ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on friendships, how and why people sought safety and attempted to avoid 'risk', and activism, though it also identifies changing engagements with, and experiences of, communities. It explores people's everyday lived experience of LGBT communities, which they often contrasted with perceptions and experiences of broader social contexts. The chapter discusses practices of identity management and self-censorship in intimate relationships, and sets out how this relates to why some people choose to engage with the idea(l) of particular communities. Previous research that has identified families chosen and friendship families among lesbian and gay friendship networks is also relevant to the concept of community. The chapter discusses the notions of safety and feeling comfortable with other LGBT people, which are important in helping us understand how people experience and conceptualise community. It also focuses on the place of political activism in people's understandings and experiences of community. Thus, LGBT communities were therefore 'done' related to specific spaces and people.
