Eleanor Affleck - Museum of Youth Culture

growing up queer

Collected by Eleanor Affleck

"It’s good to acknowledge that the stories I have chosen to collect were subjectively shaped by my own personal experiences, and community networks. I hope I have gone some of the way to bring to light new stories and ways of storytelling but there’s always more to do!

When I first came to collection it was primarily a photography archive and therefore image-based, and LGBTQIA+ identity isn’t always something that’s visible in photos (although it absolutely can be). For that reason I wanted to focus on different ways the LGBTQIA+ community have made and recorded our youth culture history in our own voices: oral histories, youth groups and consciousness-raising, zines and publications, theatre, and technology. This structured some of the questions I asked and the people I approached for interviews."

Eleanor Affleck is a Scottish writer and historian. She has worked with organisations such as the National Trust for Scotland, the V&A, Art UK, and Edinburgh Zine Library to improve LGBTQIA+ access in arts and heritage. She recently completer her MA in Queer History at Goldsmiths, University of London, and her research interests include approaches to queer public history, performing desire on stage, and sexuality in Scottish modern art.

Eleanors's research project was part of Setting the Record Straight, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

collection of stories

zine culture

It’s hard to define what a zine is, but they’re usually DIY, not-for-profit, self-published documents that are easy to make and reproduce. They can be about anything you like. Zines are rooted in self-publishing movements and have been used by a diverse range of communities throughout history, from youth clubs such as the 59 Club, to punk and Riot Grrrl movements, to groups documenting civil rights activism.

Here we’ve been collecting some zines about experiences of growing up LGBTQ+ in the UK. Some are fanzines, about the author’s relationship to certain figures from pop culture, and others are perzines, zines that tell a personal story, and some are a mix of both. With zines, you can write about yourself and your story in exactly the words you want in a way that often isn’t available in mainstream media. This can be very powerful for communities such as the LGBTQ+ community, who have often been misrepresented or under-represented in the media. Zines and publications also enable access to information, advice, and community networks. In a time before the internet and under the censorship of Section 28, zines might have been the only way that a young person could access information about their sexuality.

Cas Bradbeer

Cas talks about their experience growing up in London, which is still their home now at the age of nineteen. They begin by discussing coming out at thirteen, and their journey of discover with their trans identity. They talk about their supportive home environment and their involvement in queer activism, and how this was important in shaping the way they thought about and engaged with gender. They discuss the youth organisation Gendered Intelligence, their friends, Pride marches, their activism at school, and fighting transphobia in their local area. They also speak to the way social media to provide an empowering space for queer communities. Cas gives their first encounter with drag as an example of this. They first experienced drag through watching a Courtney Act music video, fell in love, and went on to fill up their Tumblr and YouTube subscriptions with drag queens. They explain how they find a lot of creative joy in doing drag, and the importance of this joy when exploring and embodying one’s queerness. Cas ends by expressing their desire to create a world full of queer joy and their excitement, and the political importance of integrating queerness and queer ways of looking into young people’s educations.

Georgeous Michael

*Contains swearing* Georgeous Michael is a drag king living in Deptford who has been doing drag for the last four years. They discuss their use of pronouns and their relationship with their gender identity and sexuality both in and out of drag. Georgeous started going to drag shows in his early twenties. When he was growing up he considered himself to be a tomboy, and quite butch, so the idea of performing masculinity in his drag persona appealed to him. He talks about discovering queer night life when he moved to London for his BA in his early twenties, and the vulnerability of these spaces, as well as the power dynamics they can contain. They got into zines in school at the age of fifteen through starting a satirical pamphlet at school, and moved on to making queer zines in their twenties. He also talks about how his mother’s involvement in the disability rights movement has shaped his own activism. They end by describing how they grew up under Section 28 and how they are hopeful that younger generations will build a more inclusive world to thrive in.

Janet Brown

Janet was born in Bristol in 1978. When she was six her family moved to Wyke in Bradford. Janet discusses growing up queer and working-class in the midst of Section 28 and experiencing extreme homophobia within her community. She was brought up in an anti-racist, politicised household and was herself politically active from a very young age – her mum was a feminist, and her South African family were closely involved in the Anti-Apartheid movement. As a teen she would buy Smash Hits Melody Maker and NME, and she describes having her sexual awakening when watching Elastica on Top of the Pops. She discusses the music scene in Manchester in the 1990s, how she would get into gigs for free by writing music fanzines. She discusses the Riot Grrrl movement and discovering LGBTQ zines through that. Janet speaks about how her mum came out as lesbian a year before she came out as bisexual, though Janet now identifies as a queer femme. She talks about her experiences at the Bradford LGBT Youth Group at the 1 in 12 Club, at Leicester University, and of meeting queer creative friends at indie and Britpop clubs.

gregg blachford

‘Here is my diary entry for my first day of my new life in London: August 29, 1973.

“Land from Singapore at 9.15 am. Take train from Gatwick to Victoria Station. Raining. Bus 52 to Kensington Student Hostel on Kensington Church Street. Tube to Piccadilly Circus and meet a Rees in the loos. Visit C.H.E. (Campaign for Homosexual Equality) office nearby. Meet up with my cousin Jan visiting from Toronto and her friend Louise. With them, see Applause with Lauren Bacall at Her Majesty’s. Irish pub after. Love London!”

That one day encapsulated my life to be in London for the next many years: politics, entertainment, pubs, sex and meeting up with old and new friends. No wonder I loved it.’

Born in Canada, Gregg moved to London in his early 20s to take a one-year PGCE at the University of London and working at The Greystoke Pub whilst studying.

Looking for accommodation, he placed an ad in the Gay News;

‘I put this ad into the recently created Gay News newspaper hoping to find a share with other gay liberationists.

Identifying myself as “non-discreet”, I was having a dig at those who wanted to share with someone “discreet”. I didn’t want to be like them.’

He was heavily involved in gay activism, especially in Gay Left and the Gay Teachers Group, and later joining the London Lesbian & Gay Switchboard as a volunteer and eventually becoming the first paid Youth Worker for the London Gay Teenage Group.

Picking up a camera at the age of 11, Gregg documented his moves across the world and his days living in London throughout the 70s and 80s, from trips to the seaside with friends to Gay Liberation demonstrations.

TRAY37E02-John, Robert, Jo-anne Horniman 162 Liverpool St.

Find our more about Gregg's story on his website

Molly Thompson

*Contains discussion of rape* Molly grew up in Horsham, which is a very conservative town. She remembers visiting Brighton with her friends from the age of fifteen as a contrast to this. From when she was two to when she was eighteen she was a dancer. She talks about how because of this she didn’t consider her body to be a female space, but rather a tool to practice her craft. Molly then describes how her experience of assault shaped her relationship with her body, and then how she felt she didn’t have the freedom to express herself sexually because of body being claimed and hyper-sexualised by men. Her family are very queer friendly so she felt safe and supported coming out to them at 21. She says that getting her first pair of Doc Martens was a transformative gay moment for her. She talks about the representation of queer sexuality on TV, and how TV, film and pop culture informed her sexuality, allowing her to realise her attraction to women in period costume and androgynous women.

Nick Cherryman

Nick talks about exploring their gender identity as a non-binary demi-guy and how as a teenager growing up in Milton Keynes they identified as a cis gay guy. Nick describes the Skins-like queer teenage house parties they used to go to. The discuss the experiences of being the only out gay person at their grammar school, and dressing in drag for mufti days. This period of their life informs their current performance as a drag queen. Nick talks about them and their queer school friends forming an incestuous chosen family dynamic which Nick likens to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. During this time Nick explored their sexuality though hunting for gay magazines in train station shops and finding camming websites where they experienced sexual exchanges with older gay men. As a teenager Nick was a Greebo and early Emo and was part of an alternative rock subculture which they and their friends used as a space to explore queer presentation. Nick also describes watching the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy with their mum and how for them the show was the first legitimised access to real life queer voices on TV.

Suus van den Berg

Suus is a history teacher from Leiden in the Netherlands who focuses on inclusive queer curriculums. During their teen years they briefly identified as bisexual and later on through exploring queer content on Tumblr identified as asexual. Currently they prefer to not assign labels to their sexuality. The feel the same way about their gender, identifying as non-binary. Suus describes having an awkward teenage style with band shirts and Emo fashion as well as loving Emily Strange. Over the years their confidence in their style has grown alongside their confidence in their sexuality and gender. Suus discusses their love of fandoms – as a teen they wrote a lot of fanfiction ,and used this fantasy space to explore queerness. Suus was also heavily into bandom and talks about their teenage experiences at gigs and music festivals, and talks us through the various ephemera they saved. Suus ends by encouraging young queer kids take their time in finding themselves, and the importance of learning your history.

queering the art classroom

Youth groups and youth projects are another way to explore LGBTQ+ stories and ways of seeing. Queering the Art Classroom are an organisation that work with GCSE students in London schools to explore gender and sexuality in the art curriculum. They work closely with student artists, investigating lots of different topics with openness and a focus on the creative process as opposed to outcomes.

bedlam chorus

Theatre is another way the LGBTQ+ community have told our stories. Bedlam Chorus are an LGBTQ-led theatre company whose play butterfly was performed at VAULT Festival in 2020. Written by Sam Arbor and Clodagh Chapman, the play is a kaleidoscope of different ways of sharing queer history through speech, song, dance, and drag.

“An Elizabethan woman stitches a beard from her pubic hair to marry the woman she loves. A Punjabi-speaking Muslim girl tries to make her parents understand who she is by translating the untranslatable. A drag queen fighting in World War II must literally lip sync for her life.”