![]() It was the year after the Falklands War and Margaret Thatcher was unassailable. So let me take you back to Britain - and Bermondsey - in 1983. Pictured: Justin Fashanu of England before a match against USA in Manchester, England No other professional footballer would be open about their sexuality for 30 years. That may sound strange given the world we live in now, but it wasn't until 1990 that Justin felt able to come out. In 1983, if he was known to be gay, his sporting career would be finished. Justin was the first black player to be transferred for £1 million, from Norwich to Nottingham Forest. He was my comfort and support but we knew if we were discovered it would spell disaster. The bitter campaign saw homophobic anti-Tatchell graffiti daubed all over the constituency and more than 30 attacks on my flat, including two arson attempts - plus, a deluge of hate mail and a bullet posted through my letterbox in the dead of night.Īll through that turbulent time, I was trying to sustain a passionate but secret relationship with the footballer Justin Fashanu. As an Australian-born gay social justice campaigner, I was denounced as a foreigner, immigrant, Marxist and pervert. Back then, they were seen as extremist.Īlmost no public figures were 'out' in that era and almost no candidates dared support LGBT+ rights. My proposals for a negotiated peace settlement in Northern Ireland and laws to protect everyone against discrimination and LGBT+ equality are now mainstream: even the Conservatives agree with them. The by-election made me nationally famous - and the subject of what was later described as the most sustained vilification of a gay public figure since Oscar Wilde.Īs a lightning rod for the vicious in-fighting in the Labour Party, I was cast as a dangerous radical because I challenged property speculators and advocated a national minimum wage. Pictured: Peter Tatchell outside his former flat in Bermondsey, London, as he recalls the events around the 1983 Bermondsey by-election Today, I am well known as a campaigner for human rights, but in the early 1980s, I was just a Labour Party activist with a day job in a centre for the homeless. Forty years have passed, almost to the day, since that infamous by-election on February 24 - but it is still regarded as the dirtiest, most violent and homophobic election since 1945. It was 1983 and I was Labour's parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey, a deprived inner-city area of south London. But as I picked myself up, I thought: 'I'm not going to let them beat me.' That incident was much worse - I knew I could have been killed. I was terrified every time I stepped out of my flat. Over the previous few months I'd been spat at, kicked, had dogs set on me and been attacked with cricket and baseball bats. ![]() ![]() 'Tatchell, you communist p**f!' a man shouted out the window. Splayed on the pavement, cut, bruised and my heart pounding, I watched as the van sped off. Some split-second instinct made me veer to the gutter, but I still got side-swiped off my bicycle, narrowly escaping being crushed under the wheels. I glanced over my shoulder to see a white Transit van coming straight at me. As I was cycling along a quiet road, the sound of a vehicle close behind alerted me to danger. ![]()
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