Few figures are as synonymous with LGBT+ rights as is Peter Tatchell. He was integral to the organisation of Britain’s first Pride march, in 1972. “I’ve been to every London Pride march since then,” says the 73-year-old. “This year will be my 54th.”
In his six decades of activism and protest, which began as an “instinctive reaction against injustice” when he was a young teenager, he’s been arrested 103 times (at time of writing) and received too many hate letters and threatening phone calls to count. He’s been subjected to more than 300 violent assaults and 50 attacks on his flat. Horrifyingly, these vicious acts have included bottles and bricks being thrown through his windows, arson, and even a bullet through his front door. He’s previously been under armed police protection, and was even listed as a target for assassination in a foiled plot in the Nineties. He describes these experiences as akin to “living through a low-level civil war”.
Of course, enduring such atrocities has taken its toll. “It’s been terrifying, and for years I’ve suffered from PTSD,” says Tatchell. Yet he’s determined never to give up, and doesn’t want to “let the bigots win”. “Protest is the lifeblood of democracy,” he says, “and without it we end up like Putin’s Russia.”
Tatchell maintains that, as long as he has good health, he’ll continue to protest – and “might consider retiring around the age of 95” – but acknowledges that such freedom of expression is under threat. “Police are increasingly cracking down on the right to peaceful protest,” he tells me.
One of his main campaigns at the Peter Tatchell Foundation, formed in 2011, is #ApologiseNow. It seeks acknowledgement of the indignities previously suffered by the LGBT+ community at the hands of some police officers, including harassment, entrapment, beatings, raids on gay venues, and the public outing of LGBT+ people. He thinks a formal apology would help to rebuild trust.
As part of this campaign, Tatchell is appealing to Pride organisers across the country to ban the participation of the police in their marches if they’ve refused to apologise. Greater Manchester Police plan to march in Manchester’s event this year, but have “point blank refused to apologise”, says Tatchell, though he adds that police are welcome to march as individuals in civilian clothes.
For Tatchell, it is evident that there are still problems between the police and the LGBT+ community. It’s something he still experiences: in May this year, he was forcibly removed from the Birmingham Pride march after West Midlands Police claimed he didn’t have permission to march and that organisers had requested his removal. Tatchell says the police stance is “a complete lie”, and the event’s organiser later condemned the episode.
Tatchell claims that some of “the most vicious homophobic officers in the country” worked for West Midlands Police in the 1970s and 80s, and that they “wrecked LGBT+ people’s lives”. He thinks his recent treatment only “reinforces how homophobic they are”.
So far, the #ApologiseNow campaign has won apologies from 21 of the UK’s 45 forces, including the Metropolitan Police, Merseyside, and Police Scotland. As a direct impact of the Peter Tatchell Foundation’s work, there have been systemic changes within some forces, such as the introduction of homophobic hate crime hotlines and the appointment of LGBT+ liaison officers.
Other campaigns orchestrated by the foundation include helping more than 200 LGBT+ refugees by supporting them in making asylum claims and putting them in touch with solicitors who can represent them, all without charge.
Much has changed since Tatchell began campaigning, including the full decriminalisation of homosexuality and an end to the use of electroconvulsive therapy as a “cure” for being gay. But now, he says, attitudes are beginning to roll back.
“Until a decade ago, public opinion was shifting towards ever greater acceptance, but now it’s gone into reverse,” says Tatchell. “There’s a new demonisation of trans people that echoes that of LGBs in the 1970s and 80s. It’s all based on scaremongering and blanket generalisations.”
Tatchell attributes this to a “combination of Conservative government, the rise of Ukip and Brexit, plus Twitter has helped amplify and quasi-legitimised homophobia, biphobia and transphobia”. He doesn’t see things improving any time soon, adding: “I fear anti-LGBT+ sentiment will get worse.”
This change in attitudes is being felt on a far wider scale than just within Britain. In March, Hungary passed a draconian law that effectively bans Pride and similar events by outlawing any public assembly that might be considered to involve the promotion of homosexuality. It’s a move that critics say is a breach of EU law, and opposes the fundamental values of human dignity, freedom, equality, and respect for human rights enshrined in the EU treaties.
In response, Tatchell is organising a Solidarity Pride protest that will be held outside the Hungarian embassy in London on 21 June. “The aim is to stand with the beleaguered LGBT+ people of Hungary, and to show them people in other countries know and care about their victimisation,” he says.
He’s calling for pressure to be put on the EU to sanction the regime of Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban in order to prevent the emboldening of other right-wing member states to act similarly. He says some EU countries have been vocal in opposing the Budapest ban, but notes: “We haven’t seen any action yet... We need more than words, we need sanctions.”
