Seeking Out Queer Spaces

Seeking Out Queer Spaces

For pride month, Aurora's Associate Alex Bedwell sat down (virtually) with Hey Queer London founder Steve Whiting. The pair discuss the importance of spotlighting safe spaces for the LGBTQIA+ community and why Pride is just as much about education as it is a celebration.

Alex Bedwell So, obviously I know this already- I feel like I’m in a police interview-? but for the purpose of the tape do you want to just talk a bit about how you started out and the story so far? And then I thought we could dip into a bit more around what we’ve been doing recently. Does that sound good??

Steve Whiting Yeah, it's good.?

AB So, how did the idea come about and how have you found progressing it and growing it??

SW I started Hey Queer London back in 2019. I realised that my friends and I were going to exactly the same queer spaces in London. So, I really wanted to work out a way of discovering more of the scene in London. I found that there wasn't an easy way to find all of the LGBTQ + events happening around the city on a daily basis. The places that were well known were very much based on journalistic ideas and editorial opinions and very much from one person's perspective on the community.

London has a huge history of LGBTQ+ publications that help but there was a huge barrier to entry with all of these products in that you either had to know a journalist or you had to have a lot of money to try and get your events known. I spoke to a bar manager once who told me that if he put a night on in his bar, if you put it into one of the publications, he'd have a full night. If he didn't put it in there, he wouldn't.

To get in a magazine, it would cost him roughly ￡250 for a quarter page spread. That's a lot of money and not everyone has the opportunity to do that. So, the whole point for me was I created HQL on the basis of wanting people to be able to discover all of the LGBTQ + events happening in the city without bias and without opinion and that wasn’t going to be a huge cost. For the first couple of years it was free and it was a community-based product. It was never really about me and my personality and about what I do. It was always about trying to create a platform for other people to really feel they could get their voices heard.?

My background is social media. So, I really wanted to create a brand and a product that is social first and uses my talents as a Social Media Manager to really help people showcase their events and showcase what's going on. Everyone's on their phone, everyone's on Instagram and Twitter and everyone is all over their social networks trying to find stuff. So, that’s where I knew my product was.?

I started off by myself with a laptop, phone and some very basic graphic design skills and knowledge. I really went about researching the community and finding out what's going on by pulling information from different websites, different social media presences and people to build the daily listings. This evolved from being a very simple Google doc into a very complicated database, which grew and grew. In two years, on Instagram especially, I grew from a few hundred followers to up to over 10,000.

AB That’s really cool. It sounds like a lot of work and a lot of manual research on behalf of your user base. So, that’s the story up until now. I know you had a pause on your socials and stuff and you've had a rebrand. Could you tell us a bit more about your future plans and what's coming up?

SW I started HQL as a passion project. I was doing it in my free time and it was taking hours upon hours every weekend. It would take six hours plus to go through about seventy websites to find out what was going on in London. It took a long time, so I took a pause on the project.? And another reason for the pause is because I needed a mental health break. I wanted to really work out what to do next.

So, after having a rethink. The plan is to bring HQL back as a brand but with more of a business focus as a way of creating a sustainable business to really start a supportive community. The plan is to grow into other cities around the UK too and then open internationally. Everyone goes to a different city and needs to find where the LGBTQ+ events are going on. There's a huge market for it.?

There's so much happening in the world right now that is pushing everyone against our community, which is scary and horrible. We need to support each other to really keep our community going.

AB That would be really cool. I remember when we first spoke, I said to you at that time, how useful I thought it would be because I was like ‘Me and a few friends are going to Spain next week and I’m wondering what the queer nightlife is like.’?

You’ve got Google and you always get kind of random queer travel pages, and there's nothing wrong with that, but if you want real advice- Well, there's obviously like a huge gap.?

So, in terms of your growth and like where you see HQL going, how do you feel? Aurora kind of helped with that because I know we did that quite long session where we did all the generation. What has come off the back of that??

SW Yes. The session that I did with Aurora really helped me to formalise where my ideas were at. I do this all by myself on a laptop and I really don’t have any other support. And I reached out on my socials to really find people who could help and support me and help me sort of get myself out of my own head with it. And so the session that we did was really useful because it helped me plan everything that was coming up, talk through all of the ideas in my head and where it is going further down the line. I needed to focus on the audience as well as the cost and really look at it from a business perspective.

I'm a very creative thinker. I think in a very agency content environment. I’m a jack of all trades but I need people to help and support me. The session really helped me sort myself out and gave me the fire to be like, I can do this. I can make this really professional. It’s led me to doing a lot of research for what’s next but also things like contacting a queer graphic designer for a whole brand refresh and brand development. You guys really helped with that

AB That’s brilliant to hear. It’s quite exciting to see where you go with it and everything. How do you think you’ll fit it around your existing social media consulting? Have you thought about that or are you just going to see how it pans out?

SW So, I have got a plan. I’m really lucky in that I always worked for an agency up until about four years ago and then I went freelance. When I did that, I started working for different businesses and brands. After about two years of doing five days a week, I decided that the way I work best is that I need to work four days a week and have a day for other projects.?

I always have loads of ideas about what I want to do and I needed to create that space in my week so I could do that. And yes, it meant a pay cut. And yes, it took a little while to convince people that I can only do four days a week. I was very precious with that time and that space. I always had that Friday. And recently I’ve been using that Friday to really focus on HQL and how to grow and how to get into a really good place and formalise my ideas. Luckily, the people that I’m contracted with at the moment are really supportive of this as well.?

I think I'm always going to need an income stream from social media consulting. When you're starting a business and you’ve got no money, you need support to come from somewhere. Working as a consultant really feeds into HQL and what I do and helps me pay for the project.

AB Okay, it's good you've got that ring fenced day. It’s not quite the same but I always try and have a couple of hours a week to do training and just kind of think about where I’m going in terms of skills and stuff. And, when you have clients, that can be really hard, can’t it?

SW Yeah, the world of business wants you to work five days a week and to be available all the time. I learnt quite quickly that I need to ring fence. Some people get it and some people don't. And actually it's the people who get it who I want to work with as a business.?

AB I'm glad. I suppose it's kind of a litmus test, isn't it? If you've got clients that don't really understand what you're doing and why you're doing it, that says quite a lot, doesn't it? I'm a big fan of or a big proponent of a full three day working week. I don't know whether we'll see it in our lifetime, but I like to think you might.?

SW I think we could. I think we have to remember that this whole tradition of nine-to-five is ingrained in an older generation. There are also some people who prefer to work a full-time job and have that stability, which is brilliant. For me, I need to have flexibility in what I do and how I earn my money. I’m better as my own boss and working as a consultant for companies.

AB Yeah. My dad's an accountant and he's always said that he could never go back to working in a company. He's done some temping admin work in the NHS and I think he's found that really hard to go from, as you say, being very flexible and working around your lifestyle to then having to be in a place of work and working for a particular person. As you say the nine-to-five, Monday to Friday is very ingrained in the Western World and not doing that would be weird but in the best possible way. All the trials they seem to have done in Iceland and- I think there’s one in the UK right?

SW Yeah, there’s one in the UK at the moment. I can’t remember which company it is?

AB No but I'm jealous of them. It seems like it has a great benefit to people's wellbeing and gives people more time to do what they enjoy. I wonder how much happier we’d be as a nation if we did it.?

SW Yeah, it’s all about flexibility. I think what the pandemic has taught us is that we’re all very precious with our time. I think a lot of people learned that they didn’t need to be commuting in. Parents have spent much more time with their children. As much as the pandemic was a horrible thing it did start to change people's mindsets around work and I hope people don’t forget those positives.

AB Agreed. And like you say, it's about choices and flexibility and I think that's really valuable. But we've seen push back suddenly from company executives-

SW Yeah, it’s just so negative. They don't want to learn how to understand and accept people. That's the thing.?

AB Yeah. But it's nice to see the balance switch a bit from it being all in the employee's hands to more choice and freedom and I hope that we do keep those aspects and we don't move back to what it was before. On another note, obviously it's June. It's Pride Month. What are you doing? Anything special you've got anything lined up?

SW? Personally, I think pride month is a great time to celebrate but it really should be all year round. I know my big celebrations are coming in that we've got London Pride coming at the beginning of July but I'm also a big fan of other city prides. Last year, I did Birmingham pride for the first time, which is in September. It feels nice to spread it all out.

For me though, pride month is about focussing on the amazing things the LGBTQ+ community has done and how far we've come as a community. It’s really a time to celebrate our individuality and our eccentricities. We have to remember that pride began as a protest and that we need to continue to create change.

AB I agree, especially at the moment because sometimes, if you look at the news, it does feel like we're going backwards. And we'd probably have to speak to a different selection from our community to really understand how people feel about that.

SW There's stuff hitting from every angle. Especially all the stuff that's happening in America right now and unfortunately here with JK Rowling. I think there is way too much happening and we can't solve it all at once but we can do our best to support and make change where possible and fight for all members of the communities.

AB Yeah, it's everyone's voice now.?

SW It's everyone's fight and we have to support every single member. That's the big thing coming out of Pride Month actually. We have to remember that it is a whole community of people. We have to lift each other up. It’s about protest and how we can continue to create change and equality for the people in our community who currently don't get to see it.?

AB Yeah, I absolutely agree. I've always found that pride is a good time to learn about queer history and where we've come from. I've found that I like exploring it through reading or watching specific shows. Are there any queer novels or shows or films that you've been particularly into lately??

SW I also run an LGBTQ+ film club called Pink Popcorn Film Club, where we explore LGBTQ+ cinema. So that's either films that feature LGBTQ+ storyline or ones that feature queer icons. There's so much to watch. Things that have come out recently that have felt supportive to Pride Month have been things like- Heartstopper is brilliant.

AB Yeah!

SW Yeah, as controversial as Netflix can be, Hearstopper is one of the first shows to really focus on a positive queer relationship. That’s what’s been amazing about it. Yes, there are difficulties and bullying featured in it but it mostly shows positive relationships. That’s huge for young people in the community.

I also saw Fire Island the other day which is a Disney Plus and Hulu film about a group of gay guys and their sort of lesbian matriarch who lives on Fire Island. It is a really lovely film about a community of LGBTQ+ individuals coming together. It’s a really fun film. There’s so much queer cinema, go out and explore.

AB I’m writing this down.

SW I’ll have to send you a list, Alex.

AB Yeah, please do. I don't think you can have enough recommendations. I want to go back to Heartstopper because I thought how good it would have been to have something like that when I was younger. There was so much representation there. It seems like that was really popular.

SW It’s one of Netflix’s most popular shows. I think it’s really great for the younger LGBT generation who are coming up, knowing that there are positive stories. I grew up with the original Queer As Folk back in the nineties which was great but wasn’t always positive about the scene. And then I had As If, a Channel 4 teen drama. One of the characters Alex was gay and dating a cop but the relationship wasn’t great.

We have to remember though that shows like Heartstopper wouldn’t have been able to work back then because of Section 28. That stopped everyone from being able to be open and have experiences and discover themselves.

AB Yeah, I've seen a lot of people say that. Obviously, it's a great show, but there's something about it that makes you feel sad or robbed because you didn’t get to have that. But I suppose, like we've been saying, we should focus on making sure other people can have that in the future. Everyone has a right to that. It’s interesting what you were saying about shows you remember. I’m trying to think of mine but I feel like I had nothing. I remember watching Skins which had Max, one of the prominent queer characters but other than that I barely have any reference points. But maybe that’s because I didn’t really seek it out. As a kid, I really struggled with my identity and even the thought of looking for that would be anxiety inducing. But now I’m trying to make up for lost time. I’m finding all the shows and all the great camp films.?

SW The film club I started only does films from before 2001.?

AB Oh, as a rule?

SW Yeah, that’s a rule I set. I think the last film I think I included was from 2001 and it was Hedwig and the Angry Inch because of its themes and characters. But then literally from 2001 onwards, I sort of stopped because that’s when cinema had a growing acceptance and there was a lot more around. So I excluded things like Love Simon, Pride and other modern ones.I added in the ones that were referenced in RuPaul’s Drag Race like Heathers or Paris Is Burning. Pose has been such a phenomenal springboard for LGBTQ+ performers as well as community members,they're all amazing. I can't wait to see what the actors will do next. And also It’s A Sin, it’s a hard watch but it’s part of our history that we often forget to keep talking about.?

AB I know. I did try and get my mum and dad to watch it but mum said it was too sad. I was like ‘Get on with it, mum! I watched it. You should! Everyone else did.’

SW Yes, it's important television. If they ever redo this kind of show or do it from a different angle, it should be focussed on the lesbian community and just how many of them supported loads of gay men at the time with the nurses. But it is such a sad story. Do we realise that a whole generation of LGBT individuals completely disappeared.?

AB Yeah. Agreed. And it would be nice to see that different angle. Just while we’re mentioning the lesbian community,? we went to a gallery in Newcastle and saw a really great exhibition of black and white photography from like the lesbian movement. I can't remember if it was the eighties or nineties but it was just really cool to see stories told in pictures. We stumbled across it by chance but it would have been great to have been sat on the train being like ‘Okay, what can we explore? What kind of things could we go to see that we’ll like?’ So, I am excited to see where HQL goes.?

SW Thank you! There are so many other amazing things with either support groups or as you said, queer gallery exhibitions or even just queer art collectives. Like, there's about two or three cafés that have popped up. It’s so important to have these places and to celebrate them.

AB Yeah. Agreed. I think it will open up so many more choices for people. A lot of queer nightlife is centred around drinking and whatever. So, it’s good to have daytime events as well and different kinds of safe spaces.?

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