Archive: 2009-2012

More of a time capsule, maybe?

Out In The City was a free magazine aimed at gay urban professionals in the early 2010s.

Dusting off past work I did for the magazine, I was struck by how much the LGBTQ landscape has changed. Pre-Covid. Pre-Grindr. Pre-smartphones. There is a much more tangible sense of a physical community. Out in the City captured the final years of the analogue gay community — a world organised around physical places, print listings, and scheduled encounters.

I was also struck by how unique the magazine was. Blending pop star interviews with surrogacy ads and property listings, it appealed to gay men who didn't necessarily identify with queer club culture.

The columns we wrote (cheeky, navel-gazing, and often silly!) unexpectedly reflected the politics of the time. Perhaps they provide a humorous and at times unexpected snapshot, raising underlying questions about what it was like to be LGBTQ in the early 2010s.