Who.was.the founder of the gay liberationfront
The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was founded by students Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter. The first gathering was held on 13 October 1970 at the London School of Economics. Click below to consult the GLF Manifesto, which was published in 1971 and set out the key demands and principles of the GLF. It challenged gay people to come out and be visible, while also exploring the means by which they were oppressed by society. For the GLF, gay liberation was not about law reform, it was about a revolutionary change in society. Also included below is the revised edition from 1979.
The diverse politics of people who joined the GLF however, meant that consensus on a single topic was often hard to come by. By the end of 1973 GLF had disbanded, but the organisation and its manifesto, cast a long shadow. Many gay rights organisations that emerged during the course of the 1980s and 1990s would include their core principles rooted in the work of the GLF.
The manifesto digitised here is the first in what will turn into an online library of key LGBTQ+ texts from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, held in the Special Collections and Archives here at the Institute.
GLF Manifesto, 1971
GLF Manifesto, 1979
Out and proud - the legacy of the Queer Liberation Front
The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) originated in America, with the renowned Stonewall Riots on 27 June 1969 and primary figures such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. By 1970, the idea had been brought over to the London School of Economics and the first meeting was held in a basement with 19 people on the 13 October 1970. Within a month, after leafleting and more meetings, the crowds of attendees grew.
The movement had grown to 200 attendees by November 1970, adding publications such as Gay News and Come Together and starting to hold ‘gay days’. Other branches of the GLF started popping up across the land, especially in Manchester and Brighton.
The GLF Manifesto was published in 1971. It had radical demands. The lengthy manifesto outlined 10 ways that gay people were oppressed, including in school, employment, the family, law, and self-oppression. Their aims were radical, wanting to abolish the family unit and cultural distinctions between men and women, aiming to end the sexist supremacy of the straight man. They distributed a lot of solidarity with feminist movements and believed an end to straight male supremacy would b
Written by: Jim Downs, Connecticut College
By the end of this section, you will:
- Explain how and why various groups responded to calls for the expansion of civil rights from 1960 to 1980
After World War II, the civil rights movement had a profound impact on other groups demanding their rights. The feminist movement, the Black Power movement, the environmental movement, the Chicano movement, and the American Indian Movement sought equality, rights, and empowerment in American society. Gay people organized to resist oppression and insist just treatment, and they were especially galvanized after a New York Town police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay prevent, sparked riots in 1969.
Around the similar time, biologist Alfred Kinsey began a massive study of human sexuality in the United States. Like Magnus Hirschfield and other scholars who studied sexuality, including Havelock Ellis, a prominent British scholar who published research on trans psychology, Kinsey believed sexuality could be studied as a science. He interviewed more than 8,000 men and argued that sexuality existed on a spectrum, saying that it could not be confined to easy categories of queer and heterosex
Lisa Power – activist, journalist, co-founder of Stonewall and former-Islingtonian, collected the histories of the GLF in her publication ‘No Bath But Plenty of Bubbles – an oral history of the Gay Liberation Front 1970-1973’. Quoted in the book is Stuart Feather who attended the demonstration:
“It was dark and we all wandered round lighting each other’s cigarettes which was the activity given in Police evidence against Eakes and then we kissed openly, which was extraordinary. It was an immense release to be able to peck and carry on.”
In the 90s, OutRage!, the LGBT resistance group committed to equality through agitation and non-violent manage action, erected a plaque on the toilets of where the infamous Eakes incident took place. The unveiling of the plaque was attended by Chris Smith MP, the first MP to openly come out as gay during his time as office, and Jeremy Corbyn MP, characterizing both parliamentary seats in Islington.
The plaque remains today, elongated after the conversion of original toilets, thanks to Terry Stacy, former head of Islington Council, who rescued the plaque from a skip. It is prominently on exhibit, and many passers-by are informed of Highbury Fields’
Gay Liberation Front (GLF)
| Come Out!: A New Generation of Activists Gay Liberation Front members marching on Times Square, Fall 1969. Photograph by Diana Davies. NYPL, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Diana Davies Papers. Copyright Diana Davies. Digital ID: 1582230 |
Michael Brown, a young veteran of the New Left, contacted Mattachine president Dick Leitsch after reading his position paper on Stonewall, "The Hairpin Drop Heard Around the World," and with Leitsch's support he created the Mattachine Action Committee. But the new committee soon seceded from Mattachine, rechristening themselves the Lgbtq+ Liberation Front (GLF). GLF members openly claimed the word "Gay," which had been avoided by the previous generation of queer and lesbian activists in fav