LBTQWomen returns to London with a full day of conversation, celebration, and queer women-owned businesses — this time at The Ministry in Borough
BY SANDY CHUCHUCA AND PIPPA DALE, IMAGE BY @KILLME_LATER
There’s a room in Borough with your name on it. Saturday 25 April. The Ministry. This weekend. LBTQWomen’s Lesbian Visibility Week Event is back for its third year — and if you’ve been meaning to come, this is the year to stop meaning it.
Lady Phyll opens the day
Before the panels begin, Lady Phyll — Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, co-founder and CEO of UK Black Pride — will open the day. Not with housekeeping. With the reason we’re all there. Two decades of centring Black lesbian women in a movement that has too often built itself around them without them. When she speaks, the room becomes what it’s supposed to be.
Conversations worth having
MCd by Lotte Jeffs — author, journalist, co-host of the podcast Some Families — two panel conversations bring together women who are making visibility happen right now, in real businesses and real communities.
The Business Panel, moderated by Pippa Dale, asks what it actually takes to build something as a queer woman — the grit, the gaps, and what keeps you going. On the panel: Leo Saunders of Improper Agency, Lexie Shaibu-Lenoir of Queer Weddings UK — the first LGBTQIA+-dedicated independent wedding planning company — and Grace Jackson, founder of Mad Spaniel, the fintech accounting firm helping growth-stage businesses get their finances right.
The Spaces Panel, moderated by Arianwen Harris of the London Lesbian Business Group, explores who gets to take up space — and how we build more of it. Sandy Chuchuca of Sanura Dance, EJ Nutbrown of Queer Edge, Jennie Rowland of Sapphic Socials, and Aisha Shaibu-Lenoir of The Common Press bring perspectives from dance, nightlife, community building, and the written word.
The marketplace
Running alongside the programme from 12 pm, the marketplace fills The Ministry with queer women-owned businesses — Allow and Align with Natalie, Levy and Co Barbershop, Sanura Dance, and more. These are businesses built by women who saw a gap and decided to fill it. At 4:30 pm the Marketplace Mash Up gives every vendor a moment in front of the whole room — a brief, honest answer to the question: what are you here to solve, and why does this community need it?
Third year. 200+ people. Growing every time. That’s not vanity — that’s a community deciding to show up.
This event exists because lesbian and queer women deserve space that centres them — not as an afterthought, not as a subcategory, but as the whole point. Visible. Connected. Moving. With the support of Stonewall and a community that includes Lez Meet, GetGayns Running Club and so many others, that’s exactly what 25 April will be.
The space
The Ministry is a venue you arrive at midday and don’t want to leave — and you won’t have to. Marketplace, panels, bar, deli; the day moves through you rather than past you. When the pizza arrives at 6 pm and the room finds its slower gear, that’s when it gets good. Grab a slice, find someone to share it with, let the day debrief itself. At 6:30 pm Sanura Dance leads a Bachata class — included in your ticket — before the Official Lesbian Visibility Week Closing Party powered by Mint Events takes over the same room at 8 pm. No need to go anywhere. That’s the point.
Tickets are moving. Get yours now, and we’ll see you there.
Get your tickets: link.outsavvy.com/zej5yrpt
After-party tickets (Mint Events, same venue, separate ticket): tickettailor.com/events/lwiredevents/2094089/r/ext
Hosted by LBTQWomen · Saturday 25 April 2026 · The Ministry, 79–81 Borough Rd, London SE1 1DN
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