Love Song to Lavender Menace

Love Song to Lavender Menace

By James Ley

Dramaturgy by Kate Fischer

Glossary

Further Reading and Watching

The Lavender Menace Bookshop & Its Place in History

List of Mentioned Books

Playlist of Mentioned Songs

Map of Mentioned Places

Glossary

“Wee poof”	Wee: meaning small Poof: a slur meaning gay man
Laughing Duck	An iconic gay club in Edinburgh. Drag performers, musicians, and actors were all celebrated at this club. It was most popular in the 1980s but closed in 1994 after financial struggles.
Gay Center	A queer organization in Scotland, which was the precursor to the Lavender Menace bookshop.
“over-egg the pudding”	An idiom meaning: (1) to make something seem larger, more important, better, or worse than it really is; (2) to spoil something by trying too hard to improve it.
Radio Forth	Two independent radio stations that are accessible in Edinburgh, Fife, and Lothians.
Fire Island	A famous gay club in Edinburgh. Sigrid and Bob first met at this club. It was a center for queer culture during its tenure. To get into the club, you had to go through a door next to a watchmaker. The club closed and is now a Waterstones.
Thelma Houston	American musician and philanthropist known for her Grammy-winning song "Don’t Leave Me This Way.” She was a stark advocate and financial supporter of organizations confronting the AIDS crisis.
“the other girls”	“Girl” being slang for a gay man.
“cop off”	To have sex with someone.
Turnhouse Airport	Meaning the Edinburgh International Airport located in a suburb called Turnhouse.
John Hanning Speke	19th century British captain in the British Indian Army who was the first European to lead an expedition to a huge freshwater lake that he dubbed Lake Victoria in 1850.
“ripped the piss”	To poke fun at someone.
“Utter wank”	Meaning complete nonsense. Wank is also slang for masturbate.
Felice Picano	A writer, critic, and publisher who elevated queer literature in the US.
Open Gaze	A gay bookstall that pre-dated Lavender Menace. Bob Orr (who co-founded Lavender Menace) founded this bookshop.
Gay Men’s Press	A publishing house that published over 300 books about queer stories between 1980 and 2000.
Sunshine Press	Another publishing house that focused on contemporary queer lit.
Grays of George Street	Famous hardware store in Edinburgh. Remained open for 190 years (1820-2010).
West and Wilde	The name of the bookshop that Sigrid and Bob opened after LM closed.
“ken”	To declare, acknowledge, or confess something.
Lothian	A region in the Scottish lowlands.
High-NRG	“Hi-NRG (pronounced ‘high energy’) is a genre of uptempo disco or electronic dance music (EDM) that originated in the United States during the late 1970s and early 1980s.”
The International Club	A queer club that pre-dates Fire Island. It was colloquially known as “the Nash”' during the 1960s.
“tea-tabling”	A good ol’ gossip session that’s all tea and all shade.
yobbish	Rude, noisy, and aggressive.
louche	“Not reputable or decent.”
“Smoke a fag”	Smoke a cigarette.
“Get the bends”	Two meanings: (1) to experience decompression sickness. (2) to be under the influence of drugs.
WH Smiths	A news stand in transit stations (think Hudson News in airports).
Old Brompton Road	A major road in a fancy section of London (South Kensington).
Coloherne Public House (aka Coloherne Arms)	A gay bar in west London that opened in the mid-1800s.
Waterstones	Bookstore chain in the UK.
Japes	A practical joke.
One o’clock gun	Monday through Saturday, at precisely 1pm, a large gun is shot from within Edinburgh Castle’s walls.
“bogs on Cathedral Lane”	“Bog” is a term for toilets. Also, historically there was a peat bog in the area next to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh near Cathedral Lane. This area is open to the public for hiking and other outdoor activities.
Hoover	Another word for vacuum, based on the company that produces them.
“Nancy”	Slang for an effeminate and/or gay man.
“Shirt lifter”	Slang for a bottom.
Playfair	William Henry Playfair was a UK architect active in the Victorian era, so this refers to buildings in his style.
“Cruisy”	Cruise: to go looking for someone to hook up with.
Andy Bell	An openly gay English musician who was part of the synth-pop band Erasure in the latter half of the 20th century.
Fogy	A person, usually older, who is old-fashioned or conservative.
Co-operative bank	A bank that is owned and controlled by a group of people who are themselves customers of the bank.
Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace	The name of the organization that rented out the space for Lavender Menace. This organization was founded to oppose the proposed construction of a nuclear energy plant in Scotland.
Munros	A Scottish term for a mountain that’s over 3000 feet tall.
moussaka	A traditional Greek eggplant casserole.
Hull	A port city in northeast England.
Mail order	Selling of goods to customers by mail, generally involving selection from a special catalog. Sigrid and Bob ordered most of their books from US publishing houses via mail order.
Dab hand	Someone who is skilled in a particular activity.
Gestetner	A Gestetner is a type of “duplicating machine” created by the Gestetner company in London in 1879. In the 20th century the term was used as a verb to mean duplicating. (Think “google” meaning “look up online.”)
Access credit cards	Access credit cards were developed in England in the 1960s, and in 1972 the plastic card became a standard for banking. The slogan for the company was “Access: Your Flexible Friend.” Watch one of their ads here.
Forth Road Bridge	A suspension bridge opened in 1964 and connects Edinburgh to Fife. It goes over the Firth of Forth, which is an estuary of the River Forth.
Lord Halsbury	Title held by John Anthony Hardinge Giffard, 3rd Earl of Halsbury, who was in the House of Lords and a key player in adopting Section 28.
Open Parliament Licence v3.0	The law that allows for many parliamentary documents to be shared without restrictions to the public.
The Meadows	The Meadows is a park in Edinburgh that, like Central Park in NYC, was a famous gay cruising ground.
Letraset	“The brand name for the original dry-transfer lettering product that revolutionized graphic design in the 1960s.”
Fife	A county in Scotland located on the eastern half of the country.
Corstorphine	A suburb of Edinburgh.
amyl nitrate	The chemical substance in poppers.
Gay’s the Word	Queer bookstore that remains open to this day. It is the oldest queer bookshop in the UK.
WPC Robertson	WPC stands for "woman police constable." Robertson is a made-up last name.
Niddrie, Pilton, Marchmont and Meadowbank	Various towns in Scotland.
Second Wave Feminism	A movement in feminism in the 1960s and 1970s that first developed in the US. This wave was characterized by a fight for freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex and race. This movement also engaged with the fight for reproductive rights and was a driving force behind the Equal Rights Amendment. However, discrimination for being part of the LGBTQ+ community was ok in their book. White Feminism at its finest.
National Organization for Women (NOW)	An American-based organization that was created during the height of second wave feminism. The organization was hostile towards lesbians and saw lesbian rights as a threat to women’s rights.
Second Congress to Unite Women	This conference, initiated by NOW, was the site of the Lavender Menace action led by queer women from multiple feminist organizations. The conference was a think tank for feminists during the second wave.
Martha Shelley	A lesbian activist in the US in the 20th century. She helped organize the pro-gay rallies that took place in Independence Hall between 1965 and 1969. Podcast about her here.
Karla Jay	A queer academic based in the US who innovated gay and lesbian studies at the academic level. She directed the Women and Gender Studies program at Pace University from 1974-2009.
Village People	A queer music group that rocketed into the mainstream music scene with hits like “YMCA,” which, despite its popularity among heterosexual audiences, is actually about being a gay man and going to a YMCA to hook up with another gay man.
Divine	An iconic American drag queen active from the 1960s until her sudden passing in 1988. She and camp legend John Waters were close collaborators.
“post the key”	Post means to mail.
truncheon	(1) a short, thick stick carried as a weapon by a police officer, or (2) a ceremonial staff/baton.
Chicano	Spanish word for a man of Mexican descent living in the US.

The Lavender Menace Bookshop & Its Place in History

If You Build It…

The Lavender Menace Bookshop, Scotland’s first queer bookstore, opened in August of 1982. Bob Orr and Sigrid Nielsen founded the shop together with the goal of creating a haven for queer people who love books and who want to be seen as they are. The store was a bustling queer community space. They hosted readings and discussion groups. They welcomed visiting authors and activists to speak. The shelves were lined with queer texts such as Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson. Volunteers, many of whom were queer, ran the day-to-day operations. The staff of the store even did original plays about the books they stocked. The store’s sign advertised that it was for “Edinburgh’s Lesbian and Gay Community” because, as their website states, “We had still to become aware of the importance of bisexual and transgender members of the community.”

Bob and Sigrid’s venture was an uphill fight. Queer businesses like theirs were highly visible in a time where UK law still restricted queer rights. Their store was a revolutionary act considering that, until two years prior, sex acts between consenting adult men were only partially decriminalized in Scotland. During the store’s tenure, AIDS ripped through the gay community while government officials mocked their plight. Banks refused to loan money to queer businesses. Gay couples were turned away at bed-and-breakfasts. Queer businesses themselves were targets for police raids and hate crimes.

Even supporters of Bob and Sigrid were nervous about the new store. One of their patrons expressed concern about the project’s longevity, asking, “Are there enough books?” The amount of queer literature in circulation was—and is—relatively small. In the 1980’s, most queer literature was released by queer publishing houses in the US. These wonderfully queer books were mailed to the UK and then immediately at risk of confiscation or destruction by UK customs officials and police. Books that involved queerness were often categorized as “pornographic,” regardless of the amount of sex in the story. Lucky for us, Bob and Sigrid were not deterred by this type of interference. They stocked all varieties of queer literature, from the squeaky clean to the downright dirty. They did not discriminate against their books or their patrons. The store survived and thrived for five years until it closed in 1987. It had begun to fade into the footnotes of history until 2017 when playwright James Ley published his newest play: Love Song to Lavender Menace. Bob and Sigrid were so moved by the dramatization that they decided to take a new step in the bookshop’s legacy. The Lavender Menace Bookshop was reborn as The Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive.

Who’s Up Next?

One of the unique aspects of the Lavender Menace Bookshop was its accessibility to queer youth. The loss of this space could not have come at a worse time for queer kids in Scotland. Life for a queer kid in the 1980’s, 1990’s, and early 2000’s was rough. For starters, “gay” was slang for “bad.” In this period, a survey of British citizens revealed that 75% felt that queerness was mostly or completely wrong. Thatcher bemoaned that, “Children are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.” Frankly, where this idea came from is a mystery. The UK has had centuries of oppressive laws directed at queer people, dating back to a 1533 law that made sex acts between men punishable by death. There has never been a time in UK history when being gay was framed by society as an “inalienable right.” These conservative speeches were full of scare tactics that would infect the UK for the next 40+ years. After all, Scotland would not legalize same-sex marriage until 2013.

The toxic environment created by conservatives in the UK impacts kids in (perhaps) unintended ways. A law known as Section 28 made life for queer kids near unbearable. A few months after Lavender Menace closed, this law came into effect across the UK. This law made it illegal for government-funded organizations and schools to “promote” homosexuality. Members of the House of Lords enacted the law in order to “protect children,” but in practice, this law directly harmed children. The law prevented teachers from interfering in cases of bullying and made it easy—even necessary–for schools to out students to their families. Interfering could be construed as “promoting” homosexuality because, by telling the bullies to stop harassing a queer student, the teacher was cosigning that student’s queer identity. Children were left vulnerable and wounded. During an interview with people who grew up under the shadow of Section 28, one interviewee sums up how the law affected his psyche: “All of those negative messages, internalized, made me hate myself.”

Without support at school, or even at home, many queer kids felt isolated. So where could a closeted person go to find relief from their queer isolation? Lavender Menace Bookshop and West & Wilde were both closed by the end of the millennium. Most queer spaces like these are located in metropolitan areas. The number of gay clubs and bars has dwindled. While there is plenty of space on the internet for queer community-building, that does not compare to sharing the same air with someone who reminds you of yourself.

If only these kids had access to queer literature and plays and movies and TV shows to help them envision a future—any future at all. How would Scotland look today if those queer children were given a future to look forward to? It is easy to imagine how a visit to a store like Lavender Menace can change the trajectory of a queer kid’s life. Also consider how a visit to this bookshop could have broadened lawmakers’ perspectives. If they had taken the time to read a story about growing up queer, told by a queer author, could they have cultivated empathy for queer people? And more importantly, how do we do that now? The fight for queer rights persists in spite of new legislation designed to oppress queer people. Because queer people are here to stay. We are the Lavender Menace and we are not going away.

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are

Many kids struggled to envision their adulthood as queer person because there were few out queer people they could look up to. Luckily, queer adults staged a range of awesome protests over the tenure of Section 28. The moment the law was ratified, a group of lesbian activists—or “Leaping Lezzies” as the papers stated—tied themselves to the bannister in the public gallery in the House of Lords and then “absailed” onto the chamber floor. Another group of lesbian protestors broke into the evening news broadcast at the BBC. Boy George released a protest song that you can listen to here. Sir Ian McKellen came out when the law passed in order to show the UK that queer people are already here and will remain here. Protests continued across the UK until the law was finally repealed in 2000. During these decades of protests, queer kids could catch glimpses of queer adults surviving and even thriving in spite of the hostile climate the UK created for queer people.

Further Reading and Watching:

Click the links below to learn more about queerness in Scotland from the 1980s to the present.

The Lavender Menace’s Current Website

Video and Written Interviews with Bob & Sigrid

What is Section 28? and History of Protests Against It Videos

Podcast and Written History of the Lavender Menace Protests in the US

List of Mentioned Books

Click the links to see the books for sale at our community partner PHILLY AIDS THRIFT @ GIOVANNI'S ROOM

Title	Author	Year	Description
Anal Pleasure and Health	Dr. Jack Morin	1980	A groundbreaking scientific publication that celebrates the erotic potential of the anus for people of all genders.
City of Night	John Rechy	1963	A novel about a young man who hustles his way through life and engages in raunchy encounters with other gay men. The story also includes a bit of autobiography. Rechy was one of many queer people who fought back against the LAPD’s violent homophobia. The LAPD had been harassing and attacking queer patrons at an LA donut shop in called Coopers Do-nuts in 1959. The patrons had enough and began pelting the cops with donuts and coffee. Rechy was arrested, but he managed to escape.
Giovanni’s Room	James Baldwin	1956	One of the most influential novels about gay and bisexual love. The novel follows David, an American living in Paris, as he navigates a romance with both his girlfriend Hella and a man named Giovanni. Giovanni is executed at the end of the novel after murdering his boss, who ran the bar where he and David met. Throughout the novel, Baldwin questions what it means to be a queer, a man, a woman, or an outcast. The novel ends with David mired in his internalized homophobia/biphobia.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit	Jeanette Winterson	1985	A coming-of-age novel that explores the trials endured by young lesbians in conservative/relgious communities. This novel follows Jeanette (same name as the author, but not the author) who is English and Pentecostal. When her mother discovers her daughter’s sexuality, she and the other women in their community forcibly perform exorcisms on Jeanette and her partner. The novel is now regularly used in A-level classes in the UK.
Querelle of Brest	Jean Genet	1947	This murder mystery follows a thief named Georges. Georges is not just a thief, though. He is also a sex worker, serial killer, and (gasp!) a bisexual.
Rubyfruit Jungle	Rita Mae Brown	1973	A coming-of-age book inspired by Brown’s childhood. The story follows a woman through her early romantic encounters as a kid and continues into her adulthood as she fights to build her identity and community as an out lesbian in the US in the 20th century. This is an early example of a lesbian coming-of-age novel. Thanks to Brown, there are now many more books in this genre.
Small Changes	Marge Piercy	1973	This novel follows two women who are discontent with their suburban American housewife status. The novel includes a romance between these two women. The story is informed by the second-wave feminist movement that was blossoming at this time.
Tales of the City	Armistead Maupin	1978-2014	A collection of nine novels that follows a (mostly) queer group of friends in San Francisco. Maupin began publishing these works as a newspaper serial. Later, he expanded the stories into novels and two televised mini series (1993 and 2019). The 2019 Netflict series centered on the events in the novel Babycakes, which is mentioned by name in this play.
The Color Purple	Alice Walker	1982	This Pulitzer-winning novel features stories of young queer Black women in America in the early 20th century. The story is filled with disturbing violence enacted by straight guardians against little children. The cruelty of those characters is challenged by the deep and tender love shared between the girls as they grow into young women. The book remains one of the most important pieces of American literature, as well as a frequent target for censorship/banned books lists.
The Feminine Mystique	Betty Friedan		A foundational text that is widely seen as the spark that lit the fires of second wave feminism. The text celebrates the wonders of womanhood, but only for cishet women.
The Gay Militants	Donn Teal	1971	This book was the first major history of the events that led up to the riot at Stonewall and the fallout that happened in the months following.
The Left Hand of Darkness	Ursula K. Le Guin	1969	This queer, award-winning sci-fi novel was one of the first of its kind. It follows a man named who embarks on a diplomatic mission to attempt to sway the people of a foreign planet to become a colony under his planet’s rule. The diplomat has a hard time communicating with and understanding the people of this planet as they are androgynous and ambisexual. The novel explores how communication impacts our ability to engage with queerness/otherness.
The Lost Language of Cranes	David Leavitt	1986	The book follows a young gay man and his parents through his coming out process. As the son struggles to carve out a happy home for himself, his father also struggles with his own closeted identity.
	Tom of Finland	1920-1991	Pseudonym used by Touko Valio Laaksonen. He wrote/drew a wealth of gay art that celebrated the eroticism of the hyper-masc gay man. “Tom gave form to an imaginative universe that in turn helped fuel real-world liberation movements and enabled gay men to access their strength in new ways.” See examples of his art HERE.
	Christopher Isherwood	1904-1986	Isherwood was an influential queer British-American author, playwright, and screenwriter. He diligently kept diaries about his daily life, which gave him fodder for incredibly deep and profound stories about queerness, power, ageism, racism, poverty, Anti-Semitism, and Sinophobia. His works include stories that are painfully contemporary and immediate. His semi-autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin features a character named Sally Bowles.
	E.M. Forster	1879-1970	Famed British author who penned novels like Howard's End, A Room with a View, and Where Angels Fear to Tread. His novels interrogate classism and how class divisions keep communities from thriving. He was openly homosexual with his friends but was never publicly out. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group.
	Edmund White	1940–Now	American author, biographer, and playwright celebrated for his books like The Joy of Sex. He is as celebrated for his stories about queer love as he is for his biographies of French historical figures. He was present at Stonewall in the summer of 1969.
	Virginia Woolf	1882-1941	This British author is revered for her unique stream-of-conscious writing style. Her major works include Mrs. Dalloway, A Room of One's Own, and Orlando. She was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Woolf was married to a man and had children, and she also had a lifelong and intimate relationship with Vita Sackville-West.
	Oscar Wilde	1854-1900	One of the most important and iconic British authors of all time. Wilde's works include The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Salome. Wilde was as out as a gay man could be in his time and suffered at the hands of the state for it. He was imprisoned in a labor camp after a degrading trial. He remains one of history's greatest gays.

Playlist of Mentioned Songs

Map of Mentioned Places

Interactive Map

Love Song to Lavender Menace

Contents