Sandi Toksvig said the Gateways Club let her 'be herself' in her student days.
The Gateways Club let women be themselves away from society’s prying eyes The story of the world’s oldest lesbian bar is a hushed one. People spoke of it in whispers and members had to say a password to get in . The women-only club was underground, behind a dull green door in a dark and dingy West London cellar that had previously been a strip bar and it held strict rules; no guests after ten and trouble-makers would be swiftly barred.
So the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has been working to commemorate the club as part of LGBT+ history month. Despite its bohemian reputation, the club was governed by strict societal rules. As former visitor of the club broadcaster Sandi Toksvig says in the documentary: ‘I am of an age where even then there were the women who identified as butch and those that identified as fem. ‘And I was one of those people who didn’t feel like I was any of those things at all.