13/10/2020
Tuesday evening, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the groundbreaking LGBTQ action group Gay Liberation Front London. Peter Tatchell takes up the story on his website reporting “50 years ago, on 13 October 1970, the Gay Liberation Front was founded at the London School of Economics. The meeting was called by Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter and was attended by 19 people. It soon grew into weekly open meetings attended by hundreds of LGBT+ people.“The formation of GLF was the watershed moment in British LGBT+ history. For the first time, thousands of LGBT+ people came out and protested against our persecutors. GLF’s slogan ‘Gay is Good’ challenged the centuries-old view that gay was bad – and mad and sad,” Although there had been LGBTQ groups before this watershed moment, such as the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the Beaumont Society, these behaved in a quiet and apologetic manner until the activists of the GLF blew gay oppression wide open and changed the consciousness of the communities under the rainbow banner from shame to pride and defiance. The fiftieth anniversary vigil takes place at 6pm on 13th October outside the London School of Economics. Happy Birthday GLF from all of us here. It has been, like Stonewall itself, a riot.
