Special Invite to ‘Gay Liberation Front’ think-in and reunion – 08.10.18 – please RSVP 🙂 – Facebook event page here
‘Queer Tours of London – A Mince Through Time’ and ‘Queerseum’ (www.queerseum.org) would like to invite you to a think-in on the evening of October 8th – the launch of a series of events to ‘Reclaim Pride’! This event is by RSVP only due to large interest and limited spaces. Please find all the details below and respond to queertoursoflondon@gmail.com ASAP to book your space stating your name and why you would like to come. Please do invite other trusted queens to invite!
‘Where do our rebellions lie now? How can we best tie them into our shared history?’ Andrew Lumsden, GLF activist / Gay News founder (1971)
Why do we need to ‘reclaim’ Pride – a message from ‘Gay Liberation Fronts’ Andrew Lumsden.
“Surviving Gay Liberation Front activists were sidelined by a London Pride Committee on our 40th anniversary in 2010. Mayor Johnson and his bodyguards – he never spoke to us – were put in front of us on the July march, though we invented such marches. And we were allowed 15 minutes to speak from the Trafalgar Square stage, cut at the last moment to 5 minutes.
Young people ask us, what was Gay Lib like, and they love Stuart Feather’s 2016 book about it, Blowing the Lid, Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution & Radical Queens.
We’d like things to go better for the 50th anniversary in 2020 even if we’re all in wheelchairs. But there’s been no approach to us by the present Pride in London Committee. It keeps the Pride franchise awarded by Mayor Khan until 2022 and is known to consider themes for later marches under its supervision. Months ago we suggested a conversation, and were told we would be contacted. We never have been.
Never mind. We invented things before and can cheerfully do it again, with the help of friends. So we’d like – since venues have to be booked – to consult with friends about what we might do that would simultaneously
. highlight campaigns today
. and celebrate the Gay Liberation Front”
Where do our rebellions lie now? How can we best tie them into our shared history?
When – October 8th time 6.30-8.30pm (doors open at 6pm)
On October 13th October 1970 in a room at the London School of Economics we changed the course of history forever as we formed the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in the UK. We urged the queer community to unite around a simple set of demands among which were calls for an end to discrimination against homosexuals in employment, in sex education, in the age of consent and in being treated as sick by the medical establishment. GLF saw itself as a peoples movement for gays, socialist by virtue of its demand for social change, and revolutionary in recognising the rights of other oppressed minorities to determine the fight for their own demands.
As a courtesy of their role in our founding, the London School of Economics (LSE) are honoured to host us again.
LSE has an important historical role in the push for LGBTQIA+ rights. The first ever Gay Liberation Front (GLF) meeting in the UK was convened in a basement classroom there. Here we witnessed the gatherings, think-ins, political actions, and marches. We see the self-made pamphlets, zines, and newsletters that forged solidarity of thought. These objects galvanized citizens who refused to remain silent; they propelled a movement.