“Didn’t we meet in York?” It’s a question I’m still occasionally asked. And, quite possibly, the woman asking it is right – because, for an incredible decade between 1998 and 2008, the city of York was the unlikely capital of lesbian arts and culture in the UK.
Every October, thousands of women flocked to the Lesbian Arts Festival in York, to meet their favourite writers, buy books, hear top female artists perform on stage and dance the night away at the “disco of a thousand lesbians”. Looking through the old festival programmes is like taking a tour of lesbian culture in the noughties: Val McDermid, Sarah Waters, Sandi Toksvig, Sue Perkins, Rhona Cameron, Clare Summerskill, Horse, and O’Hooley & Tidow all appeared at the festival in those fabulous days.
Now, though, I often talk to younger women who have never heard of the York Lesbian Arts Festival (YLAF for short), or of Libertas!, the bookshop that gave birth to it.