Northampton

The rainbow flag being flown outside Northampton's Guildhall in 2009

Northampton is a large town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire with an estimated population of 212,100 (2011 census), making it one of the largest towns in the United Kingdom. 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

The Black Boy Hotel, Northampton's historic gay venue

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). 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. And this was way before the prominence of our civil rights in the 1960s and the setting up of gay villages across the world!

Northampton has always 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. Elsewhere in Northamptonshire, Kettering's Steps Cabaret Bar was a popular gay bar whilst Bar Sun (also in Kettering) and Corby's Lodge Park Bar have hosted special gay nights. Popular venues in Northampton like Roadmender, The Old White Hart and The Edge of Town have also been considered gay-friendly. There has been — and always is — an LGBT heartbeat in and around Northampton!

The Boston is currently Northampton's only gay bar

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.

Northampton Borough Council was one of the first councils in the country to recognise the needs of the lesbian, gay and bisexual 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 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 also held its first LGBT Pride in 2004, which consisted of a programme of LGBT-related arts, cinema, entertainment, literature as well as a public event in Abington Park.

Civil partnerships were then 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. 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.

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.

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.

The Big Gay Bus at the 2012 Northampton Carnival

Despite the collapse of the NLGBA in 2009, a number of Northampton-based LGBT-friendly organisations have been appearing 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.

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 gay and lesbian 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, both Northampton College and the University of Northampton celebrated LGBT History Month; it was the college's first celebration of the month.

Northampton's LGBT book festival, booQfest, is due to be celebrated for the second time in 2013. There is also a not-for-profit organisation attempting to relaunch a Pride event in the town by 2014.

LGBT community

Social groups

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

Support groups

• Lesbian Line
• Northamptonshire's Deaf LGBT Group
• Q:alliance
• Solar Northamptonshire
• Spectrum
• St Andrew's Healthcare LGBTQ and Straight People's Alliance
• 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
• The Edge of Town
• Pink Punters

Notable LGBT residents

• Errol Flynn (bisexual actor)
• Ray Gosling (gay journalist, broadcaster, and gay rights activist)
• Alan Moore (straight LGBT-friendly writer who published AARGH! in response to Section 28 and the anti-gay "Thatcherised" government of the 1980s)
• Richard Coles (musician, journalist and Church of England priest)
• Alan Carr (gay comedian)
• Ben Cohen (straight LGBT-friendly rugby player and gay icon who set up the Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation to combat homophobia and bullying)