Alim 0:00 Episode Seven: Queer Britain Joseph ...That actually we need somewhere that educates and respects and celebrates queer lives so that queer people don't suddenly feel like they've just emerged from nowhere and that they're a first generation. We have a deeper history and that deserves to be marked and enjoyed. Alim Kheraj 0:27 Hello, and welcome to Queer Spaces: Behind The scene, a podcast and photography series where we document contemporary LGBTQ+ spaces and analyse the ever shifting landscape of the UK is queer scene. I'm your host Alim Kheraj. I'm a freelance writer whose work is mainly about the intersection of queerness and popular culture. I'm also the author of Queer London: A guide to LGBTQ+ London past and present. Tim Boddy 0:53 And I'm Tim Boddy, a photographer, artist and picture editor whose work generally centres on the LGBTQ+ community. Alim Kheraj 1:00 Each episode of Queer Spaces: Behind the Scene will feature in-depth conversations with a diverse range of voices behind some pivotal LGBTQ+ groups and spaces. Each episode will be complemented by original photography and portraiture by Tim, which captures the spirit of the community. In our final episode of the season, we headed to Kings Cross to visit Queer Britain, the UK's first LGBTQ+ Museum, and talk with CEO and co-founder Joseph Galliano. Sat inside the gallery, we spoke about the process of creating the museum, the current hostile political climate towards LGBTQ+ people, and why documenting our past helps our queer futures. Alim Kheraj 1:47 So what have we learned about queer spaces by doing the podcast, Tim? Tim Boddy 1:51 Oh my God, where to start? What a question. Yeah, I guess many themes have popped up episode by episode like, often unprompted? Some of which are... things like historical ones, like Section 28 has come up time and time again, and the pernicious effect that it had and I guess, continues to have. Like its legacy is still felt. Even though kind of lessens over time, it still definitely exists. Tim Boddy 2:15 Things like accessibility. I know that's been like something that has popped up a lot. And that kind of links in with the, I guess, digital versus physical hybrid that many queer club nights and other nights are doing? Which again, are very important thing to think about, and collectives and organisations are negotiating that in different ways. And yes, it's a very resource heavy kind of thing to obviously do, essentially. Alim Kheraj 2:41 Yes, everyone has worked very hard. Haven't they? Tim Boddy 2:45 Yes, that's... Yeah, probably the number one overarching thing is like everyone we've interviewed has been like, incredibly passionate, energetic driven. And just the amount of work that everyone has put in is, yeah, absolutely mind-blowing. Which I guess is one of the reasons why we wanted to do this series and podcast is to sort of, I guess, champion and highlight and kind of uplift, people that we talked to doing incredible work and like working incredibly hard at it often with not, I guess, great, always financial reward, but just doing it for the good of the community. Yeah. Which is obviously incredible to see. Yeah. What have you learned Alim? Alim Kheraj 3:25 What have I learned? I guess, that there's more stuff happening than you think there is, always. You know, for every one person that we speak to they talk about one thing that I'd never heard of, or something that was exciting and new. And I thought okay, well that's that's something that's not come on my radar yet. And that's been interesting, because it can be... even after doing something like this, and even after when we worked on the book and all of that stuff, it can still be a little fatalistic, to look at things from a sort of bird's eye view and think, everything's terrible, and everything's awful, And look at the media, and look at the closures, and look at how hostile everyone is and how depressed everyone is. Alim Kheraj 4:12 But they're actually people doing really important, amazing things in spite of that. Tim Boddy 4:16 Yes, exactly. Alim Kheraj 4:17 So there's, again, it's this thing of resilience, you know, and it's resilience through things that are fun. It's not all just stony faced activism, which is kind of still needed. But people are doing things that are celebratory, and joyous. And, you know, talking to June was really interesting, because hearing him say, you know, this was something that I wanted to do that was just like, for people to be? And that was so nice. It's the same with something like Gal Pals and Transome, and the Community Centre. I mean, even Tonic, and you know, actually someone was talking to me about visiting Queer Britain and they were saying how nice it was to have a space that was just a place you could go. And like, was queer focused but didn't have any pressure to spend money, didn't have pressure to drink, didn't have, you know, all these other things attached to it, it was just like a place, a space that you could go to. Tim Boddy 5:19 Yeah you can just wander in by yourself, you know, no pressure, free. Yeah. Alim Kheraj 5:24 So that's been really nice, that there's this kind of step away a little bit from huge commodification and commercialization of these spaces. You know, even though there is an element of that, just because that's the society we live in. Yes. But yeah, that's been really heartwarming and inspiring, I think to, to witness people doing all this stuff. And as you say, they're not being... the reward is that they did it, not that they've got paid loads, or that it's made them celebrities or what have you. The reward is someone... you know, for the centre it's seeing people come to the centre, for Queer Britain, it's seeing people come to Queer Britain, you know, for June, it's seeing people come and get emotional having this space for themselves. Tim Boddy 6:19 Yeah. There's interesting stories that Xandice and Scarlett told about queer people going to their club for the first time. And how what an overwhelming and joyous and emotional experience it was for those people. Yeah, and the idea that partying is political. So going back to that idea of joy and that kind of thing. And talking about Gal Pals again, but I remember Xandice saying, it does feel like we live in a society that tries to really inhibit, like, any kind of fun. Yeah, there's not a lot of space to join, because everything is, I guess... has a value. Is capitalised. And so, yeah, the people that we talked to are trying to like, find the spaces for joy, and for togetherness and for community. Yeah. Alim Kheraj 6:58 And I think that just highlights how important they are and why it's important that we keep celebrating them and documenting them and ensuring that, you know, if they... if they don't survive that more come in their wake. Yeah. And that, you know, there are a constant generation of them rather than being defeatist. Tim Boddy 7:20 Yes. It's a really positive tone. Really positive tone to end on. Yes. Yeah. Alim Kheraj 7:31 Today, we're recording from Queer Britain, the UK's first LGBTQ+ museum. We're joined by Joseph Galliano, the founder and CEO of Queer Britain. Hi, Joseph. How are you? Joseph 7:40 Hi, I'm very well, indeed. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Alim Kheraj 7:43 Do you prefer Joseph or Joe? Joseph 7:44 It depends how cross my mother is with me. Actually, I want to take that back. I'm sorry. Joe, and Joseph is fine. Alim Kheraj 7:52 Joe and Joseph is fine. Can you start off by telling us your pronouns and a little bit about yourself? Joseph 7:57 Yeah I'll be using he/him. And... so I'm a former editor of Gay Times Magazine, I've done Oh, God, all sorts of stuff in my life. I've been a major donor fundraiser, I've worked in the sort of senior LGBT corporate network space. And everything I've done has been moving towards this project, which is establishing the first National LGBTQ+ museum for all, regardless of what gender pronouns they use, or sexual orientation or identity, or expression. Alim Kheraj 8:29 So you say that you've sort of worked towards this for a long time. When did the idea first come... I read an interview that you gave where you said, there were sort of fringes of it into about 2007? Joseph 8:40 Yeah. In 2007, which was the 40th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of gay male sex. And actually important to say partial because that's something that people don't use often enough, but it wasn't as straightforward as decriminalising. I was the editor of Gay Times at that point. And I was wondering what kind of generation gap had grown up between - and given the nature of the magazine it was aimed at male audience and it was talking about male criminality. But I was wondering what kind of generation gap had grown up between younger men and older men. And so what we do is we brought together a group of four young men who hadn't yet been born in 1967. And four older men who were already adults in 1967, just to kind of find out what they knew about each other's lives. And can you guess how much they knew? Alim Kheraj 9:32 Nothing? Joseph 9:32 Nothing. I mean, it was very, it was sparse. It was Spartan. And the thing that was sort of most shocking that came out of it was that two of the younger cohort had never known that it had been illegal for them to love whoever it was right for them to love. Alim Kheraj 9:46 Gosh Joseph 9:46 Gosh, indeed. And the older generation. First of all, they took it as a bit of a slap in the face, understandably, when we sort of thought about how to frame that and when we kind of continued that discussion. It was like, well, first of all, thank you. Like, didn't you do a great job that these younger people can live on... can live without having to be on the barricades like you were. And if they're not hearing about their own heritage in a consistent way, in schools, in the popular culture, in their friends and family groups, how do we know what questions to ask if we don't know what questions to ask? So that really kind of like put me in mind that actually, we need somewhere that educates and respects and celebrates queer lives so that queer people don't suddenly feel like they've just emerged from nowhere, and that they're a first generation, we have a deeper history, and that deserves to be marked and enjoyed. Alim Kheraj 10:46 Were you surprised that something like that didn't already... wasn't already in existence? Joseph 10:54 Yeah, you'd be surprised how many... most days somebody says to me: "What this doesn't... this didn't already exist. How is that possible?" Alim Kheraj 11:06 Yeah. Because there are other institutions around the world that do similar things. Yeah. So how does this go then from this kind of, we need to do something to kind of reconnect us with our past, to this brick and mortar building that we're in kind of now, what were those sort of first steps like? Joseph 11:28 Well the first step was, I visited the Queer British art exhibition at Tate Britain in 2017. So it was 10 years after the Gay Times article. And while I was there, it really struck me that there had been a certain amount of momentum had built up in, in the cultural sector, really, and that if we didn't make sure that that had been properly grasped and kind of capitalised upon, now, like then and then in there, that it was going to potentially - have the potential to ebb away. Joseph 12:04 And also, I think, is that the... that that burst of activity had been based around the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation. So it was another anniversary about gay men, it was an anniversary about criminality. And, actually, I thought, there's an opportunity here to kind of build a platform using this as our starting point. But to create a platform that celebrates people of colour, people with disabilities, women, trans peopless stories, everybody that would be part of our kind of like, I guess you'd call it Rainbow Coalition. So from there, I was working as a major donor fundraiser for a musician's charity at that point. And I thought that this, this is the moment to properly commit to making a museum, an actual thing. Joseph 12:56 And essentially, I pulled on every meeting I could possibly get, anybody who I thought might have any money, anybody who I thought might be able to lend some credibility or support to the projects that were from the cultural sector. So it was working with companies and organisations as diverse as Coots, and Levi's, and Tate, and National Trust, and English Heritage, LGBT History Month, kind of basically building a kind of a broad coalition of organisations and people that would support us, developing all of the kind of the stuff that might sound boring (sounded boring to me at the time, but actually, I find it fascinating now) which is the - how do we make sure that we've created an organisation that has good governance, that can sustain itself, can be resilient, and can be strong enough to actually deliver on a capital project, which obviously takes a lot out of organisations. Joseph 13:57 So that's what we've been doing ever since. And now, we're now sort of halfway through our business plan a year ahead of time. And, you know, we were looking to open our first space - our first physical space next year, right. But when the opportunity - which we knew was going to come up for Granary Square - came up, and we just knew we had to absolutely run full tilt at it and make this happen because it's such a, such a great spot. It's a purpose built gallery, purpose built to a very high standard. And the one thing that's been driving this organisation from the start, it's been driving us in a kind of, in terms of what we're aspiring to, which is that we... I got sick of hearing people say that queer people are kind of like, they are over represented in the cultural space. When the truth of it is, we've had crumbs from the table for far too long. And this project has to be of a kind of a quality that says: our communities deserve quality. They deserve something that's ambitious. And they deserve to be reflected in the mainstream. So that everybody can understand. That's it really! Alim Kheraj 15:12 [laughter] Joseph 15:14 Nothing much! Alim Kheraj 15:17 I mean, it sounds like that must have been a quite a learning experience Joseph 15:22 Every day is a learning experience, every day is a learning experience. Alim Kheraj 15:26 How did you ensure that while working with large corporate organisations who, who, you know, obviously, I think, are trying to do their best now, but might not have, you know, might want to temper things? How do you ensure that that doesn't happen, that things, there isn't an interference and things don't get softened? Joseph 15:45 In terms of what... in terms of the cultural offer? Alim Kheraj 15:47 In terms of the cultural offering, what you're showing what, you know, whether some people are pro or anti pornographic materials that, you know, graphic material, and so on? Joseph 15:58 Well, we have, I mean, we have a suite of policies and procedures that we have in place to, what you refer to there, most importantly, as our collections and acquisitions policy, which, you know, very firmly states that we are going to be the... I don't think quite the term sex positive is used, but it kind of is implied in the policy. That we will be the brave organisation that will be prepared to collect those. Now, it doesn't mean that those things will always be on display every moment, but it means that, you know, we recognise some of that as important culturally, to our communities. We've never had any kickback from... Alim Kheraj 16:39 Oh, that's good. Joseph 16:40 ...any companies. But we've also, we've also been quite careful when we've kind of gone into contracts with companies that - there's two things that we look at it for; one of which is what is this company's track record? And the second thing is, is there anything in the contract which is going to stymie us in terms of what we can and can't do, and say? And yeah, generally not. So those become negotiation points for us. Alim Kheraj 17:08 Yes. And so you obviously have quite a, you have a wide range of Trustees. What was the process like of bringing those people on board? Joseph 17:20 Yeah, so we did it, again, two lenses, you'll find out everything.... I haven't got a question that I can't answer with: "I've got two things to say". The first being that the, we had to have a skill, we needed the board to build credibility, to bring skills on board, and also to be reflective of the communities that we want to be, or to be broadly respectful of the communities that we wish to represent. And so whilst we didn't lead with diversity, we lead with skills. So it was a chief operating officer, it was a lawyer, it was a building surveyor, it was, once we address the skills we needed, we then made sure that we were talking to some of the more diverse people within our networks and within our network's, networks, in order to identify people who were going to be able to be helpful and to create a board that felt inclusive as well. And so I'm actually really proud of that. And we have a, I think an eight person board, but we have people of colour, we have trans people, we have women, we have actually a heterosexual as well. Alim Kheraj 18:33 Wow. Joseph 18:34 As well as, as well as you're gay, you're gay men. Alim Kheraj 18:37 So I guess they... they show up everywhere. Joseph 18:41 They do! There's a lot of it about. Alim Kheraj 18:43 Gosh [laughter]. There's obviously an institution - sorry, I'm saying obviously a lot. Joseph 18:52 But obviously you are. Alim Kheraj 18:52 Obviously, yes. While you want to be representative of you know, the full spectrum of LGBTQ+ people - that is obviously a very difficult task, Joseph 19:03 Obviously. Alim Kheraj 19:04 Obviously. How do you respond to people who might say, this doesn't represent me or this isn't... you know, because... Because gays, the gays are terrible. And they will... And you call us one thing can't become nice things at all? Joseph 19:22 No. And I think it's about looking at things - encouraging people to look at things in the broader, in a broader sense. Look at whatever is happening now is a snapshot of what is happening now. This isn't everything that we're doing. This isn't everything we've ever done, this isn't everything we'll ever do. If you're not... if you don't feel represented now, hopefully you will later. And I think that's, I think that's it. Also you can't always please everybody and if you are pleasing everybody, then you're probably not pleasing anybody. Alim Kheraj 19:53 Can you talk a little bit about why having a permanent space was important rather than having a pop up space or just a digital offering? Because that probably would have been Joseph 20:06 Easier? Alim Kheraj 20:06 Yeah! Joseph 20:08 Sorry, this is where I start sounding like I'm laughing like, a maniac. Several years of his head too deeply into a project that has consumed his life. What was the question again? Alim Kheraj 20:20 Like, why having a permenant space? Joseph 20:23 An important question, important question. I think there's, there's there's a couple of things. Two things. I think, first of all: culture's demonstrate whose voices are important and what communities are valued. Actually, by physical museums is a very strong way that cultures indicate that. There's nothing quite like the emotional impact of encountering a physical object in a space that your set of communities have ownership over, or buy-in into. I think as well, that given... well three things here, possibly there'll be more? Who knows. I think the other thing is, is that we've seen a haemorrhaging of bars,and other - I mean, you know, this from the work you've been doing with with Queer Spaces Alim Kheraj 21:12 I think 60%, of LGBTQ places have closed since 2006. Joseph 21:18 Decimated. I mean, and that's, you know, I know that's in line, or possibly worse than the sort of general trend about music and nightlife venues. And those spaces were so vital for building community, for building community resilience, for people making connections. And if those spaces have gone, there needs to be another space, there needs to be a different sort of space that will, if not quite step into that, because it's a different kind of offer, but will offer a way of people forming meaningful communities, you know, whether it's us whether it's a fabulous work that somebody like Ashley joiner is doing with Queercircle. I think these are the, these are the spaces that will help us evolve as a set of communities because they... and I say this about Queercircle as well, is that it gives us an opportunity to see ourselves, to understand where we've come from, to explore who we are, who we are, and collectively ask the question, like, what does the best of all possible futures look like? And I think, I think hopefully, we have a part to play in those kinds of stories, and actually, in a way that probably bars never could do, because they're not reflective spaces in the same way that the sort of spaces that we're trying to create are. Alim Kheraj 22:42 Yeah, and I guess if you also think that bars and clubs are consumerist spaces as well, yeah. Which, you know, we're in, we're sat in the shop room... Joseph 22:51 I was gonna say, we literally sat in the consumer heart of the... Alim Kheraj 22:56 Irony of location aside: you know, access to the museum is not... it doesn't have a cover charge. Joseph 23:02 No, no, no, no, no. And that's... I've been saying this for five years that we'll we'll never have an entry charge, because if we're going to be about inclusion it has to be about economic inclusion as well. And I don't want... I don't want a single person feeling embarrassed on the door because they can't afford to come in, or feeling like they can't come in because they... it's just an appalling idea. Alim Kheraj 23:26 We'd love to hear from you. Tweet us @queerspacesUK, message us on Instagram at queerspacesUK, or email us at tim@queerspaces.uk. And let us know about your favourite queer spaces how you feel about the evolution of the LGBTQ+ scene. And don't forget to rate, leave a review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps us. Alim Kheraj 23:51 Why do you think... one of the things that we've noticed through during the podcast and one of the things I've noticed through my work on the book and everything was, how difficult it is for queer organisations and groups to secure physical spaces for themselves in general. Why do you think that that is still the case? Joseph 24:14 That's a really... that is an interesting question. And one which I'm not sure I've got a very well fleshed out kind of, or very well thought through answer for. My suspicion is that the places that generally hold the keys don't understand the community needs. It could be that those community voices within those organisations might not be listened to loudly enough - listened to clearly enough. It's also you know, to get a space, or get a space like this up and running, it's time consuming, expensive, and, you know, without blowing my own trumpet, you know, I've been working on this full time for nearly five years and I I don't think, I don't think there's any other way that this could have happened on the side. It couldn't... you couldn't do this on the side of your desk, right? It's, it's completely all encompassing. And so I think that's probably, but that's that's the blow my own trumpet kind of part of it. Alim Kheraj 25:15 What has that been like, doing it for five years full time? Joseph 25:20 I had no idea how bloody minded I was. Seriously, I had no idea how bloody minded or resilient. That's the word that seems to keep coming up in this conversation. There's been times when it's been lonely. There's been times when it's made me feel vulnerable. There's been times when it's absolutely the best thing that could ever have... I could have ever been involved in, in ways where it's been exhilarating. I've met a community of people who have just been, you know - I love the community of people that we have, working around us and engaging with what we're doing. I love so many of the people who have supported us getting this far. So it's been a it's been a, an enormously enriching project for me personally, but one that has come with a huge amount of stress and a huge amount of vulnerability. Alim Kheraj 26:17 Would you say that it's helped you or... helped you is probably no the right... what's the right word? Would you, would you say that it's given you a broader understanding of what being queer means or your own kind of queer experience? Joseph 26:36 I think it has in a way. And the funny thing is, this isn't something I've kind of... because I'm so sort of head in the weeds, just getting the organisation running, I don't actually spend a lot of time thinking about that sort of thing. Other than, you know, I can see that sometimes within the queer world, within our - amongst ourselves, we're all a bit too judgmental of each other, whether we're queer enough or not too queer or what kind of queer. I've seen that. But I've also seen, like this remarkable... like you can, you can see the difference in generations. And I think that this younger generation that we have now I just, I just, I find so exciting that the things that had been fought for, but we thought we were lucky to get for, for my generation and above. So I was born in you know - I'm actually I'm a second generation or third generation gay kid really. I was born in 1971. So... I've completely lost the thread of my thought. Alim Kheraj 27:42 The current generation of people? Joseph 27:45 Oh, yeah, no, but what I just think is so is so inspiring, is that, you know, they're not taking shit from anybody. And they are saying, actually, you know what this is, this is who I am. I am going to live my life in the way that is right for me. I think that's, I think that's brilliant. It's it's gaylib 2.0, isn't it? Alim Kheraj 28:09 Yeah, that's sort of how it feels. To me as well, at the moment. I feel like we're in a second swing. It feels very, sort of 1977 Joseph 28:20 Music's not so good. Alim Kheraj 28:22 Debatable. Joseph 28:24 Well, I'm a gentleman of a certain age. Alim Kheraj 28:29 The climate of the UK right now is quite hostile to LGBTQ people, especially trans people. Yeah. How does Queer Britain respond to that? Joseph 28:37 I think we respond to that by being inclusive. By being determinately inclusive: by do, not tell. Just make sure that we are including everybody that we can into what we're doing. You know, I don't do this without my trans siblings. Not interested in doing this without our trans siblings, just not Alim Kheraj 29:02 What's it been like, trying to build an organisation like this in that climate? Joseph 29:11 Challenging? Yeah. Challenging? Because? I mean, it depends whether you're talking about something on a personal level, or on an organisational level Alim Kheraj 29:24 both Joseph 29:25 On a personal level, you know, I always like to give everybody... I like to hear what everybody has to, has to say. But the trouble is, is that there are just at the moment, there's a lot of opinions around that I just I I struggle to respect, to be perfectly honest. And I think that everybody - but at the same time - I think everybody within our communities, whether they agree with each other or not also deserve a fair hearing about what their grievances might be. So navigating, that is complicated. You kind of, you kind of just sort of feel your way through it as honestly as you can. Everyday really. Alim Kheraj 30:09 A lot of queer history is hidden historically. What are some of the... Joseph 30:14 Or undiscovered Alim Kheraj 30:15 Or undiscovered. Yeah, exactly or undiscovered. What have been some of the obstacles that you've encountered when considering kind of what to exhibit? Or what you can access? And all that sort of stuff? Joseph 30:27 Actually, I mean, at the moment, you know, we're finding, you know, we're working on a summer exhibition - on an exhibition that's going to be opening in July. Not going to go into too much detail with it yet, but one of the biggest challenges has been paring down the list of things that we should be using, not scrambling for, for content. So, you know, I think we've I think there's, there's a wealth of material out there. It's just recognising it. Alim Kheraj 30:57 What about balancing the current... things that are happening right now, with a kind of emphasis on the past? How do you how do you balance? Joseph 31:07 Well I mean, we think about ourselves in terms of sort of heritage and culture, we're working towards becoming... it's very tough, it's very tough to be an organisation that's so young, to be able to be responsive to world moments and events and, and to do that in a way that you've got both mandate for and you're also kind of capable of doing without making things worse. So like, for example, one of the one of the questions that came up, as the, as Russia was preparing to invade the Ukraine, and then we're hearing stories about trans people being turned back from the border once the attack had started. Joseph 31:50 And, you know, the question was, you know, what are you doing about the Ukraine? Now, the problem that we had there was that we were just in the process of trying to sign a lease, getting the lights on, building the organisation, and, and we've done no work with those sort of communities, and we don't have that mandate. We don't have that experience. But over time, and as we become more comfortable with running this space, as we get better resourced, and we understand better what we're doing. And then we're developing the sort of partnerships that will help us actually engage with communities who are affected by things that are happening. That is, then the point, I think at which we can start more meaningfully doing doing that. I think this is the thing, you know, we're not delivering something that is fully grown, we're not delivering something that's fully grown. So we want to get the organisation to a shape and a maturity, and with the right partners in place, so that we can then be a lot more nimble about reacting to kind of like world and, and local stories and events. But we're not quite there yet. Alim Kheraj 33:02 I sort of was asking, because what do you think documenting our queer past in this way that the museum is, you know, even by documenting things that we would consider current then becomes, you know, that becomes the past. What do you think that can do when imagining our queer futures? Joseph 33:21 Well, I think the thing is, if you don't know where you've come from, or if you don't have a story about where you've come from, then how can you protect where you've come from? How can you protect what you've gained? So you know, if you don't know, if you don't know that it's ever been illegal, to be who yourself coming back to that initial kind of Gay Times conversation; How do you know where to be watching? How do you know where to be careful about, to ensure that those gains don't get rolled back. But the way that I think about it, and the way that we think about it as an organisation is that we look to the past to understand who we are, or to better understand who we are. And we want to better understand who we are now so that collectively, we can work together to imagine the best of all possible futures. Now, that's not going to be one thing. That's going to be a whole series of different engagements from a conversation that comes out from two people who've been to visit the exhibition,through to some more kind of systemic programmatic programming, programmatic programming? Alim Kheraj 34:35 And how would you say that queer spaces have changed in your lifetime? Joseph 34:40 Well, I think it's definitely the... it's definitely the alcohol seeping away from from spaces. I mean, you're seeing - and this may this may be a product of just like well, where I am seeing things, but it feels like there's a lot more kind of like artistic response stuff going on. Obviously, there's been that move sort of eastwards as well, from kind Earl's Court to Soho, East London. Just a shame, there's not as much of it. Alim Kheraj 35:10 Yeah. Although one interesting thing when I was researching my book was to see how I think in 19, like early 1980s, I think it was - the listings in gay news was measly offerings. And then there was sort of this explosion a little bit, but that kind of only really happened in the 90s, this big thing, and then... Joseph 35:39 Certainly that, that's really when the kind of the shift happened towards Old Compton Street. So you had like The Yard, The Yard was one of... Alim Kheraj 35:47 I think Village was the first? And it was the first to not have blacked out windows. Joseph 35:54 That's right, it was! Oh God it uses to be full of... I remember used to be full of businessmen in cycling shorts. Alim Kheraj 36:03 And it's interesting to sort of consider where we are now, both politically and socio economically. Yeah. And sort of draw parallels, you know, I don't want to be too stuck in the past. And I think you can get a little bit like, it's just exactly the same. But I think as you say, you know, you can you can draw a lot from what was happening back then to then inform what is going forward. Now, obviously, back, then there was the sort of interruption because of the HIV/AIDS crisis that sort of changed the direction and things were going. So yeah, it's an interesting time, I think to sort of be looking at what we're doing, because even even back then there were more community spaces, more sort of organisations a bit like Queer Britain, there was a lot more of that. Yeah. And that sort of disappeared a bit and now seems to have come back to? Joseph 36:58 Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you had kind of, I suppose we had things like the Community Centre. I mean, talking very much about London here. And I can't really speak for the rest of the country, in that sort of time scale. But I would say that the probably is, there probably are some threads that run through. If you think about the sort of socio economic effects of discrimination and stigma on particular groups of people. You know, it's, it's, I think, where women have been underpaid - that's amplified in or, actually might not be right. But: queer communities have often been - and people who belong to queer communities have often been - underemployed, underpaid, under resourced, and, you know, there is almost certainly a hierarchy of that within the LGBTQ+ umbrella, which is also affected by things like misogyny and, and so on. I would imagine that those things that stood then probably are pretty much the same. There's probably a few more louder, well paid gay men who are out. And then I think, I think there's probably a bit of a drop off after that. Alim Kheraj 38:17 Yeah, it's a sort of, even to think about that - sorry this is really me just going off a tangent - but even to think about cost of living crisis and stuff. You know, it's sort of it's quite reminiscent of this kind of height of Thatcherite Britain. Joseph 38:31 Well it's even worse than that. It's the 70s. Again, the 70s mixed with the worst excesses of Thatcherism as well. Alim Kheraj 38:37 So it's sort of interesting time. Joseph 38:39 Who wants to live in interesting times! Alim Kheraj 38:41 And I'm sick of it... unprecedented times, always unprecedented times. Well, my last question for you is how would you define a queer space? Joseph 38:54 I think a queer space is wherever queer people want to make it a queer space by inhabiting and, and pulling meaning from it, and bringing meaning to it, and taking meaning from it. Think about the word queer I love is it's just it's, it's got that plasticity to it and, and that in its very nature, as if you think you know what it is, then you don't know what it is. It's moving somewhere else, then it's doing something else. Alim Kheraj 39:20 Great. Well, thank you, Joe. Nice, thanks so much for joining us, having us. Joseph 39:25 Thank you. Alim Kheraj 39:29 Thank you. Thank you so much. Joseph 39:33 Round of applause for everybody. Lovely. Alim Kheraj 39:40 Queer Britain can be found at granary square in Kings Cross London. It's open on Wednesday to Sunday from midday to 6pm. You can find out more information by visiting queer britain.org.uk. Queer Spaces: Behind the Scene was born out of a desire to document the importance that queer spaces have to LGBTQ+ people. Each episode is complemented by original photography and portraiture by Tim Boddy. You can find these pictures on queerspaces.uk or on Twitter and Instagram @queerspacesUK. Find out more by subscribing to our newsletter. Queer Spaces is produced, written and edited by Tim Boddy, and hosted and written by me Alim Kheraj. The podcast is supported through a MEAD Fellowship awarded by the University of Arts London. To everyone that has taken part contributed or listened to Queer Spaces, we just want to say thank you very much. Tim We love you. Alim Love you. Bye! Cool yay.