Northampton

Northampton is a large town, non-metropolitan district and the county town of Northamptonshire in the East Midlands region of England that lies between Birmingham and London. Northampton is one of the largest towns in the United Kingdom with a population of 212,100 (2011 census). LGBT history in and around the town has been noted from the post-Second World War days. The town now has a notably large LGBT community, though most of it is very hidden.

The Boston stands as the town's main hub for the LGBT community and is the town's only gay bar. There are various forums, social groups like FAN Northants, Northampton Gay Book Group and Northampton Outlaws RFC, and support groups including a 20-year-strong Lesbian Line and various youth support groups in the town. Although Northampton once hosted Pride in 2004, it has since disappeared, though plans for its return in 2014 are in place. In 2012, Northampton launched BooQfest, its first gay and lesbian literary festival.

LGBT history
During the Second World War (and until 1999), there was an official ban on gays and lesbians serving in the armed forces in the UK. Homosexuality was also grounds for dismissal from the forces and for harsh imprisonment. In the years following that war, a small part of Northampton's town centre became a haven for its gay — or "deviant" as we were then called — residents with its gay bar upstairs at The Black Boy Hotel (now where the Nando's restaurant is located) evenbefore the prominence of gay rights and setting up of gay villages in the 1960s. The open space of Midsummer Meadow was also a popular social networking location for gay and bisexual men since the 1950s, and remained that way for more than 50 years until its recent marinal regeneration.

Northampton has since had at least one — sometimes two — gay venues. By the late 1970s, the Princess Royal (now Jeckyll and Hyde) on the Wellingborough Road became a popular standard with Northampton's gay and lesbian community. Even a pub in Clopton, a tiny little village in the middle of nowhere of the Northamptonshire countryside, hosted a gay disco on Saturday nights in the early 1980s.

Following Section 28, a law which banned the promotion of homosexuality in the late 1980s, people realised that something had to be done about the lack of support for the LGBT community in Northampton and so the Northampton Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance (NLGBA) was set up in 1993, which offered information, support, advocacy and training on LGB issues, established social groups and helplines as well as being a general resource centre for the local community. By the time the law had been repealed in 2003, Northampton had a thriving LGBT scene consisting of clubs The Boston, K2 and The Jolly Anker (now Club Base and previously Route 69) in the town's centre. However, The Boston remains the reigning champion of Northampton's LGBT scene after its many years of existence and currently exists as the town's only LGBT bar. Roadmender, a popular nightclub and live music venue in Northampton, used to host a popular Friday gay night called Club Gaze in 2006. Pubs The Old White Hart and The Edge of Town, which opened in 2010, have also been considered gay-friendly.

Northampton Borough Council was one of the first councils in the country to recognise the needs of its LGB community by setting up Northampton's LGB People's Forum; this was later renamed Northampton's LGBT and Q People's Forum in recogntion of the entire LGBT community. The Forum continue to meet several times each year to recognise the needs of Northampton's LGBT community and to have a safe space in which to express their needs and views on services provided by the Council and future plans for the town. Northampton Borough Council became a Stonewall Diversity Champion in 2010 and has continually improved its ranking in Stonewall's Workplace Equality Index.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the NGLBA in 2004, the Forgotten Fairytales project was hosted at the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, which attempted to record the history and culture of the LGBT community in Northamptonshire. The exhibition ran from March to April 2004. The Northampton Museum and Art Gallery has since hosted a number of LGBT-related exhibitions, including Gaze and Wonder featuring local LGBT artists in 2012, and Stamp Out Hate Crime's exhibition recognising Holocaust Memorial Day and LGBT History Month in 2012. In previous years, the annual Holocaust Memorial Day exhibitions at the Guildhall included some specific LGB community content highlighting the suffering of LGB people in the Nazi Holocaust.

Northamptonshire held its first and only LGBT Pride in September 2004, which consisted of a programme of LGBT-related arts, cinema, entertainment, literature as well as a public event in Abington Park. There is a not-for-profit organisation attempting to relaunch a Pride event in the town by 2014.

Civil partnerships were granted for homosexual couples in the UK in late 2005 and Northamptonshire registered 37 civil partnerships around the county within the first 5 weeks of its legislation. The first civil partnership registered in Northamptonshire was between Lesley Carroll and Lorraine Warwick, a lesbian couple from Kingsthorpe, on 5 December 2005 at The Guildhall. In 2006, Northampton LGB People's Forum held one of the first Civil Partnerships and Weddings Fairs in the UK at the town's Guildhall in partnership with the NLGBA, helping to develop the first Northamptonshire directory of LGB-friendly providers and prompting some local businesses to proactively reach out to LGB customers soon after the introduction of civil partnerships. Previously, from 2003, Northamptonshire County Council had granted "commitment ceremonies" for gay and lesbian couples in Northamptonshire who were prevented by law of taking the the official route of marriage to cement their relationship. These ceremonies could be held in register offices, civic buildings and approved venues such as stately homes and hotels, and each couple was allowed their own personal programme at their ceremony, which cultimated in the signing of a souvenir certificate.

2005 also saw the release of the popular Golden Globe-nominated film Kinky Boots, which celebrates Northampton's famous shoe industry alongside the LGBT community by telling the true story of one man's revival of his failing family shoe firm by finding inspiration in an exotic drag queen. A musical theatre adaptation of the film, maintaining its Northampton backdrop, premiered on Broadway in 2013 and was nominated for 13 Tony Awards.

In 2006, Northampton's LGBT community stood in shock after the death of Michael Fardon in a homophobic attack where he was hit in the head and then thrown down a concrete stairwell. He was found dead on College Street on 14 July 2006, a week after last being seen alive socialising at The Boston. The bar held a tribute evening two weeks after Fardon was last seen alive, where friends lit candles in his memory and a held a two-minute silence at midnight. His attacker, James Hyland, who had attacked another man in the bar two weeks prior to this incident, was jailed for life. Between 2006 and 2007, the Northamptonshire Police Hate Crimes Unit investigated 150 homophobic incidents. NLGBA said the actual number of offences could have been higher as many offences go unreported. In 2007, there was another raised alert when three vicious homophobic attacks were reported: two in Midsummer Meadow and one outside The Boston. In memory of Fardon, The Boston installed an Infobox in 2007, a computer information point connected to the police, which allowed people to report homophobic attacks anonymously and to check on the progress of any crime of which they are a victim. In 2009, Northamptonshire Police was ranked as the 84th best employer of gay people in Stonewall's top 100 employers of gay people.

Since 2007, Northampton has annually recognised the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) with a ceremony at the Guildhall for councillors and the community that includes a minute's noise on behalf of LGBT people around the world and speeches from local groups, the Northampton LGBTQ People's Forum and rainbow-flag raising. In 2012, rugby player Ben Cohen MBE attended, giving a personal speech about the death of his father in Northampton and how this led him to set up his Stand Up Foundation. The same year, the Northampton Youth Forum received a National Diversity Award, recognising a range of work including their help and support to the LGBT community in Northampton. The Youth Forum has continued its work with Ben Cohen and his Stand Up Foundation to develop its new national anti-bullying programme (which includes tackling homophobia) with the musical Wicked. Schools and colleges in Northampton have the opportunity to pilot it in the 2013 summer term before going nationwide with the new school year in September 2013.

Northamptonshire County Council also launched a pioneering approach to tackling homophobic bullying in schools in 2007. The Tackling Diversity and Sexuality resource was an approach with all the practical steps schools needed to take to reduce homophobic bullying for both adults and pupils and is being run in conjunction with the NLGBA and the Healthy Schools Programme. The launch of the pack – developed by the county council inspection and advisory service, NIAS – coincided with National Anti-Bullying Week and followed a major piece of research completed in Northamptonshire in 2004 that found a majority had witnessed other pupils being homophobically bullied and a large minority said that they themselves had been homophobically bullied.

Despite the collapse of the NLGBA in 2009, a number of Northampton-based LGBT-friendly organisations have appeared in recent years to empower LGBT people all over Northamptonshire. Northampton is now home to several LGBT-friendly organisations and groups including LGBT social events organiser FAN Northants and the Northampton Gay Book Group. Elsewhere in Northamptonshire, Kettering's Steps Cabaret Bar was a popular gay bar in 2009 whilst Bar Sun (also in Kettering) and Corby's Lodge Park Bar hosted special gay nights in 2008 and 2012 respectively.

In 2009, a gay couple from Northampton were featured in the ground-breaking Channel 4 Dispatches documentary series about adoptive parents, showing their 18-month attempt to be approved as adoptive parents. In 2010, a same-sex couple from Northampton joined Peter Tatchell's Equal Love campaign, which seeks to overturn the twin prohibitions on same-sex marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships in the UK. The pair started a legal fight after their application for a civil marriage licence at the Northampton Register Officer was rejected. This motion challenged the UK's legal ban on same-sex marriage as only same-sex couples can apply for civil partnerships. The couple were among eight taking their case to the courts, arguing that UK law discriminates against gay people.

In 2012, Northampton's LGBT community proudly participated in Northampton Carnival's procession and at the annual Umbrella Fair. The town also hosted its first LGBT literary festival, booQfest, in addition to enjoying the success of many other FAN-endorsed events at popular venues and the setting up of Out There, a new service catering for LGBT youth. The town also established its very own gay-friendly rugby team Northampton Outlaws RFC the same year, making it the 9th gay-friendly rugby team in the UK and one of 40 internationally.

In 2013, the Northampton-based St Andrew's Healthcare was the only charity to take part in Stonewall's Healthcare Equality Index, coming 4th nationally and helping to develop baseline standards that organisations across the UK will need to meet in future years. St Andrew's Healthcare is a Stonewall Diversity Champion and in the past few years has continually improved its ranking in Stonewall's Workplace Equality Index. The same year, Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) was also one of twenty health service organisations to become a Stonewall Health Champion. 2013 also saw both Northampton College and the University of Northampton celebrating LGBT History Month; it was the college's first celebration of the month. There were also LGBT celebrations at Northampton Carnival and the Umbrella Fair in 2013, in addition to the second outing of booQfest, Northampton's LGBT Literary Festival, and a visit from Peter Tatchell to give a talk at the town's Guildhall on human rights.

Social groups

 * FAN Northants
 * Northampton Gay Book Group
 * Northampton Outlaws RFC
 * Progress

Support groups

 * Lesbian Line
 * Northamptonshire's Deaf LGBT Group
 * alliance
 * Solar Northamptonshire
 * St Andrew's Healthcare LGBTQ and Straight People's Alliance

Staff networks

 * Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust (NHFT) LGBT Staff and Allies network
 * Spectrum, Northants Police
 * St Andrew's Healthcare staff LGBT group

Forums

 * Northampton Gender Equality Forum
 * Northampton LGBT and Q People's Forum

Youth support

 * My Big Gay Family
 * Northampton College's LGBTQ Alliance
 * Northampton University's LGBTQ Society
 * Out There
 * Stamp Out Hate Crime

Nightlife

 * The Boston (Northampton's only gay bar)
 * The Edge of Town (gay-friendly pub)
 * Pink Punters (near Milton Keynes, just south of the Northamptonshire border)

Notable LGBT residents

 * Errol Flynn (bisexual actor; worked for several months at Northampton's Royal Theatre)
 * Maureen Colquhoun (lesbian politician; UK's first outed MP; represented Northampton North 1974–79)
 * Ray Gosling (gay journalist, broadcaster, and gay rights activist; grew up in Northampton)
 * Alan Moore (straight LGBT-friendly writer who published AARGH! in response to Section 28 and the Thatcher government; born and resides in Northampton)
 * Richard Coles (gay musician, journalist and Church of England priest; born in Northampton)
 * Alan Carr (gay comedian; grew up in Northampton)
 * Ben Cohen (straight LGBT-friendly rugby player and gay icon who set up the anti-bullying StandUp Foundation; born and played professionally in Northampton)