Description:The gay and lesbian community in Birmingham has often been at the forefront of campaigning on a range of political and social issues. This has been due to the size and vibrancy of the community, helped by holding national conferences and events here.
In the 1950s and 1960s campaigning was far less open than it is now and the media coverage far less sympathetic. Up to the partial legalisation of homosexual acts in 1967 the threat of legal actions necessarily constrained the voice of the gay community and even in the immediate years afterwards the political and social climate muffled the message for equal rights.
“...I just think that there’s been so much publicity about racism that people won’t make racist comments now when there are black or Asian people present, they probably still make them when it’s a complete white audience, but the emphasis has shifted now to it being more acceptable to make homophobic comments, because gay people are an invisible minority in a lot of cases and that is something that you know, Section 28 doesn’t assist us because we are still being singled out as a minority group not worthy, pension rights, you know, in some of the employment benefit rights”. [MS 2255/2/54]
This extract comes from a longer interview undertaken as part of the Millennibrum Project in 2000. Transcripts and listening copies of the full interviews are available in Local Studies and History on floor six of Birmingham Central Library.