page_title: LGBT culture in Leeds
section_title: 1970s-1990s
hierarchical_section_title: LGBT culture in Leeds / History / 1970s-1990s
caption_attribution_description: English: Rainbow plaque number 13 on the front of the Parkinson Building, University of Leeds. Celebrating the first trans conference.
context_page_description: LGBT culture in Leeds, England, involves an active community of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender/transsexual. A BBC News Online article published in 2012 stated that, while Leeds City Council has not published statistics relating to the number of LGBT residents, the figure can be estimated at 10% of the overall population, which currently suggests a total of at least 77,000.
  The tenth year of the Leeds Pride march and celebration, held in 2016, was attended by over 40,000 people.
context_section_description: The activities of Leeds-based gay rights organisations have been reported in newspapers as far back as 1971. The University of Leeds branch of the national Gay Liberation Front, known as the Gay Liberation Society, distributed leaflets at events saying "there is nothing wrong in loving people of the same sex". The group was also photographed demonstrating in solidarity with the people of Northern Ireland, following the events of Bloody Sunday (1972). Its headquarters, which opened on Woodhouse Lane in December 1973, were ransacked within weeks: a member reported to the Yorkshire Evening Post that a window was smashed, books were ripped, and decorations torn down. While the wider Gay Liberation Front movement disbanded in 1974, the Leeds society continued for several more years.
  Existing gay pubs remained in business throughout the 1970s, while the White Hart in nearby Pool-in-Wharfedale offered a countryside escape for older gay men seeking meals and companionship on Sunday afternoons and evenings.
  In March 1974, the University of Leeds hosted what was billed as the country's first national conference for transvestite and transsexual people. Titled Transvestism and Transsexualism in Modern Society, it attracted 102 attendees and included talks and a screening of the 1968 documentary The Queen, filmed on New York's underground drag scene.
  A young records clerk at Leeds General Infirmary, Paul Furness, first brought the World Health Organization's classification of homosexuality as a disease to the attention of Tom Robinson of the Tom Robinson Band in 1978. The singer made many references to this fact during concerts and included the classification number 302.0 on the sleeve of the Rising Free EP, which included the song "Glad to Be Gay".
  Gay women received support from the Leeds Lesbian Line, a telephone switchboard that opened in May 1982. By the time of its first anniversary, it was being staffed by six women and was available for two hours on Tuesday evenings, receiving on average six calls a night.
  The 1980s saw a proliferation of LGBT-friendly pubs and nightclubs in Leeds, including The Bridge Inn (on Bridge End); Ye Old Red Lion (at the corner of Meadow Lane/Hunslet Road); Charlie's Club and Bananas Bar (in Lambert's Yard/Queens Court); and Rockshots 2 (on Lower Briggate). These were joined in the 1990s by Primo's and Primo's II (New York Street/Back New York Street); Queens Court, which replaced Charlie's Club; Bar Fibre (Lower Briggate); and Blayd's Bar (in Blayds Yard), which was popular with lesbians.
  Gay-friendly club nights also became popular in the 1990s. Running from 1993 to 1996, Vague was a "mixed" (i.e. gay and straight) night at Leeds nightclub The Warehouse. It was followed by SpeedQueen, which began at The Warehouse, before moving to Stinky's Peephouse, where its Saturday night gatherings attracted 350 clubbers each week and featured an outdoor terrace and giant bed. In 2003, SpeedQueen returned to The Warehouse, but moved again to Gatecrasher, and to Mint Warehouse in 2016. Both Vague and SpeedQueen "blended a kitsch theme with an artistic underbelly which saw clubbers return to some of the outlandish costumes which characterised the late 70s", according to Yorkshire Evening Post journalist Rod McPhee.
caption: Plaque at the University of Leeds
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