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TGEOGRAPHICAL Geography of sexuality hirty-one years ago, the May 1990 edition of this magazine featured the headline ‘Geography of homosexuality’. The relevant article, written by Lawrence Knopp, then an assistant professor in the department of geography at the University of Minnesota, set out the key themes of a burgeoning field of research, pointing out that there are geographical consequences to the way in which society treats homosexuality. Subsequent letters, many published in the following issue, reveal that not all readers deemed this to be an appropriate topic, particularly for a publication that might be read by schoolchildren. Section 28 – the infamous British law that prohibited the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ by local authorities – was in force (it wasn’t repealed in England and Wales until 2003) and even an academic article was considered by some to fall within this loose definition. ‘I probably had hoped for a slightly different reception, but I wasn’t surprised,’ says Knopp, now officially retired but still producing work in the field at the University of Washington. Along with British academics Gill Valentine and David Bell, he now considers himself one of ‘the first people in geography who didn’t pay a high price for doing what we did. There were some folks before us in the 1970s and ’80s who paid very high prices for trying to even talk about this stuff. I’d like to think that my article in Geographical provided some legitimacy.’ Yet the idea that sexuality, and our treatment of it, has geographical consequences is hardly surprising or controversial. Knopp was one of the earliest to look at the phenomenon in an academic context in the USA. Since then, the field has grown enormously. Practitioners all around the world trace the geographical repercussions of sexuality (including heterosexual sexuality), from its impact on migration, refugee status and tourism to street protest and the differences between urban and rural areas. ‘Geography is about people in place and you can’t understand people in our contemporary era without understanding how we’re constructed sexually, as much as through gender, race and ethnicity,’ explains Kath Browne, a professor of geography at University College Dublin whose work has focused strongly on ‘gay Brighton’. ‘Any contemporary city where you have, say, red light districts or areas where certain forms of sexuality are disapproved of and end up in particular spaces – you can’t understand that city without understanding how those spaces are formed. I would actually argue that you can’t really understand the 21st century without understanding the sexual and gendered norms that have shifted so massively.’ SHUTTERSTOCK/INDIAVIAMIRROR CITIES AND HOMOSEXUALITY When it comes to sexuality, cities aren’t everything. In fact, a growing body of research focuses on rural experiences. Nevertheless, the metropolis is a logical starting place for any consideration of the geography of sexuality. A glance at most Western cities reveals that gay districts are as ubiquitous as Chinatowns and Irish pubs. In the literature, references to ‘gay meccas’, ‘gay capitals’ and ‘gaybourhoods’ are common. Areas within London, Brighton, Manchester, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Sydney (the ‘gay capital of the South Pacific’), Berlin, Rome, Cape Town and many others have all claimed these titles at some point. In fact, the presence of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) people and venues in these locations is often the continuation of a much older, if more hidden, trend. George Chauncey, a professor of history at New York’s Columbia University and the author of Gay New York has demonstrated in his work that a gay–lesbian world with clear spatial characteristics already existed in that city by the end of the 19th century. Much of the academic literature has therefore been concerned with examining these spaces. Most recently, however, the narrative has been one of decline. 34 . GEOGRAPHICAL
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Two men kiss at the tenth Delhi Queer Pride Parade in November 2017 ‘These spaces were little pockets within the city where people really felt safe, but also where they were absolutely celebrated’ Take London, for example. In 2017, a pivotal audit by the Urban Laboratory at University College London revealed that since 2006, the number of venues for LGBTQ Londoners had fallen from 124 to 47, a loss of nearly 60 per cent. According to the report, rent hikes from landlords and construction for London housing and public transport projects were the main reasons for the fall. London Mayor Sadiq Khan was quick to react, saying that urgent action needed to be taken in light of the ‘shocking’ statistics. He pledged to do all he could to protect the capital’s LGBTQ nightlife, a policy that now comes under the remit of his ‘night czar’ Amy Lamé who, appropriately enough, has run the LGBTQ club night Duckie since the mid-1990s. The situation can be seen across almost all of the cities once deemed LGBTQ hubs (although Berlin remains a notable outlier). In 1973, the number of gay bars in San Francisco peaked at 118; today, there are fewer than 30. Across the board, spaces for queer women have dwindled to almost nothing – there’s only one dedicated lesbian bar in London, for example. The result is a scene in which only the most profitable locations remain open, some of which then become unpleasantly commercialised. Spaces that were once for the most marginalised are taken over by everyone else and no longer fulfil the same purpose. Governments deliberately market them to tourists, making them less useful as a meeting place for locals or for those lacking funds. Does any of this matter? In a world where legal rights for LGBTQ people are improving, are separate spaces still necessary? WHAT’S IN A NIGHT? One of the easiest ways to pinpoint the importance of LGBTQ spaces is to look to the past. The so-called gaybourhoods of the late 20th and early 21st centuries weren’t just important from a social perspective, they were political spaces where people rallied, planned and MAY 2021 . 35

Two men kiss at the tenth Delhi Queer

Pride Parade in November 2017

‘These spaces were little pockets within the city where people really felt safe, but also where they were absolutely celebrated’

Take London, for example. In 2017, a pivotal audit by the Urban Laboratory at University College London revealed that since 2006, the number of venues for LGBTQ Londoners had fallen from 124 to 47, a loss of nearly 60 per cent. According to the report, rent hikes from landlords and construction for London housing and public transport projects were the main reasons for the fall. London Mayor Sadiq Khan was quick to react, saying that urgent action needed to be taken in light of the ‘shocking’ statistics. He pledged to do all he could to protect the capital’s LGBTQ nightlife, a policy that now comes under the remit of his ‘night czar’ Amy Lamé who, appropriately enough, has run the LGBTQ club night Duckie since the mid-1990s.

The situation can be seen across almost all of the cities once deemed LGBTQ hubs (although Berlin remains a notable outlier). In 1973, the number of gay bars in San Francisco peaked at 118; today, there are fewer than 30. Across the board, spaces for queer women have dwindled to almost nothing – there’s only one dedicated lesbian bar in London, for example. The result is a scene in which only the most profitable locations remain open, some of which then become unpleasantly commercialised. Spaces that were once for the most marginalised are taken over by everyone else and no longer fulfil the same purpose. Governments deliberately market them to tourists, making them less useful as a meeting place for locals or for those lacking funds.

Does any of this matter? In a world where legal rights for LGBTQ people are improving, are separate spaces still necessary? WHAT’S IN A NIGHT? One of the easiest ways to pinpoint the importance of LGBTQ spaces is to look to the past. The so-called gaybourhoods of the late 20th and early 21st centuries weren’t just important from a social perspective, they were political spaces where people rallied, planned and

MAY 2021 . 35

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