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Queering the Folk Tradition: Inside Manchester’s Flourishing Queer Folk Scene

Emily Zurowski, 29 July 2025

In a pub tucked away in Manchester’s Gay Village, something special is happening. Every two weeks, a group of musicians gather, not just to play music, but to reclaim and reimagine folk traditions through a queer lens. This is Queer as Folk (QaF), a grassroots collective celebrating the stories, sounds, and resistance woven into both the queer and the folk cultures. As a queer Scottish musician raised around (Scottish) folk music, I never really connected these two parts of my identity. That changed when I started attending Queer as Folk sessions. What I found was a thriving, subversive, and joyful community where tradition and queerness not only coexist, but feed each other.

Where Folk meets Queer

On the surface, the folk and queer cultures might seem worlds apart. Folk music is often associated with the rural past, traditions, and heritage, while queerness, especially as defined in queer theory, is about challenging norms and disrupting binaries. One represents continuity, and the other, change. But this contrast is precisely what makes their intersection so powerful. Historically, folk music has given voice to the marginalised. It’s the sound of rebellion, of protest, and of lives lived outside the mainstream. Similarly, queer culture is rooted in resistance out of necessity. When folk and queer culture meet, what emerges is something deeply impactful: a radical reclaiming of space, sound, and self.

Queer as Folk and Queering Folk

Queer as Folk is part of the broader Queer Roots Collective, which aims to foster queer community in Manchester through creativity and play. QaF sessions are held at The Molly House, a venue named after the 'molly houses' of the 18th century (secret gathering spaces for queer people). QaF provide a really inclusive space: there’s no expectation to be an expert and everyone is encouraged to contribute, whether it’s by leading a tune on an instrument, singing along, or just enjoying the music. One of the more surprising discoveries that I made at Queer as Folk is just how malleable the folk tradition can be, especially in the queer context. Despite its reputation for conservatism in some circles, folk music is inherently a living tradition. Of course, we know that folk songs are passed on orally, lyrics shift over time, and melodies morph with each new performance. But many members of QaF embrace this flexibility in a distinct way by ‘queering’ folk songs. This can mean changing pronouns in pieces, adding subtle lyrical tweaks, or even reinterpreting the narrative of traditional ballads. Take Willie O’Winsbury, a classic folk song where a king expresses admiration for a man who has impregnated his daughter:

But when he came the king before,He was clad all in the red silk.His hair was like the strands of gold,His skin was as white as milk.

“And it is no wonder,” said the king,“That my daughter’s love you did win.If I was a woman, as I am a man,My bedfellow you would have been.” (Roud 64)

It's easy to see how this tale can be queered as one man desiring another. As one QaF member put it, “...people do find contact and comfort by queering the folk songs … they tweak them to make them a little bit queer-er, and that little bit more full of queer joy.”

Place matters, and Manchester, often dubbed the “Queer Capital of the North”, offers fertile ground for this hybrid cultural movement. With its long history as a home of musical subcultures and LGBTQ+ activism, it’s no surprise that a group like Queer as Folk would take root here. The group also perform outside of the Gay Village (for example, at Manchester Folk Festival), where their presence carves out queer counterpublics in traditionally heteronormative folk spaces. In doing so, they challenge long-standing boundaries (geographic, cultural, and aesthetic).

Toward a Queer Folk Future

There’s still little written about the intersection of queer life and folk music, but that’s changing. Projects like Queer Folk help to uncover LGBTQ+ stories hidden in folk archives, and artists everywhere are queering the canon in personal and political ways. What’s exciting is that this movement doesn’t feel like a break from tradition, it feels like its continuation. Folk music has always evolved and it has always held the stories of the people who sang it. Those stories are just becoming more inclusive, more diverse, and more reflective of the communities keeping the music alive. Queer as Folk are at the forefront of this shift in Manchester. They’re not just reclaiming space in pubs and at festivals: they’re building a new kind of tradition – one that honours the past while queering the future.