The subject of this conversation is the ‘queer seventies’ as told through a heterogeneous scene of independent journalism and the burgeoning field of screen theory in Britain. Mandy Merck, who was there, and Laura Guy, who was not, explore the cultural practices coming out of the Women’s and Gay Liberation Movements against a backdrop of political reform – including the Sexual Offences Act 1967, the Abortion Act of the same year, and the Equal Pay Act 1970. Turning to Merck’s work as an editor and cultural critic at Time Out, the discussion foregrounds independent print and contemporary cinema as intersecting contexts through which the theoretical insights associated with screen theory emerged. Also considered is whether the British roots of queer theory can be located in this period or, indeed, if the various deviations and conversions discussed might offer directions toward a different horizon of thought and politics.