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The LGBT History Project is an LGBT online encyclopedia – a wiki web site. Its aim is to record the knowledge and memories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people living in the UK. It’s a virtual time-capsule, capturing the experiences of our time – the changing law and challenges, the amazing response health epidemics, the  newspapers and magazines that come and go, TV programmes,   sports, lesbian, gay, bi and trans  businesses, arts, music and theatre, and of course  events,  pubs and   clubs. Anything you can think of that has been related to you as an LGBT  person. You can even write about yourself!

Finding information
There are several ways to find information on this site. Note that anywhere you see a word or phrase in blue, you can click on it and be taken to the item in question. If you see words in red, they are links to an article that hasn't been written yet.


 * browse by date: a good place to start browsing this website is Timeline of UK LGBT History; for links to some more specific timelines see Category:Timelines.


 * browse by category: to get an overview of the range of material that we cover, go to Category:Main categories.


 * browse by area of the country: our map on the United Kingdom page gives an overview of our geographical coverage, and our maps of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland give links to places round the country


 * see our small list of Selected articles


 * take pot luck: use the Random page link at the left.


 * search for a particular item, using the search box at the top right of the page.

Who is writing it?
You are! If you know a bi, gay, trans or lesbian person, have been a member of a gay club, read a gay newspaper, have  a memory of going out with your mates to a gay pub or club, we want to hear about it – wherever you are in the country. If you’ve never done anything gay, because there was nothing in your area, or you were too scared, we want to hear about that too! We also want to hear from those that run gay clubs, businesses, venues, media – when did they start, who started them? Why were they started? Who joined?

Alternatively you can write something personal to you, a ‘vox-pop’. This could be your ‘coming out’ story, or your experience of visiting your first gay bar. These first-person stories are valuable for academics who seek ‘qualitative primary sources’ – i.e. a story that is not necessarily factual, but gives a glimpse of your personal experience and your own viewpoint. If you created one of these, there’s no need to disclose your actual name, and prefix the page title with ‘VP’ and suffix it with the year, e.g. “VP: Joe B’s Coming Out 1985” or “VP: Joe B’s first gay bar 2001”.

If you want to know where to start contributing, click ‘Special pages’ and then ‘Wanted pages’ – this will give a list of page links that have currently not been written. Pages that do not currently have links to, but which we think are important to create, can be found at Articles needed.

We've recently created a new category of "Stub" pages - there are pages with only the most basic information, which we haven't yet had the time or the information to make into a proper article. Any help on these would be very welcome. See Category:Stubs.

Getting started
If you want to enter or edit information, create an account by emailing [mailto:jonathan@lgbthistoryuk.org jonathan@lgbthistoryuk.org] with your name, email address, a chosen ‘Username’, for this site, and Jonathan will send you a password. If you have an area of interest or represent an organisation, please include that in your email.

Once you have your password, you can log in and search for a term, using the search field below the login field. Use the correct spelling, upper- and lower-case letters, as appropriate, because, if the article does not exist already, it will ask you to create a page with this exact title. If you’re creating a page that’s the name of an organisation, use the full name (e.g. “The European Gay and Lesbian Sports Federation”), then put the initials (e.g. “EGLSF”) in brackets after the name in the body of the article. We recommend missing out the word “The” in the page title, as it makes it easier for people to find the page.

e.g. The European Gay and Lesbian Sports Federation (EGLSF) is the umbrella association for LGBT sports clubs in Europe…

If the page already exists, you may edit it using the “edit” tab, if the page does not already exist, it will ask you if you want to create it – click the red title to create the page. Then start writing. Alternatively, click on the “Special pages” link in the left-hand Toolbox, click onto “All pages” or “Wanted pages” to browse what’s been done, and what links need new pages. If you edit someone else’s page, it’s always a good idea to describe what you did in the ‘Summary’ field, before you save it.

Guidelines to writing
  use a neutral point of view, avoid articles that read like adverts  use the third person throughout — avoid “I”, “we”, or “you” (unless you’re writing personal quotation)  be careful with statements about living people that could be libellous  don’t mention people’s HIV status unless relevant and publicised  supply references for any contentious statements  don’t copy from other websites and books without permission from the copyright owner  be aware that you don’t own what you’ve written and other people may change it  don’t hide the URLs of external web sites  use modern UK spelling and punctuation conventions, for instance "theatre" rather than "theater" and "E M Forster" rather than "E. M. Forster" (but keep the original spelling etc in direct quotations)  for consistency, we've chosen to use plural for category names 

Pictures
A picture tells a thousand words! Pictures are welcome on all articles, but we need to beware of the law of copyright. Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/ - is a very useful source of illustrations that are free to use, and very easy to incorporate into an article on this Wiki. We also welcome pictures for which you have the copyright (for instance photos you've taken yourself) or where you've got written permission from the copyright owner. You might even consider uploading your pictures to Wikimedia Commons, so that other sites such as Wikipedia can make use of them.

To include a picture in an article use the following code:, replacing " " with the filename of the picture (on this Wiki or on Wikimedia Commons), and " " with a short caption which will appear under the photo. Take a look at some of our illustrated articles (or the rainbow flag in this section) for examples.

Suggested topics
  Art  Awards  Bisexuality <li> Black and minority ethnic <li> Businesses <li> Campaigns <li> Crime <li> Events <li> Health <li> History and archives <li> Legislation <li> Lesbianism <li> LGBT culture and lifestyle <li> Lists <li> Media <li> Music <li> Online resources <li> Organisations <li> People <li> Politics <li> Relationships <li> Religion <li> Sports <li> Trans <li> Venues </ul> Remember, this is aimed to be UK-only LGBT History. Take a look at our main categories page.

And see also our Articles needed page for a list of subjects that ought to be covered but haven't been yet.

Press
To see the recent media coverage about this site, see the page: LGBT History Project in the press

LGBT Archives and research

 * Gay History and Literature by Rictor Norton http://rictornorton.co.uk/
 * Hall-Carpenter Archives at the LSE http://www2.lse.ac.uk/library/archive/holdings/lesbian_and_gay_archives.aspx
 * Lesbian & Gay Foundation http://www.lgf.org.uk/
 * LAGNA – Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive at the Bishopsgate Institute http://www.lagna.org.uk
 * London Metropolitan Archives http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Records_and_archives/
 * Manchester Source Guide http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_studies/520/lgbt_source_guide/1
 * National Archives "Out There" http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/out-there.htm
 * Outhistory (American): http://outhistory.org/
 * Scarlet Collection http://vc.lib.harvard.edu/vc/deliver/browseCombine?_collection=scarlet
 * Stradivarius http://www.kemglen.talktalk.net/stradivarius/OurHistory18cent.htm