Lytham

Lytham St Annes is a seaside town in the Borough of Fylde in Lancashire, directly south of Blackpool. The town is made up of the four areas of Lytham, Ansdell, Fairhaven and St Annes-on-Sea.

We visited leafy Lytham. The name Lytham comes from the Old English hlithum, plural of hlith meaning ‘(place at) the slopes’. Lytham is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Lidun.

The Green, a strip of grass running between the shore and the main coastal road, is a notable Lytham landmark – the restored Windmill and Old Lifeboat House Museum are here. The Green overlooks the estuary of the River Ribble and the Welsh mountains, and has recently seen an annual five-day musical festival. 

The festival has featured a variety of leading bands and musicians including The Human League, Madness, Nile Rodgers & Chic, The Human League, Kylie Minogue, Rod Stewart, Diana Ross, Duran Duran and Tears for Fears.

We split into small groups – some of us went to Senior’s Fish & Chips where they serve two pieces of cod, two haddock and two halibut with unlimited chips and unlimited tea or coffee, all for under £10.00.

Another good day out with more photos here.

International Non-binary Day

Thursday 14 July is International Non-binary Day. I‌t has been celebrated on 14 July since 2012. This date was chosen because it falls at the midpoint between International Women’s Day (8 March) and International Men’s Day (19 November).

Non-binary or genderqueer is an umbrella term for gender identities that are not solely male or female‍—‌identities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically identify with a gender that is different from their assigned sex, though some non-binary individuals do not consider themselves transgender.

Non-binary people may identify as an intermediate or separate third gender, identify with more than one gender, no gender (agender), or have a fluctuating gender identity (genderfluid). Gender identity is separate from sexual or romantic orientation, and non-binary people have a variety of sexual orientations, just as cisgender people do. Being non-binary is also not the same as being intersex; most intersex people identify as either male or female.

Non-binary people as a group vary in their gender expressions, and some may reject gender “identities” altogether. Some non-binary people are medically treated for gender dysphoria with surgery or hormones, as trans men and trans women often are.

Being non-binary can be dismissed by some as a new fad, born from a western identity-obsessed culture – however non-binary people have been recognised and recorded round the world. In India non-binary people have been mentioned in Hindu texts dating back over 2000 years, and many cultures, such as some Native American peoples, Hawaiians, and Tahitians, have a history of inclusion of a third gender in their societies’ roles.

Bee Corner

Amber McCormack with a core team of committed volunteers have transformed a neglected concrete space into a haven for humans and honey bees called “Bee Corner”.

It offers urban beekeeping experiences in the heart of Salford. Tucked away behind Islington Mill (on Chapel Street) is the place where you can come and observe the bees at work and explore the mysteries of the hive.

Amber is so enthusiastic and is a brilliant teacher. We learnt all about pollinators, local flora and fauna. We found out that a bee’s favourite flowers are Bee-gonias! If truth bee told, the benefits of having a hive is un-bee-lievable. It was a brilliant trip. I enjoyed it so much and hive never felt this way bee-fore.

Have a look at some bee-autiful photos here.

Yulja Tsvetkova

See the drawing above? The Russian text says “Family is where love is. Support LGBT+ families.” Yulja Tsvetkova made it last year to support a same-sex couple who had to flee Russia with their two adopted children after being targeted by the authorities.

After she shared the picture and other drawings promoting inclusivity on social media, the authorities brought trumped-up charges against her for violating the Russian “gay propaganda” law and distributing pornography, fined her 50,000 rubles (around £650), and put her under house arrest.

Just a few days ago, new charges have been brought up against her, and she could face up to six years in prison.

Please sign the petition to bring attention to her case.

As an activist, Yulja knows she’s not the first person to be targeted under the “gay propaganda” law. But with your help, she might be the last.

If enough people speak up, the charges might be dropped – and the “gay propaganda” law abolished once and for all. Sign Yulja’s petition today.

Three men sentenced to death by stoning for being gay in Nigeria

An Islamic sharia court in Nigeria has sentenced three gay men to death by stoning – including a man who was 70 years old.

An Islamic sharia court in Ningi in the northern state of Bauchi convicted the men of engaging in homosexuality.

The state’s religious police force, the Hisbah Vanguard, operating through the commissioner – Adamu Dan Kafi – said the sharia court charged the trio following their arrest on 14 June in the village of Gwada.

The convicted men are Kamilu Ya’u (aged 20), Abdullahi Beti (aged 30) and Mal Haruna (aged 70). They were sentenced to death on 28 June 2022 by judge Munka’ilu Sabo-Ningi. None of them was represented by lawyers and all “confessed” to their crimes.

They were sentenced under section 134 of the 2001 Bauchi State Penal Law, which states: “Whoever commits the offence of sodomy shall be punished with death by stoning [rajim] or any other means decided by the state.”

They can, however, appeal the sentences within 30 days.

Bauchi is one of twelve Nigerian states, many in the north of the country, that subscribe to the Islamic legal system. Any death penalty handed down by the sharia courts needs to be rubber-stamped by the state governor, Bala Mohammed.

In Nigeria, deeply homophobic laws make the lives of LGBT+ Nigerians a daily struggle. Many feel unable to come out, with nine in ten Nigerians viewing homosexuality as something society should not accept, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center poll.

Homosexuality is illegal in all of Nigeria, regardless of whether the state has adopted sharia law or not. Secular federal laws slap LGBT+ people with a maximum of 14 years in jail.

The Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, passed by parliament in 2013, criminalises all forms of same-sex unions and marriage equality across the nation.

The legislation makes LGBT+ couples who enter any kind of same-sex union liable for 14 years of incarceration, while even those who witness a same-sex wedding are imprisoned for 10 years.

While historically there haven’t been many legal persecutions, the law has emboldened homophobes who prefer to take the laws into their hands to lynch suspected LGBT+ people and groups. These actions have successfully eroded many LGBT+ safe spaces into non-existence, and have effectively made things like a Pride celebration in Nigeria seem like a far-off dream.

The act didn’t just end at marriages, however. LGBT+ nightclub operators as well as those who run LGBTQ+ societies and organisations are liable for a decade in prison.

Coming Out in the 1950s: Stories of Our Lives

LGBT teens interview their LGBT elders who came out in the 1950s. BRILLIANT!! So glad to see teens interested in these stories & their history. Phyllis Lyon, Hadley Hall and Ron Rebholz are interviewed by Linnaea Weld, Jason Galisatus and Oscar Trinh.

50th Anniversary of Pride and Protest in the UK – the Veteran’s March and Saturday March

Please enjoy the photos here from 1 July 2022 (1972 veteran’s march), which celebrated the first UK Pride 50 years ago, and the images from 2 July 2022 (Saturday’s Pride in London). All photos are from the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

So much has been achieved but there IS much more to do.

Homosexuality is still outlawed in 69 nations and punishable by death in 12. The global struggle is far from over.

The Sparkle Weekend (Friday 8 – Sunday 10 July 2022)

The Sparkle Weekend is the world’s largest free-to-attend celebration of gender diversity, and a safe space for anyone who identifies as gender non-conforming, their families, friends, and allies. In 2019, more than 22,000 visitors were welcomed over the weekend. 

The Sparkle Weekend is a festival-style family event, featuring live music and entertainment, talks and workshops, and an opportunity for the corporate sponsors, grassroots charities, and trans-run businesses to engage with visitors.

They also work with local and national charities who support young trans and gender questioning people and their families so that all age groups feel included. 

One of the charity’s core values is that the event remains free-to-attend in order to be accessible to everyone, regardless of gender identity, race, religion, or physical ability.

The Sparkle Weekend currently costs tens-of-thousands of pounds to deliver and is currently funded by companies who share the charity’s values of equality and inclusion for all gender non-conforming individuals, and visitor donations. Sponsorship and donations mean that the Charity can also include smaller grassroots groups who support sub-sectional minorities in the event.  If you want to find out more, please contact  info@sparkle.org.uk 

‘I was kicked out for being gay. Now I’m laughing all the way to the bank’: How drag queen Lady Bushra went viral

Covered head-to-toe in a black burka, a delicate figure stands at the door of Pot Kettle Black in Manchester’s Angel Gardens as the start of Lady Gaga’s Alice blares out from the speakers. But within seconds, the traditional garment is ripped apart to reveal an almost too lifelike impersonation of Boris Johnson hiding beneath.

The moment, with clumsy Prime Minister dancing and shenanigans included, has since gone viral on social media and, for many, served as their first introduction to South Asian drag queen and comedian Lady Bushra. But for those who know her, it’s just part of the territory when it comes to the ‘OG Bradford bad girl’.

Originally from Bradford, Lady Bushra – also known as Amir – now lives in Manchester with husband Aamir. The decision to venture into the world of drag and comedy only began two years ago, but it’s one that she hasn’t looked back on.

“I’ve always been told that I’m funny and that I should do stand-up. When I was younger, I used to do bits of modelling and singing in religious places but I decided to start doing drag and comedy seriously in February 2020, and then the lockdown began.”

Using the lockdown as a chance to hone in on her drag skills and gain a reputation through virtual shows, Bushra was ‘booked and blessed’ when it came time for venues to reopen last year. “Myself and a lot of other queens had to take it upon ourselves to lighten the mood during what was quite a difficult time for everyone,” she explains.

“It also meant I got to challenge my creativity and channel my angst that I was experiencing into my art. I was able to make mistakes at home and it thankfully turned out to be one positive of the lockdown.”

In 2021, Bushra was shortlisted for the BBC New Comedy Award – something which the likes of Joe Lycett, Romesh Ranganathan, Sarah Millican and Tez Ilyas have also been nominated for. The drag persona of Bushra comes from Amir wanting to pay homage to his South Asian heritage, something often overlooked in not only the LGBT+ and drag communities, but also in comedy.

“I come from an ultra-orthodox Muslim family and quite a conservative household,” Bushra says. “The character is very honest and organic as she does reflect some of the experiences I’ve had growing up in a small town in Bradford. Lady Bushra is one of those boisterous girls that everyone knows – every culture and city has their own version of her.

She was created after I started discussing things with my friends. She really is that perpetual 19-year-old teenager from Bradford. I’m very pleased to be able to find a way to shine a spotlight on those Asian girls who don’t always get to be themselves and show off their personality.”

Growing up, Bushra says she never had a persona like her to look up to – the closest was Meera Syal’s characters in Goodness, Gracious Me. “When I was younger, people would bully me and I had to experience a lot of racial abuse,” Busha explains. “I started feeling embarrassed of who I am and what I’m about.

I tried to fit in and whitewash myself. I did it with the hair, the clothes and my mannerisms – I definitely tried to tone down the brown. But I’ve got to a point now where I don’t feel the need to do that. I’ve since learnt that my heritage is my strength.

I have a unique position where I am British but I am of a south Asian background and I’ve found a way of being able to tap into that. When you’re confident in knowing who you are, people are drawn into that confidence, and that’s something I’ve come to realise.”

Seven years ago – at the age of 25 – Amir came out to his family as gay. He says it’s something that had been building up over time, but the experience was sadly not a positive one.

“I don’t have a relationship with my family these days,” the performer explains. “They kicked me out as a result of being gay and I haven’t had any contact with them since then, really. But I’m the one laughing all the way to the bank now.

It was like death by a thousand papercuts. After university, I started getting a lot of pressure from my family to marry. When I came back home, they were putting that pressure on me and I just told them that the reason I didn’t want to marry is because I was gay.

Over time, it was like a slow snowball of deception. There is a limit, and I eventually reached that point. They might have kicked me out but I’ve since learnt that it’s in my best interests to stay away. I think it’s quite a profound way of looking at it, really.”

Through discovering drag and finding her husband – who she met through a mutual friend in 2014 – Bushra has learnt that authenticity is the way forward in life. Bushra explains: “Doing me and being my authentic self has been the only logical way to deal with things. I tend to find that not everyone has the ability to find their true calling.

Too many times I see people within my community doing things while fearing what people will say. I’m not here for Brownie points with toxic people and I’m pleased that, as a gay south Asian man, I’m able to say I’ve dismantled that and can do whatever makes me happy. It’s worked well for me so far.”

The couple wed in 2019 and hold the title as the first South Asian gay couple to get married in Bradford. A year later they moved to Manchester. The couple also host their own You Don’t Love Me podcast where they discuss their perspective as a gay South Asian couple. To date, they’ve recorded more than 80 episodes on everything from Ramadan to beauty standards.

“I firmly believe the universe conspires,” Bushra laughs about the couple moving to the city-region. “We fancied moving to a bigger city but Manchester was never something on my radar at all. Despite that, it was one of the best decisions we ever made. It’s such a welcoming, open city. The drag scene here is fantastic and it’s a lot of fun. I’m happy to be a part of Manchester now.”

In the last year, Bushra has performed at Manchester Pride – and will perform again this year – alongside events in London and Cardiff and even further afield in Prague, Berlin and Budapest. She says she loves getting the chance to surprise people during her cabaret shows.

“Drag is a very varied art form and people sometimes forget that,” she explains. “Bushra is certainly very varied – there’s not many places you’ll see Boris Johnson dancing to Lady Gaga.”

Going forward, Bushra wants to continue to perform their cabaret show – which is currently touring the country – and do stand-up when the opportunity arises. “I feel there’s a tiny gap in the market for Bushra to slide through with her nimble shoulders,” she says.

Party

Forty five people came to the Welcome Party compered by Ken (as Larry Grayson, comedian and television presenter best known in the 1970s) with Norman and headlined by Wolf – the oldest boy band in the world.

Patrick read a couple of poems and Peter played the piano before Wolf gave us a fantastic set mixing soul and classic pop tunes. Thanks to all performers and those who helped in setting up the room and working in the kitchen.

The Day The World Came To Huddersfield

In 1981, the usual Pride march and rally was not held in London, decamping to Huddersfield instead as an act of solidarity with the Yorkshire gay community who claimed that West Yorkshire Police were harassing them by repeatedly raiding the Gemini Club, a leading nightclub in the North of England at the time.

Monologues performed by actors retold the stories of the 1981 march.

The march was held in the West Yorkshire town in July 1981, in defiance of a police campaign against a popular gay venue.

The Gemini Club had been labelled “a cesspit of filth” by police, so Pride moved to Huddersfield in solidarity.

Stephen M Hornby created an immersive theatre event “The Day The World Came To Huddersfield” to retell the events.

The playwright wrote monologues based on interviews with people who took part, along with Abi Hynes, Peter Scott-Presland and Hayden Sugden.

The event saw actors mingling with crowds in the town centre, telling their stories as they restaged the march.

It was also performed at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield and the King’s Arms in Salford.

The theatre group took a similar route to the march more than 40 years ago.

An exhibition of portraits of some of the original marchers has also gone on display.

Prof Sue Sanders, chair of LGBTQ+ History Month and Schools OUT UK, said the Pride event in Huddersfield was “a wonderful piece of forgotten history that needs to be known across the UK”.

“This is an extraordinary project,” she said. “These performances are not just creating some wonderful new theatre, they are bringing the past to life in a wonderful, vivid and highly entertaining way.”

The street performance took place in the courtyard outside the Lawrence Batley Theatre and actors took a circular route through the town centre, which included parts of the original route.

Mr Hornby said: “The Pride march of 1981 was full of extraordinary characters from Huddersfield and from across the country.

It’s been a treasure trove for the playwrights who found some amazing tales.

When we bring them all together it really captures what marching in the UK’s first national Pride felt like.”

Aids: The Unheard Tapes – stories from the heart of a crisis

A new BBC documentary gives voice to those at the centre of the Aids epidemic. Pioneering oral historian Dr Wendy Rickard, who conducted the interviews, explains why it’s so important they are heard.

As the Aids crisis in Britain grew in the mid-1980s, pioneering researchers conducted audio interviews with gay men and their friends, producing an archive of frank, intimate discussions of life at the heart of the Aids epidemic. They have been in the British Library ever since.

Now, an innovative, important new documentary brings this real-time oral history project to life as young actors lip-sync to the original recordings. The effect is hugely powerful.

Aids: The Unheard Tapes, which aired from Monday 27 June (and 4 and 11 July) on BBC2 at 9.30pm, covers the period from 1982, when the first cases of a mysterious and deadly virus hit the gay community through to 1997, when combination therapy revolutionised survival hopes for people with HIV. Oral historian Dr Wendy Rickard conducted many of the original interviews.

Why was it so important to create this oral history archive?

Dr Wendy Rickard: As one interviewee said, oral history made it possible to “get into the closet with people”. It offered a way to carefully respect the wishes of the speakers, to preserve their words for a time when they might feel OK for people to listen to them. It was a way to value their stories and save them for the future.

Oral history gives you direct, unapologetic language, uncluttered by professional health, science, media and big pharma agendas. It challenges concepts of people with HIV being remembered only as objects of medical curiosity or as pitiable victims of disease or any other of those depersonalised, scientific records we have of people. And of course privacy and confidentiality were important, but it seemed to me that blanket privacy policies were also silencing people. The British Library were absolutely brilliant at helping us out of those ditches, to do something quiet but, it turns out, pioneering.

What are your abiding memories from conducting the original interviews?

Cycling round with a tape recorder, going to people’s houses, prison cells, university residences, homeless shelters, temporary housing association flats, voluntary agencies – wherever people were, we went there and recorded. We sat at their feet and listened intently for hours, sometimes long into the night, nudging them with a well-phrased question when needed. And helping do the shopping, get the prescription, feed the cat, hang the washing, fill out a form. And then having pauses when people were too unwell or visiting them in hospital or the hospice to carry on recording if they were bored or just to chat. So basically a whole range of things modern research protocols probably tell you not to do.

What do we learn by listening to contemporary or near contemporary interviews about the Aids epidemic and its impact?

It was important to me at the time to only interview people with HIV, to make their voices the loudest. Like all oral history, empowerment is key, generating from within communities the authority to explore and interpret their own experience, experience traditionally invisible in formal AIDS history because of predictable assumptions about who and what matters (doctors, scientists, drugs, money). By listening to these interviews now, we learn what happened to individuals, how raw it felt.

We learn what people were wearing, what happened to the last boyfriend, lots about sexual practices with this one and that one, why night sweats are crap, how to come to terms with gay domestic abuse, how best to padlock yourself to Westminster bridge on a protest, how to cash in your pension and live large, how grim day time TV and loneliness can be, what family means and what happens if you wash coffee grains down your sink every day. We learn how weird it is to plan your own death, how shocking when others die and you don’t. And so very, very much more.

For those who lived, both they and we learn how narratives have changed over time.

How important is this brilliant, innovative series – coming in the wake of It’s a Sin – in terms of educating and informing people about Britain’s Aids crisis?

It’s a Sin did a great job of waking the public up to HIV again. By using life stories, this innovative BBC series now follows and gives agency to people with HIV to tell their own story in their own words –its hard hitting, genuine and charming. It walks a nice line on big topics like tragedy and the culpability of Thatcherite politics. And it does not dilute loves and lives wrenched from people and its compelling and deeply moving to watch, so I hope it helps with educating and informing people in a refreshing new lip synching way.

It also opened a worm can about making sure everyone who features in the series was OK with their voice being heard like this, or their loved ones were. The series producer and director have been really commendable in their efforts to handle that side of things.

It’s 50 years of Pride in London and the 40th anniversary of the death of Terrence Higgins. How vital is it that we learn lessons from the past and preserve histories, especially as so many people who would have now been elders of the LGBTQ+ community were lost to Aids?

Absolutely vital. Look at the prejudices emerging again around monkey pox. Think of the children growing up with HIV, some of whom are themselves LGBTQ, whose parents are perhaps lost in old stigmas and harsh daily realities. There are glaring gaps in losing all those would-be elder voices, all that wisdom, all those rich ideas, that daring, that charm, that beauty, that presence, that experience of horrors and those ways of dealing with blatant injustice.

To have captured something of the essence of LGBTQ people who died (and those from other communities, as we did not just interview gay men) feels radically important and a huge privilege. It is unusual for younger people to record oral histories. It’s conventionally the preserve of those over 70 who have lived long and full lives. AIDS changed lots of things, including oral history. Does it sound stupid to say I think in a way we have got an idea of those elder voices to learn from, in the archive, in concentrated form, in their refreshingly youthful accounts, because they had to get wise swiftly, before dying too young. The BBC series has been great to get some of those voices out there in an absorbingly creative way.

AIDS: The Unheard Tapes is also available on the BBC iPlayer.

Lake District Trip

We met at Chorlton Street Bus Station and our coach took us to the Lake District in Cumbria. We had planned to visit Bowness, but the coach took us to Waterhead Pier, about a mile from the town of Ambleside on the other side of Lake Windermere, England’s largest natural lake.

The weather was a bit damp, but this didn’t spoil our visit. Some people sailed on the lake, while others explored Ambleside. The views of lakes, valleys and steep hills were fantastic.

More photos can be seen here.

50 Years of UK Pride: Ted Brown, Peter Tatchell … and Royal Mail

Ted Brown is a black LGBT rights pioneer who helped organise the UK’s first Gay Pride march in 1972, featuring a mass ‘kiss-in’ that, at the time, would have been considered gross indecency, which was against the law.

When Brown realised he was gay, homosexuality was illegal in Britain – the only person he came out to was his mother. She cried and told him he’d have to battle not just racism but homophobia too; both were rife in society at the time. At one point Brown felt so dismal about his future that he considered taking his own life. But inspired by the Stonewall Riots, he found hope in Britain’s Gay Liberation Front and became a key figure in fighting bigotry in the UK.

Fifty years on, says activist Ted Brown, people call it Britain’s first official Gay Pride, but there was nothing “official” about it. Pride 72 was not endorsed by the government, let alone the brands and corporations you might see at Pride today. It was not about rainbow flags or pop stars performing; it was fundamentally grassroots, and a challenge to society. Just five years after Britain’s partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967, sex between men under the age of 21 was still banned, and displaying same-sex romantic affection in public was illegal. To take to the streets and show your face to the world was both radical and defiant.

Here are some extracts from his moving life story:

Growing up gay and black. Telling his mother that he was gay

“I started going to a school called Eltham Green Comprehensive, was quite happy there although, again I was experiencing a fair amount of racism, and there was homophobia amongst the kids. It was quite common for children to be abused as – boys mostly, to be abused as being sissies.

Anyway, around the age of eleven, around 1961, as I said, I was becoming aware of my attractions to one or two other boys in the school, and I mentioned this to my mother, and as most parents would do, and as is actually common, she felt that this was just a stage. It’s very common for kids to develop crushes on same sex people without there being any sexual overtones, erm, but I realised some time later, when I was about fifteen that these were not simply er … it wasn’t just simply a stage and that I was sexually attracted to these other boys, and I remember also that I told my mother at the time. I felt very lucky being able to tell my mum that I was – in my own words at the time – “I think I’m becoming homosexual” because I know that a lot of parents and a lot of other associates of the family would not be accepting – receptive, or understanding of their child telling them that they were homosexual in 1965. This was four years before the Stonewall riots in New York that started the modern lesbian and gay rights campaigning.”

First GLF meetings in London. Living in a GLF commune. Challenging sex roles

“Apparently Noel saw me at the meeting and says that he, found me very attractive at the time. I think I may have seen him, but I don’t remember him at that particular meeting and I, of course, didn’t know that we were going to be still together 44, 45 years later.

There were various meetings held at the Covent Garden, but for one reason or another, they were later moved to Notting Hill. Um … Powis Square in Notting Hill became the centre of several ongoing lesbian and gay meetings, and it was at those meetings that the Gay Liberation Front was formed, and this was a group of people who felt that lesbians and gay men should actively fight for our right both legally and socially. One of the slogans was that The Personal is Political, because many people who didn’t want to join argued that the law was one thing and um, that your personal life was something that you should keep away from everybody else. But we felt that your sexuality, your race, your age – all these things had implications both politically, socially and personally, and that we should um, look at them clearly and challenge the problems that arose from the discrimination and hostility that people often faced.

At one stage erm, by which time I had actually met Noel and we were beginning to get known as a couple, erm, it was suggested that there should be some communes set up by GLF. Gay Liberation Front. So that we could actually live the principals of The Personal is Political. Three communes were set up. One in Brixton – remnants of that still exist in Mayall Road in South London, not far from where I’m actually living now. Another in Notting Hill, and another in Bounds Green in North London. Noel and I moved into the one in North London. I can’t give or remember exactly the exact address of the house, but there were fourteen of us there, and we had twelve mattresses in the living room, and we agreed that we would share our food, we would share house cleaning responsibilities, that we would be open to erm, the friends, relatives and guests of other people, that we would encourage both the women and the men – there were only two women out of the group, to dress as they wanted to. If er, somebody wanted … a man wanted to dress in camp outfits or transgender items that was fine. If the women wanted to wear men’s clothes, or women’s clothes or whatever, we wouldn’t challenge them in the way that people normally would be outside, erm, and we would try to disrupt the gender classifications that we were used to. At one of the meetings that had set up um, GLF erm, the communes, a lot of the women walked out, because the habits were so ingrained in us of sexual division that at those meetings, when there was a break, many of the men expected the women to go and make the tea! (Laughs) And after a while the women said “Can you not see that you’re still carrying on the, you know, the nuclear family male dominated structure and that one of the things that we have been challenging when we set up GLF was the fact that both women and men, gay … lesbians and gay men, had habitually imitated heterosexual sex roles?”

Peter Tatchell: What it was like to march at the first UK Pride

“Way back in the early 1970s, I was a member of the newly-formed Gay Liberation Front (GLF). It was Britain’s first movement of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and the first to move beyond mere law reform, to take on the homophobia of the church, media, police and the medical and psychiatric professions.

To combat the invisibility and denigration of the queer community, we decided to organise a “Gay Pride” march, with the theme of being out and proud. This was a radical departure from the norm. In those days, nearly all LGBT+ people were closeted and many felt ashamed of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

I was one of about 30 GLF activists who organised that first UK Pride march, which took place in London on 1 July 1972. Only 700 people turned up. Many of my friends were too scared to march. They thought everyone would be arrested or bashed. That didn’t happen, but we were swamped by a heavy police presence.

Despite this intimidation, we were determined to have a fun time and make our point. The march was a carnival-style parade, which went from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park. There were lots of extravagant costumes and cheeky banners poking fun at homophobes like the morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse. I marched with my then partner, jazz guitarist Peter Smith, carrying a placard that simply read: “Gay is Good” – a revolutionary idea in that era, when most people thought gay was very bad.

We received mixed reactions from the public, some hostile and some supportive – and a lot of curiosity and bewilderment. Most had never knowingly seen a LGBT+ person, let alone hundreds of queers marching to demand human rights.

Unlike nowadays, Pride in 1972 had no commercialisation or corporate sponsorship – and no government funding or messages of support. Not a single politician joined us. The homophobic media refused to report Pride.

When the march arrived at Hyde Park, there was no festival or entertainment – just an impromptu DIY queer picnic, what we called a “Gay Day”. Everyone brought food, booze, dope and music. It was all shared around.

We played camped-up versions of party games like spin the bottle and drop the hanky. I won one of the games and my prize was a long, deep kiss with a gorgeous French gay activist who had come over from Paris to join us. But it was more than good fun. Because we were same-sex kissing in public, which was an arrestable offence in those days, it was also a gesture of defiance.

Looking back over the last 50 years, it is extraordinary how Pride has grown from one march with less than a thousand people to over 150 nationwide events with a combined attendance of a million.

The increasing acceptance of LGBTs is another big change. In 1972, homosexuality was still viewed as an illness, lesbian mothers had their kids taken off them by the courts, you could be sacked from your job for being LGBT+ and the police were at war with our community. Despite the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967, many aspects of gay male life remained illegal. Thousands of gay and bisexual men were still being arrested for consenting, victimless behaviour – often as a result of police entrapment operations using officers acting as agents provocateurs.

Although there remain many injustices to overcome, our community has made huge strides towards freedom over the last five decades. None of these gains has been given to us on a plate. Every advance has been the hard-won result of determined campaigning. It took us 34 years to win an equal age of consent and 43 years to win marriage equality!

There is no room for complacency. Although all the major anti-LGBT+ laws have now been repealed, trans people are still battling to reform the Gender Recognition Act so they can self-define and legally change their gender without having to get medical approval. We continue to wait for a ban on conversion therapy that was promised four years ago and the latest government proposal will only prohibit conversion practices targeted at young LGBs. It will not protect trans people at all.

Even today, two thirds of queer people have experienced anti-LGBT violence or abuse, and nearly half of LGBT+ kids in schools have suffered bullying. There remain some LGBTs, mostly from religious communities, who feel ashamed, depressed and sometimes suicidal about their orientation or identity.

Globally, we have a long way to go, with 70 nations criminalising same-sex relations. Penalties range from a few years in jail to life imprisonment. Twelve Muslim-majority nations have the death penalty. Thirty-five of the 69 criminalising countries are Commonwealth member states, acting in defiance of the human rights provisions of the Commonwealth Charter – with no rebuke from the Commonwealth Secretariat. For all these reasons, Pride is still important and needs to remain both a celebration and a protest.

See you on 1 July at 1.00pm at St Martin’s church in Trafalgar Square. We will be celebrating the exact 50th anniversary of the first Pride in the UK, with a march that retraces the route of the 1972 march to Hyde Park.”

Royal Mail marks 50 years of UK Pride with colourful set of stamps

On 1 July 1972 a crowd of people gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square and marched to Hyde Park chanting “Gay is fun! Gay is proud! Gay is beautiful!”

It was not the first march for LGBT+ rights in the UK, as similar protests had taken place in Highbury Fields, Islington, in 1970 and Trafalgar Square in 1971. But it was the first rally in the UK with the name “Gay Pride”, inspired by Pride events in the US.

Fifty years on, Royal Mail is commemorating the landmark event with a set of eight illustrated stamps, art-directed by NB Studio and illustrated by the award-winning artist Sofie Birkin, whose work has featured in campaigns for brands such as Nike and Apple.

The stamps carry vibrantly coloured illustrations of typical scenes at Pride events, which are now an annual fixture at cities across the world. One stamp depicts a banner reading “love always wins”.

One of the demands of the first Pride rally in the UK was greater legal equality for gay people. Homosexuality was partially decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967 yet police arrests of gay and bisexual men remained common in the years following.

However, a climate of homophobia only increased in the 1980s as the Aids epidemic led to a rise in attacks on LGBT+ people. The health crisis sparked new Pride events such as Manchester Pride, which began as an Aids fundraiser.

Throughout the 1990s, Pride spread across the UK. Pride Scotia launched in Scotland, with annual marches alternating between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the first Cardiff Pride followed in 1999.

In the 2000s, attendance at Pride in London grew alongside increasing support for LGBT+ rights, and more events were launched under the Pride banner. By 2015 Pride in London was attracting one million people, and it continued to grow until the Covid pandemic forced cancellations in 2020 and 2021.

David Gold, the director of external affairs and policy at Royal Mail, said: “The vibrant, colourful Pride events that take place in towns and cities across the UK today trace their origins to a small number of people who marched through central London half a century ago to raise awareness of discrimination and inequality.” The stamps are available to pre-order from 23 June and go on general sale on 1 July.