LGBT+ History Month in London: what’s on and how to celebrate

LGBTQ+ History Month is the perfect time to pay a visit to the UK’s first (and only) museum dedicated to queer British culture. This spot offers a valuable peek into centuries of queer history, pulled together by director John Galliano, a former editor of Gay Times. It's a small, free-to-enter venue in Granary Square in King’s Cross, where you can see a diverse collection of exhibits including the prison door behind which Oscar Wilde wrote De Profundis and photographs documenting stories of struggle and celebration through the decades.

Leigh Bowery was a convention-shunning icon of 1980s London nightlife, taking on many different roles in the city’s scene, from artist, performer and model, to club promoter, fashion designer and musician. His artistry also took many shapes, from reimagining clothes and makeup to experimenting with painting and sculpture. A new Tate Modern exhibition will celebrate his life and work, displaying some of his looks and collaborations with the likes of Charles Atlas, Lucian Freud, Nicola Rainbird and more.

Greenwich’s royal museums always go all out when it comes to LGBTQ+ History Month, and this year is no exception. As well as their family-friendly February half-term events series Out at Sea, the 2025 celebrations include this evening at Queen’s House, where resident monthly meet-up Queer History Club will be regaling guests with fascinating tales of queer maritime history. More details to follow.

The archives of the Bishopsgate Institute are a treasure trove of LGBTQ+ history with extensive collections of cuttings, badges, banners, leather jackets – and even a set of wizard’s robes. Lead by the legendary Stefan Dickers, the Special Collections and Archives Manager at Bishopsgate Institute and the archivist responsible for developing the Institute’s collection on LGBTQ+ Britain over the past 20 years, these 90-minute sessions will acquaint you with the collection, which comprises of more than 10,000 LGBTQ+ titles, and the individual archives of Stonewall, Switchboard, the Terrence Higgins Trust and the UK Leather and Fetish Archives. By the end of the tour you’ll have seen the lot, and also answered the all-important question of just how many lesbian pulp fiction novels one library can hold. 

Alice Neel was one of the most important chroniclers of modern life. The American artist painted the people around her, always with tenderness, always with bare honesty. Following 2022’s excellent ‘There’s Still Another I See’, ‘At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World’ looks at her depictions of figures from LGBTQ+  communities, including politicians, philanthropists, writers, performers, artists, friends and neighbours for a powerful examination of life on the margins, and what it's like to have piercings in unmentionable places. 

We've all heard about gay sailors, but what about queer pirates or trans seahorses? Taking place across the National Maritime Museum, the Cutty Sark and Queen’s House, Out at Sea is Greenwich’s annual celebration of LGBTQ+ History Month, a free week-long events series packed with historical storytelling sessions, lively performances and crafty workshops for the whole family. Head down to the three museums to enjoy Drag Queen storytime sessions with the Queer History Club’s H.R.H Aphrodite and pirate drag queen Maneeta and performances from LGBTQ+ asylum seeker choir Rainbows Across Borders. Or get stuck in yourself at a singing workshop facilitated by the Trans Voices Young Company, drag aerobics classes with Dolly Trolley, and a plethora of arts and crafts sessions where you can try your hand at making everything from merfolk collages to fisherman’s knot friendship bracelets. Check out the full programme here. 

A yellow all-in-one jumpsuit, conical spikes protruding out of all angles. A black beret adorned with buttons, chains and keys. Gold leather trousers with an adjoining bag rhino-horning upwards from the crotch. 

If you were a London club kid in the ’80s, it didn’t matter how impractically you dressed: if something was fabulous, you would wear it. This new exhibition from the Fashion and Textile Museum captures that lust for dressing up via an extensive collection of clothes, jewellery, photographs, magazines and memorabilia which came out of a specific corner of the city at a revolutionary time for fashion. You’ll leave the exhibition wanting to dress better, more boldly, to embrace your own style and turn the saturation right up to the max. If you like clothes, you’ll love this. 

Some of the most potent symbols of queerness come from the natural world: like pansies, fruits, and especially, lavender. This fragrant herb is getting a moment in the spotlight at ‘A Dash of Lavender’, Chelsea Physic Garden’s collaboration with Queer Botany in honour of LGBTQ+ history month. Visitors to the garden can pick up a printed map which shares stories about plants from a queer perspective, and get stuck into various activities across February all exploring queer ecology. Look out for botanical drawing workshops, poetry evenings, folklore circles and more. 

One of a variety of free, themed tours that take place regularly throughout the year, these hour-long tours explore some of the treasures of the Tate Modern’s collection through the lens of gender identity and sexuality. Let by a team of volunteers, each of which have their own special interests, so you never know exactly which of the 70,000-odd artworks on display might be included on the tour, which could encompass artworks by artists as diverse as Claude Cahun, Gilbert & George, Laura Aguilar, Nan Goldin, Zanele Muholi, Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly

In 2024, London underwent something of a ‘Lesbian Renaissance’, with dozens of new events springing up to cater to the city’s population of queer women. Most exciting of all was the opening of not one, but two new FLINTA-focused bars, bringing the city’s total number of lesbian venues up to three.

Situated directly underneath bold east London arts space Guts Gallery and co-founded by its creator El Pennick, Goldie Saloon is a day-to-night bar-slash-cafe bills itself as east London’s ‘FLINTA*-gay living room’, offering up a healthy dose of sapphic silliness via a varied programme of community events, plus a bar stocked with classic cocktails, low-intervention wines, draught beer Queer Brewing and plenty of no/low options. Down the road on Mare Street you’ll find La Camionera, a low-lit Iberian-inspired wine bar where local celesbians sip pricey glasses of La Vie En Orange and snack on croquettas while studiously avoiding each other’s gaze. If you haven’t visited them already, LGBTQ+ History Month is the perfect time to stop by the new openings for a negroni or two.

A contemporary of Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin and David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar was a key figure in New York’s East Village art scene in the 1970s and 80s, even if his reputation as a major force in American photography has largely come about in the decades since his death of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1987. ‘Eyes Open in the Dark’ is an exhibition of his later work curated by his close friend, the artist and print-maker Gary Schneider, alongside his biographer John Douglas Millar, and features portraits of several of Hujar’s friends and contemporaries from the downtown scene.

Following the West End triumph of her musical Standing at the Sky’s Edge, playwright Chris Bush returns to the Almeida with Otherland. Blessed with one of those slight opaque theatre show descriptions that basically amounts to ‘you’ll probably have to wait until people see it’, it stars Jade Anouka and Fizz Sinclair as Jo and Harry, a couple who are going through a break-up and deciding what sort of people they want to be as they go through the delicate process of disentangling their lives. Ann Yee directs. 

Did you know that Princess Diana spent a night clubbing with Freddie Mercury at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern? Or that Highbury Fields hosted the first gay rights protest? London is home to a wealth of queer bars, clubs, nights and other spaces, so it’s no wonder it has a fascinating queer history that has paved the way to make the capital’s LGBTQ+ scene one of the most fabulous in the world. Take a tour of the key points in the historic battle for equal rights and the current hot spots that celebrate queer culture and find some interesting and thought-provoking LGBTQ+ folklore while you’re at it. 

FLXRT’s annual Valentine’s party is here to spark some queer matchmaking. Find a date for Valentine’s day at this evening of blind meet-ups and icebreaker activities, all helping you connect with new people. Or, just head along for an epic line-up of DJs and dancing. Come ready to dance and mingle. 

Get to know the surprising queer histories behind some of the art and artefacts in the British Museum’s vast collection on this free tour of the iconic institution. Led by a knowledgeable volunteer, the 70-minute ‘Desire, love and identity’ tour takes in a huge variety of objects ranging from the ancient world to the present day, illuminating the fascinating stories behind some of the musum’s most famous artefacts and lesser-known gems, including the Townley Diskobolos, the Gilgamesh Tablet and the Warren Cup. Can’t make it to one of these dates? There’s also a self-guided version of the tour with free audio commentary you can access through your preferred streaming platform. 

Established in 1979, Bloomsbury’s pioneering Gay's the Word is the oldest dedicated LGBTQ+ bookshop in the UK, and features in the superb gays-and-minders movie Pride. Stock covers fiction, history and biography, as well as more specialist holdings in queer studies, sex and relationships, children, and parenting. In addition to regular author readings and book-signings (think Adam Mars-Jones, Armistead Maupin, Neil Bartlett, Clare Summerskill), it hosts a range of different discussion groups where different sections of the queer community, some of which have been running for decades. 

Is the thought of Valentine’s Day getting you down? Ditch the plastic heart-filled date nights and have a laugh instead at The Clapham Grand’s queer comedy night ‘Unlucky in Love’ – because, let’s face it, romantic mishaps are far more interesting. The epic line-up features comics at the top of their game including Grace Campbell, Travis Alabanza, Kemah Bob and James Barr, with the brilliant Jayde Adams tying the proceedings together as the wise-cracking host. All the profits will be donated to the Grand’s Pink Noise fund a new foundation set up by the co-founders of Mighty Hoopla to support the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community. So, as well as a night if belly laughs, you’ll leave with an altruistic spring in your step. 

Meeting in the basement bar of Dalston’s Grade II-listed Art Deco picturehouse the Rio Cinema, Pink Palace is a friendly and relaxed film club where all-comers are invited to engage with queer cinematic history. Tickets are only £5, and weekly Wednesday or Thursday-night screenings encompass a huge variety of LGBTQ+ titles. On the bill this February are  documentaries on India’s first trans modelling agency and 1970s gay Hollywood activist Pat Rocco, Berlin-set queer clubbing drama Drifter and The People’s Joker, a DIY parody in which a closeted trans girl moves to Gotham City.