Coming Out – Joshua Dennis reviews Jeffrey Weeks’s thoughtful essay on gay emancipation

This book is clearly an important contribution to both a historical and contemporary understanding of what it meant (and means) to be part of Britain’s LGBT community. The early stages are well described, with some very clear ideas as to the significant milestones and influences that provided the very earliest building blocks for the progress, integration and acceptance that much of the LGBT community enjoys today.


The early narrative is particularly evocative for younger readers, replete as it is with challenging depictions of the struggles earlier generations faced, particularly in a time of far greater religious fervour and influence.

As the book develops, it becomes evident that progress towards developing a coherent and sustainable LGBT consciousness cannot be taken for granted – I was particularly struck by the struggles of the lesbian community to make any progress of their own in breaking down the social conservatism of earlier times, even when the concept of male homosexuality was at last gaining some traction as an ‘acceptable’ alternative lifestyle.

I was aware of a concerted attempt from Jeffrey Weeks to take the time to explicitly place the greater acknowledgement and acceptance of LGBT identities in the context of the changing and developing social mores and standards of the time. Change did not happen in a vacuum and it was clear that, however confronting and disappointing some of the treatment of my forbears was, any positive change was extremely valuable and hard-won, coming as it did at the expense of many false dawns and challenges. The change was of its time.

Any member of the LGBT community reading this text today will – and perhaps should – have a sense of their own fortune to be living in a time when there is the least social pressure yet to conform to the norms of what does remain an overwhelmingly heteronormative society.

However, this knowledge and gratitude does not diminish an understanding from Weeks, that there remain a great many hurdles to overcome if we are to reach the (surely desirable) point where the fact of someone’s sexuality, or identity of any kind, is a complete irrelevance.

Despite an appreciation of the importance of this book and the contribution it clearly makes, it did become a particularly challenging read in the middle section. Perhaps the subject matter would always have made it so, but there were significant parts of the prose that became inaccessible in the extreme to the general reader, and many may not enjoy this type of writing.

The highly intellectual and esoteric nature of some parts of the narrative did not lend this book to being the most accessible read. Even this voracious, experienced and engaged reader found himself unable to keep up with anything but the most general principles at some stages of the narrative.

Towards the end of the piece, the greater relevance of the time-frame did increase my engagement with the narrative. I was particularly grabbed by the accounts of the development of the Gay Liberation Front from the early 1970s and its relevance through the 1980s. The overwhelming, almost self-sabotaging desire of the GLF to forge and imbed a meaningful identity, (with so many competing visions and priorities) resonated with the manner in which this author approaches many of his own personal goals related to relationships and identity.

The impact of Section 28, formally implemented on 24 May 1988, also had particular resonance for me as it demonstrated the possibility of some of the hard-won progress towards equality. As someone born when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, I am acutely aware that much of the progress that is apparent in 2017 would not have been possible had Section 28 still been on the statute book.

Notwithstanding these stand-out features of the latter stages, I think this text best serves as a reference point, or material that interested individuals can use to dip in and out of parts that they find most relevant to them. It was perhaps never intended as such, but I nevertheless cannot recommend Coming Out as a book that everyone will enjoy – important though it is to the ever-expanding tapestry of literature that accompanies, develops and augments our understanding of what it can mean to be different in today’s world.

It is an extremely specialist text and certainly not a light read. Despite this, if approached with these cautions in mind, interested readers will undoubtedly add to their understanding of the important issue of our times.


Coming Out is out now, published by Quartet Books, RRP £14.99

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