Peter Tatchell, Ted Brown and Nettie Pollard were members of the Gay Liberation Front, which organised the world’s first Pride
Words David McGillivray Photography Markus Bidaux
GAY LIBERATION FRONT
For today’s gay community, Pride is an annual fixture, a reminder of how previous generations battled for our rights and how we must not only continue to defend them today but also fight for inequality around the globe. Its roots were planted in the UK 50 years ago on 1 July 1972, when the world’s first gay rights march to use the name ‘Pride’ took place in London. It was organised by the Gay Liberation Front (GLF).
A UK off shoot of the first GLF that was formed in America, this small group was founded in London in 1970. At that time, despite the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK in 1967, two males kissing in public still risked arrest. Although the GLF was determined to challenge such homophobia head-on, its objectives were not what you might suppose.
“The word ‘equality’ never passed our lips,” says lifelong human rights campaigner and former GLF member Peter Tatchell, 70. “We were not interested in equal rights within what we saw as a flawed, unjust society. Our goal was not assimilation and adaptation, but the transformation of society to benefit everyone.” The GLF was closely aligned to women’s liberation and Black power.
Before that historic day in 1972, the GLF had organised two protests. On 27 November 1970, there was a candlelit vigil on north London’s Highbury Fields (a plaque marks the spot) reacting to the arrest of Young Liberal Louis Eaks for alleged importuning, an offence only women and gay men could be charged with.
Ted Brown, 72, was part of the GLF’s Youth Group, which organised the next big offensive on 28 August 1971. It was a march from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square in central London protesting against the UK’s unequal age of consent: 16 for heterosexuals, but 21 for gay men. “One way we protested was to kiss each other in Hyde Park,” Brown remembers.
The first Pride march the following year came about purely because of the success of the age of consent march, which received national press coverage. “We felt elated that there were a number of people prepared to declare themselves lesbian and gay and [to] do so in public,” Brown recalls. (This was at a time when gay men could lawfully be sacked from their work, and gay women could lawfully lose custody of their children.) “At our meeting place in Powys Square in Notting Hill Gate, we said, ‘Let’s have a major meet
