Saving Gay's the Word, and Being Gay in the 80s

6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

14th June 2018, FREE (booking essential)

 

Saving Gay's the Word and Being Gay in the 80s, will now be held as a finale event to mark the end of the Queer Between The Covers season at Senate House Library.

Hear Graham McKerrow, who worked for the Defend Gay's The Word campaign and was a  founder of the important and influential newspaper Capital Gay, in conversation with Jim MacSweeney, manager of Gay's the Word, on the raid on the shop by H.M. Customs in 1984, which saw all of its foreign-published stock impounded, and the wider experience of being gay in 80s London.

**Note: This event was previously planned for 27 February but has been rescheduled to 14 June 2018. All tickets booked will be transferred to this date.**

This event will include the Library's audience response project, inviting all participants who identify as LGBTQ+ to talk about a work of literature which has had meaning in their lives.

Jim MacSweeney came to the UK in 1982 to study drama. While living in London he came out as a gay man. After working for a number of years with Minority Rights Group he joined Gay's The Word in 1989 which he's managed for the last 20 years.

Graham McKerrow has been involved in gay activism since 1974. As a journalist he has been involved with many publications including Gay News, Capital Gay, Paris Passion and Positive Nation. In 1986 Graham was seconded as one of two co-ordinators of the Defend Gay’s the Word Campaign to organise a political defence for the staff and directors of Gay’s The Word bookshop in Marchmont Street, London, WC1, who faced charges of conspiring to import indecent material following a series of co-ordinated raids by Customs and Excise officers.