Not Guilty Queer Stories from a Century of Discrimination
By Sue Elliott and Steve Humphries
Only fifty years ago, sex between men was a crime. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 changed that in part, sparking a chain of social reforms that altered the face of British society for ever. But it was only the beginning of the long fight for equality in the eyes of the law, in society and in millions of private lives.
This vital new oral history – to accompany a Channel 4 documentary of the same name – tells that story through the lives of gay men who lived through those years. Built around the intimate testimonies of some exceptional but largely unknown characters, it gives voice to previously untold stories of denial, deceit and subterfuge, public pain and secret pleasure through the ten tumultuous decades before and since that watershed Act.
The human variety of gay experience is all here: lives lived in joyous defiance of the law and a repressive society; others always in fear of a prurient tabloid press. Those committed to love and others to licence: lifelong affairs alongside casual sex.
Young gay men may now take for granted the equal treatment denied those who went before. This vibrant celebration of past achievements and hardwon freedoms offers a powerful reminder of how much has changed in the past fifty years, and a warning that hard-won freedoms can so easily be eroded in uncertain times.
Reviews
'Not Guilty does what social history should do, it allows voices from the past to rise up and speak directly to us. An incredibly moving and ultimately inspiring read.'
Stephen Fry
‘Half a century on, it’s hard to imagine the Britain that a glorious handful of campaigners helped change for ever. Here are the voices of gay men who lived through the years when equality was unimaginable, in a book that splashes colour on a period so often seen in black and white.’
Matthew Parris
Attitude Magazine's Book of the Month: ‘A powerful new history, nothing short of essential reading. […] The freedoms we enjoy today have been hard-won by real people on the front lines of equality and this book eloquently weaves their stories together. This is our history and we should all know it.’
Attitude
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- Paperback, 352 pages
- ISBN: 9781785902161
- 22 June 2017
- £12.99
- eBook
- ISBN: 9781785902901
- 22 June 2017
- £9.99