Outing the LGB History of West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire Archive Service is creating and supporting digital community archive projects to record and preserve the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual history of West Yorkshire, and they need your memories to do it!

West Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS) exists to preserve the county's heritage of historical documents and to help members of the public make use of them. As part of their on-going outreach work, WYAS recently received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to work on four projects, creating online community archives for different groups in West Yorkshire. One of these projects will focus on the LGB history of West Yorkshire.

For too long, LGB history has been marginalised, misrepresented or left out of the history books and archives altogether. WYAS will create and maintain LGB online community archives to ensure the experiences and memories of lesbian, gay and bisexual people of West Yorkshire are recorded and preserved for the benefit, heritage and empowerment of West Yorkshire’s LGB communities, and as a tool of education and engagement for the wider community.

WYAS is looking for people to be interviewed to record oral histories for the archives and is interested in all kinds of stories from across the county: memories of decriminalisation and campaigns, tales of marches, parades and festivals, experiences of community, identity, health and relationships, the list is endless! So whether you’re young, old or somewhere in the middle, newly-out or a veteran of the scene, new to West Yorkshire or born-and-bred, the project needs your stories!

If you would like more information about the project, it activitites in your district, or if you are interested in participating, please contact Fiona Cosson, Archive Project Worker, on email fcosson@wyjs.org.uk or telephone 0113 2898 223. Please be assured that the project will treat your story in the strictest confidence and will not use your name or details without your permission.

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