Birmingham Gay Village

Birmingham Gay Village

The Missing Bar displaying a giant gay pride flag at Birmingham Pride 2012
Location	Birmingham, England
Postal code	B5 2TB
Coordinates	52°28′24″N 1°53′45″W / 52.47333°N 1.89583°W / 52.47333; -1.89583Coordinates: 52°28′24″N 1°53′45″W / 52.47333°N 1.89583°W / 52.47333; -1.89583

Bar Jester
Location(s)	42 Holloway Circus, Birmingham, B1 1EG
Built	1964
Website	Bar Jester Website

Missing Bar
Location(s)	48 Bromsgrove Street, Birmingham, B5 6NU
Built	1897
Website	Missing Website

Sidewalk
Location(s)	125-127 Hurst Street, Birmingham, B5 6SE
Built	1931
History	Laurie's International Club 1996-? Angels Cafe Bar ?-2010 The Angel 2010–2012 Sidewalk 2012–present
Website	Sidewalk Website

The Birmingham Gay Village is an LGBT district or "gaybourhood" next to the Chinese Quarter in Birmingham city centre, centred along Hurst Street, which hosts many LGBT-friendly businesses. The village is visited by thousands of people every week and has a thriving night life featuring clubs, sports bars, cocktail bars, cabaret bars and shops, with most featuring live entertainment including music, dancing and drag queens.

The area expanded from just the Nightingale Club and Windmill bar in the 1970s, to multiple bars and venues in the surrounding streets, with the area first curtained off from the rest of the city by the Smallbrook Queensway section of the Inner Ring Road. This took place in the 1950s, when the area was a little warehouse district with a few small businesses. The area was expanded in the 1980s when land to the east of Hurst Street was cleared for the building of the Arcadian Centre, with the only surviving building being that of the Missing Bar. The Gay Village finally took its form in the 1990s after the number of venues increased and gave the area more of a boundary, while the increasing number of bars resulted from an increasing amount of customers and diversity offered.

The starting point for unhindered growth of the gay village was the partial decriminalisation of gay sex between males with the Sexual Offences Act 1967. A victory for gay rights and a reflection of attitudes changing towards gay people, the act became a springboard for a gay liberation movement in Birmingham and countless lesbian and gay organizations were created over the following decades to challenge attitudes.

The 2009 gay and lesbian population of Birmingham was estimated to be around 6 percent or 60,000 of the estimated 1.03 million residents.

At the end of May 2009, Birmingham City Council approved plans for a £530,000 environmental improvement scheme at the heart of the city's Gay Village area. The changes included extending the avenue of street trees to the full length of Hurst Street and parts of Kent Street; widening pavements to create space for café bars to provide outdoor seating and brighter street lighting with decorative lanterns.