he dancing was of the usual superlative quality. Them queers sure can break a leg.” So went a report from a dance organised by the Gay Liberation Front in New York in 1970, quoted in Jon Savage’s new book. With kaleidoscopic detail and exhilarating verve, he tells the intertwined, transatlantic story of pop and the struggle for LGBTQ+ emancipation. The narrative stretches from 1955 and the emergence of Little Richard – the rock’n’roll pioneer who from boyhood was known as “a sissy, punk, freak and faggot” – to the ascent of the gender-blurring disco
