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

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Accompanied by a chorus of voices of both iconic and unsung legends of the movement, readers can walk through parts of East, West, South and North London, dipping into beautifully illustrated maps and extraordinary tales of LGBTQIA+ solidarity, protest and pride. The shadows of gentrification, policing, homophobia and racism are time and again resisted. 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. 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.’ Glass: United Queerdom is primarily a practical resource designed to strengthen the confidence, competence and commitment of LGBTQIA+ people as they engage with one another across cultures. It is of particular interest to anyone who works in community development, creative practice, community education, adult education, development education and social development. It is for anyone who wants to explore how to navigate and interrogate a matrix of injustices and pierce through the web of inequality that faces us every time we walk out the door. United Queerdom is most effectively used through interactive participation and action-learning whereby readers are connected with movements outside on the ground.

NOTCHES: Whose stories or what topics were left out of your book and why? What would you include had you been able to? Popular education says we are authors of our own reality; we just don’t ever really get to tell our own stories. One of the key tenets of the educational curriculum is ‘transformation starts with yourself, and then it role-models out’. Beautiful, heartbreaking and inspiring… A series of stories that honour, celebrate, uplift and credit the people who have contributed to our extraordinary community' Ever wanted to learn more about the pulsing heart of queer London’s Soho? Dan Glass, author of Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Fierce History, is here to guide you. United Queerdom: From the Legends of the Gay Liberation Front to the Queers of Tomorrow is a toolkit of case studies, strategies, philosophies, methodologies and tactics for LGBTQIA+ liberation. But it doesn’t stop there. In the spirit of the original aims of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), who started the modern Pride movement, it exists in the spirit of `Absolute Freedom for All’ and lives by the mantra of ‘All Injustices Are Connected.’

Ntombi Nyathi, Strategic Networking and Resource Mobilisations Officer, Training for Transformation LSE Library has been home to the Hall-Carpenter Archives since 1988. It’s an extensive collection of archives, ephemera and printed material documenting the development of gay activism in the UK since the 1950s. NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Tash Walker, host of The Log Books podcast and Co-Chair of Switchboard LGBT+ Helpline (2018 - 2022)A truly rewarding read, full of insights and knowledge and intertwined with anecdotes from those who were there. The book is a goldmine for those interested in finding out about the queer history of the streets of London ' 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. Because for fifty years the Gay Liberation Front have taught humankind this lesson in the most dazzling and spectacular fashion. Emerging from the Stonewall Uprisings in New York in 1969 it wasn’t long before they catalysed a movement here in Britain that lead to Pride today, but not as we know it. At the pumping heart of the GLF mission is the aim of ‘Absolute freedom for all’, a principled opposition against all oppression and to stand in solidarity with everyone everywhere facing discrimination and abuse. Queer Footprints is a toolkit for LGBTQ+ people everywhere to elevate LGBTQ+ solidarity, protest and Pride in their communities. Stacey Clare, author of 'The Ethical Stripper: Sex, Work and Labour Rights in the Night-time Economy'

Specifically, I hope people will draw from the modes of expression that queer people have utilised to confront, respond and transform their situations living with rising LGBTQIA+ hate crime. The book records and disseminates artistic and activist processes to confront a variety of forms of institutionalised homophobia through workshops, performances, events, exhibitions, street interventions and community organising. It helps to build confidence, knowledge and skills to work with and challenge local and national governments to ensure social policies advantage the ongoing development of the LGBTQIA+ community. 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.Q: In the book’s introduction you stress the importance of movement, walking and taking up the space, of engaging with history rather than just reading about it. Is that something you want readers to take from the book? 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.’ History is often told by those who have the luxury to write it, and this is why I say “herstory,” because I wanted it to be written from a feminist perspective. One of the examples is Carla Toney’s story in the Trafalgar Square chapter, the first woman and lesbian to make a speech at the first GLF youth demonstration in 1971. And her story had never been written down in a book. Dan Glass is an award-winning activist, mentor, performer and writer. He uses music, performance and protest to catalyse love, soul, revolution and justice in communities confronting injustice. Dan is an educator from Training for Transformation (TfT). Dan has been named one of Attitude Magazine’s campaigning role models for LGBT youth, GaydarRadio Heroes Awards for Gay Rights activism and a Guardian ‘UK youth climate leader’ for famously supergluing the Prime Minister. Dan was recently awarded the ‘activist of the year’ at the ‘Sexual Freedom Awards 2017’ for contributions to sex-positive, queer, healthcare and human rights movements for social justice.

There are remarkable books and then there is Queer Footprints . Highly informative, witty, candid and steeped in historical detail, Dan Glass serves as the bobbin in the weaving process of herstories, bringing you an immersive reading experience which makes necessary the act of radical love. This book will be used to celebrate and honour the forebears of queer movements whose lives have afforded much of the liberties enjoyed today, as well as reminding us that the fight against injustice is far from over. Whether you’re a Londoner, a visitor or someone who's never stepped foot in the city, Queer Footprints will enrich your knowledge of queer history ' I would really like to do Queer Footprints collaborations in countries where it’s more at the sharp end of the knife because if we’re looking at equalising liberation across the world, then we need to do more work with [those] communities. To be able to do this in Russia, for example, or Palestine or in Uganda with my friends there who are challenging the latest tyranny.Dan Glass has several upcoming events as part of his book tour in London, Dublin, Berlin and Brussels. Find out more about how to attend through the Queer Footprints LinkTree . This is why I say ‘herstory’ because I want to centre a feminist perspective through human-centred stories, that spark the flames for mass transformation for all. This is what can happen when we tell our own stories.