We complain these days of queer representation on TV and in movies, but some of our greatest LGBTQ2S+ cultural ambassadors have been writers. From impassioned poet Walt Whitman, the scathing wit of Oscar Wilde and gender-questioning Virginia Woolf to more modern figures like James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Yukio Mishima and the Tom Ripley books, Patricia Highsmith, writers have captured our queer lives and sensibilities better than anyone. They’ve made us visible on the page, which has led to us being more visible in society and on the screens we love so much.
Visiting the various places where these titans were born, wrote their books, loved their lovers, walked the streets and were buried can be a deeply moving travel experience. Emotional sweep aside, literary tours can be a super fun way to explore a new city. The guides and group members are likely to be fellow nerdy queers. The routes and sites are beyond the usual tourist traps. Extended rumination upon the role of queer literary figures in the march toward equality is purely optional.
Of course, LGBTQ2S+-focused literary tours are a niche attraction. We’ve scoured the globe to find queer literary tours in major cities around the world. We’ve also given the details for our own self-guided tour of one of our favourite cities.
Greenwich Village Queer Literary History Walk
Greenwich Village in New York City was home to an extraordinary, dynamic literary scene before the 1969 Stonewall Riots galvanized the equality movement in the United States. Journalist and filmmaker Jillian Eugenios meets participants in Washington Square before taking them on a journey through time, covering the literary scene as well as Broadway’s theatre scene. What sets this tour apart is Eugenios’s focus on the women and people of colour who were integral to New York’s literary activism at the time. Stops include the site of New York’s first lesbian bar, the Women’s House of Detention, which played a major part in shaping Greenwich Village into a place of queer activism; and the beloved Henrietta Hudson lesbian bar (438 Hudson St., Manhattan, New York).Topics of discussion include female playwrights and female novelists. Booked through Airbnb.
The Paris Queer Litterature Walk
Paris has played host to enough queer writers to fill a circuit party and then some. Among them: Colette, James Baldwin, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, Jean Genet, Radclyffe Hall and Gertrude Stein. This private group tour by the well-reviewed Queer Tours France is perfect for anyone who draws inspiration from seeing the haunts of such writers in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Latin Quarter. Though many pilgrims to Paris visit the famous Père-Lachaise Cemetery on their own, checking out the tombs of Wilde, Stein, Proust and many other queer figures, Queer Tours France also offers a tour of the graveyard for those who want a more in-depth experience. You know what they say: Bury your gays. Tours, which can accommodate up to 12 people, are available in English and several other languages.
The Queer Berlin Tour & Finn Ballard’s LGBTIQ+ Berlin
The German capital is so queer it’s got not one but two excellent tours focused on LGBTQ+ history, each with a lot of literary references. The Queer Berlin Tour, one of six private tours offered by Berlin Metropolis, draws from real texts from LGBTQ+ writers and poets to bring historic tales of the city to life. The life of late Afro-German poet, educator and activist May Ayim Ufer (1960–1996) plays a prominent role in the walking tour, which makes stops at a former cabaret and the renowned Schwules Museum (Lützowstraße 73, Tiergarten, Berlin). Finn Ballard’s much-loved queer tour, one of 10 he offers, focuses on Schöneberg in the 1920s, taking guests by the site of Germany’s first queer bookstore, Eisenherz, as well as the former home of British expat writer Christopher Isherwood, whose Berlin writings were the basis of the musical and movie Cabaret. Interestingly, perhaps, Berlin Metropolis’s Scott is originally from Scotland, Ballard from Ireland, so yeah, the tours are in English. Bookings are available on their websites.
The London Queer Tour
The writers featured on the tour range from Bloomsbury Group darling Virginia Woolf to a marooned British soldier who was exiled for sodomy in the early 18th century. The Bloomsbury Group, an influential circle of writers and intellectuals who rebelled against societal and gender norms in the early 20th century, are a main character in the itinerary: their ghosts haunt visitors (metaphorically) as they visit and pass by tea shops, bars, theatres and a bookshop. The tour also references Charlotte Charke aka Charles Brown, a lesser-known 18th-century actor and playwright who challenged gender norms both on and off the stage. There is, of course, a stop in the Soho gaybourhood for a drink, to talk about all these literary discoveries. The tour is available through the British Guild of Tourist Guides website.
Our self-guided literary tour of Mexico City
There are plenty of literary tours to be found throughout Latin America, but none of them, sadly, are LGBTQ+ focused.
Considering Mexico City has one of the richest concentrations of public sites honoring queer writers, it’s time to remedy that.
We suggest starting at the Museo del Estanquillo (Isabel La Católica 26, Centro Histórico, Mexico City), where the collected musings of the Carlos Monsiváis are available for viewing. An influential philosopher, writer, critic, journalist and political activist, Monsiváis worked to advance the causes of sexual minorities. Though he never wrote about his own sexuality, he had a Pride flag placed on his coffin during his funeral in 2010.
A stroll along the busy commercial street Avenida 5 de Mayo will help a visitor understand the “urban theatres” that Monsiváis referred to so often in his work—the streets as a stage that can be viewed for entertainment and inspiration.
From there, head to Zona Rosa, the triangular gaybourhood defined by Florencia, Insurgentes Sur and Reforma. Not only is it a hub of gay nightlife, it’s where visitors will find Centro Cultural Xavier Villaurrutia (Locales 11-12, Centro Glorieta del Metro Insurgentes, Av. de los Insurgentes, Juárez, Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City), a cultural space named after an essential (and gay) Mexican cultural figure who wrote poetry and plays in the early 20th century. The centre features exhibits by international artists as well as hosting music, dance, theatre and literary events. There’s a book club, for those who arrange their schedule to take part, and a movie-screening club.
Further south, in the neighbourhood of Coyoacán, the Biblioteca Salvador Novo (Av. Francisco Sosa 383, Santa Catarina, Coyoacán, Mexico City) is named after a famous gay writer and intellectual. Novo was part of the Mexican modernist writers’ group Los Contemporáneos and was openly gay in the 1960s and ’70s—unusual in Mexico of that era. The surrounding streets comprise Novo’s former haunts.
Heading back north, a café stop in Colonia Roma will evoke the smoky, passionate rendezvous of the openly bisexual poet Pita Amor. Remarkably, she was famous enough as a poet that after she died in 2000, a late-night sketch comedy show created a parody character inspired by her. Ágora Café (Acapulco 13 B, Roma Nte., Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City) is a solid choice for a coffee-fuelled moment to think about Amor.
