Back Then in London... And Now? by Miqhey Miqxtja
D
uring the 1970’s in London, getting involved with the newly formed Gay Liberation Front changed my life. GLF was exactly what I had been yearning for, but previously unable to articulate. Intersectionality as a word was not used then, but the concept was very much there. In June 1970, the Black Panthers put out a call for a People’s Revolutionary Convention to meet in Washington DC. Various feminist groups were also meeting in many places globally to implement women’s liberation. These initiatives led directly to the formation of the gay liberation meetings in London later that same year. Our London GLF was formed consciously to stand alongside the Women’s Liberation Movement and was directly inspired by our founders’ attendance at that very Peoples’ Revolutionary Convention. Arising from this vortex of energy in the early 70s, the Brixton Fairies in South London inspired me with (among other things) their practice of Radical Drag and Out Visibility on the streets. In various places, we had encounter groups,
Demonstration in support of LGBT in London, December 1975 Photo by Jerzy Strzelecki (with Creative Commons permission)
consciousness-raising circles, rallies, creative protests and chaotic assemblies. Flavours of those times here can be gleaned from “Blowing the Lid” by my friend Stuart Feather and the newly issued “United Queerdom” by my combabe Dan Glass (Fae-name—Our Little Pony). Later, as social order began to break down in London, our Pride marches were viewed by the authorities and the police as connected to the violent terrorism of the IRA (Irish Rebublican Army) so we came under similar suspicion. Nor was this entirely state fantasy, as I knew certain cells who were directly planning for violent disruption and/ or armed revolution at the time.
T
hose years are not much celebrated now in Britain, and the knowledge of these histories has not reached much across the seas to other lands. But for me in the later 70’s, our own place being the postal address of the East London GLF at Balfron Tower in Poplar, I then got news of the Radical Faeries and other such goings on in the
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