Scene has changed alot
2007
In the time since Darren came out, he thinks that Birmingham's gay scene has changed a lot. When he first started visiting the gay scene, "...it wasn't underground in the 80s, it was known that Birmingham had a gay scene but it was all downstairs, or underground, behind closed doors that you had to knock on or ring a bell. There was no open-door policy."
"Birmingham's scene has got very commercialised, it's all about making money and it's not about the community anymore. They (the bars and clubs in the community) should remember their roots, and acknowledge the fact that it is the community that made them."
Contributed by: Darren Karshe