Former Gay Liberation Front activists speak out 50 years on
London, UK – 24 June 2020
Veterans of the London Gay Liberation Front, 1970-74, will march on 27 June to celebrate the 50th anniversary of GLF and to reclaim Pride with five political demands.
This year’s Pride in London parade on 27 June has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. But GLF veterans, some in their 70s and 80s, will march anyway on the same day and along the same route that the official Pride parade was due to follow.
GLF was formed in 1970 and is credited with being the beginning of the modern LGBT+ protest movement in the UK.
Sorry, due to the Covid-19 risk, this march is open to GLF veterans only, not to members of the public.
Putting politics back into Pride, the five demands of the GLF Pride march are;
- End UK detention & deportation of LGBT+ asylum seekers
- Let people define their own gender, not doctors or the state
- Mandatory LGBT+ education in every school
- Religion! Hands off women’s & LGBT+ bodies
- Solidarity with Black Lives Matter & LGBT+ people of colour worldwide
The GLF veteran and march coordinator, Peter Tatchell, aged 68, was one of about 40 people who organised the UK’s first Pride march in London in 1972. He has attended every Pride London parade since then. This will be his 49th.
Some of the GLF veterans who will join the march have spoken out.
Ted Brown, aged 70, said:
“GLF stemmed out of Stonewall 1969, which was a riot that took place after centuries of oppression against LGBT+ people. We proved that the authorities will not listen unless we fight back, make a noise and cause a disturbance, as Black Lives Matter is doing now.”
Nettie Pollard, 70, said:
“50 years ago, the Gay Liberation Front said come out, change ourselves and revolutionise the world. Joining with other oppressed groups is the only way to work toward real change. Rights can so easily be taken away again. Liberation must mean freedom, including sexual freedom, for everyone. At Pride 2020, GLF still believes in revolution.”
Andrew Lumsden, 78, said:
“We insist on gathering in plain sight every year because for 2,000 years we were told to be invisible. This is the 50th calendar year in which we’ve walked the walk in London. We who were there in 1971 and 1972 walk now on behalf of our contemporaries who are too unwell, locked-down or far away, to join us. Many have already gone to LGBT+ heaven. And we walk in honour of the young who are fighting in every country around the world. We think of LGBTs in Hong Kong, Poland, Chechnya, Brazil and Indonesia, who seek the dignities that ought not be denied to anyone.”
Stuart Feather, 80, said:
“Gay Liberation was the cosmic big bang beneath heterosexual and gay society with its call to come out – be visible – break the taboo. From revolutionary chaos emerged two driving issues: misogyny and feminism. And two questions: what does it mean to be lesbian or gay, and how do we liberate ourselves? Based on the English revolution and the Quaker idea that ‘my word is my bond’, LGBT liberation will be the work of generations before there is general acceptance that without harm to others, my sexuality, my chosen gender, is my bond with society and no-one’s business but mine own.”
John Lloyd, 67, said:
“From the outset, GLF had an internationalist perspective. In 1973, Peter and myself represented GLF at the World Youth Festival in communist East Berlin, which was attended by over 100,000 young people from all over the world. We spoke out for gay liberation and staged LGBT+ protests. Despite being attacked by members of our own British delegation, our interventions for the first time put LGBT+ rights on the agenda of the left, social democratic, liberal and trade union movements in the UK and other countries.”
Peter Tatchell, 68, said:
“GLF did not seek equal rights within a flawed, unjust status quo. It campaigned for the transformation of society to end straight supremacism and stood in solidarity with all other oppressed people. A similar agenda of radical social change is needed now, as the UK faces the threats of Covid-19, economic meltdown, institutional racism, climate destruction and the demonisation of trans people. We support Black Lives Matter and the just demands of black communities and black LGBT+ people, like we did in the early 1970s.”
The march expresses its solidarity with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer & Intersex (LGBTQI) people in the UK and worldwide. Oppression for none. Liberation for all.