Abstract

In this talk based on a decade of research, Dr Justin Bengry uncovers more than a century of evidence showing the relationships between businesses and LGBTQ people, and not always in ways we expect. Whether seeking to sell books to those with ‘Bulgarian Tendencies’ in the 1910s to publishing queer personal ads and decrying ‘Evil Men’ in the 1950s, we see that long before Pride Parades and glossy gay and lesbian lifestyle magazines, commerce and homosexuality were already well acquainted. 

Justin Bengry is a queer historian, public speaker and writer based in London and holds appointments at the University of Oxford, King’s College London and the University of Exeter. He was Director of the University of London’s Centre for Queer History at Goldsmiths where he also founded and led the world’s only MA in Queer History from 2017 to 2024. He has written extensively on the history of the pink pound, the ‘gay pardon’, and LGBTQ + press, and is co-editor of two books: Locating Queer Histories: Places and Traces across the UK with Matt Cook and Alison Oram and A Queer Scrapbook; Britain and Ireland since 1945 with Matt Cook, Rebecca Jennings and E-J Scott.