HOW AN EAST LONDON MARKET BANNED UNAPOLOGETIC

For a tiny independent queer brand like Unapologetic, getting our natural goods into people’s hands is half mission and half survival. We show up everywhere. We send samples, join markets, talk to communities and stay loud about human rights. We never hide that we are proudly queer. So yes, we expect challenges. But nothing prepared us for what happened with a well known East London market.

Last year we decided it was time to open a small physical space. Something modest. A unit at Netil Market. At first things looked hopeful. They showed interest, even offered to show us a few spaces. They were struggling to fill units at the time, so it felt promising. Then everything changed. Emails stopped. Calls stopped. The team responsible for renting units slowly drifted into silence. Not once or twice. For months.

We applied again. Silence.

We filled in the pop up forms. Silence.

We followed up by email and phone. Silence.

At some point you stop guessing and you start testing. So we did something cheeky. We asked a friend with a non queer, very safe, very beige brand to apply for the same space. Same process, same form, same week. You can probably guess the result. They got a call the next morning. They got follow ups. They got attention. They were treated as a golden opportunity. Because to Netil Market, they were.

The only difference between their application and ours was not price, not product category and not availability. It was queerness.

It became clear. When a mainstream brand applies, they roll out the red carpet. When a queer company applies, the carpet rolls up and the phone lines collapse.

So we reached out again. This time we explained that we were ready to take the matter to Hackney Council and to queer media. After many months of silence, a miracle happened. They replied.

It was not kind. It was not professional. It was a message that made their reasoning impossible to deny.

They told us our products were not age appropriate. This was their excuse for ghosting us. They said they would never rent us a unit because parents might see our branding. They even suggested that if we toned ourselves down, they might reconsider. A company called Unapologetic was asked to become apologetic.

Some will try to call this a business decision. It is not. The language they used is the same coded language politicians use to silence queer people around the world. The same “protect the children” narrative endlessly repeated by Putin in Russia and Orban in Hungary. A familiar tactic that hides discrimination behind fake morality.

And all of this is happening in East London. A place that loves to think it is progressive.

We are not naive. We know not everyone will love our brand. But what happened here is dangerous. When private gatekeepers get to decide which queer businesses are allowed to grow, the issue is not commerce. It is censorship. Once that door opens, people will always find new excuses. Today it is “age appropriateness”. Tomorrow it will be something else.

So next time you walk around London Fields or support anything run by the Netil Group, remember this. They blocked a queer company that raises funds for LGBTQI people fleeing dangerous countries. They blocked a brand that donates to trans charities. They blocked a brand that supports queer sports teams and grassroots community work. These things are not age appropriate for them.

Yet selling unhealthy food to children is fine. Selling alcohol is fine. Selling over processed sugar bombs is fine. But being funny, being queer and raising money for vulnerable communities is not.

We are not here to be quiet. We are not here to tone things down. And we will never allow gatekeeping dressed as morality to decide the future of queer businesses.

We are Unapologetic. And we are not going anywhere.

Here is their Instagram, tell them why you won't be comfortable going there as a queer person: https://www.instagram.com/netilmarket


Image taken from Netil Market website.