Queer Edge celebrates their first year

The Queer Edge community consists of a diverse group of locals, each with their own unique stories and identities. Queer Edge’s mission is to provide a safe space and opportunities for everyone in the area while also creating an environment where every voice is celebrated.

Founded by Emma-Jane Nutbrown (EJ to her friends), this unique project is about to celebrate its first Birthday with a massive party. We caught up with EJ to find out more.

Congratulations on celebrating your first full year of Queer Edge; tell us, what inspired you to create the QE collective?

EJ Nutbrown: Queer Edge’s ethos is to bring everyone together, irrespective of your age, gender or sexuality. The inspiration was an accumulation of things, driven mainly by segregation in the gay scene. This makes sense when you look at our history; every fabulous’ group’ within the LGBTQ+ communities had to fight so hard for their basic rights. This means today, I go to raves still designed predominantly for gay men, or a lesbian event (usually in a basement), or a separate party for polyamorous people. I call BS on that!
We live in a progressive era where we can bring everyone together as one united community now. On top of this, age was also a factor – I have felt “old” when going to other gay venues, and I’m not [that bad], so Queer Edge was born in July 2023; a queer community-interest collective that brings everyone together

Please talk us through the ethos of QE and its services.

As above, our ethos is to provide queer spaces irrespective of your age, gender or sexuality, whilst supporting everyone within these spaces in every way possible. Our vision is to bring our local queer community together, uniting us all. And the services we provide have mounted to a fair bit for less than a year: Queer Edge Events featuring QE Monthlies, QE Lates and QE Live.

Each month, hundreds travel from in and around London, with hundreds more travelling the length and breadth of the country to attend the monthlies – everyone says the gay scene hasn’t seen anything like this in the 21st century.

The Queer Pages: A directory to promote queer-run business and freelancers to their local queer community. This online business directory for queer-run businesses and freelancers makes it super easy for the queer community to find and support each other.

QE Coworking: An all-inclusive creative, and affordable coworking hub in East London where the queer community can come together day and night.

Queer Give; partnering with local, regional, and national LGBTQ+ charities that are very close to their hearts, including Give Out and Galop.

Queer Talk and Queer Date will launch later this year.

Click to read the full article.....