Out and Proud

On Tuesday we went to the opening of the Private Lives, Public Battles exhibition at Newcastle's Discovery Museum. The museum has been transformed since I was last there, but that's a whole other story. In a small gallery off the massive and brightly-lit hall (previously an open courtyard) that houses the Turbinia, panels of text quote the reminiscences of gay people who have contributed to the Our Place in History project, and glass cases house T-shirts and badges, books and leaflets. While the press walked round the exhibition with the organisers and the local dignitaries in their chains of office, we hung around by the bar, and then eventually it was time for the speeches: a welcome from the Museums service, and Tim saying how astonished he was to find himself here, at the opening of an exhibition in a municipal museum, one of whose exhibits was a tape and slide show he had been forbidden by the municipality to use in teaching. We are indeed living in the future.

( Being a person who perceives parallels, I saw one here, totally out of proportion )