It started here
Haringey's Black queer history isn't missing. It's foundational, and largely uncredited.
The Black Lesbian and Gay Centre was founded in 1985, and its northern base was an annex of Tottenham Town Hall on Somerset Road. The following year the borough opened the first council lesbian and gay unit in the country, run by Femi Otitoju. And on 2 May 1987 the Positive Images Campaign and Haringey Black Action marched three and a half thousand people from Duckett's Common to Bruce Castle Park under the banner Smash the Backlash — the first demonstration of its kind in Britain to put the lives of Black lesbians and gay men at its centre.
Section 28 became law in 1988, and Haringey was the borough it was written against. That is usually where the story gets told from — the losing end. But the borough was doing the thing first, and people who were there are still here. The rest of it — the rooms, the nights, the photographs in shoeboxes — is still being gathered, and the panel below is where it continues.
The 2021 Census counted around 52,400 Black residents in Haringey. On the estimates we publish, that's 1,200 to 1,700 Black queer men in the borough — roughly the crowd that filled Duckett's Common in 1987, living here right now. These are working estimates and we welcome correction. The point is the scale: we were never a niche. We were just never counted.
Here in Haringey
What's organised in the borough for Black queer men and Black LGBTQ+ people, as we find it — and help us find more.
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Wise Thoughts
Global Majority and LGBTQI+ arts charity, founded in Wood Green in 1999 and still running from the Creative Cultural Hub at Wood Green Central Library. Runs the gayWISE drop-in — housing and legal advice alongside the social — and GFEST, its cross-arts festival, every November since 2007.
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Gatherings across London — the BLKOUT events calendar
Fewer and truer: what's actually on for Black queer London, checked by people, never padded.
Beside us in the borough
Neighbours doing good work in Haringey. Use them — and tell them we sent you.
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Bernie Grant Arts Centre
Tottenham Green's home for Black creativity, named for the MP who opposed Section 28. BLKOUT screened here in 2017, during its James Baldwin season.
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Black Thrive Haringey
The borough's arm of the Black Thrive movement, hosted by Mind in Haringey — peer-led research, cultural competency training, community assemblies and the Time2Heal app. Backed by ten years of Lottery funding. Where the borough's Black mental health work lives.
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Mind in Haringey
Peer-led mental health support in the borough, including the Proud North London project for LGBTQ+ people, and the host of Black Thrive Haringey.
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Worth the journey
Black queer men have never let a borough boundary decide where community happens. Where you're centred, not just welcome:
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The Love Tank — MAUREEN
Peer-led sexual health and community building for queer men of colour, with outreach across north London. PrEP, harm reduction, and rooms that don't need you to explain yourself.
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COVEN
Black-owned queer venue, now in Soho — straight down the Piccadilly line from the borough.
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Look after yourself
Free, confidential, no GP needed, no judgement — and your business stays yours.
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Sexual Health London (SHL)
Free, discreet home test kits and PrEP by post anywhere in London — order online, nothing to explain to anyone.
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Haringey sexual health services
The borough's own guide to free STI testing and treatment, including the clinics that serve Haringey residents.
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56 Dean Street
Soho's LGBTQ+ specialist sexual health and HIV service — Europe's largest, and long the home clinic of queer London.
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Find your nearest NHS clinic
Every NHS sexual health service near you — testing, treatment, PrEP — searchable by postcode.
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Next door
The doors are opening borough by borough. Step through, or help us open the next one.
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2025. Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2025.
1,700
Your guess stays in this browser.
One dot for every Black queer man the census estimate puts in Haringey — between 1,200 and 1,700 of us.
| Borough | Black residents (2021) | Black queer men (est.) |
|---|---|---|
| Croydon | 88,500 | 2,000–2,800 |
| Newham | 88,200 | 2,000–2,700 |
| Lewisham | 81,900 | 1,800–2,600 |
| Southwark | 80,100 | 1,800–2,500 |
| Lambeth | 76,100 | 1,700–2,400 |
| Brent | 62,500 | 1,400–2,000 |
| Hackney | 59,300 | 1,300–1,900 |
| Enfield | 58,200 | 1,300–1,800 |
| Haringey | 52,400 | 1,200–1,700 |
| Waltham Forest | 46,700 | 1,000–1,500 |
2021 Census analysis — Who Are the UK's Black Queer Men? (BLKOUT's Critical Frequency dossier)
Nobody keeps this number. Not the council, not the NHS, not the people who commission work in this borough. The estimate is ours, built from the 2021 Census, because a population nobody counts is a population nobody plans for.
Know your Haringey?
Three questions. No prizes except the stories.
01 In 1986 one council opened the first lesbian and gay unit in the country. Which borough?
Haringey — and it was run by Femi Otitoju. The first of its kind in Britain, in this borough, forty years ago. Everything that followed, including the backlash, started from that decision.
02 On 2 May 1987, three and a half thousand people marched from Duckett's Common to Bruce Castle Park. Under what banner?
Smash the Backlash — organised together by the Positive Images Campaign and Haringey Black Action, and the first demonstration of its kind in Britain to put the lives of Black lesbians and gay men at its centre. It went down The Roundway. People still living here were on it.
03 Which Tottenham MP stood up against Section 28?
Bernie Grant, elected for Tottenham in 1987, opposed Clause 28 in Parliament. The arts centre on Tottenham Green carries his name, and it is still one of the borough's great Black cultural rooms.
Reading the borough
Haringey's Black queer record is unusually well kept — because people here did the keeping. Start with these, and tell us what belongs on the shelf.
- Haringey Vanguard — Veronica McKenzie, 2019-2021. Oral histories of the borough's Black and minority ethnic LGBTQ+ activists, 1970s to 1990s. The project closed with an exhibition at Bruce Castle in February 2021; its archive is held at Bruce Castle Museum and London Metropolitan Archives. Visit the project
- LGBTQ+ timeline, 1967 to 1988 — Haringey Council, 2021. The borough's own record of its activism, year by year — the Lesbian and Gay Unit, Positive Images, Smash the Backlash, and the people who carried them. Read the timeline
- Challenging Heterosexism: The Haringey Experiment, 1986-1987 — NOTCHES, 2014. How a borough's schools policy became the country's argument, and then its law.
From the BLKOUT archive
Haringey runs through our own writing — Tottenham shops and Tottenham childhoods, a Baldwin screening at the Bernie Grant, and our work alongside Haringey Vanguard on the borough's archive:
- Watch This Space: Lloyd Young — The Black Experience — Apr 2021
- Watch This Space: Daniel Molyneaux — Mar 2020
- Read: Excited, Nervous, yet Proud — Feb 2019
- Reclaiming Jimmy — Mar 2017
Asked, answered
Where can I meet other Black queer men in Haringey?
Start with the door on this page — you'll hear about everything as it happens. Wise Thoughts runs a regular LGBTQI+ drop-in at Wood Green, and BLKOUT's national community is open to you today. If a few Haringey men want a table in the borough, we'll help hold it.
Where can I get an STI test or PrEP in Haringey?
Sexual Health London posts free test kits and PrEP to any London address, no GP and no conversation required. The borough's own clinics are listed above, and 56 Dean Street is a short run down the Piccadilly line.
Is BLKOUT a Haringey organisation?
BLKOUT is one community-owned co-operative for Black queer men across the UK — with a door in every borough. We're registered in Croydon and we belong wherever our men are. Haringey has two of our directors living in it.
I'm not out. Can I still come?
Yes. Come as you are — nobody at this door asks you to be anything first, and your business stays yours.
Is the history on this page accurate?
It's checked against the borough's own record and the public archive, and dated so you can see when we last looked. If we've got something wrong — or missed something you were part of — the panel at the bottom is where you tell us, and the page changes.
Be met
Come as you are. We answer.
Leave your name and we'll keep you posted about Haringey — what's on, what's starting, and how to be part of it. This goes to BLKOUT, a co-operative owned by its members. No engagement machinery, nothing sold onward — just a community that answers.
Step inside
The door is how we find each other. BLKOUTHUB is where we live.
The members' room: Black queer men across the UK, owned by the men in it. Why knock:
- Real connection. Nearly four in five members say they came to find it — and found it.
- No algorithm, no ads, nothing sold onward. A room that doesn't monetise you. Your attention is yours; we're after your company.
- Where things actually start. Occasions, groups, and the knowledge that never gets written down — passed man to man, the way it always has been.
- Owned by us. A co-operative with an asset lock: what we build together stays ours, and passes to the men who come after.
And don't just read about AIvor — talk with him. Our own voice, named for the man whose name is over every door. Ask him about BLKOUT, about Black queer life, about Haringey — he answers.
Talk with AIvor nowMake it truer
This borough kept its own record better than most, and it is still the people here who know it best. If a group has folded, a night has moved, or we've missed something you were part of — tell us. Corrections get credited, if you want the credit.
If you work here
This page is for Black queer men first. But if you serve this borough — NHS, social prescribing, council, community sector, creative health, or you run a room — there's a door for you too.
- Refer. Supporting a Black queer man who could use his people? Send him this page — that is a referral, and every knock gets answered by a human.
- Commission or partner. Working on Black queer men's health, culture or connection in Haringey? We're the community-owned, by-and-for partner — and the evidence base is already on this page. Write to rob@blkoutuk.com.
- List us. Maintain a directory, a support page, a signposting service? Our entry, ready to paste:
BLKOUT — the UK's community-owned co-operative for Black queer men. In your neighbourhood: https://events.blkoutuk.com/haringey/ · blkoutuk.com · rob@blkoutuk.com - Run a room. A venue, night or group our men should know about? Tell us — the page gets truer, and it points at you.
We list our neighbours and our neighbours list us. That's how a borough works.