Timeline of LGBT+ History for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire
1972 – The Gay Liberation Front
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Introduction
Gay Liberation Front Manifesto, 1971 (Local archives donated by Peter Kent-Baguley)
The UK Gay Liberation Front (GLF) emerged in the UK in the period that followed the Stonewall riots. Its first meeting was held in the basement of the London School of Economics on 13 October 1970.
Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter were inspired by the effect of the GLF in the United States and set out to create a similar movement in the UK. The GLF held its first demonstration on 27 November of the same year, when 150 people marched at Highbury Fields in London. The GLF existed alongside The Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE), which was founded in 1969. It was, however, also short lived and ceased operating around 1974.
The GLF was characterised by direct action, political activism and demands for social change. It was a highly influential movement that led to groups being set up around the country including a group in Stoke-on-Trent.
The Gay Liberation Front Manifesto, published in 1971, set out a blueprint for gay rights activism that was tirelessly pursued for decades after the GLF had ceased. And in the end we won these rights. The following excerpt is from the final page…
CAMPAIGN
Before we can create the new society of the future, we have to defend our interests as gay people here and now against all forms of oppression and victimisation. We have therefore drawn up the following list of immediate demands.
- that all discrimination against gay people, male and female, by the law, by employers and by society at large, should end.
- that all people who feel attracted to a member of their own sex be taught that such feelings are perfectly valid.
- that sex education in schools stop being exclusively heterosexual.
- that psychiatrists stop treating homosexuality as though it were a sickness, thereby giving gay people senseless guilt complexes.
- that gay people be as legally free to contact other gay people, through newspaper ads ,on the streets and by any other means they may want as are heterosexuals, and that police harassment should cease right now.
- that employers should no longer be allowed to discriminate against anyone on account of their sexual preferences.
- that the age of consent for gay males be reduced to the same as for straight.
- that gay people be free to hold hands and kiss in public, as are heterosexuals.
Local Support for the Gay Liberation Front
1971 – Gay Liberation Emerges at Keele University
A Gay Liberation Front group started at Keele University in the early 1970s. Advertisements for the group begin to appear in 1972 but the following evidence suggests that the group may have come together the year before.
The Keele University Head Porters Papers dated 3/5/1971 make reference to The Wolfenden Report having estimated that at least 5% of the adult male population engage in homosexual activities. The document continues: “We are hoping to talk with as many homosexuals at Keele as possible to get some idea of the situation here. We realise that this is a difficult subject to talk about personally, but in order for it to be at all worthwhile as many people as possible need to be contacted. We would like to make it very clear that there will be no risk of disclosure, all information will be treated in the strictest confidence” (Head Porters’ Papers, notice from Malcolm Gibb, dated 3 May 1971, Special Collections and Archives, Keele University, UGSD 257.)
This acknowledgment of the normality of homosexuality and the reassurance of confidentiality may have helped create the conditions in which a Gay Liberation group at Keele could later emerge.
Later that year, an article in the Evening Sentinel published 26th Nov 1971 reported a motion to be put forward at a Union General Meeting on Monday night proposing the “elimination of all sexism and racism” from future rags. The motion also called for the representation of various groups on Rag Procession floats including gay liberation.
Evening Sentinel – 26th Nov 1971
This article is noteworthy both for its glimpse of changing attitudes towards sexism and racism and for it’s mention of the need to represent “Gay Liberation” on the rag parade. This suggests that students may already have been forming a local Gay Liberation Front group at Keele as early as 1971.
1972 – Local and National Publicity
The Keele University Gay Liberation Society launched local and national advertisements in 1972. They held a meeting on Wednesday March 8th 1972 which was advertised in the Evening Sentinel.
Evening Sentinel Mar 6th 1972
The group was also listed in the first issue of Gay News around 1st May 1972 under the heading “National Gay Liberation Front Groups”. A Stoke-on-Trent Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) group is also separately listed in the Gay News clipping below. Read more about our local CHE group here…
Listing in Gay News Issue 1 – May 1972 (Retrieved from The Gay News Archive)
This clipping from the Evening Sentinel in June 1972 issues a public invitation to attend a Gay Liberation Front meeting at the Prince of Wales pub in Liverpool Road, Stoke.
Evening Sentinel Jun 21st 1972
In the Gay News listings for August 1972 there are two Gay Liberation Front Groups listed – Keele University and Potteries. These same listings also continue to show a CHE group in Stoke-on-Trent (not visible in this clip).
Listings in Gay News Issue 14, Around 1st August 1972 (Retrieved from The Gay News Archive)
1972 – Police Action
Within a few months of the group being publicly launched, students and community members involved in Keele University Gay Liberation Society were actively targeted in a campaign by the Staffordshire Police as reported below in “Gay News”. As the group had advertised itself in the Evening Sentinel in March it is easy to see how it would come to the attention of the police.
Membership of a gay activist organisation was perfectly legal and had no age limits but sex between men where one or both were under 21 was still against the law. So the police would have taken an interest in students under the age of 21 that might be engaged in sex with each other, or with other older gay community members.
Article in Gay News Issue 6 published around 1st September 1972 (Retrieved from The Gay News Archive)
Three of the four people charged were older men accused of “buggery” with minors. The fourth man charged was nineteen years of age and therefore himself below the legal age of consent.
Some of the offences for which convictions were eventually secured would still be illegal under the law as it stands today. But the police response also included compiling a dossier of known local homosexuals and of treating older teenagers as minors. This reminds us that the decriminalisation of sex between men in 1967 was limited in it’s scope and the police still pursued the prosecution of sexual activity between, or with, gay men under the age of 21 that would not be illegal under current laws.
For a more detailed discussion of these events including a full transcription of the above article and details of local press coverage read more here…
1973 – Keele University Student Union Supports GLF
Despite the police action in 1972, or perhaps even because of it, Keele University students passed a motion supporting the Gay Liberation Front in 1973 which was reported in our local press.
Evening Sentinel Apr 13th 1973
1974 – The National Gay Liberation Front Ends
By around 1974–75, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) had largely dissolved as a unified national movement. The GLF intentionally chose to function without a hierarchical structure as part of its radical vision. Over time this made it hard to manage and resolve internal disagreements. Members clashed over strategy – whether to pursue revolutionary social change or pragmatic legal reform. Gender politics also played a major role, with many lesbians leaving after feeling marginalised by gay male dominance within the movement.
The GLF had burned brightly, but only briefly. When it ended, activists did not stop their work, many went on to form community groups that led to gay centres, helplines, and publications. The GLF is also widely seen as the starting point of the modern UK Pride movement.
This legacy can be seen locally at Keele University where the The North Staffs Gay Switchboard began in 1977, later moving into Stoke-on-Trent and operating for thirty years. By 1978, a student Gay Society was also meeting at the university, although the exact start date is yet to be confirmed.
When the Potteries Gay Community Association formed in 1979, Keele University Gay Society was part of the working party that launched it. So although the Keele Gay liberation Front had run its course, the legacy lived on as new local groups formed to bring people together socially and to continue the campaign for LGBT+ rights.
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Copyright Notice
News clippings in this post were compiled by Andrew Colclough from various archives as part of his personal research into local LGBT+ history and are shared here for educational purposes on the basis of fair personal/non commercial use. Copyright, where applicable, remains with the original publishers. Photographs are believed to be in the public domain and sources are credited where possible – please contact us if any further permissions or acknowledgments are required. All original text is © Andrew Colclough. Thank you!
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