Scottish history is laden with the sense of loss, from the Highland clearances to... Glasgow’s lesbian bars that closed down in the 1990s!
In this episode, Adam takes a tour of those voided queer spaces with one of their old disco dykes, Natalie Wilson. He also hears from archivist Mel Reeve about the missing queer and bisexual elders from our collective past, and Rob Crawford, who reflects on the decades he lost due to gay shame. Finally he heard the story of Reach Out Highland, a trans-inclusive sexual health organisation from the 1990s, from Julia Gordon.
It’s a moving set of stories covering several locations in Scotland, adding more patches to our quilt of queer Britain!
The Digital Transgender Archive can be found here.
For this episode we’d like to thank Mel Reeve from the Bi History Project, Hannah Justad, Ellie Muniandy and colleagues at the National Library of Scotland in Glasgow, Dagny, Carrie Marshall, and the staff at Musselburgh Sports Centre.
The Quilt is an Aunt Nell Production, in partnership with Queer Britain, the UK's first and only LGBTQ+ museum, and funded by Mindsets and Missions.
It is hosted and produced by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith.
Music by Rhiannon Takel.
The assistant producer was Marnie Woodmeade.
The associate producers for Queer Britain were Sue Shave, Siân Williams and Katharine Dick.
Mixed and mastered by David Pye.
Mindsets + Missions is funded by UK Research and Innovation in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and delivered by the Museums Association in partnership with The Liminal Space and the Association for Science and Discovery Centres.
Queer Britain museum is located at Granary Square, Kings Cross in London. It is free to visit and is open from Wednesday to Sunday, 12-6pm.
If you’d like to talk to anyone about any issues raised in this podcast, you can always contact Switchboard - the LGBTQIA+ helpline on switchboard.lgbt or 0800 0119 100.