WHAT STARTED AS A GROUP OF QUEER TWENTYSOMETHINGS LOOKING FOR SOMEWHERE TO WATCH THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF HAS EXPANDED INTO AN INCLUSFIVE 100-STRONG COMMUNITY OF QUEERS SEARCHING FOR CONNECTION

C J Atkinson,

Hap Fiala,

Lana Huh

Sam Cooper

PHOTOS EM BURFITT

Growing up queer is different for everyone. It doesn’t matter where you live or what sort of career you’re in; it’s different. Oftentimes, it’s very lonely. I once saw a thread on Twitter asking where all of the queer people in the north east of England were. Someone answered perfectly: We all left. Where? For somewhere there’s a community. Many say how hard it is to make friends as an adult; outside of work or uni, just how do people come together? If you ask me, it’s even harder as a queer person. For all of the Taylor Swift Pride jams there are (One. There’s one), there are a load of lonely people downloading dating apps in order to forge a connection, never quite knowing if that connection will be with Someone Like You.

Queerpack had humble beginnings. Weave back seven years and two of its to-be founders, CJ Atkinson and Lana Huh, were moving to London to do their master’s degrees. The two of them found it dificult to find a queer community, even when the city had more than one WLW bar, particularly for those who weren’t necessarily looking for romantic relationships.

Over the next few years, the twosome gained further additions, most of whom they’d met organically. In came Sam Cooper, a few others and, then, eventually me. They adopted me into their ranks and, as an adult experiencing their queer adolescence for the first time, everything finally made sense. It didn’t matter how old I was – how old any of us were – everything the campaigns had been saying was spot on: It gets better.