Over the Rainbow

The history of gay liberation has been a dance of two steps forward, a step backwards, and a few sideway jumps. The win of decriminalisation of gay sex in the 1960s only intensified political activism, for example. Later, just as the AIDS crisis came under medical control and neoliberalism embraced gay individualism, homosexuality turned from a political battleground into a lifestyle.

Those who thought that the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Britain in 2014 marked an end to decades of social, cultural, and political struggle, however, were soon proven wrong. Today, a new fight for another vision of LGBTQ+ freedom rages on, consuming the political and intellectual legacies of the earlier movements. The activism of identity has been the fodder for a culture war which, by some accounts, is wholly detached from the project of sexual liberation.

How should today’s emancipated subject understand the entanglement of civic equality, sexual freedom, and identity? Was sexual liberation the first step of a slippery slope or part of a radical plan whose details were forgotten in history’s twists and turns? The event will bring together perspectives from activists and critics whose work marked some of the most significant points in the journey over the rainbow.