There were several reasons why QUEERGURU was ‘born’ almost 10 years ago. I had always been fascinated with the evolving history of the LGBTQ+ community which in many ways mirrored my own journey as a queer man.
In 1954 (I was only x !) the UK Government commissioned Sir John Wolfenden to form a Committee to examine Prostitution and Homosexuality (I loved the way they linked both together!). However they didn’t publish their findings for another 3 years, and then Parliament didn’t act on it until 1967! We Brits never like to rush
Then the Act that was past based on the Report decriminalized homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age in private only in England and Wales. I was 19 years by then and unwittingly celebrated it the following year by getting married for the first time. To a woman.
The 1967 Act did not extend to Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, where all homosexual behaviour remained illegal. The privacy restrictions of the act meant a third person could not be present and men could not have sex in a hotel. (Shame!) These restrictions remained until 2000 when they were enventually overturned in the European Court of Human Rights .
The changes barely had time to alter the perceptions of the general public as more gay men and women came out of the closet, when less than 2 decades later the general hysteria that came with the AIDS pandemic set back all our community’s progress in one foul swoop.
However even against a background of 120K Americans dying by 1985 and a US President who refused to even say the word AIDS, there was a tiny glimmer of hope that as a community we might finally refuse to be pushed back into the closet. Even though by 1995 I was one of the many queer widowers and then failed to see any way forward at the time, I can now recognize that this was when we collectively were beginning to show that we had a big set of balls.
First Gay Mens Health Crisis then AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, or ACT UP, in New York City and we should never forget that their actions and their activist art ar legendary for speeding the government’s response to the AIDS crisis, allowing quicker testing and treatment of lifesaving experimental drugs. And equally important to drawing public attention to the deadly impact of homophobic public health policies.
The roller coast journey of the evolving of our community during this period was at times downright heartbreaking, but also peppered with inspired acts of generous acceptance. In the UK the homophobic Prime Minister Thatcher was determined to have more testosterone than all her male Government ministers together by introducing into law Clause 28. This was an undisguised hate manifesto and rallying call to authorize all Brits to stamp us out.
On the other hand we witnessed The Princess of Wales visiting AIDS Wards and very publicly ignoring all the warning of the time, and having physical contact with patients.
The 1990s in the UK had started off badly for our community and after a spate of unsolved murders of gay man, but a demonstration led to the formation of OutRage, who called for the police to start protecting gay men instead of arresting them.
It was a very mixed decade : a Conservative MP shocked us by trying to get parity for the gay age of consent with heteros (as 18). And later the Labour Party thought that they had achieved it, only to have it overturned by the elderly members of the House of Lords. And to finish the decade off Admiral Duncan, a gay pub in Soho was bombed by former British National Party member killing three people and wounding at least 70.
Then in the 2000’s it finally seemed that public and government attitudes to our community’s very existence and growth were finally aligning. True it took the European Parliament to make the Brits reduce the age of consent for homosexual acts from 18 to 16, and also allow gay people to serve openly in the Armed Forces. 2002 saw the legalisation of same-sex couple being able to adopt and just 2 years later The Civil Partnership Act 2004 is passed by the Labour Government, giving same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as married heterosexual couples then.
Part of Queerguru’s manifesto has always been to share and (mostly) celebrate our community’s history ….. and at times it is hard to accept that the journey didn’t really kick off big time until The Stonewall Riots …..a mere 55 years ago.
We were recently made aware of that, and also the important part that comedy …. and queer comedian play in all this…. with the premiere of OUTSTANDING A COMEDY REVOLUTION . Its a new Netflix documentary on how queer comics played a crucial role in the evolvement of the LGBTQ+ community.
We loved this appreciation of all their work but there was one outstanding absence : the late great Leslie Jordan. With his Emmy winning performance of Beverly Leslie in Will and Grace..…. and script that had both gay and straight loving iall his witty double entredres, he was such a joy to watch over all those years.
He honored Queerguru with interviews on two different occasions, but today we wanted to share this profile piece by Matt Baume (he makes videos about pop culture history from a queer perspective,). It rightfully shows that when it comes to our history, Leslie Jordan was up there with all our other icons .
ROGER WALKER-DACK Creator, Editor-in-Chief Miami Beach, FL / Provincetown, MA IG @QUEERGURU Member of G.A.L.E.C.A. (Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) and NLGJA The Association of LGBT Journalists. and The Online Film Critics Society. Ex Contributing Editor The Gay Uk & Contributor Edge Media Former CEO and Menswear Designer of Roger Dack Ltd in the UK
