Out-standing

Ex-pat bar proprietor, Kim Lucas, shares her views on “pride and prejudice” in an Observer feature on Britain’s 20 most outstanding homosexuals. Lucas opened London’s first official lesbian hangout – the Candy Bar – in Soho in 1996, and established the alternative (to the more “corporate” Pride) gay summer festival, Purple in the Park. She has since opened another Candy Bar in Brighton and was voted 2003 Woman of the Year by Diva magazine. Lucas on homosexuality: “My relationships for the past 20 years have been with women, but I don’t call myself a lesbian. I don’t believe in labels. Labels are a useful banner with which to fight for equality, but I think it’s only when we don’t have them that we’ll have equality.”