# LGBTQ culture in London

Part of a series on :
LGBTQ rights in the United Kingdom :
By location :
United Kingdom Scotland Northern Ireland :
Crown dependencies Guernsey Jersey Isle of Man :
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Same-sex marriage by territory United Kingdom Scotland Northern Ireland Guernsey Jersey Isle of Man Akrotiri and Dhekelia Bermuda British Antarctic Territory British Indian Ocean Territory Cayman Islands Falkland Islands Gibraltar Pitcairn Islands Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands :
Policy aspects :
Sexual orientation
Adoption
Age of consent
Blood donation
Christian nation
Civil partnership
History of violence
HIV/AIDS
Military policy
Same-sex marriage :
Gender identity, sex and intersex
Transgender rights
Intersex rights
NHS Gender Identity Development Service
Gender Recognition Panel :
Legislation :
Criminality
Buggery Act 1533
Offences Against the Person Act 1828
Offences Against the Person Act 1861
Labouchere Amendment
Wolfenden report
Sexual Offences Act 1967
Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980
Homosexual Offences Order 1982
Section 28
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000
Sexual Offences Act 2003
Policing and Crime Act 2017
Alan Turing law
Merchant Shipping (Homosexual Conduct) Act 2017
Historical Sexual Offences (Pardons and Disregards) (Scotland) Act 2018 :
Protection and recognition
Public Order Act 1986
Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999
Adoption and Children Act 2002
Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
Civil Partnership Act 2004
Gender Recognition Act 2004
Equality Act 2006
Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007
Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008
Equality Act 2010
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013
Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014
Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 :
Litigation
Corbett v Corbett (1969)
X v United Kingdom (1978)
Dudgeon v United Kingdom (1981)
R v Brown (1993)
Sutherland v United Kingdom (1994)
Smith and Grady v United Kingdom (1999)
Goodwin & I v United Kingdom (2002)
HJ and HT v Home Secretary (2010)
National AIDS Trust v NHS Service Commissioning Board (2016)
Bell v Tavistock (2021)
AB v CD and others (2021) :
Culture :
By city
Brighton
Cardiff
London
Liverpool
Leeds
Manchester :
Gay villages
Birmingham Gay Village
The Calls
Canal Street (Manchester)
Old Compton Street
Pride Quarter, Liverpool
Vauxhall :
Gay male
Polari
Saunas
Cruising :
Organisations :
LGBT advocacy and support
Stonewall
Hall–Carpenter Archives
Black Gay Men's Advisory Group
Akt
Naz and Matt Foundation
FFLAG
LGBT Foundation
LGBT Network
Outright Scotland
Switchboard (UK)
NUS LGBT
LGBT+ Liberal Democrats
LGBT+ Conservatives
LGBT+ Labour
Labour Campaign for Trans Rights
Mermaids
Press for Change
The Gender Trust :
Pride events
BiCon (UK)
Big Gay Out
Birmingham Pride
Bourne Free
Brighton Pride
Bristol Pride
Doncaster Pride
GFest – gayWise LGBT Arts Festival
Glasgay! Festival
Homotopia (Liverpool)
Leeds Pride
Leicester Pride
LGBT History Month
BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival
Manchester Pride
Mr Gay UK
Mr Gay Wales
Northern Pride
Nottinghamshire Pride
Pride Cymru
Pride Glasgow
Pride in Hull
Pride in Liverpool
Pride in London
Pride Scotia
Reading Pride
Swansea Pride
Worthing Pride :
Former groups
OutRage!
Campaign for Homosexual Equality
Homosexual Law Reform Society
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Rights Working Party
Order of Chaeronea :
History :
Topics
Timeline
List of politicians
First LGBT officeholders
Violence against LGBT people
HIV/AIDS crisis
Death penalty :
Timeline 342 MSM activity made illegal 1533 Death penalty introduced for MSM activity 1543 Buggery Act extended to Wales 1828 Offences Against the Person Act 1828 1835 James Pratt and John Smith executed 1861 Death penalty for buggery abolished 1885 Labouchere Amendment introduced 1889 Cleveland Street scandal 1895 Oscar Wilde found guilty of gross indecency 1912 The Cave of the Golden Calf opens 1921 Plans to make lesbian activity illegal defeated 1936 Mark Weston transitions 1952 John Nott-Bower begins crackdown 1954 Pitt-Rivers, Montagu, Wildeblood imprisoned 1954 Alan Turing commits suicide 1957 Wolfenden report released 1967 MSM activity made legal (England & Wales) 1972 First British Gay Pride Rally 1976 Jeremy Thorpe resigns as Liberal leader 1981 MSM activity made legal (Scotland) 1981 First case of AIDS reported in the UK 1982 MSM activity made legal (NI) 1983 Gay men barred from donating blood 1984 Chris Smith elected as first openly gay MP 1987 Operation Spanner begins 1988 Section 28 comes into force 1989 Stonewall UK forms 1994 Age of consent for MSM becomes 18 1997 Angela Eagle becomes first openly lesbian MP 1998 Bolton 7 found guilty 1998 Lord Alli becomes first openly gay Lord 1999 Admiral Duncan bombing 2000 Gay men allowed in HM Armed Forces 2001 Age of consent equalised to 16 2001 MSM activity involving multiple men legal 2002 Same sex couples granted equal rights to adopt 2003 Section 28 repealed 2004 Civil partnerships introduced 2004 Gender Recognition Act 2004 2006 Discrimination made illegal 2008 Equalised access to IVF for lesbian couples 2008 Incitement to homophobic hatred made a crime 2009 Public apology to Alan Turing 2010 Equality Act 2010 2011 Gay men allowed to donate blood (1 yr deferral) 2013 Nikki Sinclaire becomes first openly trans MEP 2013 Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 2014 First same-sex marriages take place 2016 MSM activity not grounds for military discharge 2017 Turing law implemented 2017 Blood donation deferral 3 months (excl. NI) 2019 MPs legislate for gay marriage in NI 2020 Gay marriage legal across UK, incl. NI 2020 Blood donation deferral 3 months (incl. NI) 2021 Blood donation deferral equalised :
LGBTQ portal UK portal :
vte :
The LGBT community in London is one of the largest within Europe. LGBT culture of London, England, is centred on Old Compton Street in Soho. There are also LGBT pubs and restaurants across London in Haggerston, Dalston and Vauxhall.

## London in LGBT history
### 18th and 19th century

In the 18th century, some businesspersons and aristocrats had, for the time, relatively open LGBT lifestyles. Rictor Norton, author of Mother Clap's Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England, 1700–1830 stated that in the 1720s London had more gay pubs and clubs than it did in 1950. LGBT studies pre-1920s were entirely of males caught in scandals.

### 20th century

Homosexuality was decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967, but London was an LGBT tourism destination even before then.
The world's longest running lesbian nightclub, Gateways Club opened in 1936 (it closed in 1985).
The UK branch of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) held its first meeting in a basement room in the London School of Economics in 1970. The group later organised the first official UK pride protest in 1972, which has since become an annual event and one of the world's largest of its kind. Although the GLF disbanded a mere 4 years later, it nevertheless spawned off several notable LGBTQ organisations such as Gay News (founded 1972), Gay's the Word (1979, via the Icebreakers group) and London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard (1974, now Switchboard).
Switchboard, one of the oldest UK-wide LGBTQ+ telephone helplines in the UK, was founded in 1974 in Housmans bookshop's basement near King's Cross.
Mark W. Turner, the author of "Gay London," stated that when Derek Jarman moved to Charing Cross in 1979, it began the process of Soho becoming the centre of the London LGBT community and that by the early 1990s this was "firmly established".
On May 24, 1989, exactly one year after the Thatcherite anti-homosexuality Section 28 legislation became law, the London-founded charity Stonewall formally announced its formation. The charity had started its life in Ian McKellen's home in Limehouse. Today, it is Europe's largest LGBTQ rights organisation.
The Admiral Duncan pub in Soho was bombed on 30 April 1999. Newspaper articles stated the belief that the bombing was intended to attack the LGBT community; no persons who died in the incident were members of the local LGBT community.

### 21st century

In 2015, London's LGBT Pride Parade attracted over one million people for the first time.
Since 2019, London also hosts an annual trans+ pride march. Having attracted 1,500 protesters in the first year, its attendance grew to more than 20,000 protesters by 2023. The city is also the home of the annual UK Black Pride celebrations.

## Institutions

The UK's first gay and lesbian bookshop, Gay's the Word, is located in Bloomsbury. Due to its lasting legacy of activism and community-building, Historic England has deemed it a site of LGBTQ pilgrimage. Another LGBTQ bookshop, The Common Press, opened its doors in 2021 in Shoreditch. London is therefore home to a third of England's LGBTQ bookshops.
The Bishopsgate Institute boasts one of the largest LGBTQ archives in the UK, including archives from Stonewall, Switchboard, as well as the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive (LAGNA), which includes over 300,000 press cuttings from the straight press from the 1980s onwards. In addition to this, the Bishopsgate Institute also hosts the Museum of Transology, a community archive focusing on transgender, nonbinary and intersex people. It is the world's largest collection of material culture of its kind.
The WayOut Club is London's longest running club night for transgender women.
Since the closure of Above the Stag Theatre, the King's Head Theatre is the UK's only LGBTQ-centric theatre.

## Events

The mainstream Pride in London event occurs every summer. The annual UK Black Pride – the largest of its kind in Europe – also takes place in London. The London Trans Pride protest march takes place annually in June or July.
Europe's biggest LGBTQ+film festival, the BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival happens every spring in London.
The Greater London Authority government promotes LGBT tourism.

## Night life

Heaven is the largest gay disco club in Europe. It opened in 1979.

## Notable residents

Those identifying as LGBT:
* Alan Carr
* Alan Turing (1912-1954)
* Boy George
* Derek Jarman
* Dustin Lance Black
* Freddie Mercury (1946-1991)
* George Michael (1963-2016)
* Graham Norton
* Ian McKellen
* Kae Tempest
* Marc Almond
* Margaret Clap (operated a Molly house)
* Munroe Bergdorf
* Ncuti Gatwa
* Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
* Paul O'Grady
* Pete Burns
* Peter Tatchell
* Phyll Opoku-Gyimah
* Sakima
* Samantha Fox
* Stephen Fry
* Tom Daley
* Travis Alabanza
* Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
* Will Young