Patrick Strudwick is an award-winning journalist who specialises in groundbreaking investigations that span human rights, mental health, LGBT issues, HIV, crime, poverty, and addiction. 

He exposed the world of chemsex, the criminals operating within it and the tech companies enabling them. He charted the fight for PrEP over four years, and revealed the story of the homeless activist who imported it, prompting the biggest reduction in HIV transmission in history. Undercover, he exposed what happens when therapists try to “cure” people of their homosexuality — before successfully fighting to have the first conversion therapist struck off, and contributing to the UK government’s decision to ban it. 

His reporting helped change laws in Australia to recognise overseas same-sex marriage; changed UK government policy enabling same-sex couples to be deemed next-of-kin when travelling abroad; changed UK aviation policy to allow HIV-positive pilots to fly; led to the first bank in Britain allowing non-binary people to open an account; persuaded the police to reopen an investigation into historical sexual abuse; and prompted the Royal College of Psychiatrists to acknowledge for the first time the harm done by aversion therapy. 

In 2015, he became the first LGBT specialist in a mainstream British newsroom when he took up the post of LGBT Editor of BuzzFeed UK — a role he held until summer 2020. This followed more than a decade writing for newspapers and magazines such as The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Observer, Attitude, and Gay Times. 

His work focuses on long-form journalism, much of which tells stories of people often overlooked. Through in-depth interviews over hours, weeks or even months, he reveals hidden stories about abuse and hardship; from sexual violence and sexual exploitation, to homelessness, domestic abuse, discrimination, hate crimes, and mental illness. His long-form series include investigations exposing gay sex for rent — how gay men are being sexually exploited for a place to stay — and how racism and crystal meth use are combining to destroy the lives of men of color in California and beyond.

He has reported from the US, the UK, Ireland, Ethiopia, France, and Brazil. 

He has made two hour-long documentaries, one for the BBC, for which he was a consultant producer, and one for Channel 4’s Dispatches, which he presented and produced, and which was shortlisted for Investigation of the Year at the British Journalism Awards. 

He has been interviewed on numerous UK and US radio and TV programmes, such as the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire Show, NPR, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 2, Sky News, LBC, and Channel 4 News. 

He won Specialist Journalist of the Year at the 2018 British Journalism Awards, the Reporting Diversity Award at the 2019 National Press Awards, and has won 5 Medical Journalist Association Awards. When he was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2018 for “exposing social evils” judges said his entry — in which he spent six months tracing the aftermath of a frenzied homophobic attack — was  a “masterclass in long-form journalism”.