The LGBTQ community is part of the Mancunian identity, according to the co-author of a new book that explores queer history. Academic Matt Cook argues that there is a “real fusion of gay pride and metropolitan pride” in the city. This fusion, he says, put Manchester “way ahead of the rest of the country” when it came to the fight for LGBTQ rights. In his new book ‘ Queer Beyond London ’, co-authored with Alison Oram, the professor of modern history at Birkbeck, University of London looks at the queer history of four UK cities that are often overshadowed by the capital.