Femi Otitoju
Femi Otitoju was born in Nigeria and immigrated to London as a child.
She “came out” as a lesbian in the late 1978 and talked about that experience in the groundbreaking 1983 documentary, Framed Youth: The Revenge of the Teenage Perverts, a film where 25 gay and lesbian teenagers interviewed straight people on the streets of London about their views on homosexuality.
Starting in the 70s, she volunteered for the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard for over 13 years and went on to lead the training group and serve as its Chair for two years.
In the early 1980s, she helped organize the first national meeting of Black lesbians in the UK.
From 1986 to 1988, she served as an officer in the UK's first Local Government Lesbian and Gay Unit, The Haringey Lesbian and Gay Unit.
1988 she founded Challenge Consultancy to take an integrated approach to equality so she didn’t have to choose between being a woman or being Black or being a lesbian.
With her leadership, Challenge Consultancy became pioneers in UK for creating positive change in the private, public and education sectors through lessons on equality and diversity.
Challenge Consultancy joined forces with the EW Group in 2021 to form the leading full-service diversity consultancy in the UK.
In 2021, she talked about her experience being gay in the 80s to Gay Times, saying, “When I was coming out, most people I saw who were out, or able to come out and live openly as gay men and lesbians were white. And so I made it my mission to ensure, if there was a camera, or a microphone, I’d be right in front of it! It was really important for me to carry the Black Lesbian banner. I wanted to show different images of what lesbians could be like.”