Councillor SAM WHEELER says there’s a tangible shift in mood on the left in the city whose mayor has recently become PM — but there’s no room for complacency
TWO years ago, at the end of February 2018, a plaque was unveiled at Holy Trinity Church in York. The plaque replaced a previous short-lived plaque that had angered thousands of York residents and LBGT activists all over the country.
The new plaque had a corrected rainbow edging and the wording: “Anne Lister, 1791-1840, of Shibden Hall, Halifax, Lesbian and Diarist, took sacrament here to seal her union with Ann Walker, Easter 1834.”
The original mealy mouthed plaque included the description “Anne Lister 1791-1840 Gender-nonconforming entrepreneur...” as well as a multi-coloured edging no LBGT person could recognise as a rainbow.
ALEX HALL treads warily through a messy, dialectical struggle fought in the mundane machinery of driving licences, criminal law, and birth registries
DIANE WATT argues that while evidence of sex is not there, a 16th‑century lesbian poet could be Scotland’s answer to Gentleman Jack
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces



