of literary prizes and whether they promoted reading or put people off, and the positive role such awards can bring to authors. From that meeting the Orange Prize for Fiction was launched in 1996. It is now called The Women’s Prize and is an important and integral event in the literary calendar.   

Apart from the Polari Prize for first time LGBT authors and the Diva Literary Awards, the only other solely LGBT prize is the LAMDAs based in the U.S. While the acceptance of LGBT literature into the mainstream has given it just as much chance of winning any of the plethora of book awards, and is welcomed, the fact remains that the LGBT category will always be so small it will inevitably make little impact on the shortlists.

The Green Carnation Prize was initiated in 2010 when, together with journalist and blogger Simon Savidge, Paul Magrs highlighted this ‘scandalous lack of prizes for gay men’ in the UK. Since 2017 and despite its success, it has fallen dormant. If help is required, the gay community must assist in either resurrecting this prize or establishing another if we are to give gay authors and their books the attention they deserve. It will take the support of major players and sponsors for it to happen and to be sustainable, but as the Women’s Prize has proved, it can be done.