Why Britain needs a museum dedicated to gay rights

Protestors took to the streets today to demand a space dedicated to the history of the LGBTQI movement.

I remember the first time I went to the Leslie-Lohman Museum, a gallery of gay and lesbian art in New York. I was 21, lonely in the city, and part of the reason I wanted to visit was to find people to talk to in a place that wasn’t a bar or club. I think I was lonely in a bigger sense too, and my interest in queer art and history was a way to connect with people, alive or dead, who inspired me with the unconventional paths they had carved through life.

There’s a surprising array of niche museums in the UK; a pencil museum in Cumberland, a dog collar museum in Leeds, and a mustard museum in Norwich, but as it stands, there is no museum dedicated to LGBTQI+ history, arts and culture. No one-stop-shop for kids to learn about the rich history of gay rights (which still isn’t taught about in schools), or for queer people to go and reflect on their political and personal identities. Which is why protestors took to the streets of London today to demand one.

The group of activists and queer historians started at 9am this morning, leaving a pink filing cabinet outside the former site of a Victorian Molly House in Camden, before moving on to nine other historic locations to do the same, including Regent’s Park, the home of London’s first Black Pride, and King Street in Covent Garden, which was the Gay Liberation Front’s meeting place.

Granted, the pink filing cabinet is a bit of an obvious metaphor, but it’s there to ask an obvious question: why is the history of gay rights still made invisible, still made to gather dust?

For me, a permanent gay and trans rights museum in the UK is a no brainer. It would be an acknowledgement that this history exists – that people had to fight for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, which has its 50^th birthday next year. It would be a place for queer people to convene, which is especially important given that so many other gay spaces are closing their doors in London. It would support queer artists. And it would educate people, straight, LGBTQI+ or otherwise, about an important part of the UK’s history.

Dan Glass is one of the activists involved in running today's campaign. For him, there are two main arguments in favour of the museum. “I think it would be nourishing,” he says, “It would bring a sense of belonging, identity, depth to who we are and where we’re from.” There are also, he believes, more practical benefits: “On an economic level, it will provide huge amounts of tourism to London, putting us on the map as a pioneering city that cherishes what its LGBTQI+ population brings to society.”

On a personal level, Dan believes that a space like this is not just wanted but vitally needed. “Like so many other LGBTQI+ people, I haven’t had the easiest ride in understanding who I am and who paved the way for me before. When I was depressed and experiencing homophobia, an LGBTQI+ history museum would have done me a world of good. Luckily I survived through that time but a huge number of less fortunate kids don’t. I know we have Pride, but that’s mostly lead by cis, white, able bodied gay men. This museum would need to celebrate every section of the community.”

When I went to the Leslie Lohman, the show that was on was at the time was the work of photographer Del LaGrace Volcano, who bulldozes binary ideas of gender, race and sexuality. In that exhibition, I saw bodies I’d never seen before, some naked, some up close and personal; androgynous bodies, transitioning bodies, intersexed bodies. It was an education, and one I wished would have been available to me a little closer to home.

When I think how New York has that space, and Berlin has the Schwules Museum, which has been dedicated to exhibitions about gay culture since 1985, I feel even more puzzled about why London doesn’t have a space like the one Dan describes. It’s not like the demand is not there; mainstream museums and art institutions in the UK regularly dedicate their walls to LGBTQI exhibitions; portraits of LGBT Jewish people recently went on display at the Jewish Museum and there’s the upcoming “Queer British Art” show at the Tate.

Could it be something to do with funding? “Of course. In the age of austerity, the government would say ‘we can’t afford that’,” says Dan, when I put this question to him, “But I really think it’s up to the Greater London Authorities to provide it. The GLA are spending money on things like the Garden Bridge across the River Thames. I mean, the mind boggles. It’s like, ‘really? Is that celebrating the beauty and breadth of London communities?’”

Amelia Abraham is a freelance journalist and contributing editor to Refinery29

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21 November 2016

No, John McDonnell, people earning over £42,000 have not been "hit hard" by the Conservatives

The shadow chancellor's decision to support this tax cut is as disappointing as it is innumerate.

John McDonnell has backed Conservative plans to raise the point at which you start paying the 40p rate (that’s 40p of every pound earned after you hit the threshold) to above £45,000 by April 2017 (part of the Conservative manifesto pledge to raise the 40p rate so that it only covers people earning above £50,000 by 2020).

Speaking to the BBC, the shadow chancellor said that those affected “need a tax giveaway at the moment because the mismanagement of the economy by the Conservatives is hitting them hard”.

Is he right? Well, let’s crunch some numbers. Let’s say I earn £42,000, my partner doesn’t work and we have two children. That puts our household in the upper 30 per cent of all British earners, and, thanks to changes to tax and benefits, we are 1.6 per cent worse off than an equivalent household in 2010. Have we been “hit hard”? Well, no, actually, in point of fact, we have been the least affected of any household with children of the coalition.

The pattern holds for every type of household that will feel the benefit of the 40p rate hike. Those with children have seen smaller decreases (1.0-2.3 per cent) in their living standards that those in the bottom three-quarters of the income distribution. The beneficiaries of this change without children, excluding pensioners, who have done well out of Conservative-led governments but are unaffected by this change, have actually seen increases in their tax-home incomes already under David Cameron. There is no case that they need a bigger one under Theresa May.

But, nonetheless, they’re getting one, and it’s the biggest bung to higher earners since Margaret Thatcher was in office. For context: a single parent family earning £42,000 is in the top 15 per cent of earners. A family in which one person is earning above £42,000 and the other is working minimum wage for 16 hours to look after their two children is in the top 13 per cent. A single person earning £42,000 is in the top 6 per cent of earners.

That’s before you get into the big winners from this policy, because higher earners tend to marry other higher earners. A couple with one person earning £45,000 and the other earning £35,000 is in the top three per cent of earners. A couple in which both are earning £45,000 with one child are in the top four per cent. (Childless couples earning above average income are, incidentally, the only working age demographic to do better since 2010 than under New Labour.)

And these are not cheap tax cuts, either. To meet the Conservative proposal to raise the 40p rate to £50,000 by 2020 will cost £9bn over the course of the parliament, and giving a tax cut to “hard-pressed” earners on £42,000 will cost around £1.7bn.

The political argument for giving up on taxing this group is fairly weak, too. Hostilty to tax rises among swing voters extends all the way up to the super-rich, so Labour’s commitment to the top rate of tax has already hurt them among voters. To win support even for that measure, the party is going to have to persuade voters of the merits of tax-and-spend – it makes no sense to eschew the revenue from people in the top five per cent of earners while still taking the political pian.

Which isn’t to say that people earning above £42,000 should be tarred and feathered, but it is to say that any claim that this group has been “hit hard” by the government or that they should be the target for further tax relief, rather than clawing back some of the losses to the Exchequer of the threshold raise and the planned hike in the higher rate to £50,000, should be given extremely short shrift.

Stephen Bush is special correspondent at the New Statesman. His daily briefing, Morning Call, provides a quick and essential guide to British politics.