- Activist Peter Tatchell helped plan the first ever UK
Pride march on July 1, 1972. - Tatchell spoke to Insider for the 50th anniversary of the march on Friday.
Peter Tatchell, an
Tatchell told Insider that he was one of around 30 people who helped plan the march in London on July 1, 1972, which was attended by around 700 people during an era where being openly gay was considered taboo. In comparison, Haven Thorn, a spokesperson for London Pride 2022 told Insider that they are expecting 30,000 participants on Saturday, with upwards of 1.5 million LGBT+ travelers due to arrive in London for the celebrations.
Attendees at the 1972 march faced physical and verbal abuse from the police, according to Tatchell, who said it was an "incredibly exciting atmosphere" despite how fearful they were of the possible repercussions.
The first-ever Pride marchers faced homophobic slurs and abuse from the police, Tatchell says
In the early 1970s, Tatchell joined the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), an organization that was founded in 1970 that campaigned for law reform and challenged homophobia within the police, the armed forces, and the church, among other institutions. The GLF created Pride — which was then known as Gay Pride — in 1972 to "counter society's view that we should be ashamed of our sexuality and gender identity," Tatchell said.
The first Pride march took place on July 1, 1972, starting at Trafalgar Square and ending at Hyde Park, he said. Attendees chanted and carried banners with slogans such as: "Homosexuals are nature's children" and "Gay is Proud."
"Back then, most LGBT+ people were closeted and afraid to show their faces," Tatchell said. "They feared arrest, gay-bashing, rejection by their friends and family, and even the possibility of being sacked from their jobs — which is something that did happen in the early 1970s."
Tatchell said there was a mixed reaction from the public, with many people showing their disapproval while others showed support. The event was heavily policed, he said.
"At some points, there was almost one police officer for every marcher," Tatchell said. "Some officers pushed and shoved us, others shouted homophobic abuse. And there was nothing we could do."
"But we were determined and defiant," he added. "We were out and proud and we demanded our liberation."
The Metropolitan Police declined to comment when contacted by Insider. However, the Met's Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes addressed how policing has changed since the first Pride movements began in a blog post published earlier this month.
"The police have come a long way since the early days of Pride. We have a long way still to go – but we are absolutely committed to supporting our LGBT+ colleagues and our LGBT+ communities," Jukes wrote.
Tatchell says the media refused to cover the first Pride march
The 1972 Pride was a historic milestone, but there was no coverage of the event because the British press at the time were "so homophobic," according to Tatchell, who said there are a limited number of photos because of this. Tatchell provided a handful of his own photos, taken by the photographer Jamie Gardiner, to be included in this story.
The LGBTQ community continued to face homophobia from the public and the press in the years that followed, specifically during the HIV and AIDs crisis in the 1980s. Although research at the time showed that HIV couldn't be transmitted by casual contact, such as a handshake, the media coverage was excessive, with some outlets referring to it as "gay cancer," according to History Extra.
Things began to look up in the early 2000s due to an increase in legal reform in the UK, Tatchell told Insider.
"Up until 1999, Britain had the largest number of anti-LGBT+ laws of any country in the world, some of them dating back centuries. Yet in the 14 years after 1999, all of those homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic laws were repealed. That was the fastest, most successful law reform campaign in British history," he added.
The ban on gay, lesbian and bisexual people from entering the British armed forces was lifted in 2000, according to Sky News, and in 2001 the equalization of the age of consent to 16 for gay and bisexual men came into effect, according to Pink News. The age of consent for gay and bisexual men had previously been 21 until 1994, when it was lowered to 18.
In 2004, the Civil Partnership Act was passed, which allowed same-sex couples to enter into a union with the same rights as married couples, and in 2014 same-sex marriage was legalized in England, Scotland, and Wales. Same-sex marriage was legalized in Northern Ireland in 2020, BBC News reported.
There is still work to do
But there's still work to be done, Tatchell said, pointing out that
Conversion therapy will be a focus at the 2022 Pride march, with organizers calling for the UK Government to ban it completely and to reform gender recognition, as well as calling for equal protection for LGBTQ communities against hate crime.
In March, the UK Government scrapped its plans to ban conversion therapy for gay and bisexual people in England and Wales. Hours later, it retracted the decision, but said the ban would not cover gender identity, BBC News reported.
"That is totally unacceptable. A conversion therapy ban that excludes transgender people is not a ban at all," Tatchell said.
A UK Government spokesperson told Insider that there are plans to carry out "separate work" to consider the issue of transgender conversion therapy.
"The Government has a proud record on
"Recognizing the complexity of issues and need for further careful thought, we will carry out separate work to consider the issue of transgender conversion therapy further," they added.
This article is part of "We/Us/Ours," a series about LGBTQ communities and spaces that inspire queer unity.