Gay Villages

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Introduction[edit]

A ‘Gay Village’ is a metropolitan neighbourhood or district whereby people who identify as LGBTQ+¹ may reside or frequently visit to socialise, shop and work. The hubs may include gay bars, restaurants, bookshops, gyms, or other gay friendly establishments. They are often characterised by evidence of gentrification and the demographic dominated by white, middle class gay men. (See Gay Villages as a centre of gentrification). They often emerge as a response to heteronormative violence², as gay people come together to form spaces in which they can be their authentic selves, nearly always in big cities due to perceived notions of acceptance and it being safer to ‘come out’. (Valentine, 1997) Also described by Myslik (1996) as ‘safe havens’ as people feel part of the community. Gay villages are in major cities around the world, such as Castro in San Francisco, West Hollywood in Los Angeles, Hoxton in London and Canal Street in Manchester.

History[edit]

Gay Villages did not emerge until after the second world war in western countries, as mostly gay men flocked to create safe spaces in certain bars and streets. They often used these spaces to carry out activism and support local politics. Women also created ‘lesbian territories’³ although these are less distinct and visible to the naked eye. (Gorman-Murray & Nash, 2021) For example, the Castro district⁴ in San Francisco was the first gay neighbourhood in North America, with many men ending up there after being expelled from the US army. Castells (1983) was the first scholar to publish research on a gay district in 1983, he stated that the main aim of a gay person is to ‘come out’, hence the need to create spaces where this can happen safely. Once the space has been created, it can continue to grow as the politics and culture of that district follows suit. For example, in Castro, Harvey Milk, a gay, local business owner, was elected to the city’s Board of Supervisors to represent the area. (Gorman-Murray & Nash, 2021)

Across the pond, the United Kingdom has many notable gay villages too, with London’s Soho being the most well-known. It has a vast history, with evidence of more, of course secret, gay establishments and brothels housed there in the mid 18th Century than in the 1950s. (Collins, 2004) It grew around Old Compton Street, as there were already a few gay bars there, so it wasn’t acting on a blank canvas as such, thus attracting development for anyone looking to open an LGBTQ+ establishment. Today it has over 56 gay enterprises, (Collins, 2004) weaved around gated residences and expensive hotels. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that more recently, Hoxton and Shoreditch have re-emerged as a gay village, offering a more ‘authentic’ alternative to the ‘artificial’ Soho, initially catering towards a more working-class population in the East. A countercultural response to the now heavily marketed, mainstream soho cosmopolitan. (Andersson, 2009).

Hoxton (and Shoreditch) as a Gay Village – History and Emergence[edit]

The Hoxton and Shoreditch area has been described as the “grittier, fashion-forward and often more outrageous hotbed of gay night life”. (Andersson, 2009, pg. 56) The area itself of Shoreditch and Hoxton runs from Old Street down to Kingsland Road and includes places like the ‘hub’ of Hoxton Square, the popular, Sunday flower market spot of Columbia Road⁵ and the industrial bars and classic East-End pubs dotted along Shoreditch High Street. It was first developed and marketed as a creative hub and nightlife location in 1993 and was associated with up-and-coming young artists like Damian Hurst, part of ‘Young British Artists’.⁶ (Andersson, 2009). The area’s abundance of cheap, industrial spaces was ideal for these artists and provided a space of authentic resistance to middle-class Central London. (Harris, 2012). It meant that the area was perfect for gay nightlife entreupenurs who wanted to have a different image (arty, industrial, working-class, grity) to those of the European-Centric style of Soho’s Bars. This was seen in the first establishements, such as Hoxton Kitchen. It was made clear that the East-End was the ‘trendier’ and alternative version of Soho, which at the same time was loosing its ‘cool’ image to the East. (Harris, 2012)

Hoxton (and Shoreditch) as a Gay Village[edit]

Through Castells research, he identified key features of a Gay Village, such as dual-male households on voter registration data and a larger than average proportion of gay establishments, such as bars and restaurants. (Castells, 1983) Today, Gay Villages include creative industries, specialist shops and boutiques and evidence of gentrification. The Hoxton Gay Village has a higher percentage of people who identify as LGBTQ+ than most other areas of London. With 11.86% of the local authority ‘Hackney’, which includes this Gay Village, identifying as such. (Office for National Statistics, 2021) This is in the highest category offered by the Census data, with only a few authorities such as Vauxhall and Camden having higher figures. Many LGBTQ+ people call the Gay Village home, seen with (assumed) gay men queueing for Nikki’s Bar in Hoxton Square, a gay friendly establishment on a Friday night. The famous ‘Colours’ also has a lively presence, with large queues outside. Around the square various restaurants are described as gay friendly online. In the ‘Red Dog Saloon’, an American eatery opposite ‘Colours’, groups of men dine out, sat below rainbow flags and background sounds of Whitney. Due to Hoxton’s gay village being more spread out, classic East-End pubs are situated on the corners of streets. Whilst not all being overtly ‘gay’, many list themselves as gay friendly such as ‘The Red Lion’ on Mundy Street and ‘Players Arms’ on Charlotte Road. More explicitly gay bars join colours though, such as The Glory⁷ and The Queen Adelaide – many men enjoy pints and cigarettes in the streets just outside.

The Gay Village hosts a number of specialist shops and boutiques, such as ‘Common Press’, a lgbtq+ bookstore catering to gay residents and visitors. There is an inclusive hairdressers on Charlotte Road and a specialist, old shoemakers shop on the corner. It isn’t just establishments, queer street art and advertising features in the area on flower boxes, at Boxpark⁸ and bus stops.

However, a pitfall to the Gay Village may be that because LGBTQ+ people leave their homes to congregate in marginal areas like Hoxton, they may be subjected to homophobic violence. Statistics show that homophobic crime has increased, with Hackney Borough seeing a rise of 50% since 2016 (Hackney Citizen, 2020).

Inclusive Hairdressers on Charlotte Road, showing the diverse LGBTQ+ population of the Gay Village (Credit - Author's Own)
Signage outside queer bookstore 'Common Press' on Bethnal Green Road (Credit-Author's Own)
Rainbow themed street art on Shoreditch High Street (Credit- Author's Own)

Gay Villages as a centre of gentrification[edit]

More recently, Gay Villages are being criticised for catering to the needs and wealth of white, gay men. As they develop, they become sites of gentrification, as dual-male households are among some of the highest earning, meaning more disposable income to spend on expensive drinks and dining, but also the ability to dominate the real-estate market. In Hoxton, the gentrification can be described as ‘art-led’ (Harris, 2012). The once cheap warehouses for artists are now expensive properties, associated with loft-living. (Harris, 2012) The area shares similarities with other gentrified areas, its re-imaging of urban space for more affluent groups – such as gay men working in the creative and technology industries. For example, Shoreditch is home to 'silicon roundabout' – a hub for this. As the area becomes more gentrified the Gay Village can become ‘underthreat’ from property developers and corrporations seeking to profit from the area once known as the working-class version of Soho.

Exclusion from the Gay Village – Invisible Lesbian Territories?[edit]

Due to the dominance of the real-estate market for gay men in these villages, the experiences for lesbians in a metropolis may differ, their territories may be less visible and distinct, due to the inequality of monetary and/or physical power to dominate and occupy space within the city. Reasonings for lesbian territories being less visible are contested, but popular ones suggest that they are more vulnerable to homophobic violence under the patriarchy and often singled out as the homosexual ‘other’ (Valentine, 1997). The patriarchy perpetuates the invisibility of lesbians in everyday spaces, such as establishments in gay villages like Hoxton and Shoreditch.

Endnotes[edit]

¹ LGBTQ+ is an umbrella term meaning Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, queer and any other identity which is not deemed as straight.

² Heteronormative violence is violence which regulates bodies according to normative notions of sexuality and gender. (LLOYD, 2013)

³ Lesbian Territories are similar to gay villages, in the sense that gay women form a community, but they are often less visible in terms of occupation of establishments and neighbourhoods. This may be because of a reduced financial power in comparison to gay men (dual households). (Valentine, 1997)

⁴ The Castro District in San Francisco is a neighbourhood has transformed from a economically depressed area into a politicised, gay neighbourhood. It created a space for gay businesses to thrive, at the forefront Harvey Milk, and influence local politics but also a community during the AIDS crisis. (Boyd, 2011)

⁵ Columbia Road Weekly, Sunday flower market draws in locals and tourists from across the city with its fresh flowers and great deals all situated along a picturesque victorian street.

⁶ Based in East London, Young British Artists were known for being the generation which included media and advertising into their work during the late 20th Century. They were incredibly successful, with the most well-known member, Hurst, being reportedly the richest living artist in the UK. (Navazo-Ostúa, et al., 2021)

⁷ The Glory is a queer-owned pub on Kingsland Road. Despite being only being 8 years old, it's famous for its cabaret and drag show evenings catering to the gay community in the village.

⁸ Boxpark is collective of bars operating in London, famous for showing big sporting events and hosting DJ nights on rooftops during the summer months.

References[edit]

Andersson, J., 2009. East End Localism and Urban Decay: Shoreditch's Re-Emerging Gay Scene. The London Journal - A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present, 34(1), pp. 55-71.

Boyd, N. A., 2011. San Francisco's Castro district: from gay liberation to tourist destination. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change , 9(3), pp. 237-248.

Castells, M., 1983. Cultural Identity, Sexual Liberation and Urban Structure: The Gay Community in San Francisco. In: The City and the Grassroots. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 138-169.

Collins, A., 2004. Sexual Dissidence, Enterprise and Assimilation: Bedfellows in Urban Regeneration. Urban Studies, 41(9), pp. 1789-806.

Gorman-Murray, A. & Nash, C., 2021. Recovering the Gay Village: A Comparative Historical Geography of Urban Change and Planning in Toronto and Sydney. In: B. A & D. Hess, eds. The Life and Afterlife of Gay Neighborhoods. s.l.:Springer, Cham, pp. 239-260.

Hackney Citizen, 2020. Homophobic hate crime in Hackney up 50 per cent since 2016. [Online] Available at: https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2020/01/22/homophobic-hate-crime-hackney-up-50-per-cent/ [Accessed 10 April 2023].

Harris, A., 2012. Art and gentrification: pursuing the urban pastoral in Hoxton, London. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 37(2), pp. 226-241.

LLOYD, M., 2013. Heteronormativity and/as Violence: The "Sexing" of Gwen Araujo. Hypatia, 28(4), pp. 818-834.

Myslik, W., 1996. Renegotiating the social/sexual identities of places: gay communities as safe havens or sites of resistance?'. In: N. Duncan, ed. Body Space. London: Routledge, pp. 159-69.

Navazo-Ostúa, P., Aladro-Vico, E. & Bailey, O., 2021. Processes of legitimization in contemporary Art: the young British Artists phenomenon. Journal for Cultural Research, 25(2), pp. 144-159.

Office for National Statistics, 2021. Sexual orientation, England and Wales: Census 2021. [Online] Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualorientationenglandandwales/census2021 [Accessed 10 April 2023].

Valentine, G., 1997. (Hetero)Sexing Space: Lesbian Perceptions and Experiences of Everyday Spaces. In: L. McDowell & J. Sharp, eds. Space, Gender, Knowledge: Feminist Readings. s.l.:Routledge.

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