With Pride Month in full swing, a colourful new map has been created to highlight how many LGBTQ+ people are living in each London borough.
Pride Month is celebrated in June to coincide with the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests in the United States. However, the month has been adopted across the world to recognise the influence of the LGBTQ+ community and the ongoing struggle for rights.
The UK’s first gay pride march took place on July 1, 1972, in London, when protesters marched from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park on the nearest Saturday to the Stonewall date. Since then, the UK has made strides in protections and equality legislation for the LGBTQ+ community, with the Equality Act 2010 listing sexual orientation, gender reassignment, and marriage and civil partnership as protected characteristics.
The most recent data on sexual orientation is from the 2021 Census for England and Wales, which showed around 1.5 million people (3 per cent) identified with a sexual orientation other than heterosexual in 2021.
In London, 304,382 people identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual or queer in the survey – making up 4 per cent of the area’s population aged 16 and over. The City of London had one of the highest rates, with 10 per cent of respondents identifying with a sexual orientation other than heterosexual.
Another significant move towards equality was the introduction of same-sex marriage in 2014, after the Government passed The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. Eight years on, Office for National Statistics figures show there was a record number of same-sex marriages in 2022, with 7,800 in total. They accounted for 3 per cent of new marriages in England and Wales that year, and the stats included 1,102 same-sex marriages in London.
Gay bars and clubs have become synonymous with Pride Month, coming a long way from their origins. Molly houses in the 18th century were some of the first clubs where gay men could meet, drink, dance and have sex with each other. However, the first gay bar in Britain was possibly The Cave of the Golden Calf in London, which ran for only two years before the First World War.
Once homosexuality was partially decriminalised in the UK in 1967, the gay bar culture no longer had to be underground. Cities across the UK saw gay bars popping up in concentrated areas, creating “gay villages”. Analysis of Google Maps data by RADAR shows 216 places listed under the category “gay bar” or “gay night club” appear across the UK, including 48 in London alone.
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