Additional reporting by Ed Holt

The most recent census – the first ever to ask about people’s sexuality – revealed startling findings: the older the respondent, the less likely they were to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB). The proportion decreased with each successive age group from 6.9 per cent of 16-24-year-olds to just 0.4 per cent of people aged 75 and over. This suggests that homophobic attitudes have a long-lasting impact on people’s life choices.

What’s more, people aged 16 to 24 were more than twice as likely to identify as LGB than the population as a whole, with young women, in particular, being out and proud. One in 10 young women identified as being LGB, compared with only 2 per cent of females aged 45 to 54.

When it comes to the places that have the highest proportion of LGB people, all four of ELL’s boroughs made it into London’s top 20: Croydon ranked number 20; Lewisham and Tower Hamlets ranked number eight and six, respectively; and Hackney, where nearly 8 per cent of the population identified as LGB, made it in at number five – making it the ELL borough with the largest LGB community.

For Londoners, Hackney’s top spot will come as no surprise. It has a rich LGBTQ+ history, hosting the first-ever conversion from a civil partnership to a same-sex marriage; it was home to the first-ever lesbian football team; and its council was named as one of the country’s “most gay-friendly” employers.

A closer look at the census data, shows Hackney’s Dalston Kingsland emerging as the queerest ward in ELL’s queerest borough. So, to find out what the post-legalisation, out-and-proud younger generation makes of the impacts of same-sex marriage, what better way to investigate than on a gay bar crawl down Dalston Kingston Road?

Dalston Superstore

Our first stop is a Dalston Kingston-must: Dalston Superstore. As soon as you walk in, the bar staff greet you with the kind of friendliness that, as a Londoner, takes you by surprise: “How are you guys?” Eva says, like a long-lost friend. She has worked at Dalston Superstore for eight months and “absolutely loves it.” 

It’s easy to see why. The brightly-coloured, semi-industrial decor gives it a charming character. The atmosphere is relaxed with Superstore-goers ranging from the middle-aged, working on their laptops, to young professionals catching up with friends and to students ready for a night out. 

Eva, 25, fully expects the gay wedding she is going to this summer to be “more extravagant and fun” than the average straight wedding. “In the queer community here, there is a fabulous group of people that are unique and very outgoing,” she says, “so I imagine it will be quite the soiree.” 

Bailey, a 24-year-old drag queen, is enjoying a mojito opposite the bar. They have a slightly different take on things. Because the queer community has been persecuted for centuries, they say, gay people tend to be “very private and not make weddings a big thing. It is usually just family and close friends.”

Whilst Bailey believes it is still “absolutely” important for gay people to have the ability to marry – so straight people “can see we are exactly the same” – he does question how many young, queer people actually believe in marriage.

Meanwhile, old friends Sian and Anna, sharing a few pints in Dalston Superstore’s window also question the idea of tying the knot. Anna, 27, a bisexual teacher living in Hackney, doesn’t think she’d get married to a man “because of what it signifies about the patriarchy”. She does, though, like the idea of sending a political message by marrying a woman or non-binary person; “I would really enjoy giving that ‘f you’ to what marriage traditionally was.” 

However, Anna still highlights the progress the Marriage Act has ushered in. When she compares her experience as a teacher with her time as a student, 10 years ago, she says, “A lot of homophobia was allowed to be got away with. Now they are a lot stricter on the punishments for that kind of behaviour.”

Anna’s drinking companion, Sian – a Hackney resident working in software development – is not just suspicious of marriage, but the reasons behind the Marriage Act passing in the first place. Sian, 30, says the Act was just an “easy win” for the Conservatives in 2013. “I would not be surprised to see them undo it,” she adds. Both Sian and Anna also voice their concerns about the rise of transphobia within the Party and society as a whole. 

Sunny and Saint, sitting next to the bar, agree. Sunny, who was 14 when same-sex marriage was legalised, is now a 24-year-old waitress. She says: “I feel like politics is always like a pendulum. The Conservatives legalised same-sex marriage but 10 years later and we are back to right-wing people pushing against our rights.”

Saint, is 27 and unemployed; she’s “done a lot, but nothing successfully”. As a trans woman, she says, “I feel there is a political agenda to go against queer people because we are an easy target. Non-binary and trans people are now under massive attack by the government.”

“Half of straight marriages end in divorce,” says Saint “so it’s not like we’re messing anything up, they did that themselves.” Sunny adds, “I believe in gay divorce!”

The Glory

This gay bar, just 10 minutes walk away from Dalston Superstore, may look like an ordinary bar at first glance, but in its basement lies a “performance Mecca”. 

The Glory hosts queer events, every single night of the week: comedy by queer-medians, cabaret and DJ sets. Upstairs itself is a down-to-earth bar with a few nods to its gay history – plenty of glittery decoration and pictures of perfectly formed nude posteriors. 

Freddie, 43, pulls pints behind the bar by night, but by day they’re a fashion designer – hence the on-point dress sense. They insist gay weddings are more fun than heterosexual ones. Queer people’s sexuality already breaks with convention, she explains, so they don’t “have the same social restraints; they don’t have to be so rigid and boring.”

They also say that over the last 10 years, straight Britons, having gone to more and more gay weddings, are no longer “shocked” by same-sex partners and the idea of them getting married. Freddie says, “Straight people can understand same-sex couples if they are married: people are quite scared about what they don’t understand. They understand marriage, though.”

One thing Freddie regrets, however, is that it took the legalisation of same-sex marriage for some straight people to see homosexuals as “human”. Especially, because a lot of queer people don’t like the idea of marriage. To them, it is a very “patriarchal” tradition where “the dad gives you away to another person. The bridesmaids are there to look pretty. And the best man does a speech, but none of the women are allowed to talk.” 

On the other side of the bar, are Erez and Shai. Living just around the corner, this same-sex married couple considers themselves lucky to call The Glory their local. Shai, a 40-year-old environmental consultant, says, “With gay marriages, society was two decades ahead of the law. The law doesn’t proceed society’s behaviour, the law catches up with their beliefs.”

His husband disagrees. Erez, 38, claims legalising same-sex marriage was the government saying, “‘this is a structure that we see, that exists and we are OK with that’. They legitimised gay relationships in straight peoples’ eyes.”

The couple are originally from Israel, where same-sex marriage is still not legal. In their home country, Erez says, gay rights are only protected by convention and not enshrined in law. The Marriage Act, he believes, made gay rights feel “stronger”. And, while there are still plenty of homophobic voices in the UK, “You don’t feel like, any minute now, someone can take away my rights.”

Village 512

Our final stop is where you want to end the night. Don’t expect things to liven up here until at least 10pm. When they do, ready yourself for strobe lights, old-school Beyoncé cranked up to the max and beer in plastic cups. Village 512’s modus operandi is, undoubtedly, “fun”.

We spoke to Village 512’s general manager, Marco. He may originally be from Italy, but Marco lives in a flat just above the bar – that’s how much he “loves the vibe”. He unequivocally supports same-sex marriage and echoes Erez: “The law gives you certain rights. If you decide to create a stable family you have to protect each other. The marriage law gives you that through rights.”

Marco may not be married yet but he would like to be in the future, he’s just “looking for the right person”. Comparing himself to the other people we had spoken to throughout the night, he says, “For some people, marriage is important, for some people it is not. It is not that LGBTQ+ people are against marriage.” Marco thinks he might be more inclined to marry because of the way he grew up: “I come from Italy where the culture of the family is very strong.”

Marco, 40, only opened Village 512 a year and a half ago, but has “received a lot of support from Dalston Superstore and The Glory too”; “We are all friends, we are all connected. When someone is closing, we send customers from one bar to another,” he says.

“People in Dalston have a lot of respect for each other”, Marco adds. And it is not just something in the water. “People in Dalston are really multi-ethnic. So they have got used to diversity between people”. He says that’s what makes Dalston special, “you don’t really get that atmosphere, even in other places next door in Hackney”. So, whilst their views on same-sex marriage maybe be mixed, the staff members and gay-bar-goers we spoke to on ELL’s queerest street are clear on one thing: they are resolutely pro-Dalston.

This article is part of our series, A decade since ‘I do’: celebrating same-sex marriage in London, click here to read our other stories.