Showing posts with label 50th Anniversary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 50th Anniversary. Show all posts

Friday, July 01, 2022

Pride at 50: The LGBT Revolution Sparked in a Basement

Stuart Feather (left), in drag, is bundled into a police car during a gay-rights protest, in 1971 | ALAMY/MIRRORPI

BBC: It's 1972 - the swinging '60s are over, the miners' strike has turned off the lights and Donny Osmond is topping the charts with Puppy Love.

It will be another 20 years before same-sex attraction is declassified as a mental illness and, despite homosexual acts being decriminalised, in 1967, the age of consent remains five years older than for heterosexual couples.

But, in a basement room at the London School of Economics, a revolution is brewing.

Fresh from protests calling for the age of consent to be lowered, the year before, members of the Gay Liberation Front are planning a new march - not only demanding change and equality but celebrating who they are.

And, although they do not yet know it, the ripple effects will still be felt decades later.

The UK's first Pride protest is about to be born. » | Lauren Moss, LGBT correspondent, and Josh Parry, LGBT producer | BBC News | Friday, July 1, 2022