Author(s): David Gould

LGBTI & Queer Studies | 2023 Top 30

Sitting down in a series of interviews with 27 men aged between 74 and 95, David Gould discovered lives - now rapidly being lost to history - that were lived under the shadow of homophobic prejudice. Their stories reveal how men tried to make sense of their same-sex attraction in an era when homosexuality was defined as a mental illness and criminal. Their narratives reveal how these men made sense of their lives and desires, how they responded to social expectations about family and marriage and found sex at a time when it was proscribed by law, condemned by society, and luridly sensationalised by the media. Many of them suffered terribly, but what also emerge are stories of resilience and, sometimes, joy.