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A new interactive map launched Tuesday allows the public to explore more than 200 buildings of England’s LGBTQI heritage, many of which were hidden or undocumented.
The "Pride of Place" project, an initiative organized by Historic England and Leeds Beckett University, reveals sites as ancient as the street frequented by a medieval transgender sexworker, the place of an infamous cross-dressing ball in 1880, to the institution where Oscar Wilde spent part of his sentence of hard labor for “gross indecency.”
"You can see that the LGBT community is not just a modern phenomenon, it has been around throughout history, but now people are accepting it," Rosie Sherrington, social inclusion and diversity adviser at Historic England, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
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The project aims to bring attention to the histories of marginalized groups and acknowledges their contribution while also encouraging people to campaign for the protection of other historic buildings, Sherrington added.
People from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer communities are also invited to personally contribute their own landmarks they believe are key to their collective history.
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