We are Queer Britain: an unmissable education

Exhibition: Queer Britain

Granary Square, London

You can expect multiple moments for pause and contemplation, at least a few gasps, perhaps a few tears, a modicum of rage and then a warm fuzzy feeling as you leave.

Queer Britain, the UK's first LGBTQ+ museum, opened its doors to the public in London's Granary Square on 26 April 2022, just in time to catch the first eager wave of  celebrants in the build up to July's Pride in London. I went along to have a look at what it had to offer and then again recently to see the museum's first exhibition in its new home 'We Are Queer Britain'; marking 50 years since the first Pride protest march.

The trendy canal environs, buzzing with bearded coffee drinkers, families playing in the water feature and break-takers watching giant video screens on oversized Astro-turfed steps, sets a warm and welcoming context for the museum. The historic building itself is acquired from old industrial stock having been used to store wheat for London's bakers many moons ago. Approaching the corner of the square the black and white 'Queer Britain' sign sits like the cap of a Pearly King or Queen against the yellow London clay brick of the museum. Visible to the naked eye, but only if you're cruising around with a good idea of what you're looking for. This place has roots.

The welcome to the museum is consistently warm and engaging. You'll get through the smiles at the doors with a cold-brew from Costa but you'll be promptly, and in good humour, spun around if you try to bring that nonsense into the exhibition.

The museum itself is tastefully modest in size and scope. On a regular day a couple of rooms, perhaps three, of mostly photographic history. If you have issues with attention, such as mine, then this museum is your friend. Downing the aforementioned cold-brew may not help with this as much as you might think.

On a regular day you can see photographs from the original Pride marches, iconic activists such as Peter Tatchell and circuit-Queens in historic LGBTQ+ venues like the Admiral Duncan in Soho. There's even a video screen with various historical and political media on it if hanging out in a dark room with strangers is your thing. And then the grand finale, everyone's favourite part of any museum… the gift shop.

Over and above the regular content however the 'We Are Queer Britain' exhibition successfully achieves its goals. You can expect multiple moments for pause and contemplation, at least a few gasps, perhaps a few tears, a modicum of rage and then a warm fuzzy feeling as you leave.

The first of these moments to hit home for me was seeing original copies of the Gay Liberation Front manifesto from 1971. Beside it, a copy of the Wolfendon Report (1967) which was the first move towards decriminalising homosexual acts between men. Following this, nods to Christine Burns MBE and her work on the Gender Recognition Act (2004) and Phyll Opoku-Gyimah (Lady Phyll), co-founder of UK Black Pride, weave a timeline of hard-won progress and diverse unity in one display case.

Dotted around the room one finds booklets, leaflets and posters, all of which convey the anger of the times more precisely and comprehensively than any filtered, censored breakfast-TV account. An array of 'queer zines' using <gasp> swear words, slang and adulterated spelling to grab attention and fire up readers into action. And then, like a balm, just beautiful pictures of people being in love and being together.

The journey of the LGBTQ+ communities through the HIV/AIDS crisis is served well by the heart-rending log books from Switchboard, a helpline for LGBTQ+ people started in 1974. And reading those handwritten entries, there can be seen that unique and familiar deliberately-misplaced-humour, so characteristic of the LGBTQ+ communities. Something that we mastered as a defence but also as a tool for connection, to offer to people who were otherwise alone and facing their own mortality.

Impressive objets d'art from A-listers (both to those within the LGBTQ+ communities and to cis-gendered and straight society) and intimate scripts from world renown recording artists serve to neutralise any sense that the storm of LGBTQ+ resistance has taken place within the bounds of a teacup. But perhaps the most striking exhibit, is the last thing you will see.

The tendency to proceed in an orderly, very British, clockwise fashion around the main room conceals in plain sight until the end an intimidating, and obviously metaphoric metal prison door. A door which contained one of the world's most famous LGBTQ+ contributors. I looked at this for longer than anything else in the room, such was its severity.

Queer Britain succeeds in one bijou exhibition where mainstreamed, 'Disney-fied' LGBTQ+ content on streaming services will only ever fail. The 'We Are Queer Britain' exhibition faithfully delivers the full gamut of histories, experiences, warts-and-all truths of the LGBTQ+ communities. It's an unmissable education for queer folk and our allies, and every school, church and parent should take a look.

Reviewed by Dr Rob Agnew, Clinical Psychologist, Committee Member Section of Sexualities