Double lives

In this podcast Dr Matt Cook of Birkbeck, Univeristy of London examines British LGBTQ+ History from 1914-1960.

1. Introduction.
2. The risk of arrest and scandal.
3. Different periods of permissiveness and perniciousness.
4. The significance of court cases and the creation of stereotypes.
5. Leading and living double lives. The growth of a community.
6. Permissive professions: the theatre, shop work, the merchant navy. Polari.
7. Not always a hidden culture - at certain places and at certain time in the 20s and 30s it was quite visible.
8. Attempts to criminalise Lesbianism. Literary censorship.
9. The impact of World War I.
10. Impact of World War II.
11. Government and Press Propaganda. Backlash to the anti-gay rhetoric.
12. The Montagu scandal, the Wolfenden commission. Homosexuality as an identity.
13. The seeds of change in the 1960s and 70s.

 

Suggested Reading:

Matt Cook, A Gay History of Britain (Palgrave, (2007)

Rececca Jennings, A Lesbian History of Britain (2007)

Alkarim Jivani, It' Not Unusual: A History of Lesbian and Gay Britain in the Twentieth Century (1997)

Jeffrey Weeks, Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (1990)

Alison Oram, The Lesbian Hisotry Sourcebook (2001)

Hugh David, On Queer Steet: A Social History of British Homosexuality, 1895 - 1995 (1997)