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Portable Closets: Secrets and Lives in Queer Britain Since Gay Liberation – LECTURE

Thu, 10 Oct

|

London

The double life and the closet tend to be associated with a time before the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967 and the Gay Liberation Front call to ‘come out’ in the early 1970s.

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Portable Closets: Secrets and Lives in Queer Britain Since Gay Liberation – LECTURE
Portable Closets: Secrets and Lives in Queer Britain Since Gay Liberation – LECTURE

Time & Location

10 Oct 2024, 17:30 – 19:30

London, Senate House, Malet St, London WC1E 7HU, UK

About the event

Register today: https://www.history.ac.uk/events/portable-closets


IHR Friends and Fellows Lecture 2024 | Portable closets: Secrets and lives in queer Britain since gay liberation

The double life and the closet tend to be associated with a time before the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967 and the Gay Liberation Front call to ‘come out’ in the early 1970s. Though the social and cultural terrain in Britain has certainly shifted, this lecture shows how and why various kinds of secret have continued to matter to many gay men and have helped to make their lives liveable. Based on research and interviews for the AHRC-funded ‘Queer Beyond London’ project, it looks at how people’s backgrounds, families, and the places they live have made a portable closet a necessary, comforting and even enjoyable place to retreat to in the years since gay liberation.


Matt Cook is Jonathan Cooper Professor of the History of Sexuality at Oxford…

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