WHAT IS QUEER BLACK CHRISTMAS

Launched in 2019, Queer Black Christmas is Exist Loudly's annual Christmas celebration for Black LGBTQ+ young people from London, who are experiencing homelessness, living in temporary accommodation or in hostile home environments.

Each year we bring together Black LGBTQ+ youth and the Exist Loudly community, for a day of workshops, performances, an Afro-Caribbean Christmas feast and of course, presents. Our aim is to recreate a Christmas where Black LGBTQ+ youth can bring their full selves to the dinner table, a Christmas where they can feel like kids again, a Christmas where they are allowed to just exist.

But most importantly, we create a Christmas where young people can leave excited with the possibilities of blossoming friendships, chosen family and hope for the future.

OUR WHY?

For many Black LGBTQ+ youth, particularly those who are estranged from family or living in hostile family environments, Christmas is a period where they can feel more alone, isolated and disconnected from community and themselves, then ever before.

We created Queer Black Christmas so Black LGBTQ+ youth can experience Christmas as a family, a chosen family.

This will mark the fourth Christmas we will be spending with some of our young people, to them we are not ‘Queer Black Christmas’, we are ‘just Christmas’.

WHAT OUR YOUNG PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY ABOUT

QUEER BLACK CHRISTMAS

"At Queer Black Christmas, I feel so loved and seen"

“There’s no other occasion like queer black Christmas! It’s so intimate, with so much freedom to express and be yourself authentically’

“My first Queer black christmas felt like a dream. It was the Christmas I’d always wanted but never experienced”

“Queer Black Christmas felt like the version of home I’d been looking for”

“Queer Black Christmas is a place where we don’t have to hide. We can just arrive as ourselves and be seen with no question.