Places

"Intangible cultural heritage" refers to the parts of our cultural heritage that are, well, intangible: "oral traditions and expressions, including language...performing arts...rituals and festive events". So, the music that we produce and love, the dances we pioneer, and the entirety of theatre falls under intangible cultural heritage.

"Tangible cultural heritage" refers to the things we can actually see and hold and mark on a map. The LGBT+ community has more intangible than tangible cultural heritage for a few reasons - mainly relating to our status in society and the inability to have our heritage acknowledged, let alone respected - but today, more and more people are doing the work to document the places that are important to our culture. It is important to acknowledge these sites as so many are community spaces for the local LGBT+ community, and tangible proof that we have existed in time, and that those existences are important to us. As The AIDS Memorial project writes: what is remembered lives.

This post is the first in a series called "Places" that will document the important sites of our cultural heritage. We'll talk about places you can actually visit - Oscar Wilde's grave in Paris, or the Stonewall Inn in NYC- and places you'll recognise within your own community, such as HIV/AIDS memorials and gay and lesbian bars. We will also highlight the projects started by LGBT+ people that advocate for the recognition of important LGBT+ cultural heritage sites in their own communitites.

If there is a beloved place in your community that is a part of our LGBT+ cultural heritage then feel free, as always, to let us know about it!