Sea and be scene: how we found a queer haven on the East Sussex shore

Queer theorist Jack Halberstam wrote that “wildness can give us access to the unknown and the disorderly”. The sea is always in transition, and life on its edge prevents us from becoming too inward-facing as we make daily connections with ever-changing horizons.

Throughout the centuries, queers have been present in our area by chance, with some mystical connection, or in pursuit of a lover. Alan Turing, second world war codebreaker and posthumous gay hero was raised near lovely St Leonards Gardens. Bisexual occultist Aleister Crowley, who died in Hastings, is said to have cursed occupants to never leave – or always get drawn back – unless they carry a hag stone, a pebble with a hole through it.

Anne Lister (as depicted in BBC’s Gentleman Jack), the “first modern lesbian”, spent months here with her aristocratic paramour. In a diary entry from 1831, Lister described Hastings as “very prettily situated” and an “agreeable town.” St Leonards, she noted, was “a quite new good substantial village”.

Establishment of the resort had begun five years prior, planned by James Burton, who previously developed stately houses around Regent’s Park. His 10th son, Decimus, succeeded him and expanded the territory. In 1937, work was completed on Marine Court, then the tallest block of flats in the UK, a formidable art deco edifice resembling a cruise liner. Our most iconic building is in drag as a ship.

But we have no go-to queer hotspot. This distinguishes us from Folkestone, where the namesake bookshop anchors queer and trans activism, and Margate, with its inclusive nightlife venue Camp. Such spaces represent a shift from fading establishments catering to cis men.

A few years back, when my partner and I ventured into Sundowners, then Margate’s sole gay bar, a punter bellowed, “make way for the chicken”, using the gay term for fresh meat. We were in our forties. A part of me laments the closure of such melancholy places. I’m especially fond of down-at-heel Blackpool, the gloriously garish escape on the Irish Sea. Some bars there offer morning shelter to unhoused or otherwise unwanted denizens, a makeshift form of community.

There is a gay bar in St Leonards, though one might find it devoid of actual gays. A man there became affronted when I attempted a flirtatious glance, explaining he was a straight regular who shouldn’t be made to feel creeped out in his safe space. A different sort of queer culture plays out at mixed spaces and roving events.

The award-winning Trans Pride Hastings and much-admired publishing house Cipher Press respectively organise marches and literary festivals with a radical sense of purpose.

Then there’s always Fairlight, a rugged nude beach. The cruising can be drowsy — a few elders half-heartedly mimicking the notorious Meat Rack on Fire Island. One favourite local tale goes that a few years back, a migrant dinghy ended its journey across the Channel at Fairlight, greeted by naked men splashing through the water to assist. I remain ignorant as to what chemistry or conflict arose from the encounter. But it’s the kind of impromptu coalition that shows this stretch of East Sussex at its best — an enclave, perhaps, but with open borders.

Jeremy Atherton Lin is the author of Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told (Penguin, 2025)

Photograph by Dominic Dibbs/Alamy