Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, more commonly referred to as simply Section 28, forbade the teaching of homosexuality in schools. To be more precise, it mandated that:

1. (1) A local authority shall not –

   1. (a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality;

   2. (b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.

Section 28 casts a long shadow across contemporary queer British history. For many historical actors, it represented a major turning point at which thousands of queer people and their allies were (re)politicized, inducting them into a broad coalition of activist and lobbying organizations that might be thought of as the forerunners of the contemporary LGBTQ rights movement.

Despite its huge significance in the lives of many queer people in the UK, Section 28 has occupied a marginal place in wider modern British histories. Several leading scholars have accepted its status as “notorious” only to write it off as “unused,” a belief based on the fact that no test cases were brought to challenge Section 28's application (or local-authority failure to apply it). Disabusing us of the notion that Section 28's bark was worse than its bite is one of several contributions made by Baker in his well-researched, engaging, funny popular history. Baker joins a growing number of historians working to historicize Section 28 and document its considerable political, cultural, and legal ramifications. These include Jenny Harding, Syeda Ali, Matt Cook, and Alison Oram, but Baker has provided the first book-length historical study.

Section 28 attracted considerable comment and criticism for its ambiguous and imprecise wording. What did the government mean by “promote,” and how were courts supposed to decide whether homosexuality had been “intentionally” promoted? The centrality of language makes Baker an excellent choice to guide readers through this history. A leading linguist, Baker has carved out space for queer language studies across several books, including his history (and earlier dictionary) of the queer British langue Polari and a discourse analysis of public attitudes of gay men.

Baker's book is a triumph of popular history writing, in which personal biography anchors and interweaves a broader narrative and wider research. Baker opens the book by recalling watching The Six O'Clock News on 23 May 1988, when lesbian activists famously stormed the studio shouting “Stop Section 28.” He did so with his family, who had assembled to celebrate his sixteenth birthday. Baker uses this story to introduce questions of age, popular culture, audience, activism, and reception. These are vital to the history of Section 28, but by anchoring them in witty autobiographical moments, Baker subtly imparts them to the book's readers. This is done throughout the book, especially where popular music, advertising, and television programmes are drawn upon to contextualize cultural shifts in exposure to (and attitudes towards) sex and sexuality.

Media and language are not the sole focus of Outrageous!. Instead, Baker accounts for the pre-history of Section 28 in the Gay Liberation Front's campaign against the Nationwide Festival of Light, fronted by Christian moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse, and the infamously homophobic Bermondsey by-election in which openly gay Peter Tatchell lost out to Simon Hughes, who marketed himself as the “straight choice.” These case studies, alongside the others Baker looks at, highlight earlier moments of disquiet around homosexuality, especially the perception that it was being “promoted.”

Baker casts a wide net in order to reconstruct the ways in which the logics of Section 28 were conceived and contested, and how these changed over time. His is a book with a political message that aims to tell “a story of courage and determination in the face of adversity” (302). Those who campaigned for Section 28's passage and retention get robust but nuanced treatment. David Wilshire, the MP who tabled the amendment which would eventually become Section 28, appears as a more ambiguous character than one might expect, figuring less as an architect of Section 28 than a stooge to aid its passage. His voice is one of many that Baker has brought together in his book. Activists like Susannah Bowyer (one of several lesbians who abseiled into the House of Lords in disgust at their having voted “content” to Section 28), actors such as Michael Cashman and Ian McKellan who formed part of the “arts lobby” opposed to the impact of Section 28 on theatrical productions, and politicians including Chris Smith were all interviewed for the book, providing valuable reflections on Section 28 and its changing historical reputation.

Race, ethnicity, and religion do feature in the book (religion especially), but perhaps more space could have been dedicated to them. They were, after all, vital to some councils deciding whether (or how openly) to oppose Section 28. The leader of Birmingham City Council, for example, suggested to activists in 1988 that “with many of our schools almost wholly populated by members of the Islamic faith, it does produce some difficulties in teaching lesbianism or homosexuality in a positive way” (East Sussex Record Office OUR/0/5). These concerns were long-lasting. Baker brings his book to the present day in part by discussing the 2019 protests outside Birmingham schools, which presented (Islamic) faith and inclusive sex education as incompatible (claims which have, as Baker shows, been rejected by queer Islamic activists).

Certainly, there is more work to be done on the ways in which discussions around Section 28 in particular (and inclusive sexual and relationships education in general) produced racialized notions of the boundaries of tolerance, inclusivity, and acceptability in questions of sex and sexuality. Baker suggests one avenue for such work in his brief but fascinating discussion of Viraj Mendis. At the time of the demonstrations leading up to Section 28's passage, Mendis was living in the Church of the Ascension in the Manchester district of Hulme, where he sought refuge from being deported back to Sri Lanka on the grounds that his pro-Tamil politics put his life in danger there. Baker uses this case to highlight “fractures in our story” (286) where organizers of the 20 February “Never Going Underground” march in Manchester rejected proposals to include the ‘Viraj Mendis Defence Campaign’ lest it dilute its anti-Section 28 message. Questions of race, migration, ethnicity, and sexuality appear uneasily in histories of Section 28, though ongoing scholarship will no doubt tease this out more fully.