Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London's Fierce History

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During this global COVID pandemic, we like many other organisations have been impacted greatly in the way we can do business and produce. This means a temporary pause to our print publication and live events and so now more than ever we need your help to continue providing this community resource digitally. Q: The book takes account of discrimination and pays tribute to victims of oppression, like those who died during the AIDS crisis. At the same time, the book is full of joy and vibrancy captured in anecdotes from queer bars, club nights and events in London over the decades. How did you strike this balance? Dan's enthusiasm and passion for LGBTQIA+ culture is relentless. It is impossible to read this book without being swept up into the legend of London's Queer history of resistance, solidarity and downright fabulosity. By the end of this book you will be marching on the streets in a thong' An informative guide which sparkles with humour … this comprehensive and well-researched book takes you on a journey around the famous and infamous places in the capital’ Fast forward: in 2004 ‘Pride in London’ was officially changed from a protest to a parade, instantly de-politicising its purpose, as if there is nothing left to fight for. This is intentional. It is not helpful for people to question power. It is not helpful for ordinary people to be conscious.

Dan Glass, London’s unofficial queer mayor, takes you bar and history hopping through former gay ghettos and new queer spaces. The oral histories Glass obtained from those who were there, much like hidden gems on less travelled side streets, bring his guide to vibrant life' So learning from history, or rather ‘herstory’, helps immensely. Change can happen and nothing is absolute.LSE Library organised a Picadilly walking tour and panel event on Friday 9 June 2023 to mark the book’s launch which featured a display of materials from LSE’s Hall-Carpenter Archives and panellists from the UK branch of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) , formed at LSE in 1970. From coming out on Old Compton Street to soul-fire fights in Brixton, finding Heaven under the Arches to ACT UP protests in the streets, Dan Glass has curated a manifesto and maps for 'queerdos' across London. You will find freedom in these minces!' Ntombi Nyathi, Strategic Networking and Resource Mobilisations Officer, Training for Transformation It is helpful, however, to question everything if you think that an injustice to one is an injustice to all. As the late great popular educator Paulo Freire said, we must ‘read our own reality and write our own history’ to transform the world around us. The curation of Queer Footprints reaffirmed my belief in the power of people’s (or ‘popular’) education, and I learnt many new storytelling tools to enable this.

A fascinating walk through the early years of Gay Liberation to the (partial) decriminalisation of Homosexuality in June 1967' Offers a fascinating, lively and revealing look into the capital's queer past. Like the winding streets themselves, there is something surprising at every turn. This is a queer look at London with a Capital Q and is by turns intimate, gossipy, personal and political. Glass represents a vital link between the important activists who helped shape the world we live in and those who would shape the future and is a charming, knowledgeable and amenable tour guide.’There was also reading lots of newspapers, reading other books like Queer London, Matt Houlbrook’s book which [covers] mainly 1918 to 1957, the era just before the one I write about. And also just keeping my ear open for other things – it was a process of active engagement. Opportunities to explore a curated selection of items from the LSE Library's Hall-Carpenter Archive We speak to Dan Glass about his new book, Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Fierce History, which explores London’s queer history through mapped walking tours, informed by archival research and interviews with activists and volunteers involved in LGBTQIA+ movements over the decades. As a grandchild of four Nazi Holocaust survivors I’ve spent my life trying to understand how we can overcome victimhood to generate deep empathy with everyone and the courage to continually fight the system rather than each other. I learn from many including Willem Arondeus, a queer Dutch anti-fascist. In 1943 he blew up a records office that the Nazis were about to pilfer and saved thousands of lives. Just before he was executed his last words were: ‘Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.’ Q: The book contains testimonies from LGBTQIA+ activists, business owners, volunteers and artists who speak to the histories (and herstories) you trace across London. Why did you feel it was important to include their voices in Queer Footprints?

Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Fierce History takes an innovative look at the English capital’s LGBTQ+ history and the hidden “nooks and crannies” that reveal our stories. Author and activist Dan Glass tells us what inspired him to write the book. So engagingly written. A fabulous work of love and defiance. It documents and honours extraordinary and everyday struggles for personal and collective freedom, in a city of dreams and nightmares but so many delights!' Queer Footprints is a toolkit for LGBTQ+ people everywhere to elevate LGBTQ+ solidarity, protest and Pride in their communities.My friend Ntombi Nyathi, who is at the heart of the popular education Training for Transformation movement, really helped me frame the book and ask critical questions – How do we speak our truths? How do we build a movement? How do we meet our needs? How do we become fully visible? How do we become fully alive? How do we become fully awake? How do we honour our ancestors? How do they make us feel? What have they left us? And how do we become the people we’ve been waiting for?