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{{short description|Australian-born British human rights campaigner (born 1952)}} | |||
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{{use dmy dates|date=January 2021}} | |||
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{{Infobox person | |||
'''Peter Gary Tatchell''' (born ] ]) is a ] ] activist, famous internationally for his attempts to perform a ] on ]an President ]. In the early 1980s, he was selected as ] candidate for Bermondsey and was denounced by party leader ] for supporting extra-parliamentary action; although the Labour Party subsequently allowed his selection, when he ran in the ] in February 1983 he was strongly attacked by tabloid newspapers and by graffiti in the constituency. | |||
| name = Peter Tatchell | |||
| image = Peter Tatchell - Red Wall - 8by10 - 2016-10-15.jpg | |||
| caption = Tatchell in 2016 | |||
| birth_name = Peter Gary Tatchell | |||
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=y|1952|1|25}} | |||
| birth_place = ], Victoria, Australia | |||
| occupation = Human rights campaigner, journalist | |||
| party = {{Plainlist| | |||
* ] (since 2004) | |||
* ] (2000–2004) | |||
* ] (1978–2000) | |||
}} | |||
| nationality = {{Plainlist| | |||
* Australian (until 1989)<ref name="auto">Peter Tatchell: Appeal against Visa Refusal {{cite web |url=http://www.petertatchell.net/international/australia/visaappeal.htm |title=Peter Tatchell: Appeal against Visa Refusal |access-date=13 March 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111108024906/http://petertatchell.net/international/australia/visaappeal.htm |archive-date=8 November 2011 }}</ref> | |||
* British (since 1989)<ref name="auto"/> | |||
}} | |||
| alma_mater = ] | |||
| website = {{official URL}} | |||
| module = {{Listen|embed=yes|filename=Peter Tatchell voice - en.ogg|title=<span align="center">Peter Tatchell's voice</span>|type=speech|description=<span align="center">]</span>}} | |||
}} | |||
'''Peter Gary Tatchell''' (born 25 January 1952) is an Australian-born British ] campaigner, best known for his work with ]. | |||
] | |||
In the 1990s he was a prominent campaigner for ] through the direct action group ] which he co-founded, and was identified as a supporter of ], being denounced as a 'homosexual terrorist' in the '']'' of ], ]. More recently, his human rights work has led him to set up the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund to assist his activities, and to take on human rights abuses in a much wider field. His willingness to take on human rights issues regardless of their origin has led to him becoming respected among some of the newspapers which have previously denounced him. | |||
Tatchell was selected as the ]'s ] candidate for ] in 1981. He was then denounced by party leader ] for ostensibly supporting extra-Parliamentary action against the ].<ref name="auto1">{{cite web|last1=Crisis Years|first1=The Thatcher|title=Peter Tatchell, Michael Foot and Margaret Thatcher|url=http://thatchercrisisyears.com/2013/04/20/peter-tatchell-michael-foot-and-margaret-thatcher/|access-date=24 April 2015|date=20 April 2015|archive-date=28 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160428162755/https://thatchercrisisyears.com/2013/04/20/peter-tatchell-michael-foot-and-margaret-thatcher/|url-status=live}}</ref> Labour subsequently allowed him to stand in the ] in February 1983, in which the party lost the seat to the ]. In the 1990s he campaigned for ] rights through the direct action group ], which he co-founded. He has worked on various campaigns, such as ] against music lyrics allegedly inciting violence against LGBT people and writes and broadcasts on various human rights and ] issues. He attempted a ] of ] ] in 1999 and again in 2001. | |||
In April 2004, Tatchell joined the ] and in 2007 was selected as ] in the ],<ref name="BBC Green Party">{{Cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6587311.stm |title=Tatchell to stand for Green Party |work=BBC News |access-date=7 February 2008 |date=24 April 2007 |archive-date=22 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070922050023/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6587311.stm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|title=Out now: Margaret's myopic view of the world |last=Duff |first=Oliver |date=17 April 2007 |newspaper=] |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/pandora/out-now-margarets-myopic-view-of-the-world-445042.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20091204212624/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/pandora/out-now-margarets-myopic-view-of-the-world-445042.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=4 December 2009 |location=London}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | |||
|url=http://www.redpepper.org.uk/article153.html | |||
|title=Why I joined the Greens | |||
|publisher=Red Pepper | |||
|date=5 May 2004 | |||
|access-date=5 February 2008 | |||
|last=Tatchell | |||
|first=Peter | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071007003522/http://www.redpepper.org.uk/article153.html | |||
|archive-date= 7 October 2007 | |||
}}</ref> but in December 2009 he stood down due to ] acquired mainly during protests, as well as from a bus accident.<ref name="damage"/> Since 2011, he has been Director of the ]. He has taken part in over 30 debates at the ],<ref>{{Citation |title=A University Should NOT Be A Safe Space {{!}} Peter Tatchell {{!}} Part 4 of 6 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOb_r2A7NKM |language=en |access-date=2022-07-25}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=Peter Tatchell {{!}} We Should NOT Do Whatever Necessary (8/8) {{!}} Oxford Union Debate |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PNxOh22kbg |language=en |access-date=2022-07-25}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=You Should NOT Be Proud To Be Patriotic {{!}} Peter Tatchell {{!}} Oxford Union |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NDYrZKLc1s |language=en |access-date=2022-07-25}}</ref> encompassing a wide range of issues such as ], ] and university ]s. | |||
==Early life== | ==Early life== | ||
] | |||
Tatchell was born in ] (an inner-city, industrial suburb of ], ]) and brought up in a religious household by his mother and stepfather. His father was a lathe operator in an engineering factory; while his mother, a housewife, was a chronic ], and the family's finances were strained by medical bills. As a result he was unable to continue his formal education beyond a basic level, and in 1968, at age sixteen, Tatchell started work as a ] in Melbourne's principal department store. He worked all-year round to develop attractive window displays for the Christmas period. Tatchell has said that he has incorporated the theatricality of these displays into his political activism. | |||
Tatchell was born in ], Australia.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://aim25.com/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_id=19108&inst_id=118&nv1=browse&nv2=sub|title=AIM25 collection description|website=aim25.com|access-date=6 February 2020|archive-date=23 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200323172007/https://aim25.com/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_id=19108&inst_id=118&nv1=browse&nv2=sub|url-status=live}}</ref> His father was a lathe operator and his mother worked in a biscuit factory. His parents divorced when he was four and his mother remarried soon afterwards. He had a half sister and brothers.<ref name="Day">{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/20/peter-tatchell-retires-interview|title=How constant beatings have caught up with campaigner Peter Tatchell|last=Day|first=Elizabeth|date=20 December 2009|work=The Observer|access-date=20 December 2009|location=London|archive-date=14 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181014225203/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/20/peter-tatchell-retires-interview|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Since the family finances were strained by medical bills, he had to leave school at 16 in 1968. He started work as a sign-writer and ] in department stores.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Dear Sylvia Pankhurst: Equality hero! {{!}} Peter Tatchell Foundation|url=https://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/dear-sylvia-pankhurst-equality-hero/|access-date=6 November 2020|website=www.petertatchellfoundation.org|date=March 2017 |archive-date=29 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200929192355/https://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/dear-sylvia-pankhurst-equality-hero/|url-status=live}}</ref> Tatchell claims to have incorporated the ]ity of these displays into his activism.<ref name=AndrewNeil>"Is This Your Life?" television programme, ], 5 August 1995.</ref> | |||
While in Australia he began a lifelong interest in outdoor adventurous activities such as remote climbing, which he has recently explained as helping him develop the courage to be a political risk-taker in adult life. (He was speaking on ] ''Question Time'', in the context of insurance and legal risks preventing British teachers from being willing to take their pupils on outdoor adventures) | |||
Raised as a ], Tatchell says that he "ditched faith a long time ago" and is an ].<ref name="NSS">{{cite web|url=http://www.secularism.org.uk/comingoutasatheistpetertatchellg.html|title=Coming Out as Atheist: Peter Tatchell, Grayson Perry|date=2 December 2005|publisher=National Secular Society|access-date=23 July 2010|archive-date=7 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120307101901/http://www.secularism.org.uk/comingoutasatheistpetertatchellg.html|url-status=live}}</ref> It has been wrongly reported that Tatchell is a ]; however, Tatchell himself has stated that although he eats no meat, he does eat eggs, cheese,<ref name="Huffington Post">{{cite news|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/peter-g-tatchell/peter-tatchell-day-in-the-day_b_2684401.html|title=A Day in the Life of Peter Tatchell|date=14 February 2013|work=Huffington Post|access-date=14 July 2013|archive-date=14 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181014225024/https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/peter-g-tatchell/peter-tatchell-day-in-the-day_b_2684401.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and, according to ], wild ],<ref name="Fairbrass">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/19/date-peter-tatchell-richard-fairbrass|title=Celebrity blind date: Richard Fairbrass and Peter Tatchell|date=19 June 2010|work=The Guardian|location=London|access-date=15 July 2013|archive-date=14 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181014224953/https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/19/date-peter-tatchell-richard-fairbrass|url-status=live}}</ref> meaning Tatchell is a ]. | |||
==Political awakening== | |||
He discovered his ] in 1969. His political activity had begun at Mount Waverley High School when he had launched campaigns in support of the ] population, and with the Australian campaign against the ] prompted by the ] of ] in 1967. One night, Tatchell went round the centre of Melbourne daubing slogans against hanging, an action which was not identified as him until he revealed it in an interview nearly 30 years later. | |||
He became interested in outdoor adventurous activities such as ] and ]. Speaking on ]'s '']'' about how insurance and legal risks were making British teachers reluctant to take pupils on outdoor adventures, he said outdoor activities helped him develop the courage to take political risks in adult life.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lq94f|title=BBC Radio 4 – Any Questions?, 24/07/2009|website=BBC|access-date=6 February 2020|archive-date=6 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200206114510/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lq94f|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
The following year, Tatchell took on ]'s involvement in the ] and he was a member of the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign and of Christians for Peace. Impending ] led him to move to ] in 1971. Four days after arriving he spotted a sticker on a lamp-post in ] advertising a meeting of the ]. He quickly became a leading member of the group until it disintegrated in 1974. At the celebrated GLF disruption of the Festival of Light meeting at the Methodist Central Hall, he was part of a group instructed to 'demonstrate spontaneous homosexual love'. | |||
===Campaigns in Australia=== | |||
==Journalism== | |||
Tatchell's political activity began at ],<ref>{{Cite web|date=3 March 2019|title=LGBTQ Heroes: Peter Tatchell|url=https://g-tv.ghost.io/lgbtq-heroes-peter-tatchell/|access-date=6 November 2020|website=G-TV|archive-date=26 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210226125256/https://g-tv.ghost.io/lgbtq-heroes-peter-tatchell/|url-status=live}}</ref> where in 1967 he launched campaigns in support of Australia's ]. Tatchell was elected secretary of the school's Student Representative Council. In his final year in 1968, as ], he took the lead in setting up a scholarship scheme for Aboriginal people and led a campaign for ]. These activities led the headmaster to claim he had been manipulated by communists.<ref name="Battle p. 13" /> | |||
Tatchell continued his education at the ]. There he was a member of the ] Gay Rights Campaign. On graduating he became a ] ] specialising in foreign stories, during which he exposed some scandals including the child labour on British-owned tea farms in ]. A previous 1972 attempt having not seen a response, his application to join the ] was accepted in Hornsey in 1978, shortly before he moved to a hard-to-let flat on the ] in ]. | |||
Prompted by the impending ] of ] in 1967, a 15-year old Tatchell protested against the use of the death sentence, writing to the press and spraying graffiti to raise awareness of the issue.<ref name="Ten years on">"Bermondsey ten years on", '']'', February 1993.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=February 7 |first=Chris {{!}} |last2=Reply |first2=2010 at 15:56 {{!}} |date=2010-02-04 |title='It was never meant to be a lifetime commitment': An interview with Peter Tatchell |url=https://greatwen.com/2010/02/04/living-london-legends-peter-tatchell/ |access-date=2024-09-13 |website=The Great Wen |language=en}}</ref> Ryan was convicted of killing a prison warder while escaping from ] in ]. Tatchell wrote that the trajectory of the bullet through the warder's body made it unlikely that Ryan could have fired the fatal shot, casting doubt on the conviction. His protests were unsuccessful.<ref>{{cite web|first=Peter|last=Tatchell|url=http://petertatchell.net/religion/my-journey-from-christianity-to-humanism.htm|title=My Journey from superstition to rationalism|website=petertatchell.net|publisher=Humanism Ireland|date=November–December 2014|access-date=7 March 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315162943/http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/my-journey-from-christianity-to-humanism.htm|archive-date=15 March 2016}}</ref> | |||
In 1980 he was part of a group of left-wing members who won control of Bermondsey Labour Party. When the sitting Labour ], ], announced his retirement, Tatchell was selected as his successor in November 1981. The selection was something of a surprise, as ] (defeated in 1979 at ] by 106 votes, and former Chairman of the Tribune Group) was expected to be selected. Later the ] were cited as the reason for Tatchell's selection, but as Tatchell pointed out in his book "The Battle for Bermondsey" they had at that time only a handful of members in the constituency and Tatchell had never been a member. | |||
In 1968, Tatchell began campaigning against the American and ],<ref>{{Cite web|date=8 August 2013|title=Dr Peter Tatchell|url=https://www.lsbu.ac.uk/about-us/people/people-finder/dr-peter-tatchell|access-date=6 November 2020|website=London South Bank University|archive-date=1 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201001085823/https://www.lsbu.ac.uk/about-us/people/people-finder/dr-peter-tatchell|url-status=live}}</ref> in his view a war of aggression in support of a "brutal and corrupt dictatorship" responsible for torture and executions. The ] state government and ] attempted to suppress the ] campaign by banning street leafleting and taking ] against anti-war demonstrations.<ref>'']'': Volume 137, Issues 4891–4903, 2008.</ref> | |||
==Bermondsey by-election== | |||
:''See: ].'' | |||
In 2004, he proposed the renaming of ] with their Aboriginal place names.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Tatchell|first1=Peter|title=Tatchell Urges: Rename Aussie Capitals|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/international/australia/aussiecapitals.htm|access-date=21 February 2016|date=18 March 2004|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150913130900/http://www.petertatchell.net/international/australia/aussiecapitals.htm|archive-date=13 September 2015}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell had written an article for the left-wing magazine ''London Labour Briefing'' in which he urged the Labour Party to support innovative ] political campaigning. The article came to the attention of ], a former Labour MP who had joined the ]. Wellbeloved, arguing it was anti-Parliamentary, used it at Prime Minister's Question Time in ] to embarrass Labour leader ]. Unexpectedly, Foot denounced Tatchell, stating that he would not be endorsed as a candidate. Foot narrowly won a vote at the Labour Party National Executive Committee to refuse endorsement to Tatchell. | |||
=== Gay Liberation Front === | |||
However, the ] ] continued strongly to support him, and Tatchell worked on convincing Foot that his article had been misinterpreted. It was eventually agreed that when the selection was rerun, Tatchell would be eligible, and he duly won. When Mellish resigned from ] and triggered a ], Tatchell was endorsed as the ] candidate. | |||
] activists, including ] (on the left), at an LSE 40th anniversary celebration. Tatchell is fourth from the left.]] | |||
To avoid ] into the ], Tatchell moved to London in 1971.<ref>Jorge Morales, "Tatchell's Long Crusade", ''The Advocate'', 2 May 1995; page 23.</ref> He had opened up about being ] in 1969, and in London became a leading member of the ] (GLF)<ref>{{Cite web|title=Liberation, five decades on|url=http://camdennewjournal.com/article/liberation-five-decades-on|access-date=6 November 2020|website=Camden New Journal|archive-date=1 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101145522/http://camdennewjournal.com/article/liberation-five-decades-on|url-status=live}}</ref> until its 1974 collapse. During this time Tatchell was prominent in organising ]s at pubs that refused to serve "poofs" and protests against police harassment and the ] of homosexuality as an illness. With others, he helped organise Britain's first ] march in 1972.<ref>{{cite book |last=Power |first=Lisa |title=No Bath But Plenty of Bubbles: An Oral History Of The Gay Liberation Front 1970–7 |publisher=Cassell |year=1995 |isbn=0-304-33205-4}}</ref> | |||
In 1973, he attended the 10th ] in ] on GLF's behalf. His plans to protest at the festival were not well received by either the British delegation or the GDR hosts, but he was eventually allowed to give a speech at Humboldt University. His lecture was subject to various disruptions; it ended in his denunciation as a "troublemaker" by a member of the audience.<ref name="cassisa2021">{{cite thesis |last=Cassisa |first=Susanna L. |date=May 2021 |title=Gay Identity in the GDR |type=BA |pages=43–47 |publisher=University of Mississippi |url=https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/1876/ |access-date=13 May 2021 |archive-date=13 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210513101933/https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/1876/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The following day, Tatchell attempted to hand out leaflets at a concert, an official of the ] objected and encouraged fellow concert-goers to destroy the leaflets. Tatchell intended to carry a placard advocating gay rights at the closing rally of the festival. The British delegation incorrectly translated the placard to read "East Germany persecutes homosexuals"; this was put to a vote and the majority decided the placard was not acceptable.<ref name="cassisa2021" /> Yet, in defiance of the collective decision, Tatchell carried the placard anyway and was then beaten. The placard was torn in half. | |||
The divisions in the Labour Party which Tatchell's ] views had caused, and his ], were used against him by many opponents in an ] which was widely regarded as one of the dirtiest in modern British history. Tatchell was assaulted in the street and at one stage sent a live bullet through the post. Although the ] ] had long been a ] stronghold, the ] candidate, ] won the election. When Hughes revealed his own ] in 2006, Tatchell said that he forgave him for the "dirty tricks", to the extent of stating that, had he a vote, he would have supported for Hughes for the leadership of his party in 2006. | |||
Tatchell later claimed that this was the first time gay liberation politics were publicly disseminated and discussed in a ], although he noted that, in terms of decriminalisation and the ], ] had greater rights in ] at the time than much of the ].<ref name="Gay Marxist">Peter Tatchell, "GLF at the World Youth Festival, GDR 1973", ''Gay Marxist'' No. 3 (October 1973).</ref><ref name="Der Spiegel">{{cite news|url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/documentary-explores-gay-and-lesbian-oppression-in-east-germany-a-883707.html|title=Documentary Explores Gay and Lesbian Oppression in East Germany|location=Hamburg, Germany|date=15 February 2013|work=Der Spiegel|access-date=16 February 2013|archive-date=16 February 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130216074910/http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/documentary-explores-gay-and-lesbian-oppression-in-east-germany-a-883707.html|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
In the mid- and late-1980s, Tatchell worked as an author, writing books including '']'' (the story of the by-election), '']'' and an early guide to surviving with ] and ]. His book ''Europe in the Pink'' gave an introduction to the different laws on homosexuality through the ]. In 1990 Tatchell sought (unsuccessfully) the Labour nomination for ], being defeated by actress ]. | |||
Describing his time in the Gay Liberation Front, he wrote in '']'' that: | |||
==OutRage!== | |||
:''See also: ].'' | |||
{{blockquote| GLF was a glorious, enthusiastic and often chaotic mix of anarchists, hippies, leftwingers, feminists, liberals and counter-culturalists. Despite our differences, we shared a radical idealism—a dream of what the world could and should be—free from not just ] but the whole sex-shame culture, which oppressed straights as much as LGBTs. We were sexual liberationists and social revolutionaries, out to turn the world upside down. ... GLF's main aim was never equality within the status quo. ... GLF's strategy for queer emancipation was to change society's values and norms, rather than adapt to them. We sought a cultural revolution to overturn centuries of male heterosexual domination and thereby free both queers and women. ... Forty years on, GLF's gender agenda has been partly won. ... Girlish boys and boyish girls don't get victimised as much as in times past. LGBT kids often now come out at the age of 12 or 14. While many are bullied, many others are not. The acceptance of sexual and gender diversity is increasing.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Tatchell |first1=Peter |title=The Gay Liberation Front's social revolution |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/oct/12/gay-liberation-front-social-revolution |work=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=25 January 2015 |date=12 October 2010 |archive-date=2 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150202053154/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/oct/12/gay-liberation-front-social-revolution |url-status=live }}</ref>}} | |||
Increasingly Tatchell took part in ] campaigning over issues such as ]. Following the murder of actor ] on 10 May ], Tatchell became one of thirty founding members of the radical gay-rights group ] and has remained a leading member. The group fuses theatrical performance styles with ] ]. As the most prominent OutRage! member, Tatchell is frequently taken to be the leader of the group, but the few histories of it published demonstrate that this was not an accurate picture during the era they cover. | |||
] | |||
In 1991, a group of members of OutRage! announced that they were to form a separate group to engage in a campaign of 'outing' people who were homophobic in public but homosexual in private. The group took the name 'FROCS' (Faggots Rooting Out Closeted Sexuality) and Tatchell agreed to act as the group's spokesman. Considerable publicity and public debate followed this announcement. Embarrassingly for Tatchell, the members of FROCS eventually called their own press conference (without him) to tell the world that their campaign was a hoax intended to demonstrate the hypocrisy of those newspapers which had condemned the campaign despite publishing stories which had the same effect. | |||
Tatchell collaborated with public artist ] to mark the 50th anniversary of the GLF in 2020. The artist's "Still Revolting" series drew on Tatchell's personal recollections of the GLF, quoting Tatchell's 1973 placard "Homosexuals Are Revolting" created by Tatchell for London Gay Pride. The artist's addition of the word 'still' reflects the truth that homosexuality is still regarded as intolerable by some and many LGBT+ people around the world are still struggling for acceptance, security and equality.<ref>{{cite web | url= https://creativepool.com/magazine/industry/behind-the-idea-homosexuals-are-still-revolting.24413 | title= Behind the Idea: Homosexuals are Still Revolting | accessdate= 2 April 2021 | archive-date= 24 January 2021 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210124023448/https://creativepool.com/magazine/industry/behind-the-idea-homosexuals-are-still-revolting.24413 | url-status= live }}</ref> | |||
Some of the activities of ] have been highly controversial. In 1994 it unveiled placards inviting ten ] ]s to "tell the truth" about their homosexuality. Shortly afterwards the group wrote to twenty ] ], urging them to reveal their ]. Sir ], who had received one of the letters, died two months later of a sudden heart attack on the day one of the ] newspapers ran a story about him. Although no definite connection could be proved, Tatchell was widely denounced in the press for having caused the death. In a comment in '']'' in October 2003, Tatchell identified the action with the Bishops as his greatest mistake because it allowed a relevant campaign against Anglican homophobia to be derailed by putting the focus on OutRage!'s actions. | |||
=== Graduation === | |||
Some in the gay press have dubbed him "Saint Peter Tatchell" following further ] campaigns involving ], and the ] inducted him as one of their Saints in the mid-1990s. ] protested on the occasion of the puported ] between ] and ], and Tatchell was questioned briefly by police under the ] after displaying a banner reading "Charles can marry twice! Gays can't marry once." | |||
After taking ] at evening classes, he attended the ] (PNL), now part of ], where he obtained a 2:1 ] in ]. | |||
At PNL he was a member of the ] Gay Rights Campaign. On graduating he became a ] ] specialising in foreign stories, during which he publicised the Indonesian annexation of ] and ] on British-owned tea farms in ].<ref name=Brew>"Britain's profitable brew", ''New Statesman'', 20 July 1979, pp. 88–89</ref> | |||
==Zimbabwe== | |||
Part of Tatchell's journalism in the 1970s had involved the ] in ], in which he had generally supported the ] and its military wing. However, ]'s fierce denunciation of male homosexuality in 1995 led him to help organise a protest by Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe outside the Zimbabwe High Commission in London. He managed to speak to Mugabe on a brief London visit in the late 1990s but was unable to get a substantive response. On ], ] a letter from Tatchell to '']'' argued that the United Kingdom should suspend aid to Zimbabwe because of its persecution of homosexuals. | |||
== Politics == | |||
At this point, Tatchell researched Mugabe's ] attacks in ] in the 1980s when Mugabe had sent the Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwe army against supporters of the ]. Two journalists, Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto, were tortured to death by Zimbabwean forces during the attack. He became convinced that Mugabe had broken international human rights law. The arrest in London of ] seemed to him a precedent. On ], ] Tatchell and teenager ] attempted to stop Mugabe's car in London to perform a citizens arrest. Instead, he and Morris were arrested for a breach of the peace. Mugabe responded by describing the pair as "gay gangsters", a slogan frequently repeated by his supporters, and claimed they had been sent by the United Kingdom government. | |||
], the international LGBT symbol]] | |||
Tatchell popularised the phrase "sexual apartheid" to describe the separate laws that long existed for gays and heterosexuals.<ref>Tim Ross (19 March 2011). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180620040629/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8214553/Peter-Tatchell-bids-to-overturn-gay-marriage-ban-at-European-Court-of-Human-Rights.html |date=20 June 2018 }} ''The Daily Telegraph'' (London).</ref><ref>Megan Murphy (31 July 2006). {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151017194849/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a2FgNX4Q1GeE&refer=uk |date=17 October 2015 }}, ''Bloomberg News'' (New York).</ref> | |||
===Labour candidate for Bermondsey=== | |||
In 2001 Tatchell received a tip-off about a visit by Mugabe to ]. He travelled to ], and in the lobby of the Brussels Hilton attempted a second citizens arrest on ]. This time, Mugabe's large corps of bodyguards pushed him away roughly and were seen punching him to the floor. The action drew world-wide headlines as Mugabe was by then highly unpopular in the western world for his government's land reform policy which involved the compulsory seizure of farms owned by ]. His actions were praised by many of the newspapers that had previously denounced him. | |||
{{Main|1983 Bermondsey by-election}} | |||
In 1978, Tatchell joined the ] and moved to a ] in ], south-east London. At the Bermondsey ]'s (CLP) ] in February 1980, the left group won control and Tatchell was elected Secretary.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://aim25.com/cats/118/19108.htm|title=AIM25 text-only browsing: London Metropolitan Archives: Tatchell, Peter (b 1952)|website=aim25.com|access-date=6 February 2020|archive-date=6 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200206115324/https://aim25.com/cats/118/19108.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> When the sitting Labour ] (MP), ], retired in 1981, Tatchell was selected as his successor, despite ], a former MP and former Chairman of the ], being considered the favourite. While ] was cited as the reason for Tatchell's selection, Tatchell disagrees and ascribes his selection to the support of the "older, 'born and bred' ]; the younger professional and intellectual members swung behind Latham".<ref name=Selection>Peter Tatchell (1983). ''The Battle for Bermondsey''. Heretic Books. p. 50.</ref> | |||
In late 2003 Tatchell acted as a press spokesman for the launch of the ] which claimed to be a clandestine group within ] committed to overthrowing the government of Robert Mugabe by force . The civic action support group ] urged Tatchell to check his sources with the group, speculating that it may be an invention of supporters of the Zimbabwe government in order to justify violent action against its opponents . However, two ] members were spotted and turned away from the launch, as shown in the film "''Peter Tatchell: Just who does he think he is?''" by Max Barber. | |||
In an article for a left-wing magazine, Tatchell urged the Labour Party to support ] campaigning to challenge the ]-led ] government, stating "we must look to new more militant forms of extra-parliamentary opposition which involve mass popular participation and challenge the government's right to rule".<ref>''London Labour Briefing'', November 1981.</ref> ] MP ], arguing the article was anti-Parliamentary, quoted it at ] in November 1981.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1981-11-26/debates/b36fbcf3-00e6-4259-bced-2237fb1e88b1/LawAndOrderhighlight=tatchell|title=Law And Order – Thursday 26 November 1981 – Hansard – UK Parliament|website=hansard.parliament.uk|access-date=6 June 2021|archive-date=6 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210606225437/https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1981-11-26/debates/b36fbcf3-00e6-4259-bced-2237fb1e88b1/LawAndOrderhighlight=tatchell|url-status=live}}</ref> Foot denounced Tatchell, stating that he would not be endorsed as a candidate and a vote at the Labour Party ] denied Tatchell's endorsement. However, the Bermondsey Labour Party continued to support him and it was eventually agreed that when the selection was rerun, Tatchell would be eligible, and he duly won. When Mellish resigned from Parliament and triggered a ], Tatchell's candidacy was endorsed, and the ensuing campaign was regarded as one of the most ] in modern British history.<ref>{{cite news |title=Peter Tatchell recalls the dirtiest, most violent and anti-gay by-election in modern British history |url=https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/02/24/peter-tatchell-recalls-the-dirtiest-most-violent-and-anti-gay-by-election-in-modern-british-history/ |work=PinkNews |date=2015-02-24 |access-date=6 June 2021 |archive-date=6 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210606223904/https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/02/24/peter-tatchell-recalls-the-dirtiest-most-violent-and-anti-gay-by-election-in-modern-british-history/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=Grice2006>{{cite news |title=The 'homophobic' campaign that helped win Bermondsey |last=Grice |first=Andrew |date=27 January 2006 |newspaper=The Independent |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-homophobic-campaign-that-helped-win-bermondsey-524703.html | quote=Mr Tatchell, the openly gay Labour candidate in one of the dirtiest election campaigns in recent memory, said it was "time to move on", despite Mr Hughes's admission yesterday of gay affairs. He said Mr Hughes would make the best leader of the Liberal Democrats.|location=London|url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090527140903/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-homophobic-campaign-that-helped-win-bermondsey-524703.html|archivedate=27 May 2009}}</ref> | |||
==Political activity== | |||
Over the years, Tatchell has developed a largely original mixture of political views. He sees gay rights as more than just a subsection of civil rights and equality of opportunity, but as a revolutionary movement to replace traditional ideals of masculinity, which he sees as a large cause of crime. Such machismo is seen as still present amongst groups that claim to be left-wing and anti-sexist and to have been counter-productive in the struggle for just causes, such as during the ]. He sees his ideas as also liberating to those who do not consider themselves to be gay, as everyone would benefit from a society that is more open about sex and that does not put pressure on people to repress homosexual urges. He has opposed the ] contest on the grounds that it demeans women, but he does not believe that there should be any laws against pornography or public nudity. | |||
Tatchell was assaulted in the street, had his flat attacked, and had a death threat and a live bullet put through his letterbox in the night. Although the Bermondsey ] had long been a Labour stronghold, the ] candidate, ], won the election. During the campaign, Liberal canvassers were accused of stirring up homophobia on the doorsteps. Male Liberal workers campaigned wearing lapel badges with the words, "I've been kissed by Peter Tatchell" following the suggestion that he was attempting to hide his sexuality; this campaign was criticised by ] at a Labour news conference.<ref name="O'Grady2006" >{{cite news |title=Simon Hughes: Saint or winner |last=O'Grady |first=Sean |date=7 January 2006 |newspaper=The Independent |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/simon-hughes-saint-or-winner-521909.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110806062545/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/simon-hughes-saint-or-winner-521909.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=6 August 2011 | quote=This extraordinary dedication has protected him in what ought to be, and once was, the solid Labour seat of Southwark Bermondsey. This is the constituency Hughes famously won for the then Liberal-SDP Alliance in a 1983 by-election, a contest described by Gay News as "the dirtiest and most notorious by-election in British political history" because of the slurs on the Labour candidate Peter Tatchell, now better known as the force behind gay rights group Outrage!. During the campaign, some male Liberal workers wore badges reading "I've been kissed by Peter Tatchell" and anonymous leaflets were circulating which asked "which Queen do you support?". |location=London}}</ref> One of Hughes' campaign leaflets claimed the election was "a straight choice" between Liberal and Labour.<ref name="Lib leaflet">{{cite web |url=http://www.geocities.com/byelections79/bermondsey83/libber834b.jpg |title=British Parliamentary By Elections: Campaign literature from the by-election |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091027091759/http://geocities.com/byelections79/bermondsey83/libber834b.jpg |archive-date=27 October 2009 |access-date=4 December 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Hughes has since apologised for what may have been seen as an inadvertent slur and later came out as ] in 2006.<ref name="shoffman">{{Cite news |url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-357.html |title=Hughes considered quitting over bisexual revelations |date=26 January 2006 |first1=Marc |last1=Shoffman |first2=Benjamin |last2=Cohen |periodical=Pink News |access-date=1 November 2007 |archive-date=30 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930033311/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-357.html |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
In February 2000 he resigned his membership of the Labour Party, citing its treatment of ], and in support of Livingstone he fought unsuccessfully for a seat on the ] as an ] Green Left candidate. On ] ], Tatchell announced that he had joined the ] but that he did not envisage standing as a candidate in any future election. In January ] '']'' announced that he was to be included in that publication for the first time. He is unpaid for his human rights work; he earns approximately £8,000 a year from occasional ] ], ] appearances and guest ]. | |||
=== ''Democratic Defence'' === | |||
Although Tatchell opposed the ] in 2003, he made it clear that he would welcome the removal of the government of ] by force because of the gross violations of human rights he had committed. He advocated military and financial aid to opponents of his government in order to assist them to overthrow it. Since the war he has signed the 'Unite Against Terror' declaration, arguing that "the pseudo-left reveals its shameless hypocrisy and its wholesale abandonment of humanitarian values" by supporting the resistance and insurgents in Iraq. | |||
Tatchell published the book ''Democratic Defence'' in 1985. In it, he outlined his suggestions for a defence policy for the United Kingdom after it underwent nuclear disarmament. Tatchell argued that ] was primarily organised on a strategy of basing troops abroad rather than defending Britain itself from outside attacks, which he claimed was a legacy of the ].<ref name=Defence>{{cite book |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |year=1985 |title=Democratic Defence |location=London |publisher=GMP |pages=|isbn=0-946097-16-X}}{{Primary source inline|date=June 2021}}</ref>{{rp|44–49}} | |||
==Other campaigns== | |||
Citing the difficulties that the ] was facing in ] during ], he argued that their current methods had proven ineffective against ],<ref name=Defence/>{{rp|109–113}} along with arguing for UK military personnel to be allowed to join trade unions and political parties,<ref name=Defence/>{{rp|80–87, 195–199}} and to end strict adherence to "petty regulations".<ref name=Defence/>{{rp|73–75}} He praised the ]-era British ] as an example of a "citizens' army",<ref name=Defence/>{{rp|129–142}} as well as the armed forces of ], ] and ] as positive examples for the UK military to emulate.<ref name=Defence/>{{rp|99–109}} | |||
===Sexual liberalism=== | |||
In the book, Tatchell also argued for a British withdrawal from ] and for the establishment of a European Self-Defence Organisation, independent of both the United States, as he felt that Europe had become too dependent on their military protection,<ref name=Defence/>{{rp|55–59}} and the Soviet Union, which he condemned for their invasions of Czechoslovakia and of Afghanistan, as well its internal repression.<ref name=Defence/>{{rp|32–43, 199–201}} He quoted with approval ]'s argument that the threat from the Soviet Union to Britain was greatly exaggerated.<ref name=Defence/>{{rp|36–38}} The book was reviewed by the '']'' in May 1985.<ref>{{cite news|work=Times Literary Supplement|url=https://archive.org/stream/TheTimesLiterarySupplement1985UKEnglish/May%2017%201985%2C%20The%20Times%20Literary%20Supplement%2C%20%234285%2C%20UK%20%28en%29_djvu.txt|access-date=31 January 2022|date=10 May 1985|pages=557–558|title=Politics}}</ref> | |||
In 1996 Tatchell led an OutRage! campaign to reduce the age of consent to 14, with an agreement that there should be no prosecution at all if the difference between the ages of the sexual partners was three years. He was quoted in the OutRage! press release as saying "Young people have a right to accept or reject sex, according to what they feel is appropriate for them".<ref>OutRage! press release, February 21, 1996</ref> Leo McKinstry, in '']'' called it "a perverts' charter".<ref>Leo McKinstry, "Gays Homing In on Kids", The Sun, February 24, 1996</ref> | |||
===Green Party=== | |||
Tatchell believes there should be no laws at all against pornography and that public nudity may even be healthy for society.{{citeneeded}} | |||
] | |||
In February 2000, Tatchell resigned from Labour, citing the treatment of ] during the nomination of a candidate for Mayor of London, and of similar cases in the Scottish and Welsh elections, as evidence that the party "no longer has any mechanism for democratic involvement and transformation".<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130522035048/http://www.petertatchell.net/politics/resignation.htm |date=22 May 2013 }}, petertatchell.net, 23 February 2000.</ref> He fought unsuccessfully for a seat on the ] as an ] candidate within the ] grouping, in support of Livingstone.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Wilgress|first1=Matthew|title=Peter Tatchell and the London Elections|journal=What Next? Marxist Discussion Journal|url=http://www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Back/Londelec/Tatchell.html|access-date=25 May 2015|archive-date=26 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150526010008/http://www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Back/Londelec/Tatchell.html|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
On 7 April 2004, he joined the ] but did not envisage standing for election. However, in 2007, he became the party's parliamentary candidate for ].<ref name="BBC Green Party"/> On 16 December 2009, he withdrew as a candidate claiming brain damage he says was caused by a bus accident as well as damage inflicted by Mugabe's bodyguards when Tatchell attempted to arrest him in 2001 in Brussels, and by ].<ref name="damage">{{cite news | |||
===Music industry=== | |||
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|title = How constant beatings have caught up with campaigner Peter Tatchell | |||
|date = 20 December 2009 | |||
|url = https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/20/peter-tatchell-retires-interview | |||
|access-date = 15 September 2011 | |||
|work = The Guardian | |||
|location = London | |||
|archive-date = 14 October 2018 | |||
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181014225203/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/20/peter-tatchell-retires-interview | |||
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}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8417092.stm|title=Peter Tatchell stands down as parliamentary candidate|work=BBC News|date=16 December 2009|access-date=17 December 2009|archive-date=25 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170825071147/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8417092.stm|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell opposes ]; instead he advocates ].<ref>Peter Tatchell, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117013712/http://iai.tv/video/economic-democracy |date=17 January 2013 }} – How The Light Gets In, 5 June 2012</ref> | |||
Tatchell has called for laws against homophobic music and participated in protests outside concerts. A long-running target of his criticism has been ] artists whose lyrics seem to support violence, including murder, of gay men. Tatchell's campaign began in the early 1990s when ]'s song "Boom bye-bye" was released and has continued to date. He has picketed the ] ceremony to protest at their invite to performers of what he terms "murder music" it. Tatchell received ]s and was labelled a ]. Tatchell defended himself by pointing to a life's work campaigning against racism, and stated that his statements on Jamaica were in support of terrorised black groups within Jamaica. | |||
In '']'', he pointed out the adverse effects of ]: "By 2050, if climate change proceeds unchecked, England will no longer be a green and pleasant land. In between periods of prolonged scorching drought, we are likely to suffer widespread flooding."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.petertatchell.net/green_agenda/climatechangebritain/|title=Climate change Britain – No more green and pleasant land|access-date=6 February 2020|archive-date=6 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200206120121/https://www.petertatchell.net/green_agenda/climatechangebritain/|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell has also singled out the white ]er ] for criticism, while commenting that "it's not hard to imagine Eminem as awoman-hating, self-loathing, repressed gay man" on the basis of his appearance and "obsession" with gay sex . | |||
For many years, he supported a ]. More recently, he helped launch the ] grouping within the Green Party. He urged links between ]s and the Greens. On 27 April 2010, he urged Green Party supporters to vote for Liberal Democrats in constituencies where they had an incumbent MP or a strong chance of winning.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120313183641/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/liveevent |date=13 March 2012 }}, 27 April 2010, 16:03</ref> | |||
In December 2005, UK singer ] won £200,000 ] from '']'' newspaper and the magazines '']'' and '']'' after they published false and ] claims that he was secretly ]. Tatchell commented publicly that " legal action has created the impression he thinks it is shameful to be gay" (see ). | |||
In August 2021, Tatchell endorsed ] and ] in the ].<ref>{{cite news |last= Jarvis |first= Chris |date= 16 August 2021 |title= A 3 horse race? – Green Party leadership election round up issue 1 |url= https://bright-green.org/2021/08/16/a-3-horse-race-green-party-leadership-election-round-up-issue-1/ |work= Bright Green |access-date= 24 August 2021 |archive-date= 21 August 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210821213812/https://bright-green.org/2021/08/16/a-3-horse-race-green-party-leadership-election-round-up-issue-1/ |url-status= live }}</ref> | |||
===Anti-imperalism=== | |||
=== Iraq War === | |||
While still at school, Tatchell campaigned in favour of better treatment of the aborigines in Australia.{{citeneeded}} He believes that Australian cities should be renamed to sever the ties with the history of the British empire, and wants the Tasmanian capital Hobart to be renamed Nibberluna, claiming that this shows due respect to Australia's Aboriginal heritage which has been disgarded for too long. | |||
Tatchell opposed the ], and the subsequent occupation of Iraqi territory by Coalition forces. For nearly three decades, he had supported the Iraqi Left Opposition, an organization opposed to the government of ] due to human rights violations that Hussein had committed against democrats, left-wingers, trade unionists, ] and the Kurdish people, and because under Saddam's dictatorship there were no opportunities for peaceful, democratic change.<ref>{{cite web|title=Peter Tatchell: The 'Megaphone' of the Oppressed|url=http://new.iheyo.org/2009/06/05/peter-tatchell-megaphone-oppressed|publisher=International Humanist Ethical Youth Organization|access-date=10 May 2015|date=5 June 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151017194850/http://new.iheyo.org/2009/06/05/peter-tatchell-megaphone-oppressed|archive-date=17 October 2015}}</ref> He advocated military and financial aid to opponents of the Saddam government, suggesting that anti-Saddam organisations be given "tanks, helicopter gun-ships, ], ] and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles".<ref name=autogenerated1>Peter Tatchell (19 March 2003). . '']'' (London).</ref> While opposing western intervention, he advocated ] from within in countries such as ], ] and ].<ref name=iraqi1>{{Cite web|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/international/antiwar.htm|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613132459/http://www.petertatchell.net/international/antiwar.htm|url-status=dead|title=Anti-War Movement Ignores Saddam's Crimes|archivedate=13 June 2007}}</ref> | |||
===Allegations of racism=== | |||
Tatchell has written that on 12 March 2003 he ambushed Tony Blair's motorcade in an anti-Iraq war protest. He forced Blair's limousine to stop, and then unfolded a banner that read "Arm the Kurds! Topple Saddam". He added that in terms of the political struggle within Britain (as opposed to struggles against absolute tyrants like Hitler and Saddam, where violent resistance can be the lesser of two evils): "I remain committed to the ] principle of ]".<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930181714/http://www.newstatesman.com/200303240002 |date=30 September 2007 }}. ''New Statesman'' (London), 24 March 2003.</ref> After the war he signed the 'Unite Against Terror' declaration, arguing that "the ''pseudo-left'' reveals its shameless hypocrisy and its wholesale abandonment of humanitarian values" by supporting resistance and insurgent groups in Iraq that resort to indiscriminate ], killing innocent civilians. | |||
In 2003, Tatchell said he supported giving "massive material aid" to ], including the "] ]" (SCIRI), to bring down Saddam.<ref name=autogenerated1 /> But in 2006 Tatchell noted that SCIRI had become markedly more fundamentalist and was endorsing violent attacks on anyone who did not conform to its increasingly harsh interpretation of ]. He claimed that SCIRI, the leading force in Baghdad's ruling coalition, wanted to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship, with a goal of clerical fascism, and had engaged in "terrorisation of gay Iraqis", as well as terrorising ], left-wingers, unveiled women and people who listen to western ] or wear jeans or shorts.<ref>Peter Tatchell, {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110105035024/http://petertatchell.net/a2/print_versions/275.htm |date=5 January 2011 }}, 15 March 2006.; News story about protest- Marc Shoffman, "Iraqi Ayatollah sparks outrage after decreeing death to gays", ''Pink News'', 17 March 2006.</ref> | |||
OutRage!'s protest against Chief Rabbi ], who supported the idea of ] to eliminate homosexuality<ref>"If we could by some form of genetic engineering eliminate these trends, we should - so long as it is done for a therapeutic purpose" - letter to the ''Jewish Chronicle'', July 16, 1993</ref>, led to accusations that Tatchell was being anti-semitic.{{citeneeded}} | |||
In September 2014, Tatchell advocated arming the ] to fight against ], and argued that the US and EU had been wrong to designate it as a terrorist organisation.<ref>{{cite news|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|date=26 September 2014|title=ISIS Must Be Stopped But Not By the West – Arm the Kurds|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/peter-g-tatchell/isis-parliament-vote_b_5886404.html|newspaper=Huffington Post|location=UK|access-date=28 December 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402112555/http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/peter-g-tatchell/isis-parliament-vote_b_5886404.html |archive-date=2 April 2015}}</ref> | |||
In May 2004 Tatchell and other OutRage! members joined a London demonstration of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. However, his placards which read "Israel: stop persecuting Palestine! Palestine: stop persecuting queers!" were greeted with hostility by some other demonstrators, and he claims he was accused of being a Mossad agent sent to disrupt the march, of being a racist or a Zionist, a supporter of ], or an agent of the ] or ]<ref> (Peter Tatchell press release)</ref>. | |||
== |
===Syrian civil war=== | ||
A previous supporter of the ], Tatchell and many other public personalities expressed concern with the coalition's allegedly unduly favourable view of ]'s government in Syria,<ref>{{cite news|title=Stop the War faces a coalition of critics|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/09/stop-the-war-faces-a-coalition-of-critics|access-date=15 December 2015|work=The Guardian|date=9 December 2015|archive-date=13 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151213052442/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/09/stop-the-war-faces-a-coalition-of-critics|url-status=live}}</ref> and has called for the ] and former Stop the War Chair<ref>{{cite news|last1=Corbyn |first1=Jeremy |author-link1=Jeremy Corbyn |title=eremy Corbyn: Why I'm standing down as Chair of Stop the War Coalition |url=http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news/jeremy-corbyn-statement-to-the-stop-the-war-conference-19-september-2015 |work=Stop the War Coalition |date=20 September 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222130306/http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news/jeremy-corbyn-statement-to-the-stop-the-war-conference-19-september-2015 |archive-date=22 December 2015 |access-date=11 May 2017}}</ref> ] not to attend the Coalition's Christmas fundraiser 2015.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Silvera|first1=Ian|title=Kofta and Trotskyism: Inside the Stop the War Coalition Christmas fundraiser|url=http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/kofta-trotskyism-inside-stop-war-coalition-christmas-fundraiser-1532944|access-date=15 December 2015|work=]|date=11 December 2015|archive-date=22 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222134646/http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/kofta-trotskyism-inside-stop-war-coalition-christmas-fundraiser-1532944|url-status=live}}</ref> In December 2016, Tatchell and others disrupted Corbyn's speech on human rights on the basis that the Labour leader had responded insufficiently to the ] and urged him to condemn ].<ref>{{cite news|last=Johnston|first=Chris|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/10/peter-tatchell-disrupts-jeremy-corbyn-speech-with-syria-protest|title=Peter Tatchell disrupts Jeremy Corbyn speech with Syria protest|work=The Guardian|date=10 December 2016|access-date=10 December 2016|archive-date=10 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161210140730/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/10/peter-tatchell-disrupts-jeremy-corbyn-speech-with-syria-protest|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell's criticism of homophobic muslims has been interpreted as a product of ], although Tatchell has often condemned Islamophobia in his writings. In 1995 he wrote that "although not all Muslims are anti-gay, significant numbers are violently ] .. homophobic Muslim voters may be able to influence the outcome of elections in 20 or more marginal constituencies. Their voting strength could potentially be used to block pro-gay candidates or to pressure electorally vulnerable MPs to vote against gay rights legislation (and other liberal measures)." | |||
On 14 February 2015, Tatchell was one of a number of signatories to a letter criticising the trend in the ] to apply a '']'' policy to feminists who criticised the sex industry or challenged demands made by certain groups of trans people.<ref name="NoPlatform">{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=14 February 2015 |title=Letter: We cannot allow censorship and silencing of individuals |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2015/feb/14/letters-censorship |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=14 February 2016 |archive-date=23 February 2015 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20150223144739/http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2015/feb/14/letters-censorship |url-status=live }}</ref> In particular, the letter cited the denial of a platform to ] at ] and to ] at the ].<ref name="NoPlatform" /> | |||
Tatchell has described ], the religious rules Muslims live by, as "a clerical form of ]" . He was the keynote speaker at a 2005 protest at the Canadian High Commission over ]'s arbitration law, which already permitted religious arbitration in civil cases for Jews and Christians, being extended to Muslims. | |||
Tatchell received death threats after signing the letter.<ref name="TransRightVFreeSpeech">{{cite news |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |date=17 February 2015 |title=Twitter mob who vowed to kill me over transgender letter have it all wrong |url=http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/peter-tatchell-twitter-mob-who-vowed-kill-me-over-mary-beard-transgender-letter-have-it-all-wrong-1488351 |newspaper=International Business Times |access-date=14 February 2016 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304071631/http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/peter-tatchell-twitter-mob-who-vowed-kill-me-over-mary-beard-transgender-letter-have-it-all-wrong-1488351 |url-status=live }}</ref> He later stated that he would have worded the letter differently to clarify that he supported the human rights of trans people and sex workers, but that he had signed the letter nonetheless because he believed in the message of free speech on campuses.<ref name="TransRightVFreeSpeech" /> He said that the initial draft that he signed contained the sentence "Some of us have disagreements with the views expressed ", and that he was "not happy" that this was cut out of the final letter.<ref name="TransRightVFreeSpeech" /> | |||
Following the ], Tatchell described ] an "] state". The circumstances of the case are in dispute with Tatchell insisting that the two were hanged merely for being gay, while the Iranian authorities' press release states they were convicted of the rape of a 13 year old boy at knifepoint. Tatchell counters that the Iranian authorities usually make such claims, which are impossible to verify . Given the unclear circumstances, international human rights groups including ] and ] have urged campaigners not to cast the incident as a gay issue, and focus instead on the fact that the executed were minors .Further, Faisal Alam, founder of the group Al-Fatiha (An American Gay Muslim organisation), argues in the magazine Queer that the campaign to condemn Iran was organized without any effort to confirm the veracity of the information on the part of the groups which called for it | |||
On 13 February 2016, Fran Cowling, the national LGBT representative for the NUS, refused to share a platform with Tatchell at ] to discuss the topic of "re-radicalising queers".<ref name="Cowling">{{cite news |last=McVeigh |first=Tracy |date=13 February 2015 |title=Peter Tatchell: snubbed by students for free speech stance |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/13/peter-tatchell-snubbed-students-free-speech-veteran-gay-rights-activist?CMP=share_btn_tw |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=14 February 2016 |archive-date=21 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160921212630/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/13/peter-tatchell-snubbed-students-free-speech-veteran-gay-rights-activist?CMP=share_btn_tw |url-status=live }}</ref> Cowling said that Tatchell supported speakers who are "openly transphobic and incite violence" against transgender people, and also that Tatchell had used "racist language".<ref name=":2">{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/peter-tatchell-hits-back-at-lgbt-student-leader-s-witch-hunt-a6873991.html|title=Peter Tatchell hits back at LGBT student leader's 'witch-hunt'|last=Johnston|first=Ian|date=14 February 2016|work=The Independent|access-date=22 August 2017|archive-date=9 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170809033739/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/peter-tatchell-hits-back-at-lgbt-student-leader-s-witch-hunt-a6873991.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Tatchell responded that no evidence could be produced to support either claim, and that Cowling had never consulted the NUS membership before deciding to make pronouncements on their behalf, and said, "This sorry, sad saga is symptomatic of the decline of free and open debate on some university campuses. There is a witch-hunting, accusatory atmosphere. Allegations are made without evidence to back them—or worse, they are made citing false, trumped-up evidence."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/12158352/The-intolerant-student-Left-has-even-turned-on-me-a-lifelong-civil-rights-campaigner.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160216020813/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/12158352/The-intolerant-student-Left-has-even-turned-on-me-a-lifelong-civil-rights-campaigner.html|title=The intolerant student Left has even turned on me – a lifelong civil rights campaigner|date=15 February 2016|archive-date=16 February 2016|work=Telegraph.co.uk}}</ref> | |||
On ] 2006, Dr ], a research fellow for ], withdrew from a planned lecture he was intending to give to raise money for Tatchell's human rights fund. Yusuf was due to argue for "an Islamic reformation that reconciles Islam with democracy and human rights, including human rights for women and gay people"; according to some reports, it was alleged that unnamed "senior Islamic clerics" told him they could not guarantee his safety if he went ahead . | |||
== Campaigning == | |||
===Muslim Council of Britain=== | |||
]'', at a 'First Sunday' event, November 2007]]Peter Tatchell has campaigned for many civil rights issues, including protests against repression, racism, homophobia, censorship and the death penalty.<ref name="damage" /><ref name=":0" /> As a result of his protests and campaigning, Tatchell has been attacked more than 300 times, has had a live bullet through his door and has survived two stabbing attempts (all as of 2009). He was beaten unconscious by ]'s bodyguards in Brussels and far-right protestors in Moscow left him with permanently blurred vision in his right eye. He suffers memory loss, concentration issues and problems with balance and coordination as a result.<ref name="damage" /> | |||
Tatchell is critical of the ], the largest Muslim group in the UK, which he describes as "Anti-gay". He once justified his hatred, asking how "they expect to win respect for their community, if at the same time as demanding action against islamophobia, they themselves demand the legal enforcement of homophobia?". When the MCB boycotted Holocaust Memorial Day, Tatchell wrote that "the only thing that is consistent about the MCB is its opposition to the human rights of lesbians and gay men". Tatchell's response to Sir ] of the MCB, after he described homosexuality as harmful and criticised civil partnerships, was that "Both the Muslim and gay communities suffer prejudice and discrimination. We should stand together to fight Islamophobia and homophobia" , an invitation Sacranie was unwilling to take up. Tatchell subsequently criticised ] for inviting the MCB to be on one of its platforms, describing Sacranie, its chair, as a bigot and a "homophobic hate-mongerer" . | |||
=== |
=== OutRage! === | ||
Tatchell took part in many gay rights campaigns over issues such as ]. Following the murder of actor Michael Boothe on 10 May 1990, Tatchell was one of thirty people to attend the inaugural meeting of the radical gay rights non-violent ] group ]—and although he did not convene this first meeting, he drafted its first Statement of Aims, and has remained a leading member.<ref>{{cite book |author=Lucas, Ian |title=OutRage!: an oral history |publisher=Cassell |location=London |year=1998 |isbn=0-304-33358-1 }}</ref><ref>. Archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk. 7 June 1990. Retrieved 30 August 2024.</ref> The group fuses theatrical performance styles with queer protest. As the most prominent OutRage! member, Tatchell is sometimes assumed to be the leader of the group, though he has never claimed this, saying he is one among equals.<ref>See, e.g., Ian Lucas, "OutRage! – an oral history", Cassell 1998.</ref> | |||
In July 2004 Tatchell attacked ] ] for inviting ] to ], referring to Qaradawi's analysis of homosexuality as ] . He referred to al-Qaradawi as "], ], ] and ]". Livingstone explained that Qaradawi had been invited to address a conference on the wearing of the ] and issued a dossier in defence of Qaradawi as a moderate He later criticised Tatchell for writing about the conference in the '']'' without having attended it. The affair became a bitter one with a photograph of Livingstone and Qaradawi embracing appearing prominently on the Outrage! website, and Tatchell frequently returned to the issue. Livingstone replied by stating his position in several letters to '']'', which also published letters by others in support of Livingstone . ] wrote a column in '']'', criticising several statements by Qaradawi as well as Livingstone's support for him . IMAAN, the Muslim gay group, accused OutRage! and other organisations of "continuously misrepresenting Islam". | |||
In 1991, a small group of OutRage! members covertly formed a separate group to engage in a campaign of ] public figures who were ] in public but ]. The group took the name FROCS (Faggots Rooting Out Closeted Sexuality). Tatchell was the group's go-between with the press, forwarding their news statements to his media contacts. Considerable publicity and public debate followed FROCS's threat to out 200 leading public personalities from the world of politics, religion, business and sport. With Tatchell's assistance, members of FROCS eventually called a press conference to tell the world that their campaign was a hoax intended to demonstrate the hypocrisy of those newspapers that had condemned the campaign despite having themselves outed celebrities and politicians.<ref name="Ian Lucas">Ian Lucas, "OutRage! – an oral history", Cassell 1998, pp. 63–71</ref> | |||
===Adam Yosef=== | |||
In December 2005, the Muslim journalist ] wrote an article for the ] opposing the introduction of civil partnerships for same-sex couples which he subsequently retracted amid much criticism, claiming to have been mis-interpreted. Yosef then published a column in which he identified Peter Tatchell, ] leader ] and ] of ] as the top three "hate filled bigots", saying that Tatchell needed "a good slap in the face" and his "queer campaign army" should "pack their bent bags and head back to Australia". | |||
Some OutRage! activities were highly controversial. In 1994, it unveiled placards inviting ten ] bishops to "tell the truth" about what Outrage! alleged was their homosexuality and accusing them of condemning homosexuality in public while leading secret gay lives. Shortly afterwards, the group wrote to twenty UK ], condemning their alleged support for anti-gay laws and claiming they would out them if the MPs did not stop what they described as attacks on the ]. The MP Sir ], an opponent of gay equality who received one of the letters,<ref name="Donegan" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pinktriangle.org.uk/glh/183/lucas.html |title=OutRage!: an oral history – Book Review |publisher=www.pinktriangle.org.uk |year=1999 |access-date=18 February 2008 |last=Lucas |first=Ian |archive-date=3 December 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081203160834/http://www.pinktriangle.org.uk/glh/183/lucas.html |url-status=live }}</ref> died two months later of a sudden ]—on the day one of the Belfast newspapers planned to out him.<ref name=Lucas1998>{{citation |last=Lucas |first=Ian |year=1998 |title=OutRage! : an oral history |publisher=London |isbn=978-0-304-33358-5 |page=200 |oclc=40461622 }}</ref><ref name="Donegan">{{Cite news |last1=Donegan |first1=Lawrence |last2=Sharrock |first2=David |date=22 March 1995 |title=Heart Attack MP 'Received Letter From Outrage!' |work=The Guardian |url=https://theguardian.newspapers.com/clip/86004686/heart-attack-mp-received-letter-from-ou/ |access-date=2021-09-26 |quote="James Kilfedder was a homophobic MP who voted against the equalisation of the age of consent, voting for 21 rather than 16."}}</ref> In a comment in '']'' in October 2003, Tatchell claimed the OutRage! action against the bishops was his greatest mistake because he failed to anticipate that the media and the church would treat it as an ]. | |||
Tatchell denounced the article as "a naked appeal to homophobia and xenophobia" which echoed "the racist, xenophobic language of the BNP" . Yosef issued another statement apologising for this article, claiming the "slap in the face" remark was a "figure of speech". Yosef asserted that he did "not hold a racist view towards Mr Tatchell's Australian origins", and that the "pack their bent bags" was made to "compare the his views with the Islamophobic riots which recently gripped Sydney" referring to the ] . | |||
On 12 April 1998, Tatchell led an OutRage! protest which disrupted the Easter sermon by ], the ], with Tatchell mounting the pulpit to denounce what he said was Carey's opposition to legal equality for lesbian and gay people. The protest garnered media coverage and led to Tatchell's prosecution under the little-used ] (formerly part of the ]), which prohibits any form of disruption or protest in a church.<ref>Garner, Clare (30 November 1998). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181014225104/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/stars-of-stage-and-pulpit-will-support-indecent-tatchell-1188233.html |date=14 October 2018 }}. ''The Independent'' (London).</ref><ref>Garner, Clare (1 December 1998). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170713203908/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/protest-in-the-cathedral-political-says-tatchell-1188402.html |date=13 July 2017 }}. ''The Independent'' (London).</ref> Tatchell failed in his attempt to summon Carey as a witness and was convicted. The judge fined him the trivial sum of £18.60, which commentators theorised was a wry allusion to the year of the statute used to convict him.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190529143423/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1204719.stm |date=29 May 2019 }}. ''BBC News''. 6 March 2001.</ref><ref>Summerskill, Ben (23 February 2003). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121001051118/http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,901061,00.html |date=1 October 2012 }}. ''The Observer'' (London).</ref> | |||
===Malcolm X=== | |||
Tatchell chose the ] ], who was a spokesman for the ], as his specialised subject when appearing on Celebrity ], explaining then that he considered him a hero. However, his implicit endorsement of Bruce Perry's biography of ] and an article he wrote in '']'' in July 2005 calling for black gay role models have led to criticism by other scholars of Malcolm X's life as the book and article claim that Malcolm X had male lovers. Malcolm X was a married man, and had six children with his wife Betty Shabazz. The claim of Homosexuality was described as "shocking" and "inappropriate" by Peter Akinti, the editor of Black In Britain. | |||
The LGBT press dubbed him "Saint Peter Tatchell" following further OutRage! campaigns involving religion.<ref name="Scottish media monitor">{{cite web|url=http://www.scottishmediamonitor.com/articles2.cfm?ID=159|title=Examining the treatment of sexuality in the Scottish media|publisher=Scottish Media Monitor|date=1 December 2005|access-date=5 February 2008|last=Otton|first=Garry|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928093507/http://www.scottishmediamonitor.com/articles2.cfm?ID=159|archive-date=28 September 2007}}</ref> | |||
== References == | |||
<references /> | |||
A number of African ] leaders signed a statement condemning the involvement of Tatchell and OutRage! in African issues,<ref>{{cite web|last=Furuhashi|first=Yoshie|url=http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2007/increse310107.html|title=African LGBTI Human Rights Defenders Warn Public against Participation in Campaigns Concerning LGBTI Issues in Africa Led by Peter Tatchell and Outrage!|date=31 January 2007|publisher=Mrzine.monthlyreview.org|access-date=9 June 2012|archive-date=17 June 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120617072553/http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2007/increse310107.html|url-status=live}}</ref> which led Tatchell to respond that he favoured working with the radical LGBTI groups in Africa rather than the more conservative (according to him) leaders who had signed the statement. Tatchell and OutRage! published a refutation of the allegations.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/international/world_general/africanlgbtismears.htm|title=African LGBTI smear campaign|publisher=Peter Tatchell|access-date=9 June 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111104174823/http://petertatchell.net/international/world_general/africanlgbtismears.htm|archive-date=4 November 2011}}</ref> | |||
== External links == | |||
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OutRage!'s protest against ] ], who supported the idea of genetic engineering to eliminate homosexuality,<ref name="Jewish Chronicle">"If we could by some form of ] eliminate these trends, we should—so long as it is done for a therapeutic purpose." – letter to the ''Jewish Chronicle'', 16 July 1993</ref> led to accusations that Tatchell was ], following OutRage!'s leaflets citing the similarity of Jakobovits ideas for the eradication of homosexuality to those of ] were distributed outside the Western and ] Synagogue on ] in September 1993. | |||
Rabbi Dame ], who had campaigned for gay rights, said, "Drawing a comparison between Lord Jakobovits and Himmler is offensive, racist and makes OutRage appear antisemitic". She stated that the action and leaflet would "alienate Jews who are sympathetic to gay rights".<ref name=Bennetto>Jason Bennetto, "Is this comparison odious?", ''The Independent'', 31 October 1993.</ref> | |||
==== Stop Murder Music campaign ==== | |||
{{Main|Stop Murder Music}} | |||
Tatchell has said that a number of Afro-Caribbean artists produce music that glorifies murder of homosexual men, and incites violence against homosexuals. He argued that British laws against incitement to violence were not being enforced on foreign artists performing in the UK. He also organised protests outside the concerts of singers, mainly ]n ] and ] artists, who he says glorify violence toward lesbians and gay men, including murder. Tatchell's campaign began in 1992 when ]'s song "Boom bye-bye" was released. He has picketed the ] ceremony to protest at their inviting performers of what he terms "murder music".<ref name="Reggae singers">{{cite web|url=http://www.outrage.org.uk/Tatchell-reggaesingers.asp|title=Reggae Singers urge: Kill Queers|work=Outrage!|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040930145845/http://www.outrage.org.uk/Tatchell-reggaesingers.asp|archive-date=30 September 2004}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell argues that murder is not legal in Jamaica, and glorification of murder is not a legitimate form of Afro-Caribbean culture.<ref>{{cite AV media|url=https://vimeo.com/16676198|title=laconf2010, Peter Tatchell, Multiculturalism: Right or Wrong?|work=Vimeo}}</ref> In response, Tatchell received ]s and was labelled ]. He defended himself by noting that the campaign was at the behest of the Jamaican gay rights group ], and the UK-based ], with which he works closely. He pointed to what he described as his life's work campaigning against racism and apartheid, and stated that his campaigns against "murder music" and state-sanctioned homophobic violence in ] were endorsed by many black gay rights activists and by many straight human rights activists in Jamaica (]). The campaign has had positive effects, with seven of eight original murder music singers signing the ], which says that signatories will not "make statements or perform songs" that incite hatred or violence.<ref>Leah Nelson, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130302024307/http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/winter/harmonies-of-hate |date=2 March 2013 }} ''Intelligence Report'', Winter 2010, Issue Number: 140.</ref> | |||
Members of the ] accused Tatchell of racism and extremism, saying, "He has gone over way over the top. It's simply racist to put ] and ] in the same bracket and just shows how far he is prepared to go."<ref name="BMC">Alicia Roache, Staff Reporter. {{usurped|1=}}, ''The Sunday Gleaner'' (sosjamaica.org). 13 December 2004.</ref> Tatchell denies equating Sizzla with Hitler.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2 August 2007|title=Reggae tips|url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/aug/02/reggaetips|access-date=5 November 2020|website=The Guardian|archive-date=8 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308210409/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/aug/02/reggaetips|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
===UK campaigning=== | |||
====LGBT equality legislation==== | |||
In 2006, Peter Tatchell opposed the appointment of ] as ] as Kelly had not supported ] of lesbians and gay men in any parliamentary votes. Tatchell said "her appointment suggests the government does not take lesbian and gay rights seriously", adding "] would never appoint someone to a race-equality post who had a lukewarm record of opposing racism".<ref>{{cite web |last=Cohen |first=Benjamin |date=2006-05-09 |title=MPs and gay groups question wisdom of Kelly appointment |url=https://www.thepinknews.com/2006/05/09/mps-and-gay-groups-question-wisdom-of-kelly-appointment/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120208091842/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2006/05/09/mps-and-gay-groups-question-wisdom-of-kelly-appointment/ |archive-date=2012-02-08 |access-date=2024-08-29 |website=PinkNews}}</ref> | |||
=====Age of consent legislation===== | |||
In 1996, Tatchell led an OutRage! campaign to reduce the ] in the UK to 14 years (as per ]), to adjust for studies that showed nearly half of all young people had their first sexual experiences prior to 16 years old, regardless of sexuality. He stated that he wished to exempt these people from being "treated as criminals by the law", and that there should be no prosecution if the difference in ages of the ]s was no more than three years, provided that these youths were consenting and were given a more comprehensive ] at a younger date.<ref name="14 consent">{{cite web|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/age%20of%20consent/consent%20at%2014.htm|title=Consent at 14|work=Petertatchell.net |access-date=17 September 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616054348/http://www.petertatchell.net/age%20of%20consent/consent%20at%2014.htm|archive-date=16 June 2011}}</ref> He was quoted in the OutRage!'s ] as saying, "Young people have a right to accept or reject sex, according to what they feel is appropriate for them".<ref name="OutRage! 19962">OutRage! press release, 21 February 1996.</ref> | |||
In 1997, Tatchell wrote a letter to '']'' defending an academic book about "]" against what he has said was "]". The letter said that it may be "impossible to condone paedophilia" but argued that publishing the book—which featured the work of anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists—was "courageous". Tatchell later said the letter was edited and has explained his views in more detail:<ref name="Statement of Clarification2">{{Citation |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |title=Under-age sex: Statement of clarification by Peter Tatchell |date=1 October 2012 |url=http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/Under-age-sex-Statement-of-clarification-by-Peter-Tatchell.htm |access-date=30 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131205083250/http://petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/Under-age-sex-Statement-of-clarification-by-Peter-Tatchell.htm |archive-date=5 December 2013 |url-status=dead |location=London}}</ref> | |||
{{blockquote|My ''Guardian'' letter cited examples of youths in Papuan tribes and some of my friends who, when they were under 16, had sex with adults (over 18s), but who do not feel they were harmed. I was not endorsing their viewpoint but merely stating that they had a different perspective from the mainstream opinion about inter-generational sex. They have every right for their perspective to be heard.<ref name="Statement of Clarification2"/>}} | |||
Tatchell has, on several occasions, ] that he does not condone adults having sex with children.<ref name="anti-abuse clarification">Kavanagh, Gary. (13 July 2020). . ]. ''''. ].</ref><ref name="Statement of Clarification2"/> On his personal website, under the subsection ''Age of Consent'', he writes: | |||
{{blockquote| My articles urging an age of consent of 14 are motivated solely by a desire to reduce the criminalisation of under-16s who have consenting relationships with other young people of similar ages. I do not support adults having sex with children. I do not advocate teenagers having sex before the age of 16. But if they do have sex before their 16th birthday, they should not be arrested, given a criminal record and put on the sex offenders register.<ref>{{Citation|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|title=Age of Consent|date=30 January 2011|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/index.htm|access-date=30 June 2024|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111010035120/http://petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/index.htm|archive-date=10 October 2011|df=dmy-all}}</ref>}} | |||
On 10 March 2008, in the '']'', he repeated his call for a lower age of consent to end the criminalisation of young people engaged in consenting sex and to remove the legal obstacles to upfront ], condom provision and ] advice.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Tatchell|first1=Peter|title=Lowering the unrealistic age of consent will help teens|url=http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/lowering-the-unrealistic-age-of-consent-will-help-teens-26429206.html|access-date=2 May 2015|newspaper=Irish Independent|date=10 March 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220235234/http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/lowering-the-unrealistic-age-of-consent-will-help-teens-26429206.html|archive-date=20 December 2014|url-status=live}}. Also published on , {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018012709/http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/lowering-unrealistic-age-of-consent.htm |date=18 October 2015 }}</ref> | |||
In 2012, in an article responding to claims about his views on the age of consent, he pointed to an interview he conducted in the late 1990s on the subject of paedophilia and ]. In the interview, he interviewed a 14-year-old boy (under the ] "Lee") who had had sex with older men, in some cases for money. In this interview, Tatchell makes various counterarguments against Lee's point of view, such as: "How can a young child understand sex and give meaningful consent?", "Perhaps your friends were particularly mature for their age. Most young people are not so sophisticated about sex", "Many people worry that the power imbalance in a relationship between a youth and an adult means the younger person can be easily manipulated and exploited", "Many people fear that making sex easier for under-age teenagers will expose them to dangers like ]. Isn't that a legitimate worry?"<ref name="Statement of Clarification2">{{Citation |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |title=Under-age sex: Statement of clarification by Peter Tatchell |date=1 October 2012 |url=http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/Under-age-sex-Statement-of-clarification-by-Peter-Tatchell.htm |access-date=30 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131205083250/http://petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/Under-age-sex-Statement-of-clarification-by-Peter-Tatchell.htm |archive-date=5 December 2013 |url-status=dead |location=London}}</ref><ref name="Lee">{{cite web |last1=Tatchell |first1=Peter |title=I'm 14, I'm gay and I want a boyfriend |url=http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/14-gay-boyfriend.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919094216/http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/14-gay-boyfriend.htm |archive-date=19 September 2015 |access-date=16 January 2015 |website=petertatchell.net}}</ref> | |||
In July 2021, in an article by Hayley Dixon, Melanie Newman and ] for the ''Daily Telegraph'', it emerged that a positive review of the pro-paedophilia book ''Betrayal of Youth'', attributed to Peter Tatchell, had appeared in the June 1987 edition of ''7 Days'', the newsletter of the ]. Tatchell said he hadn't read the book at the time and that a colleague wrote the review for him. He apologised for the review and said it did not reflect his views.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dixon |first=Hayley |last2=Newman |first2=Melanie |last3=Bindel |first3=Julie |date=2021-07-27 |title=Peter Tatchell: Children have sexual desires at an early age |url=https://preview.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/27/peter-tatchell-children-have-sexual-desires-early-age/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210824100707/https://preview.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/27/peter-tatchell-children-have-sexual-desires-earl |archive-date=2021-08-24 |access-date=2024-08-29 |website=The Telegraph}}</ref> | |||
Following the publication of a photo of Tatchell alongside the Irish ], ], on ], at a ] event, O'Gorman issued a statement outlining that the apparent views in Tatchell's letter—written 23 years ago, when O'Gorman was just 15—were "abhorrent" to him, and that he appreciated that Tatchell had since clarified his own position.<ref name="ITimes2">{{cite web |last1=Pollak |first1=Sorcha |title=Minister for Children rejects 'ridiculous' online claims over paedophilia |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/minister-for-children-rejects-ridiculous-online-claims-over-paedophilia-1.4297259 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926121817/https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/minister-for-children-condemns-homophobic-attacks-from-far-right-1.4297259 |archive-date=26 September 2021 |access-date=6 July 2020 |website=]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=McDermott |first=Stephen |date=6 July 2020 |title=Children's minister rejects 'homophobic' online claims linking him to comments about paedophilia |url=https://www.thejournal.ie/roderic-ogorman-reject-peter-thatchell-5142524-Jul2020/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210809052559/https://www.thejournal.ie/roderic-ogorman-reject-peter-thatchell-5142524-Jul2020/ |archive-date=9 August 2021 |access-date=2021-08-05 |work=] |location=Ireland |quote=Any of those views would be completely abhorrent to me.}}</ref> | |||
======Anti-pornography laws====== | |||
In 1998 and 2008, he supported relaxation of the then strict laws against ], arguing that pornography can have some social benefits, and he has criticised what he calls the body-shaming ] against ], suggesting that nudity may be natural and healthy for society.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Tatchell |first1=Peter |date=24 April 1998 |title=What's Wrong With Porn? |url=http://www.petertatchell.net/pornography/whats_wrong.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150421034328/http://www.petertatchell.net/pornography/whats_wrong.htm |archive-date=21 April 2015 |access-date=2 May 2015 |publisher=Metropolis}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Tatchell |first1=Peter |date=January 2008 |title=Porn Can Be Good For You |url=http://www.redpepper.org.uk/article723.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100707021531/http://www.redpepper.org.uk/article723.html |archive-date=7 July 2010 |access-date=2 May 2015 |publisher=Red Pepper Online Forum}}</ref> | |||
=====Civil partnerships===== | |||
Tatchell has pledged his support for opposite-sex couples to be allowed to have ]s,<ref name=Marriage/><ref>{{cite web|last1=Tatchell|first1=Peter|title=David Cameron Insists That Straight Civil Partnerships Remain Banned|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/peter-g-tatchell/civil-partnerships_b_5536994.html|work=Huffington Post|access-date=20 January 2015|date=27 July 2014|archive-date=20 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150120234234/http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/peter-g-tatchell/civil-partnerships_b_5536994.html|url-status=live}}</ref> stating that some opposite-sex couples dislike the "sexist, homophobic history of marriage", and allowing them into civil partnerships "is simply a matter of equality".<ref>{{cite web|title=Peter Tatchell on civil partnerships and marriage laws|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27208831|work=BBC News|access-date=20 January 2015|date=30 April 2014|archive-date=3 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150103084126/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27208831|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Writing for '']'', he said: | |||
{{blockquote|David Cameron has betrayed the principle of equality by refusing to allow opposite-sex couples to have a civil partnership. His government is maintaining legal discrimination against straight partners. ... Not everyone wants to get married, given that marriage has a long sexist and homophobic history. ... Some LGBT and straight people don't like the sexist, homophobic traditions of marriage. They'd prefer a civil partnership; believing it to be more equal and without the historical baggage that goes with matrimony. They should have the choice of a civil partnership if they wish. Marriage should not be the only option. Couples should not be forced to marry to get legal recognition and rights. They should have the alternative option of a civil partnership.<ref name=Marriage>{{cite web|last1=Tatchell|first1=Peter|author2=Joseph Patrick McCormick|title=Peter Tatchell: 'David Cameron has betrayed equality by denying straight couples civil partnerships'|url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/06/26/peter-tatchell-david-cameron-has-betrayed-equality-by-denying-straight-couples-civil-partnerships/|website=pinknews.co.uk|publisher=Pink News|access-date=20 January 2015|date=26 June 2014|archive-date=20 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150120233244/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/06/26/peter-tatchell-david-cameron-has-betrayed-equality-by-denying-straight-couples-civil-partnerships/|url-status=live}}</ref>}}In June 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships was in violation of the ]. The government, headed by Theresa May, announced it would change the law in October 2018.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bowcott |first=Owen |last2=Carrell |first2=Severin |date=2018-10-02 |title=Civil partnerships to be opened to heterosexual couples |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/02/civil-partnerships-to-be-opened-to-heterosexual-couples |access-date=2024-08-30 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> On 2 December 2019, the law came into effect in England and Wales, although the law was not extended to Northern Ireland until 13 January 2020.<ref>. ''Parliament of the United Kingdom News Service''. Retrieved 1 April 2019.</ref> The Scottish Parliament enacted its own law to the same effect on 1 June 2021.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Civil partnership |url=https://www.gov.scot/policies/family-law/civil-partnership/ |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=www.gov.scot |language=en}}</ref> | |||
===International campaigning=== | |||
], 2011]] | |||
====Australia==== | |||
While still at school, Tatchell campaigned in favour of better treatment of, and full human rights for, ].<ref name="Battle p. 13">(Tatchell, 1983) p.13</ref> He has said that Australian cities should be renamed with their original Aboriginal place names. For example, the ]n capital ] would be renamed Nibberluna. Tatchell said this would be a fitting tribute to Australia's Aboriginal heritage, which he said has been discarded and disrespected for too long.<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Tatchell|first1=Peter|title=Diary – Peter Tatchell|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/nssubsfilter.php3?newTemplate=NSArticle_World&newDisplayURN=200404190006|access-date=26 March 2015|magazine=]|date=19 April 2004|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060327131353/http://www.newstatesman.com/nssubsfilter.php3?newTemplate=NSArticle_World&newDisplayURN=200404190006|archive-date=27 March 2006|url-status=dead}}</ref><!-- A specific quote for this would be good as the full article is not available for free online --> | |||
====Balochistan==== | |||
Since 2006, he expressed concern for the ] facing military operations in their homeland, ] in ].<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/dec/21/pakistanssecretwarinbaluch |title=Pakistan's secret war in Baluchistan |work=The Guardian |date=21 December 2007 |access-date=13 January 2017 |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |location=London |archive-date=13 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180113093138/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/dec/21/pakistanssecretwarinbaluch |url-status=live }}</ref> From 2007 to 2009, he campaigned in defence of two UK-based Baloch Muslim human rights activists, ] and ], accused of terrorism charges and tried in London. Both men were acquitted in 2009. He alleged collusion by the ] and ] in regards to the suppression of the Balochs, including arms sales to Pakistan, which he says were used to bomb and attack Baloch towns and villages.<ref>Peter Tatchell, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110302195656/http://www.unpo.org/article/10866 |date=2 March 2011 }}, delivered to Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization; Human Rights in Pakistan conference held at the United Nations in Geneva on 11 March 2010 parallel to the 13th session of the UN Human Rights Council. The conference was co-hosted by UNPO and Interfaith International. ({{YouTube|XNLm-oD4tok|Footage of the speech}})</ref> | |||
====Gaza and the West Bank==== | |||
In May 2004, he and a dozen other lesbians and gay men from OutRage! and the ] joined a London demonstration organised by the ]. Their placards read: "Israel: stop persecuting Palestine! Palestine: stop persecuting queers!" Tatchell says that others present accused him of being a ] agent sent to disrupt the march, of being a racist or a ], of being a supporter of ], and of being an agent of the ] or ].<ref name=Palestine>{{cite web|last1=Tatchell|first1=Peter|title=Gays Attacked at Palestinian Rights Protest: Attempt to silence debate on murder of gay people|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/international/palestine/palestine.htm|access-date=26 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616054451/http://www.petertatchell.net/international/palestine/palestine.htm|archive-date=16 June 2011|date=15 May 2004|url-status=dead}}</ref> Tatchell has written a number of articles in ''The Guardian'' on the issue.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/18/hamas-palestine-israel-human-rights|title=Peter Tatchell: The left and the anti-war movement have double standards when it comes to Hamas|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|work=The Guardian|date=18 February 2009|access-date=12 December 2016|archive-date=16 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116120359/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/18/hamas-palestine-israel-human-rights|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/12/islamistsbetraypalestine|title=Islamists betray Palestine|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|work=The Guardian|date=12 October 2007|access-date=12 December 2016|archive-date=12 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170812060632/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/12/islamistsbetraypalestine|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
====Iran==== | |||
Tatchell is a critic of Iran's ], which has parts based on ] and which prescribes punishments for ] offenses, including consensual sexual relations between same-sex partners.<ref>; ''The Times'', 13 November 2007; Retrieved on 1 April 2008{{subscription required}}</ref> | |||
In 2005, Iran executed two teenagers, ], aged 16 and 18, who were accused of raping a 13-year-old boy at knifepoint. Tatchell said that Iran has a history of arresting political activists on false charges and extracting ]s from death penalty convicts, and declared that he believed the original crime was consensual sex between the two, which is illegal in Iran. | |||
Tatchell reiterated his long-standing view that ] is an "] state". He said that information from Iranian exile groups with contacts inside Iran was that the teenagers were at a secret gay party before they were arrested. International human rights groups ] and ] preferred campaigners to focus on Iran violating the ] (which forbids the execution of ]) rather than the allegation of consensual sex.<ref name="The Nation2">{{cite magazine |title=The Nation |url=http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050815/kim |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070404130750/http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050815/kim |archive-date=4 April 2007 |access-date=17 September 2010 |magazine=The Nation}}</ref> | |||
====Israel==== | |||
In 2006, Israel's hosting of ] in ] was criticised by Israeli religious groups. The event was welcomed by LGBT groups such as ] (JOH), a local advocacy organisation which supports the rights of both Israeli and Palestinian LGBT people, and by OutRage! in the UK. Tatchell issued a statement on behalf of the latter, in which he said that OutRage! opposed a boycott of WorldPride Jerusalem because holding the event would be a "huge defeat for the Christian, Judaist and Muslim fundamentalists who want it banned and who believe lesbian and gay people should be jailed, flogged or executed".<ref>Peter Tatchell, {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110106045940/http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/2006june/1902.htm|date=6 January 2011}}, ''UK Gay News'', 19 June 2006.</ref> | |||
In a 2009 article for '']'', Tatchell condemned what he described as "disproportionate" and "reckless" attacks by the Israeli military on Gaza, but also argued that Western liberals and progressives should not support ] which he described as an ] group that represses Palestinians.<ref>{{cite web |date=18 February 2009 |title=Hamas no, human rights yes |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/18/hamas-palestine-israel-human-rights |access-date=2022-01-29 |website=]}}</ref> | |||
In 2011, he opposed the ]'s (IGLYO) plan to hold its general assembly in ] that December. While noting the progressive attitude to LGBT people in the country, he said the decision was "divisive, exclusionist, mistaken and regrettable", and could "inflame homophobia" in the region by giving Arab states the view that LGBT people supported the Israeli government. He urged the IGLYO and the Israeli Gay Youth movement to protest the ] just as LGBT activists had protested against South African ] previously.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rosen |first=Robyn |title=Peter Tatchell under fire for gay meeting attack |url=https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/peter-tatchell-under-fire-for-gay-meeting-attack-m3l6h1rs |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=www.thejc.com |language=en}}</ref> | |||
====Mozmabique and Guinea-Bissau==== | |||
Upon moving to London in 1971, Tatchell was active in solidarity work with the independence movements in ],<ref>{{Cite news|last=correspondent|first=David Smith Africa|date=30 June 2015|title=Mozambique LGBT activists move on to next battle after anti-gay law scrapped|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/30/mozambique-lgbt-activists-anti-gay-law-scrapped|access-date=6 November 2020|issn=0261-3077|archive-date=6 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190406150014/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/30/mozambique-lgbt-activists-anti-gay-law-scrapped|url-status=live}}</ref> and ].<ref>{{Cite web|date=8 December 2008|title=Peter Tatchell: A watershed for gay rights|url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/08/gayrights-unitednations|access-date=6 November 2020|website=The Guardian|archive-date=19 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200919074114/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/08/gayrights-unitednations|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
====People's Republic of China==== | |||
{{Further|2008 Summer Olympics torch relay}} | |||
In April 2008, Tatchell attempted to disrupt the procession of the Olympic torch though London. As a protest against ], he stood in front of the bus carrying the torch along Oxford Street while carrying a placard calling on Beijing to "Free Tibet, Free ]" (the name of a recently jailed human rights activist). Tatchell was taken away by police but was not charged.<ref name=gar1>Scott Anthony {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080407122800/http://sport.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2271457,00.html |date=7 April 2008 }}, ''The Guardian'', 6 April 2008. Retrieved on 4 September 2008.</ref> In an interview Tatchell called on the world to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympics, or to take other visible action.<ref name=gar1/> | |||
====Russia==== | |||
Tatchell has written articles condemning the ].<ref name=":0">{{cite web |url=http://www.petertatchell.net/international/russia/russian-teen-project-charged-with-gay-propaganda.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140713165202/http://www.petertatchell.net/international/russia/russian-teen-project-charged-with-gay-propaganda.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=13 July 2014 |title=Russian teen project charged with "gay propaganda" |publisher=Peter Tatchell |date=10 February 2014 |access-date=31 July 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgff5Li08w0|title=Pride and Propaganda: LGBT rights in Russia today|publisher=YouTube|access-date=31 July 2016|archive-date=22 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150322223230/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgff5Li08w0|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2014, Tatchell protested ]'s support for ].<ref>{{cite web|author=Read|url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/02/putins-pink-peril|title=Sochi Olympics: Why picking on gays has backfired so horribly for Vladimir Putin|publisher=Spectator.co.uk|access-date=31 July 2016|archive-date=15 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160815121118/http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/02/putins-pink-peril/|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell protested the ] in ] over the gay rights stance of Russia, comparing the event to the ].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Gallagher |first1=Paul |last2=Thorpe |first2=Vanessa |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/01/russia-anti-gay-gang-violence-homophobic-olympics |title=Russian anti-gay gang violence seen for the first time on camera |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=31 July 2016 |archive-date=16 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316113139/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/01/russia-anti-gay-gang-violence-homophobic-olympics |url-status=live }}</ref> Tatchell was arrested at the Moscow Pride parade in 2011 amid a spate of anti-LGBT violence by neo-Nazis.<ref>. Pinknews.co.uk. 28 May 2011. from the original on 14 May 2016. Retrieved 31 July 2016.</ref> | |||
=====Mayor of Moscow===== | |||
In February 2007, the ], ], visited London mayor ] for an annual meeting that also involved the Mayors of Berlin and Paris, with the ] present as well. ], one of the organizers of the Moscow gay pride parade, joined Tatchell in protesting the visit.<ref name="Gay.com">{{Cite news|url=http://uk.gay.com/article/5360|title=London protest at anti-gay Moscow mayor|work=]|date=26 February 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070312174318/http://uk.gay.com/article/5360|archive-date=12 March 2007}}</ref> A notice of the protest quoted ] saying that the Moscow pride marchers should be flogged. | |||
Livingstone asserted that he supported LGBT rights, and said, "In Moscow the ], the chief rabbi and the grand Mufti all supported the ban on the Gay Pride march with the main role, due to its great weight in society, being played by the Orthodox church. The attempt of Mr Tatchell to focus attention on the role of the grand Mufti in Moscow, in the face of numerous attacks on gay rights in Eastern Europe, which overwhelmingly come from right-wing Christian and secular currents, is a clear example of an ] campaign."<ref name="gnews1">{{cite news|title=Press Release: Mayor of London supports rights of gays and lesbians to peacefully demonstrate throughout Eastern Europe including Moscow|url=http://www.london.gov.uk/view_press_release.jsp?releaseid=11031|access-date=26 March 2015|publisher=Greater London Authority|date=18 February 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930185230/http://www.london.gov.uk/view_press_release.jsp?releaseid=11031|archive-date=30 September 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
In response, Tatchell said that Livingstone's remarks were "dishonest, despicable nonsense", adding, "The Grand Mufti was not singled out". He further said the Mayor had brought his "office into disrepute" and "has revealed himself to be a person without principles, honesty or integrity."<ref name="autogenerated2"> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070501012118/http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/07/March/0102.htm |date=1 May 2007 }} – UK ], 1 March 2007.</ref> | |||
=====Moscow Pride===== | |||
In May 2006, Tatchell attended the first ] Festival. He appears in the documentary '']'' featuring this event. | |||
In May 2007, Tatchell returned to ] to support Moscow Pride and to voice his opposition to a ban on the march, staying at the flat of an American diplomat. On 27 May 2007, Tatchell and other gay rights activists were attacked. He was punched in the face and nearly knocked unconscious, while other demonstrators were beaten, kicked and assaulted.<ref name=www_cnn_com1>{{Cite news |url= http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/05/27/russia.gayrights.reut/index.html |title=Moscow police detain gay activists |agency=Reuters |work=CNN |date=27 May 2007 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070618233008/http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/05/27/russia.gayrights.reut/index.html |archive-date=18 June 2007|access-date=4 December 2009}}</ref> A German MP, ], and a European Parliament deputy from Italy, ], were also punched before being arrested and questioned by police.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Gay activists beaten up at Moscow demo |newspaper=The Independent |location =London |date=28 May 2007 |last=Shields|first=Rachel}}</ref> Tatchell later said "I'm not deterred one iota from coming back to protest in Moscow."<ref name="pinknews_co_uk2">{{Cite news |date=2011-08-07 |title=Peter Tatchell speaks out after his violent Moscow assault – PinkNews.co.uk |url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-4499.html |url-status=dead |access-date=2021-09-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807025600/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-4499.html |archive-date=2011-08-07}}</ref> On his release, Tatchell made a report on the incident to the American Embassy. | |||
=====Moscow protest against Yuri Luzkhov===== | |||
On 16 May 2009, the day of the final of the '']'' in Moscow, Russian gay rights activists staged a protest in Moscow in defiance of the city's mayor, ], who had long banned gay demonstrations and denounced them as "satanic".<ref>{{cite news |title=Comment: Moscow's gay-bashing Mayor pledges continued intolerance |url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-9753.html |year=2009 |access-date=20 May 2009 |newspaper=Pink News |location=London |archive-date=26 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090226042654/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-9753.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Tatchell was among 32 campaigners arrested when they shouted slogans and unfurled banners.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Gay protest broken up in Moscow |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8053181.stm |access-date=16 May 2009 |work=BBC News |date=16 May 2009 |archive-date=19 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090519025911/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8053181.stm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Comment: Peter Tatchell on how Moscow's ban on the gay parade led to massive media coverage of LGBT issues |url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-12516.html |newspaper=Pink News |year=2009 |access-date=20 May 2009 |archive-date=22 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090522143839/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-12516.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |work=Sky News |url=http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Gay-Pride-Rally-Broken-Up-In-Moscow-Russia-Violence-Ahead-Of-Eurovision/Article/200905315282949?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_4&lid=ARTICLE_15282949_Gay_Pride_Rally_Broken_Up_In_Moscow%3A_Russia_Violence_Ahead_Of_Eurovision |title=Moscow Police Break Up Gay Pride Rally |date=16 May 2009 |last=Karmo |first=Julia |access-date=16 May 2009 |archive-date=19 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090519085520/http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Gay-Pride-Rally-Broken-Up-In-Moscow-Russia-Violence-Ahead-Of-Eurovision/Article/200905315282949?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_4&lid=ARTICLE_15282949_Gay_Pride_Rally_Broken_Up_In_Moscow%3A_Russia_Violence_Ahead_Of_Eurovision |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
====South Africa==== | |||
Tatchell has been involved in anti-] activism since the late 1960s, when he was a teenager.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/oct/30/ancbetraysblackzimbabwe|title=The voice of a nation|date=30 October 2006|work=The Guardian|access-date=7 February 2020|issn=0261-3077|archive-date=7 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200207120630/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/oct/30/ancbetraysblackzimbabwe|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Peter Tatchell collection - Catalogue {{!}} National Library of Australia |url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/8529188 |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=catalogue.nla.gov.au |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Lavers |first=Michael K. |date=2016-08-31 |title=Peter Tatchell talks human rights, LGBT advocacy |url=https://www.washingtonblade.com/2016/08/31/peter-tatchell-talks-human-rights-lgbt-advocacy/ |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=www.washingtonblade.com |language=en-US}}</ref> In an essay for the book ''Sex and Politics in South Africa'', he describes how his lobbying of the ] and ] in 1987 contributed to it renouncing homophobia and making its first public commitment to gay and lesbian human rights. In 1989 and 1990, he and others helped persuade the ANC to include a ban on anti-gay discrimination in the post-apartheid ]. He assisted in drafting model clauses for what became ].<ref>''Sex and Politics in South Africa'' (Double Storey Books, Cape Town, 2005), pp. 140–149. {{ISBN?}}</ref><ref name=":3" /> | |||
In January 2005, after Tatchell was named as one of the UK's three most "hate filled bigots" in the '']'' newspaper, Aaron Saeed, Muslim Affairs spokesperson for the gay human rights group OutRage!, pointed out that Tatchell had, by that point, been involved in the ] for over 20 years and had campaigned against racism for 35 years.<ref>. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120313203148/http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/archive/2006jan/1604.htm |date=13 March 2012 }}. ''UK Gay News'', 16 January 2006.</ref> | |||
====Vietnam and Cambodia==== | |||
Tatchell participated in the mass ] protests in ] in 1970. The same year, Tatchell founded and was elected secretary of the inter-denominational ], Christians for Peace.<ref>{{Cite web|date=24 October 2012|title=Peter Tatchell interview: On love and freedom|url=https://www.reform-magazine.co.uk/2012/10/on-love-and-freedom/|access-date=5 November 2020|website=Reform Magazine|archive-date=10 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201110104254/https://www.reform-magazine.co.uk/2012/10/on-love-and-freedom/|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
In 2002, he brought an unsuccessful legal action in Bow Street Magistrate's Court for the arrest of the former ], ], on charges of ]s in Vietnam and Cambodia.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/apr/24/6|title=Kissinger: mistakes may have been made|access-date=17 August 2008|date=24 April 2002|work=The Guardian|location=London|archive-date=13 June 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140613131219/http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/apr/24/6|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
====Zimbabwe==== | |||
Part of Tatchell's political activism and journalism in the 1970s involved the ], in which he supported the black nationalist movement, including the ] and its military wing. He even sent medical kits to the black nationalists, who were otherwise unable to get the right to vote or other equal rights from the white government at the time.<ref name=":4">{{Cite news |title=Tatchell: 'Mugabe became a tyrant' |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-49612317 |access-date=2024-08-30 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Mushakavanhu |first=Tinashe |date=2013-08-02 |title=Arresting Robert Mugabe: An interview with activist Peter Tatchell |url=https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/arresting-robert-mugabe |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=Boston Review}}</ref> But he became disenchanted with ]'s regime and by the 1990s, Zimbabwean activists had contacted him for support in highlighting Mugabe's increasing human rights abuses. After Mugabe denounced male homosexuality in 1995, Tatchell helped organise a high profile protest for ] outside the ].<ref name=":5" /> | |||
Two years later, he passed through police security disguised as a TV cameraman to quiz Mugabe during the "Africa at 40" conference at ]. Mugabe told him that allegations of human rights abuses were grossly exaggerated; he reportedly spat out his tea when Tatchell told him that he was gay.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Peter Tatchell's Hilarious Story Of The First Time He Met Robert Mugabe |url=https://www.lbc.co.uk/peter-tatchells-hilarious-story-mugabe/ |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=LBC |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4" /> Mugabe's minders then summoned ] guards, who ejected Tatchell. On 26 October 1997, a letter from Tatchell to '']'' argued that the United Kingdom should suspend aid to Zimbabwe because of its ].<ref>{{cite news|author=Tatchell, Peter|title=The other persecution (Letter)|newspaper=The Observer|location=London|page=C2|date=26 October 1997}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell researched the '']'' attacks in ] in the 1980s, when the ] attacked supporters of the ]. He said that Mugabe had broken ] during the attack, which is estimated to have involved the massacre of around 20,000 civilians. Then in 1999, journalists Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto were tortured by the Zimbabwe Army.<ref name=":5" /> | |||
Tatchell said that the ] had set a precedent that human rights violations could be pursued against a ], thanks to the principle of ]. On 30 October 1999, Tatchell and three other OutRage! activists approached Mugabe's car in a London street and attempted to perform a ]. Tatchell opened the car door and apprehended Mugabe; he then called the police. The four OutRage! activists were arrested, on charges including ], assault and ]; charges were dropped on the opening day of their trial. Mugabe responded by describing Tatchell and his OutRage! colleagues as "gay gangsters"—a slogan frequently repeated by his supporters—and claimed they had been sent by the ].<ref name=":5" /><ref name="Mugabe">{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/gays-seeking-sexual-asylum-in-south-africa-1123784.html |title=Gays seeking sexual asylum in South Africa |newspaper=] |location=London |date=6 November 1999 |access-date=7 February 2008 |last=Duval Smith |first=Alex |archive-date=11 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121111011543/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/gays-seeking-sexual-asylum-in-south-africa-1123784.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2019-09-06 |title=Robert Mugabe 'went from freedom fighter to evil dictator' says Lord Hain |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49605117 |access-date=2024-08-30 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}</ref> | |||
On 5 March 2001, when Mugabe visited ], Tatchell again attempted a citizen's arrest. Mugabe's bodyguards were seen knocking him to the floor. Later that day, Tatchell was briefly knocked unconscious by Mugabe's bodyguards and was left with permanent damage to his right eye.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2012-04-12 |title=Mugabe thugs left me with brain damage, says Tatchell |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/mugabe-thugs-left-me-with-brain-damage-says-tatchell-6733963.html |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=Evening Standard |language=en}}</ref> The protest drew worldwide headlines, as Mugabe was highly unpopular in the ] for ]. Tatchell's actions were praised by Zimbabwean activists and many of the newspapers that had previously denounced him.<ref>{{Cite news |url= https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/peter-tatchall-there-may-be-a-case-for-the-people-of-zimbabwe-to-kill-robert-mugabe-462146.html |title= Peter Tatchell: 'There may be a case for the people of Zimbabwe to kill Robert Mugabe' |newspaper=The Independent |date=19 August 2007 |access-date=7 February 2008 |last=Moreton |first=Cole |location=London}}{{dead link|date=August 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref name=":5" /> Police, however, warned Tatchell that he could be the victim of an assassination attempt.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Layton |first=Josh |date=2021-10-28 |title=Peter Tatchell says Mugabe was biggest opponent and Putin would be next target |url=https://metro.co.uk/2021/10/28/peter-tatchell-interview-mugabe-was-my-biggest-opponent-15502928/ |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=Metro |language=en}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell ultimately failed in his attempt to secure an international ] against Mugabe on torture charges. The magistrate argued that Mugabe had ] as a serving ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |date=2007-05-31 |title=Arrest Mugabe for torture |url=https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/520/arrest-mugabe-for-torture |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=newhumanist.org.uk |language=en-GB}}</ref> | |||
In late 2003, Tatchell acted as a press spokesman for the launch of the Zimbabwe Freedom Movement (ZFM), which claimed to be a clandestine group within Zimbabwe committed to overthrowing the Mugabe government by force.<ref>{{Cite news |last=MacAskill |first=Ewen |date=2003-11-14 |title=Zimbabwe armed rebel group 'thousands strong' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/14/politics.foreignpolicy |access-date=2024-08-30 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> The civic action ] ] urged Tatchell to check his sources, speculating that the group might have been set up by the Zimbabwe government to justify violent action.<ref name="Sokwanele">{{cite web|url=http://www.sokwanele.com/articles/sokwanele/whoandwhatisthezimfreedommovement_13nov2003.html |date=13 November 2003 |work=Sokwanele |title=Who and What is the "Zimbabwe Freedom Movement"? |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100423012338/http://www.sokwanele.com/articles/sokwanele/whoandwhatisthezimfreedommovement_13nov2003.html |archive-date=23 April 2010 }}</ref> This speculation proved to be unfounded; the Mugabe regime initially dismissed the ZFM as a hoax before claiming it was an effort orchestrated by the opposition ] (MDC) party.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2006-03-08 |title=Arms cache discovered, opposition members arrested |url=https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2006/03/08/arms-cache-discovered-opposition-members-arrested |website=The New Humanitarian}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2006-03-09 |title=Govt vows to "eliminate" plotters |url=https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2006/03/09/govt-vows-eliminate-plotters |website=The New Humanitarian}}</ref> However, two ] members were spotted and turned away from the ZFM launch, as shown in the film ''Peter Tatchell: Just who does he think he is?'' by Max Barber. | |||
===Social issues=== | |||
====Animal rights==== | |||
Tatchell is an active supporter of ], saying "human rights and animal rights are two aspects of the same struggle against injustice",<ref>{{cite web|title=Spotlight on CAPS' Patrons|url=http://www.captiveanimals.org/patrons.html|website=captiveanimals.org|publisher=Captive Animals' Protection Society|access-date=26 March 2015|date=May 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101120085827/http://captiveanimals.org/patrons.html|archive-date=20 November 2010}}</ref> and that he advocates for a "claim to be spared suffering and offered inalienable rights" for both humans and animals.<ref>{{cite news|title=Why human rights are also animal rights|url=https://www.alternet.org/animal-rights/why-human-rights-are-also-animal-rights|magazine=]|date=4 October 2017|access-date=8 October 2017|author=Tatchell, Peter|archive-date=8 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171008130811/https://www.alternet.org/animal-rights/why-human-rights-are-also-animal-rights|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
====Cornwall==== | |||
Tatchell campaigned on the issue of the ]. In November 2008, '']'' carried an article by him entitled "Self-rule for Cornwall,"<ref name="Cornwall">{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/nov/10/cornwall|title=Peter Tatchell: Self-rule for Cornwall|website=guardian.co.uk|publisher=Guardian|date=23 January 2009|access-date=23 May 2009|location=London|archive-date=3 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403162619/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/nov/10/cornwall|url-status=live}}</ref> in which he said: | |||
{{blockquote|Like ] and ], ] considers itself a separate ]—so why shouldn't it have independence? Nationalists argue that Cornwall is a subjugated nation, in much the same way that Scotland and Wales once were. Not only is the historic Cornish flag—a white cross on a black background—excluded from the ]; until not so long ago Cornish people needed planning permission to fly it. Comparisons with Scotland and Wales are valid. After all, Cornwall has all the basic cultural attributes of a nation: its own distinct Celtic language, history, festivals, cuisine, music, dance and sports. Many Cornish people perceive themselves to be other than English. Despite the government's resistance, under ] and ] guidelines, they qualify for recognition as a national minority. Cornwall was once separate and self-governing. If the Cornish people want autonomy and it would improve their lives, why shouldn't they have self-rule once again? Malta, with only 400,000 people, is an independent state within the EU. Why not Cornwall?<ref name="Cornwall"/>}} | |||
This article received the largest number of comments to any Guardian article, according to ''This Is Cornwall''.<ref name="This is Cornwall"/> Over 1,500 comments were made, and while some comments were supportive, Tatchell found himself "shocked and disgusted" by the anti-Cornish sentiment shown by many commenters.<ref name="This is Cornwall">{{cite web|url=http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/Tatchell-s-town-home-rule-Cornish/article-1245032-detail/article.html|title=Tatchell's in town to back home rule for the Cornish|access-date=28 August 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090926092420/http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/Tatchell-s-town-home-rule-Cornish/article-1245032-detail/article.html|archive-date=26 September 2009}}</ref> | |||
====Environmental issues==== | |||
For over 20 years, Tatchell has written and campaigned about environmental problems including ] and resource depletion, pointing out that they often have a disproportionately negative impact on developing countries. In the late 1980s, he was co-organiser of the Green and Socialist Conferences, which sought to ally reds and greens. He championed ] and ]; in particular tidal, wave and concentrated solar power. On 24 May 2009, he appeared on the BBC Daily Politics programme to oppose the ] regeneration scheme, which he said would bring few benefits to local working-class people. However, most of his campaigning continues to be in the areas of human rights and "] emancipation".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Tatchell |first1=Peter |date=16 January 2005 |title=Peter Tatchell – Official Biography |url=http://www.petertatchell.net/biography/biography.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616014131/http://www.petertatchell.net/biography.htm |archive-date=16 June 2011 |access-date=26 March 2015 |website=petertatchell.net}}</ref> | |||
In August 2008 Tatchell wrote about speculative theories concerning possible atmospheric ] depletion compared to prehistoric levels, and called for further investigation to test such claims and, if proven, their long-term consequences.<ref name="OxygenCrisis2">Peter Tatchell {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160606182457/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/13/carbonemissions.climatechange|date=6 June 2016}}, The Guardian, Comment Is Free 13 August 2008.</ref> | |||
==== Free speech ==== | |||
In 2006, during the ], Tatchell spoke at a 25 March 2006 rally called the Freedom of Expression Rally.<ref>{{cite web |date=23 March 2006 |title=Comment: Why I support free speech even if it mocks me |url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2006/03/23/comment-why-i-support-free-speech-even-if-it-mocks-me/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919080632/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2006/03/23/comment-why-i-support-free-speech-even-if-it-mocks-me/ |archive-date=19 September 2015 |access-date=25 February 2016 |work=PinkNews}}</ref> | |||
In 2007, he wrote an opinion piece in ''The Guardian'' saying, "The best way to tackle prejudice is by presenting facts and using reasoned arguments, to break down ignorance and ill-will."<ref>{{cite news |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |title=Hate speech v free speech |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/10/hatespeechvfreespeech |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181014224653/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/10/hatespeechvfreespeech |archive-date=14 October 2018 |access-date=31 July 2016 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref> In 2016, Tatchell chose threats to free speech in Britain as the topic of his ] annual conference lecture. Speaking with reference to a number of censorship controversies in the 2010s, he said that "the recent trend against freedom of speech means that we must fight the battles of ] all over again."<ref>{{cite web |date=14 June 2016 |title=Rekindling the Enlightenment: BHA celebrates successful 2016 Annual Conference |url=https://humanism.org.uk/2016/06/14/rekindling-the-enlightenment-bha-celebrates-successful-2016-annual-conference |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124225412/https://humanism.org.uk/2016/06/14/rekindling-the-enlightenment-bha-celebrates-successful-2016-annual-conference/ |archive-date=24 January 2021 |access-date=27 October 2016 |work=British Humanist Association}}</ref> | |||
In 2015, because of his stance on free speech, Tatchell signed an open letter denouncing ] policies in some universities.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2015-02-15 |title=We cannot allow censorship and silencing of individuals |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2015/feb/14/letters-censorship |access-date=2024-08-30 |work=The Observer |language=en-GB |issn=0029-7712}}</ref> This resulted in the National Union of Students' LGBT representative, Fran Cowling, refusing to appear alongside him at a discussion at Canterbury Christ Church University. Cowling cited what she saw as the letter's endorsement of transphobic campaigners.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bland |first=Archie |date=2016-02-15 |title=Labelling Peter Tatchell as a racist isn’t no-platforming. It’s just ignorance |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/15/peter-tatchell-racist-no-platform-controversy-silences-freedom-of-speech |access-date=2024-08-30 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=McVeigh |first=Tracy |date=2016-02-13 |title=Peter Tatchell: snubbed by students for free speech stance |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/13/peter-tatchell-snubbed-students-free-speech-veteran-gay-rights-activist |access-date=2024-08-30 |work=The Observer |language=en-GB |issn=0029-7712}}</ref> Tatchell has said that although he "totally disagreed" with anti-trans activists, he supported their right to free speech and felt it was better to debate them than silence them.<ref name=":22">{{cite news |last=Johnston |first=Ian |date=14 February 2016 |title=Peter Tatchell hits back at LGBT student leader's 'witch-hunt' |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/peter-tatchell-hits-back-at-lgbt-student-leader-s-witch-hunt-a6873991.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170809033739/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/peter-tatchell-hits-back-at-lgbt-student-leader-s-witch-hunt-a6873991.html |archive-date=9 August 2017 |access-date=22 August 2017 |work=The Independent}}</ref> | |||
However, in 2018, Tatchell voiced his support for ]'s conviction under section 127 of the ] for posting a "grossly offensive" video on YouTube.<ref>{{cite web |title=What does the Count Dankula case mean for freedom of speech? |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EydsM3CXfUk |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200614020829/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EydsM3CXfUk&gl=US&hl=en |archive-date=14 June 2020 |access-date=25 April 2020 |work=talkRADIO}}</ref> | |||
====Multiculturalism and cultural relativism==== | |||
Tatchell has said he is committed to "] and the right to be different".<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=2009-11-03 |title=Not all cultures are equally valid and commendable {{!}} Peter Tatchell |url=https://www.petertatchell.net/multiculturalism/not-all-cultures-are-equally-valid/ |access-date=2024-08-30 |language=en-GB}}</ref> In a 2009 lecture at the ], Tatchell said: | |||
{{blockquote|A good, beneficial multicultural society is one in which everyone has the freedom to pursue their own different ethics and lifestyles, while in the public sphere all citizens are treated as equals and are bound together by a shared commitment to universal human rights, regardless of the differences in their personal morality and private lives. I do not, for example, insist that people of faith approve of homosexuality, but I do expect them to not discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |date=2009-11-03 |title=Not all cultures are equally valid and commendable |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/peter-tatchell-not-all-cultures-are-equally-valid-and-commendable-1813655.html |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=The Independent}}</ref>}} | |||
Tatchell said that ] and ] should not be used as an excuse for "collusion with the violation of human rights when it comes to issues like women’s rights and incitements to homophobic violence".<ref name=":1" /> He also said multiculturalism shouldn't be used to institutionalise discrimination, giving as an example the state funding of religious schools, which he said "factionalises pupils along religious lines". He said that fear of being branded racist or religiously intolerant should not allow dictators and human rights abusers to avoid criticism for their actions.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Davis |first=Petra |date=2009-11-05 |title=Gay rights and "cultural relativism" |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2009/11/gay-rights-tatchell-black |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=New Statesman |language=en-US}}</ref> | |||
====Religion==== | |||
=====Anglican and Catholic churches ===== | |||
], protesting ]]] | |||
Tatchell criticised the ] and ], whom he described as "the ideological inheritor of ] homophobia".<ref name="40 years2">{{Cite web |date=15 December 2007 |title="Interview: Peter Tatchell's 40 years of campaigning", ''Pink News'', 15 December 2007, Antonio Fabrizio |url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6348.html/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110921125121/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6348.html/ |archive-date=21 September 2011 |access-date=19 March 2011}}</ref> Tatchell said of the Pope, "He'd like to eradicate homosexuality, but since he can't put LGBT people in physical ], is doing his best to put them in psychological concentration camps."<ref name="40 years2">{{Cite web |date=15 December 2007 |title="Interview: Peter Tatchell's 40 years of campaigning", ''Pink News'', 15 December 2007, Antonio Fabrizio |url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6348.html/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110921125121/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6348.html/ |archive-date=21 September 2011 |access-date=19 March 2011}}</ref> | |||
] indicated in June 2010 that Tatchell would be the presenter of a documentary film examining "the current Pope's teachings throughout the world".<ref name="catholicdocumentary2">{{Cite news |date=5 June 2010 |title=UK: Anger over "anti-Catholic" Pope documentary |url=http://www.mediaspy.org/report/2010/06/05/uk-anger-over-anti-catholic-pope-documentary |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929211046/http://www.mediaspy.org/report/2010/06/05/uk-anger-over-anti-catholic-pope-documentary |archive-date=29 September 2011 |access-date=5 June 2010 |work=The Spy Report |publisher=Media Spy}}</ref> The plans sparked criticism from some prominent British Catholics including ] politician ], who accused Channel 4 of trying to "stir up controversy". Tatchell asserted that the documentary "will not be an anti-Catholic programme".<ref name="catholicdocumentary2">{{Cite news |date=5 June 2010 |title=UK: Anger over "anti-Catholic" Pope documentary |url=http://www.mediaspy.org/report/2010/06/05/uk-anger-over-anti-catholic-pope-documentary |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929211046/http://www.mediaspy.org/report/2010/06/05/uk-anger-over-anti-catholic-pope-documentary |archive-date=29 September 2011 |access-date=5 June 2010 |work=The Spy Report |publisher=Media Spy}}</ref> | |||
On 15 September 2010, Tatchell, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter, published in ''The Guardian'', stating their opposition to ].<ref>{{Cite news |date=15 September 2010 |title=Letters: Harsh judgments on the pope and religion |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/15/harsh-judgments-on-pope-religion |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090630013226/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/15/harsh-judgments-on-pope-religion |archive-date=30 June 2009 |access-date=16 September 2010 |work=The Guardian |location=London}}</ref> | |||
With respect to ], he stated that "it's very sad to see a good man like the ], ], going to such extraordinary lengths to appease homophobes within the ]".<ref>''Irish Times'', 25 July 2008, pg. 17</ref> | |||
In 2017, Tatchell praised the ]'s new "Valuing all God's Children" scheme for schools, which seeks to stop homophobic and transphobic bullying.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Khomami |first=Nadia |date=13 November 2017 |title=LGBT campaigners welcome Church of England guidance for schools |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/13/lgbt-campaigners-welcome-church-of-england-guidance-for-schools |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190629203700/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/13/lgbt-campaigners-welcome-church-of-england-guidance-for-schools |archive-date=29 June 2019 |access-date=28 June 2019 |work=The Guardian |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> | |||
=====Islam===== | |||
Tatchell has been critical of ] and the use of religion to justify discrimination, though he has also said he supports the rights of Muslims and freedom of expression.<ref name="Islamophobia article" /> In 1995, in an article about the risk to ] from Islamic fundamentalism in Britain, Tatchell wrote that "although not all Muslims are anti-gay, significant numbers are violently homophobic homophobic Muslim voters may be able to influence the outcome of elections in 20 or more ] constituencies."<ref name="Islamic article">{{cite web|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/islamic.htm|title=Islamic Fundamentalism in Britain|publisher=www.petertatchell.net|access-date=1 February 2008|date=1 October 1995|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080119133514/http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/islamic.htm|archive-date=19 January 2008}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell has also been critical of the ] on ]' definition of ], which he said is "well-intended but worrisome". He said he prefers the term "anti-Muslim hatred", since it "focuses on the prejudice against Muslim people that undermines their well-being and life chances" rather than on defending Islam as an ideology. He said that the APPG's definition, based on ]ness, is a vague and subjective term, that it could be used to persecute Muslims themselves, and that it could become "a de facto threat to free speech and liberal values". He said the definition also didn't account for ] from Christians and Jews.<ref name="Islamophobia article">{{cite web|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/mps-definition-of-islamophobia-menaces-free-speech/|title=MPs definition of Islamophobia menaces free speech|publisher=www.petertatchell.net|access-date=30 September 2019|date=22 August 2019|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|archive-date=30 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190930095149/http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/mps-definition-of-islamophobia-menaces-free-speech/|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell has described ], the traditional Islamic religious law, as "]".<ref name="IrishTimes">{{cite news|title=Lifelong crusader for gay rights|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/lifelong-crusader-for-gay-rights-1.946642|access-date=5 July 2015|work=irishtimes.com|publisher=The Irish Times|date=25 July 2008|archive-date=4 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904091959/http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/lifelong-crusader-for-gay-rights-1.946642|url-status=live}}</ref> He was the keynote speaker at a 2005 protest at the ], opposing proposals to extend ]'s arbitration law to cover Sharia. Tatchell said, "It is wrong in principle to create a separate, segregated legal system for Muslims."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |date=2005-09-08 |title=Protest Against Sharia Law In Canada {{!}} Peter Tatchell |url=http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/shariacanada/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190930094308/http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/shariacanada/ |archive-date=2019-09-30 |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=www.petertatchell.net |language=en-GB}}</ref> | |||
In 2017, Tatchell wrote to the organisers of ] to defend the ].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Tatchell |first1=Peter |title=Peter Tatchell: Why Pride London Must Defend the Council of Ex-Muslims |url=https://uncommongroundmedia.com/peter-tatchell-london-pride/ |website=Uncommon Ground |date=2017-08-09 |access-date=6 June 2021 |archive-date=6 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210606225254/https://uncommongroundmedia.com/peter-tatchell-london-pride/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In response to calls by the ] for CEMB to apologise for placards alleging the mosque "incites murder of LGBTs",<ref>{{cite news |last1=Rose |first1=Eleanor |title=Muslim leaders complain over 'Islamophobic' banners at Pride |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/muslim-leaders-make-formal-complaint-after-islamophobic-banners-spotted-at-london-pride-a3587351.html |work=Evening Standard |date=2017-07-15 |access-date=6 June 2021 |archive-date=8 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170808151228/https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/muslim-leaders-make-formal-complaint-after-islamophobic-banners-spotted-at-london-pride-a3587351.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Tatchell stated "East London Mosque has refused all dialogue with LGBT community. It refuses to meet LGBT Muslims. I have asked them 11 times since 2015".<ref>{{Cite tweet |user=PeterTatchell |number=886196486375124992 |title=East London Mosque has refused all dialogue with LGBT community. It refuses to meet LGBT Muslims. I have asked them 11 times since 2015}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell has previously condemned Islamophobia, saying "any form of prejudice, hatred, discrimination or violence against Muslims is wrong. Full stop".<ref name=WeeklyWorkerCondemn>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/544/tatchell.htm|title=Criticising the oppressed|journal=]|issue=544|date=16 September 2004|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040923094740/http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/544/tatchell.htm|archive-date=23 September 2004}}</ref> He described the ] as "rather mild in its condemnation of homosexuality".<ref name=Respect2Way>{{Cite news|title=Respect is a two-way street: There is a whiff of hypocrisy among some Muslims who, in the name of being spared offence, want to censor other people's opinions|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|date=25 October 2006|newspaper=The Observer|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/oct/25/muslimhypocrisyonfreespeec|location=London|access-date=12 December 2016|archive-date=25 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170825062258/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/oct/25/muslimhypocrisyonfreespeec|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
He points out that much of his prison and asylum casework involves supporting Muslim prisoners and ]—heterosexual as well as LGBT. In 2006, he helped stop the abuse of Muslim prisoners at a Norwich jail and helped secure parole for other Muslim detainees.<ref>Sue Simkim, Anna Thomas-Betts, "Prisoners or Detainees?" ''Independent Monitor'', The Association of Members of Independent Monitoring Boards, March 2008, Issue 93, pp. 12–15.</ref> Half his asylum cases are, he reports, male and female Muslim refugees. Two of his highest-profile campaigns involved Muslim victims—Mohamed S, who was framed by men who first tried to kill him and then jailed him for eight years, and Sid Saeed, who brought a racism and homophobic harassment case against ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/2006may/0802.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151030211755/http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/2006may/0802.htm|title=UK Gay News – Gay Muslim Appeals Against Conviction|archive-date=30 October 2015|publisher=UK Gay News|date=8 May 2006}}</ref><ref>Jamie Doward, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170825064842/https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/feb/20/gayrights.world |date=25 August 2017 }}, ''The Observer'', 20 February 2005.</ref> | |||
In February 2010, Women Against Fundamentalism defended Tatchell against allegations of Islamophobia and endorsed his right to challenge all religious fundamentalism: "WAF supports the right of Peter Tatchell and numerous other gay activists to oppose the legitimisation of fundamentalists and other right wing forces on university campuses, by the Left and by the government in its Preventing Violent Extremism strategy and numerous other programmes and platforms".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.womenagainstfundamentalism.org.uk/waf-tatchell.html|title=Peter Tatchell statement|access-date=17 September 2010|publisher=Womenagainstfundamentalism.org.uk|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100430170538/http://www.womenagainstfundamentalism.org.uk/waf-tatchell.html|archive-date=30 April 2010}}</ref> | |||
======Muslim Council of Britain====== | |||
Tatchell had described the ] as being "anti-gay",<ref name="Indymedia 2006">{{cite web|url=http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/02/333630.html|title=Indymedia article|publisher=Indymedia article|date=14 February 2006|access-date=17 September 2010|archive-date=7 October 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081007170422/http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/02/333630.html|url-status=live}}</ref> asking how can "they expect to win respect for their community, if at the same time as demanding action against Islamophobia, they themselves demand the legal enforcement of homophobia?".<ref name=WeeklyWorkerCondemn/> He noted that the MCB had joined forces with the "rightwing ]" to oppose every gay ] from 1997 to 2006. In January 2006, the MCB Chairman ] said that homosexuals are immoral, harmful and diseased on ].<ref name="BBC News only islamophobia">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4579146.stm|title=Muslim head says gays 'harmful'|work=BBC News|date=3 January 2006|access-date=17 September 2010|archive-date=15 March 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080315130917/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4579146.stm|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell argued that "Both the Muslim and gay communities suffer prejudice and discrimination. We should stand together to fight Islamophobia and homophobia". Tatchell subsequently criticised ] for inviting Sacranie to share its platforms, describing him as a "homophobic hate-mongerer."<ref name=Sacranie>{{cite web|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/politics/sacranie.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060714231415/http://www.petertatchell.net/politics/sacranie.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 July 2006|title=Battered, bruised and betrayed|publisher=www.petertatchell.net|access-date=1 February 2008|date=14 February 2006|last=Tatchell|first=Peter}}</ref> | |||
When the MCB boycotted ], partly because it was "not sufficiently inclusive",<ref name=MCB>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1507095/Muslims-boycott-Holocaust-Day.html|title=Muslims boycott Holocaust Day|newspaper=]|access-date=30 September 2019|date=6 January 2006|last=Johnston|first=Philip|archive-date=30 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190930092308/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1507095/Muslims-boycott-Holocaust-Day.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Tatchell wrote that "the only thing that is consistent about the MCB is its opposition to the human rights of lesbians and gay men".<ref name=Prejudice>{{cite web|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/muslimhmdprejudice.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130112001342/http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/muslimhmdprejudice.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=12 January 2013|title=Crucifying queers|publisher=www.petertatchell.net|access-date=1 February 2008|date=6 January 2005|last=Tatchell|first=Peter}}</ref> | |||
======Islam and LGBT rights====== | |||
{{See also|LGBT topics and Islam}} | |||
In 2006, Tatchell wrote an opinion column in '']'' arguing that Muslims deliberately conflate offence with violence, in an effort to suppress Muslim reformers in Britain.<ref name=Respect2Way/> He argued that Islamist groups like ] in Britain see "any criticism of Islam is an insult and that all such insults are unacceptable" in order to suppress the "free exchange of ideas". The Muslim gay rights organisation IMAAN criticised Tatchell, saying, "OutRage! doesn't understand our cultural and religious sensitivities. Often, the way they word and phrase their press releases can and does antagonise Muslims. Much as we’ve invited them to meetings so we can talk about the best way to tackle Muslim LGBT issues, they insist on doing things their way."<ref>{{cite web | url =http://www.tmponline.org/2013/04/03/on-hate-peter-tatchell/ | title =On Hate: A Response To Peter Tatchell | last =Stahl | first =Aviva | publisher =The MultiCultural politic | date =3 April 2013 | access-date =1 October 2019 | archive-date =1 October 2019 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20191001100034/http://www.tmponline.org/2013/04/03/on-hate-peter-tatchell/ | url-status =live }}</ref> | |||
In the book "''Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality''", in a chapter called "Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the 'War on Terror'", Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem wrote, "rather than help, politics such as Tatchell's have worsened the situation for the majority of queer Muslims. It has become increasingly difficult for groups such as the Safra Project, who are forced into the frontline of the artificially constructed gay v. Muslim divide, to contest sexual oppression in Muslim communities. The more homophobia is constructed as belonging to Islam, the more anti-homophobic talk will be viewed as a white, even racist, phenomenon, and the harder it will be to increase tolerance and understanding among straight Muslims The dialogue which Safra and other queer Muslim groups have long sought over this is more often than not ignored or disregarded, and white gay activists such as Tatchell have proved indifferent to the fact that the mud which they sling onto Muslim communities lands on queer Muslims themselves."<ref>{{cite web | url =https://www.scribd.com/document/199400571/Haritaworn-Gay-Imperialism-Gender-and-Sexuality-Discourse-in-the-War-on-Terror | title =Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the 'War on Terror' | author =Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem | publisher =Raw Nerve Books | date =7 September 2009 | access-date =1 October 2019 | archive-date =6 August 2020 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20200806070917/https://www.scribd.com/document/199400571/Haritaworn-Gay-Imperialism-Gender-and-Sexuality-Discourse-in-the-War-on-Terror | url-status =live }}</ref> | |||
Despite previously attending a "rally for free expression", where the ] were celebrated, Tatchell sued the small publisher Raw Nerve Books, who issued an apology, and replaced links to the book on their site with that apology, but were later forced to shut down. The ] described this as ], adding, "the violent suppression of "Gay Imperialism" and the book in which it appeared also works as a warning to the authors, editors, and other critics and potential critics of Tatchell to better keep their mouths shut."<ref>{{cite magazine | url =https://mronline.org/2009/10/15/out-of-place-out-of-print-on-the-censorship-of-the-first-queernessraciality-collection-in-britain/ | title =Out of Place, Out of Print: On the Censorship of the First Queerness/Raciality Collection in Britain | last =Rothe | first =Johanna | magazine =Monthly Review | date =15 October 2009 | author-link =Monthly Review | access-date =1 October 2019 | archive-date =1 October 2019 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20191001100030/https://mronline.org/2009/10/15/out-of-place-out-of-print-on-the-censorship-of-the-first-queernessraciality-collection-in-britain/ | url-status =live }}</ref> | |||
======Yusuf al-Qaradawi====== | |||
In July 2004, then-] ] invited ] to attend a talk called "A woman's right to choose" about the wearing of the hijab. Livingstone had read positive coverage of Qaradawi in ''The Guardian'' and ''The Sun''.<ref name=hari2008 /> | |||
In October 2004, 2,500 Muslim academics from 23 countries condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving "Islam a bad name and foster hatred among civilizations" and "providing a religious cover for terrorism".<ref name=arabnews1>{{cite news|url=http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=53683&d=30&m=10&y=2004|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050106064442/http://arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=53683&d=30&m=10&y=2004|archive-date=6 January 2005|title=Stop Terror Sheikhs, Muslim Academics Demand|newspaper=Arab News}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell argued that Qaradawi expresses liberal positions to deceive the Western press and politicians, while being "rightwing, misogynist, anti-semitic and homophobic",<ref name=Multiple>{{cite web|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200501240019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120325182145/http://www.newstatesman.com/200501240019|archive-date=25 March 2012|title=An embrace that shames London|work=New Statesman|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|date=24 January 2005}}</ref> using his books and ]s to advocate ], blame for rape victims who dress immodestly, and the execution of apostates, homosexuals, and women who have sex outside marriage. | |||
Livingstone issued a 2005 dossier praising Qaradawi as a moderate,<ref name="Qaradawi dossier">{{cite web |url=http://www.london.gov.uk/news/docs/qaradawi_dossier.rtf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050324203018/http://www.london.gov.uk/news/docs/qaradawi_dossier.rtf |archive-date=24 March 2005 |title=Why the Mayor of London will maintain dialogue with all of London's faiths and communities – A reply to the dossier against Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi |date=24 March 2005 |access-date=24 December 2011}}</ref> based on positive press coverage he had received previously. Livingstone pronounced that Tatchell has "a long history of Islamophobia", and asserted that he is in a "de facto alliance with the American ]s and ] services."<ref name="Multiple" /> Tatchell strenuously denied the accusations, pointing out that he has never said any of the things that Livingstone accused him of saying. Livingstone continued to describe Qaradawi as "one of the leading progressive voices in the Muslim world" in 2010, after having been denied entry to the UK for his extremist views.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://leftfootforward.org/2010/09/livingstone-al-qaradawi-is-a-leading-progressive-voice-in-muslim-world/ |title=Livingstone: Al-Qaradawi is a "leading progressive voice" in Muslim world |publisher=Left Foot Forward |date=21 September 2010 |access-date=31 July 2016 |archive-date=26 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826183315/http://leftfootforward.org/2010/09/livingstone-al-qaradawi-is-a-leading-progressive-voice-in-muslim-world/ |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
Two years after condemning Tatchell,<ref name="Tatchell's Islamic Conspiracy">{{cite web|last1=Livingstone|first1=Ken|title=Tatchell's Islamic Conspiracy Theory|url=http://www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Politics/Reply.html|publisher=Labour Left Briefing|access-date=26 March 2015|date=February 2005|archive-date=27 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160327101603/http://whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Politics/Reply.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Livingstone stated he "probably shouldn't" have called Tatchell an "Islamophobe".<ref name=hari2008>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/im-a-polymorphous-pervert-boris-and-his-mayoral-rivals-make-their-case-for-the-gay-vote-802355.html|title='I'm a polymorphous pervert': Boris and his mayoral rivals make their case for the gay vote|newspaper=The Independent|date=29 March 2008|access-date=24 December 2011|archive-date=9 October 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111009084956/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/im-a-polymorphous-pervert-boris-and-his-mayoral-rivals-make-their-case-for-the-gay-vote-802355.html|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
======Adam Yosef====== | |||
In December 2005, ] activist ] came under criticism for an article in '']'' opposing registered civil partnerships. He asserted that Tatchell needed "a good slap in the face" and his "queer campaign army" should "pack their bent bags and head back to Australia". ''Desi Xpress'' staff expressed regret to Tatchell and gave him a right of reply, while Yosef apologised and retracted his article, claiming the "slap in the face" remark was a "figure of speech" and the remark about Australia was not racist.<ref name="Adam Yosef">{{cite web|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/politics/adamyosef.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130112010101/http://www.petertatchell.net/politics/adamyosef.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=12 January 2013|title=Galloway Activist Urges: Assault Tatchell|publisher=www.petertatchell.net|date=16 January 2005}}</ref> Yosef later backed Tatchell's 2009 election campaign.<ref name="Adam Yosef 1">{{cite web|url=http://www.gscene.com/national/Muslim_homophobe_backs_Tatchell_s_bid_to_be_MP.shtml|title=Muslim "homophobe" backs Tatchell's bid to be MP|magazine=GScene Magazine|date=23 October 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110711132438/http://www.gscene.com/national/Muslim_homophobe_backs_Tatchell_s_bid_to_be_MP.shtml|archive-date=11 July 2011}}</ref><ref name="Adam Yosef 2">{{cite web|url=http://www.dnamagazine.com.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=10594|title=Muslim 'Homophobe' Endorses Activist MP Candidate|magazine=]|date=26 October 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929163455/http://www.dnamagazine.com.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=10594|archive-date=29 September 2011}}</ref> | |||
==Writing== | |||
Tatchell has written numerous articles in newspapers and magazines related to his various campaigns. He was highly critical of the media coverage of the ], claiming than the homophobic attitudes of news outlets had helped fuel the attack,<ref>{{cite web|last1=Tatchell|first1=Peter|title=The End of Media Homophobia?|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/media/end_of_media_homophobia.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20141219202122/http://www.petertatchell.net/media/end_of_media_homophobia.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=19 December 2014|website=www.petertatchell.net|access-date=19 December 2014|date=October 1999|quote=it was The Sun—through its columnists Gary Bushell, Richard Littlejohn and Norman Tebbit—that has for years stirred the very prejudice it now claims to deplore}}</ref> and that the press concerned themselves almost exclusively with the one ] victim, rather than the two other deaths and the dozens of maimed patrons, saying that: | |||
{{blockquote|As soon as it became known that not all the victims of the blast were gay, the media suddenly de-gayed its coverage by focusing almost exclusively on the heterosexual victims. The News of the World led with "Pregnant wife killed", and The Sun reassured its readers that "the victims were certainly not all gay". Nik Moore, the gay man who died, was not even mentioned in The Mail on Sunday, and he was relegated to a footnote in The Mirror.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Tatchell|first1=Peter|title=The End of Media Homophobia?|url=http://www.petertatchell.net/media/end_of_media_homophobia.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20141219202122/http://www.petertatchell.net/media/end_of_media_homophobia.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=19 December 2014|website=www.petertatchell.net|access-date=19 December 2014}}</ref>}} | |||
In 1987 Tatchell appeared on the second programme of the first series of '']'', a discussion on press ethics with, among others, ], ], ] and a '']'' journalist.<ref name="ITN Source">{{cite web|url=http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//Channel4/2004/01/01/T010104000000003/?s=delors|title=Getty Images|website=Itnsource.com|access-date=2 August 2018|archive-date=30 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170630175023/http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//Channel4/2004/01/01/T010104000000003/?s=delors|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
On 5 August 1995 Tatchell was interviewed at length by ] on his one-on-one interview show ''Is This Your Life?'', made by ] for ].<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926121751/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9800444/?ref_=ttep_ep3 |date=26 September 2021 }} on ]</ref> | |||
{{As of|2009}}, he has been an Ambassador for the ] group, Make Justice Work.<ref>{{cite web|title=Make Justice Work Ambassador: Peter Tatchell|url=http://www.makejusticework.org.uk/ambassador/peter-tatchell/|website=makejusticework.org.uk|publisher=Make Justice Work|access-date=17 January 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151017194849/http://www.makejusticework.org.uk/ambassador/peter-tatchell/|archive-date=17 October 2015}}</ref> | |||
In 2011, he became the Director of the ].<ref name=PTF.org>{{cite web|title=About us|url=http://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/about|publisher=Peter Tatchell Foundation|access-date=19 December 2014|archive-date=23 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141223011917/http://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/about|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Tatchell is a patron of ], an Honorary Associate of the ] <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.secularism.org.uk/honoraryassociates.html|title=National Secular Society Honorary Associates|access-date=29 July 2019|archive-date=2 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190802160042/https://www.secularism.org.uk/honoraryassociates.html/|url-status=live}} National Secular Society. Retrieved 27 July 2019</ref> and a committed secularist, saying, "As an atheist, secularist and humanist I believe that reason, science and ethics—not religious superstition—are the best way to understand the world and promote human rights and welfare."<ref name="bha2017">{{cite web|title=Peter Tatchell Human rights campaigner and Patron of the BHA|url=https://humanism.org.uk/about/our-people/patrons/peter-tatchell/|website=British Humanist Association|access-date=7 March 2017|archive-date=8 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170308145409/https://humanism.org.uk/about/our-people/patrons/peter-tatchell/|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
He contributes to ''The ] Show'' on ].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p067x1r4|title=BBC Radio 2 – What Makes Us Human with Jeremy Vine, Peter Tatchell: What Makes Us Human?|website=BBC|date=22 May 2018 |access-date=7 February 2020|archive-date=7 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200207123254/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p067x1r4|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
===Opposition to child sexual assault=== | |||
In 2011, Tatchell wrote an obituary in '']'' for Scottish gay rights activist ], unaware that he had been a founder of the ] (PIE) in 1974.<ref name="Indie1">{{cite web|last1=Tatchell|first1=Peter|title=Obituary: Ian Dunn|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-ian-dunn-1151494.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200724142155/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-ian-dunn-1151494.html|archive-date=24 July 2020|access-date=30 June 2024|website=]|date=23 October 2011}}</ref> On subsequently learning of Dunn's paedophile activism, Tatchell recanted his tribute: | |||
{{blockquote| Neither I nor most other people had any knowledge of link with at the time. I only found out many years after I wrote his obituary. I would not have written it if I had known about his PIE work.<ref name="Statement of Clarification2"/>}} | |||
In a 2020 interview with the Irish ''Gript Media'' news network, Tatchell further denounced PIE as "disgusting": | |||
{{blockquote| | |||
I condemn without reservation child sex abuse, the rape of children and adults having sex with kids. It is abhorrent, totally wrong and unacceptable. The perpetrators should be jailed. I have never condoned paedophilia. There are no circumstances where it is acceptable for adults to have sex with children.<ref name="anti-abuse clarification" />}} | |||
In line with his comments about ],<ref name=":1" /> Tatchell has said, | |||
{{blockquote|I reiterate my view that sexual relations with children are despicable and always wrong, even if other people document societies where these relationships are acceptable and deemed positive. They are profoundly mistaken and are colluding with child sex abuse.<ref name="anti-abuse clarification" />}} | |||
=== Role models === | |||
Tatchell chose ] as his specialist subject when appearing on ''Celebrity ]'', explaining that he considered him an inspiration and a hero (his other inspirations were ], ] and ]). On Malcolm X's birthday in 2005, Tatchell endorsed Bruce Perry's biography of the African American activist in an article calling for black gay role models, outlining the book's reports of X's same-sex relationships and sex work.<ref name="Malcolm X222">{{Cite news |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |date=19 May 2005 |title=Malcolm X – gay black hero?: On Malcolm X's 80 birthday, Peter Tatchell reveals the hidden gay past of the American black nationalist leader |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/may/19/gayrights.usa |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160415130146/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/may/19/gayrights.usa |archive-date=15 April 2016 |access-date=12 December 2016 |newspaper=The Observer |location=London}}</ref> This led to criticism from Peter Akinti, editor of Black in Britain, who said the article was insulting and reductive; he said it was the wrong time to write about Malcolm X's alleged sex work and that gay black men did not Tatchell's recommendations for role models.<ref name="Akinti222">{{Cite news |last=Akinti |first=Peter |date=26 May 2005 |title=Malcolm X insulted: In G2 last week Peter Tatchell outed Malcolm X. To mark the great man's 80th birthday in this way was an insult |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/may/26/usa.features11 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170825063514/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/may/26/usa.features11 |archive-date=25 August 2017 |access-date=12 December 2016 |newspaper=The Observer |location=London}}</ref><ref>According to Perry's book,{{cite book |last=Perry |first=Bruce |url=https://archive.org/details/malcolmlifeofman00perr |title=Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America |publisher=Station Hill |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-88268-103-0 |location=Barrytown, NY}} Little (Malcolm X) occasionally engaged in ], usually, though not always, ]. In a Michigan boarding house, he raised rent money by sleeping with a gay transvestite ... Later, in New York, Little and some friends raised funds by being ] by men at the ] where he lived (pg. 77) In Boston a man paid Little to undress him, sprinkle him with talcum powder, and bring him to orgasm.(Perry, pp. 82–83).</ref> | |||
== Awards == | |||
In 2006, '']'' readers voted him sixth on their list of "Heroes of our time".<ref name="Tatchell articles"> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100608165244/http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/peter_tatchell |date=8 June 2010 }} – Articles by Peter Tatchell</ref><ref name=Heroes>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200605220016|title=Heroes of our time – the top 50|magazine=]|date=22 May 2006|access-date=13 February 2008|last=Cowley|first=Jason|archive-date=31 December 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071231104453/http://www.newstatesman.com/200605220016|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
In 2009, he racked up multiple awards. He was named Campaigner of the Year in '']'' Ethical Awards, London Citizen of Sanctuary Award, Shaheed Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti Award (for reporting the Balochistan national liberation struggle), Evening Standard 1000 Most Influential Londoners (winning again in 2011), Liberal Voice of the Year and a Blue Plaque in recognition of his more than 40 years of human rights campaigning.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.petertatchell.net/awards/?lcp_page0=1#lcp_instance_0|title=Awards|access-date=7 February 2020|archive-date=6 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200306154116/https://www.petertatchell.net/awards/?lcp_page0=1#lcp_instance_0|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
In 2010 he won Total Politics Top 50 Political Influencers. A diary journalist reported rumours that he had been recommended for the award of a ] in the British ]. He was said to have turned it down.<ref name="Peter Tatchell says 'no thanks' to the Lords">{{cite news|last=Walker|first=Tim|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/Mobile/8204155/Peter-Tatchell-says-no-thanks-to-the-Lords.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110125114457/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Mobile/8204155/Peter-Tatchell-says-no-thanks-to-the-Lords.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=25 January 2011|title=Peter Tatchell says 'no thanks' to the Lords|publisher=Telegraph.co.uk|date=16 December 2010|access-date=9 June 2012}}</ref> | |||
In 2012, the ] awarded Tatchell ], in recognition of his lifelong commitment to the defence of human rights against religious fundamentalism.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2012/03/peter-tatchell-named-secularist-of-the-year|title=Peter Tatchell named Secularist of the Year 2012|work=National Secular Society|date=17 March 2012|access-date=27 January 2014|archive-date=12 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512150100/http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2012/03/peter-tatchell-named-secularist-of-the-year|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/19/peter-tatchell-named-secularist-of-the-year|title=Peter Tatchell named Secularist of the Year|last=Gray|first=Stephen|work=PinkNews|date=19 March 2012|access-date=27 January 2014|archive-date=4 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104103934/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/19/peter-tatchell-named-secularist-of-the-year/|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
On 21 September 2012, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement award at the UK's first ].<ref>{{cite web|title=Veteran activist Peter Tatchell wins lifetime achievement award|date=22 September 2012|publisher=Gay Star News|url=http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/veteran-activist-peter-tatchell-wins-lifetime-achievement-award220912|access-date=2 September 2013|archive-date=16 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130616035408/http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/veteran-activist-peter-tatchell-wins-lifetime-achievement-award220912|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=National Diversity Awards 2012 LGBT winners|magazine=DIVA Magazine Lesbian News|url=http://www.divamag.co.uk/category/news/peter-tatchell-wins-lifetime-achievement-award.aspx|access-date=2 September 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219113823/http://www.divamag.co.uk/category/news/peter-tatchell-wins-lifetime-achievement-award.aspx|archive-date=19 February 2014}}</ref> Alongside ], ], ] and others he was a patron for 2013 National Diversity Awards.<ref>{{cite web|title=Celebrity Patrons – National Diversity Awards|url=http://www.nationaldiversityawards.co.uk/#/celebrity-patrons/4572703201|access-date=2 September 2013|archive-date=6 July 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130706070650/http://www.nationaldiversityawards.co.uk/#/celebrity-patrons/4572703201|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
In January 2014, Tatchell was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/01/23/human-rights-campaigner-peter-tatchell-awarded-honorary-doctorate-by-de-montford-university|title=Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell awarded Honorary Doctorate by De Montfort University|author=Joseph Patrick McCormick|work=PinkNews|date=23 January 2014|access-date=27 January 2014|archive-date=25 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140125092336/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/01/23/human-rights-campaigner-peter-tatchell-awarded-honorary-doctorate-by-de-montford-university/|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
== Legacy == | |||
The Peter Tatchell Papers are held at the ] in the ].<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118051403/https://archives.lse.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=HCA%2FTATCHELL&pos=1 |date=18 January 2021 }}, Hall-Carpenter Archives, the London School of Economics. Retrieved 15 May 2020</ref> Supplementary papers are housed at the ]. The papers can be accessed through the British Library catalogue.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926121826/http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?docId=IAMS032-003065666&fn=permalink&vid=IAMS_VU2 |date=26 September 2021 }}, archives and manuscripts catalogue, the British Library. Retrieved 15 May 2020</ref> | |||
===Peter Tatchell Foundation=== | |||
The '''Peter Tatchell Foundation''' ('''PTF''') is a non-profit, nonpartisan organisation based in the United Kingdom which "seeks to promote and protect the human rights of individuals, communities and nations, in the ] and internationally, in accordance with established national and ]" and its stated aims and objectives are "to raise awareness, understanding, protection and implementation of human rights, in the UK and worldwide".<ref name="PTF.org" /> Tatchell started the Foundation as a company in 2011,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07805736|title=Peter Tatchell Foundation – Overview (free company information from Companies House)|website=beta.companieshouse.gov.uk|language=en|access-date=2019-02-23}}</ref> which gained charitable status in 2018.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/about/|title=About Us|date=2015-05-14|website=Peter Tatchell Foundation|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-01-10}}</ref> The organisation was named after Tatchell to honour his 50+ years of globally campaigning for human rights.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2018-08-29|title=LGBT+ Rights Group Peter Tatchell Foundation Finally Receives Charity Status|url=https://gcn.ie/lgbt-peter-tatchell-foundation-charity/|access-date=2020-11-06|website=GCN|language=en}}</ref> The charity's celebrity patrons include Sir ] and ].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/patrons/|title=Patrons|date=2015-01-28|website=Peter Tatchell Foundation|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-01-10}}</ref> | |||
The organisation works with a variety of human rights issues globally, such as ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], unjust ], ], ], ] and ]s, ] rights, ] of oppressed peoples, ], ], ], ] and ].<ref name="PTF.org" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Sieczkowski|first=Cavan|date=2013-10-09|title=These Countries Actually Want To Perform Tests To 'Detect' Gays|url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gulf-countries-detect-gays_n_4065927|access-date=2020-11-12|website=HuffPost|language=en}}</ref> | |||
In 2012 the foundation gained funding from ] for three projects: "Casework & Advice", including adding an "Advice" section to its website; "Equal Love", campaigning on same-sex marriage and opposite-sex civil partnerships; and "Olympic Equality Initiative", working against sexism and homophobia in the Olympic movement.<ref>{{cite web|title=Peter Tatchell Foundation|url=http://www.thefundingnetwork.org.uk/projects/peter-tatchell-foundation-8674/|publisher=The Funding Network|accessdate=19 December 2014|archive-date=20 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220004518/http://www.thefundingnetwork.org.uk/projects/peter-tatchell-foundation-8674/|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
==Bibliography== | |||
* {{Cite book|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|title=The Battle for Bermondsey|publisher=Heretic Books|year=1983|isbn=0-946097-10-0}} | |||
* {{Cite book|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|title=Democratic Defense|publisher=Millivres-Prowler Group Ltd|year=1985|isbn=0-946097-16-X}} | |||
* {{Cite book|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|title=AIDS: a Guide to Survival|publisher=]|year=1987|isbn=0-85449-067-1}} | |||
* {{Cite book|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|title=Out in Europe. A guide to lesbian and gay rights in 30 European countries|isbn=1-85144-010-0|publisher=]|year=1990}} | |||
* {{Cite book|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|title=Europe in the Pink|isbn=0-85449-158-9|publisher=]|year=1992|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/europeinpinklesb0000tatc}} | |||
* {{Cite book|author1=Tatchell, Peter|author2=Taylor, Robert|title=Safer Sexy: the Guide to Gay Sex Safely|publisher=Freedom Editions|year=1994|isbn=1-86047-000-9}} | |||
* {{Cite book|last=Tatchell|first=Peter|title=We Don't Want to March Straight: Masculinity, Queers and the Military|publisher=]|year=1995|isbn=0-304-33373-5}} | |||
===Documentary=== | |||
Tatchell was the subject of the widely-acclaimed<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hating_peter_tatchell|title=Hating Peter Tatchell 2021, Documentary, 1h 31m|website=] }}</ref> Netflix<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.netflix.com/au/title/81422831|title=Hating Peter Tatchell|website=] }}</ref> documentary ''Hating Peter Tatchell''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tatchellmovie.com/|title=Film | Hating Peter Tatchell Documentary|website=TatchellMovie|access-date=8 June 2022|archive-date=23 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220523014953/https://www.tatchellmovie.com/|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
==See also== | |||
{{Portal|Biography|LGBTQ}} | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
==References== | |||
{{Reflist}} | |||
==Sources== | |||
* {{Cite book|author=Lucas, Ian |title=OutRage!: an oral history |publisher=Cassell |location=London |year=1998 |isbn=0-304-33358-1 }} | |||
* {{Cite book|last=Power |first=Lisa |title=No Bath But Plenty of Bubbles: An Oral History Of The Gay Liberation Front 1970-7 |publisher=Cassell|year=1995|isbn=0-304-33205-4 }} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Walter |first=Aubrey |title=Come together: the years of gay liberation (1970–73) |publisher=] |year=1980 |isbn=0-907040-04-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/cometogetheryear00walt }} | |||
== External links == | |||
{{Commons category|Peter Tatchell}} | |||
{{Wikiquote}} | {{Wikiquote}} | ||
* {{Official website}} | |||
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Latest revision as of 02:30, 22 December 2024
Australian-born British human rights campaigner (born 1952)
Peter Tatchell | |
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Tatchell in 2016 | |
Born | Peter Gary Tatchell (1952-01-25) 25 January 1952 (age 72) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
Nationality |
|
Alma mater | University of North London |
Occupation(s) | Human rights campaigner, journalist |
Political party |
|
Peter Tatchell's voice Recorded November 2018 | |
Website | www |
Peter Gary Tatchell (born 25 January 1952) is an Australian-born British human rights campaigner, best known for his work with LGBT social movements.
Tatchell was selected as the Labour Party's parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey in 1981. He was then denounced by party leader Michael Foot for ostensibly supporting extra-Parliamentary action against the Thatcher government. Labour subsequently allowed him to stand in the 1983 Bermondsey by-election in February 1983, in which the party lost the seat to the Liberals. In the 1990s he campaigned for LGBTQ rights through the direct action group OutRage!, which he co-founded. He has worked on various campaigns, such as Stop Murder Music against music lyrics allegedly inciting violence against LGBT people and writes and broadcasts on various human rights and social justice issues. He attempted a citizen's arrest of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in 1999 and again in 2001.
In April 2004, Tatchell joined the Green Party of England and Wales and in 2007 was selected as prospective Parliamentary candidate in the constituency of Oxford East, but in December 2009 he stood down due to brain damage acquired mainly during protests, as well as from a bus accident. Since 2011, he has been Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation. He has taken part in over 30 debates at the Oxford Union, encompassing a wide range of issues such as patriotism, Thatcherism and university safe spaces.
Early life
Tatchell was born in Melbourne, Australia. His father was a lathe operator and his mother worked in a biscuit factory. His parents divorced when he was four and his mother remarried soon afterwards. He had a half sister and brothers.
Since the family finances were strained by medical bills, he had to leave school at 16 in 1968. He started work as a sign-writer and window-dresser in department stores. Tatchell claims to have incorporated the theatricality of these displays into his activism.
Raised as a Christian, Tatchell says that he "ditched faith a long time ago" and is an atheist. It has been wrongly reported that Tatchell is a vegan; however, Tatchell himself has stated that although he eats no meat, he does eat eggs, cheese, and, according to Richard Fairbrass, wild salmon, meaning Tatchell is a pescetarian.
He became interested in outdoor adventurous activities such as surfing and mountain climbing. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions about how insurance and legal risks were making British teachers reluctant to take pupils on outdoor adventures, he said outdoor activities helped him develop the courage to take political risks in adult life.
Campaigns in Australia
Tatchell's political activity began at Mount Waverley Secondary College, where in 1967 he launched campaigns in support of Australia's Aboriginal people. Tatchell was elected secretary of the school's Student Representative Council. In his final year in 1968, as school captain, he took the lead in setting up a scholarship scheme for Aboriginal people and led a campaign for Aboriginal land rights. These activities led the headmaster to claim he had been manipulated by communists.
Prompted by the impending hanging of Ronald Ryan in 1967, a 15-year old Tatchell protested against the use of the death sentence, writing to the press and spraying graffiti to raise awareness of the issue. Ryan was convicted of killing a prison warder while escaping from Pentridge Prison in Coburg, Victoria. Tatchell wrote that the trajectory of the bullet through the warder's body made it unlikely that Ryan could have fired the fatal shot, casting doubt on the conviction. His protests were unsuccessful.
In 1968, Tatchell began campaigning against the American and Australian involvement in the Vietnam War, in his view a war of aggression in support of a "brutal and corrupt dictatorship" responsible for torture and executions. The Victoria state government and Melbourne city council attempted to suppress the anti-Vietnam War campaign by banning street leafleting and taking police action against anti-war demonstrations.
In 2004, he proposed the renaming of Australian capital cities with their Aboriginal place names.
Gay Liberation Front
To avoid conscription into the Australian Army, Tatchell moved to London in 1971. He had opened up about being gay in 1969, and in London became a leading member of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) until its 1974 collapse. During this time Tatchell was prominent in organising sit-ins at pubs that refused to serve "poofs" and protests against police harassment and the medical classification of homosexuality as an illness. With others, he helped organise Britain's first Gay Pride march in 1972.
In 1973, he attended the 10th World Youth Festival in East Berlin on GLF's behalf. His plans to protest at the festival were not well received by either the British delegation or the GDR hosts, but he was eventually allowed to give a speech at Humboldt University. His lecture was subject to various disruptions; it ended in his denunciation as a "troublemaker" by a member of the audience. The following day, Tatchell attempted to hand out leaflets at a concert, an official of the Free German Youth objected and encouraged fellow concert-goers to destroy the leaflets. Tatchell intended to carry a placard advocating gay rights at the closing rally of the festival. The British delegation incorrectly translated the placard to read "East Germany persecutes homosexuals"; this was put to a vote and the majority decided the placard was not acceptable. Yet, in defiance of the collective decision, Tatchell carried the placard anyway and was then beaten. The placard was torn in half.
Tatchell later claimed that this was the first time gay liberation politics were publicly disseminated and discussed in a communist country, although he noted that, in terms of decriminalisation and the age of consent, gay men had greater rights in East Germany at the time than much of the West.
Describing his time in the Gay Liberation Front, he wrote in The Guardian that:
GLF was a glorious, enthusiastic and often chaotic mix of anarchists, hippies, leftwingers, feminists, liberals and counter-culturalists. Despite our differences, we shared a radical idealism—a dream of what the world could and should be—free from not just homophobia but the whole sex-shame culture, which oppressed straights as much as LGBTs. We were sexual liberationists and social revolutionaries, out to turn the world upside down. ... GLF's main aim was never equality within the status quo. ... GLF's strategy for queer emancipation was to change society's values and norms, rather than adapt to them. We sought a cultural revolution to overturn centuries of male heterosexual domination and thereby free both queers and women. ... Forty years on, GLF's gender agenda has been partly won. ... Girlish boys and boyish girls don't get victimised as much as in times past. LGBT kids often now come out at the age of 12 or 14. While many are bullied, many others are not. The acceptance of sexual and gender diversity is increasing.
Tatchell collaborated with public artist Martin Firrell to mark the 50th anniversary of the GLF in 2020. The artist's "Still Revolting" series drew on Tatchell's personal recollections of the GLF, quoting Tatchell's 1973 placard "Homosexuals Are Revolting" created by Tatchell for London Gay Pride. The artist's addition of the word 'still' reflects the truth that homosexuality is still regarded as intolerable by some and many LGBT+ people around the world are still struggling for acceptance, security and equality.
Graduation
After taking A levels at evening classes, he attended the Polytechnic of North London (PNL), now part of London Metropolitan University, where he obtained a 2:1 BSc (Hons) in sociology.
At PNL he was a member of the National Union of Students Gay Rights Campaign. On graduating he became a freelance journalist specialising in foreign stories, during which he publicised the Indonesian annexation of West Papua and child labour on British-owned tea farms in Malawi.
Politics
Tatchell popularised the phrase "sexual apartheid" to describe the separate laws that long existed for gays and heterosexuals.
Labour candidate for Bermondsey
Main article: 1983 Bermondsey by-electionIn 1978, Tatchell joined the Labour Party and moved to a council flat in Bermondsey, south-east London. At the Bermondsey Constituency Labour Party's (CLP) AGM in February 1980, the left group won control and Tatchell was elected Secretary. When the sitting Labour Member of Parliament (MP), Bob Mellish, retired in 1981, Tatchell was selected as his successor, despite Arthur Latham, a former MP and former Chairman of the Tribune Group, being considered the favourite. While Militant was cited as the reason for Tatchell's selection, Tatchell disagrees and ascribes his selection to the support of the "older, 'born and bred' working class; the younger professional and intellectual members swung behind Latham".
In an article for a left-wing magazine, Tatchell urged the Labour Party to support direct action campaigning to challenge the Margaret Thatcher-led Tory government, stating "we must look to new more militant forms of extra-parliamentary opposition which involve mass popular participation and challenge the government's right to rule". Social Democratic Party MP James Wellbeloved, arguing the article was anti-Parliamentary, quoted it at Prime Minister's Questions in November 1981. Foot denounced Tatchell, stating that he would not be endorsed as a candidate and a vote at the Labour Party National Executive Committee denied Tatchell's endorsement. However, the Bermondsey Labour Party continued to support him and it was eventually agreed that when the selection was rerun, Tatchell would be eligible, and he duly won. When Mellish resigned from Parliament and triggered a by-election, Tatchell's candidacy was endorsed, and the ensuing campaign was regarded as one of the most homophobic in modern British history.
Tatchell was assaulted in the street, had his flat attacked, and had a death threat and a live bullet put through his letterbox in the night. Although the Bermondsey seat had long been a Labour stronghold, the Liberal candidate, Simon Hughes, won the election. During the campaign, Liberal canvassers were accused of stirring up homophobia on the doorsteps. Male Liberal workers campaigned wearing lapel badges with the words, "I've been kissed by Peter Tatchell" following the suggestion that he was attempting to hide his sexuality; this campaign was criticised by Roy Hattersley at a Labour news conference. One of Hughes' campaign leaflets claimed the election was "a straight choice" between Liberal and Labour. Hughes has since apologised for what may have been seen as an inadvertent slur and later came out as bisexual in 2006.
Democratic Defence
Tatchell published the book Democratic Defence in 1985. In it, he outlined his suggestions for a defence policy for the United Kingdom after it underwent nuclear disarmament. Tatchell argued that Britain's military was primarily organised on a strategy of basing troops abroad rather than defending Britain itself from outside attacks, which he claimed was a legacy of the British Empire.
Citing the difficulties that the British Army was facing in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, he argued that their current methods had proven ineffective against guerrilla warfare, along with arguing for UK military personnel to be allowed to join trade unions and political parties, and to end strict adherence to "petty regulations". He praised the Second World War-era British Home Guard as an example of a "citizens' army", as well as the armed forces of Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia as positive examples for the UK military to emulate.
In the book, Tatchell also argued for a British withdrawal from NATO and for the establishment of a European Self-Defence Organisation, independent of both the United States, as he felt that Europe had become too dependent on their military protection, and the Soviet Union, which he condemned for their invasions of Czechoslovakia and of Afghanistan, as well its internal repression. He quoted with approval Enoch Powell's argument that the threat from the Soviet Union to Britain was greatly exaggerated. The book was reviewed by the Times Literary Supplement in May 1985.
Green Party
In February 2000, Tatchell resigned from Labour, citing the treatment of Ken Livingstone during the nomination of a candidate for Mayor of London, and of similar cases in the Scottish and Welsh elections, as evidence that the party "no longer has any mechanism for democratic involvement and transformation". He fought unsuccessfully for a seat on the London Assembly as an Independent candidate within the Green Left grouping, in support of Livingstone.
On 7 April 2004, he joined the Green Party of England and Wales but did not envisage standing for election. However, in 2007, he became the party's parliamentary candidate for Oxford East. On 16 December 2009, he withdrew as a candidate claiming brain damage he says was caused by a bus accident as well as damage inflicted by Mugabe's bodyguards when Tatchell attempted to arrest him in 2001 in Brussels, and by neo-Nazis in Moscow.
Tatchell opposes nuclear power; instead he advocates concentrated solar power.
In Tribune, he pointed out the adverse effects of climate change: "By 2050, if climate change proceeds unchecked, England will no longer be a green and pleasant land. In between periods of prolonged scorching drought, we are likely to suffer widespread flooding."
For many years, he supported a green–red alliance. More recently, he helped launch the Green Left grouping within the Green Party. He urged links between trade unions and the Greens. On 27 April 2010, he urged Green Party supporters to vote for Liberal Democrats in constituencies where they had an incumbent MP or a strong chance of winning.
In August 2021, Tatchell endorsed Tamsin Omond and Amelia Womack in the 2021 Green Party of England and Wales leadership election.
Iraq War
Tatchell opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent occupation of Iraqi territory by Coalition forces. For nearly three decades, he had supported the Iraqi Left Opposition, an organization opposed to the government of Saddam Hussein due to human rights violations that Hussein had committed against democrats, left-wingers, trade unionists, Shia Muslims and the Kurdish people, and because under Saddam's dictatorship there were no opportunities for peaceful, democratic change. He advocated military and financial aid to opponents of the Saddam government, suggesting that anti-Saddam organisations be given "tanks, helicopter gun-ships, fighter planes, heavy artillery and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles". While opposing western intervention, he advocated regime change from within in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria. Tatchell has written that on 12 March 2003 he ambushed Tony Blair's motorcade in an anti-Iraq war protest. He forced Blair's limousine to stop, and then unfolded a banner that read "Arm the Kurds! Topple Saddam". He added that in terms of the political struggle within Britain (as opposed to struggles against absolute tyrants like Hitler and Saddam, where violent resistance can be the lesser of two evils): "I remain committed to the Gandhian principle of non-violence". After the war he signed the 'Unite Against Terror' declaration, arguing that "the pseudo-left reveals its shameless hypocrisy and its wholesale abandonment of humanitarian values" by supporting resistance and insurgent groups in Iraq that resort to indiscriminate terrorism, killing innocent civilians.
In 2003, Tatchell said he supported giving "massive material aid" to Iraqi opposition groups, including the "Shi'ite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq" (SCIRI), to bring down Saddam. But in 2006 Tatchell noted that SCIRI had become markedly more fundamentalist and was endorsing violent attacks on anyone who did not conform to its increasingly harsh interpretation of Islam. He claimed that SCIRI, the leading force in Baghdad's ruling coalition, wanted to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship, with a goal of clerical fascism, and had engaged in "terrorisation of gay Iraqis", as well as terrorising Sunni Muslims, left-wingers, unveiled women and people who listen to western pop music or wear jeans or shorts.
In September 2014, Tatchell advocated arming the Kurdistan Workers' Party to fight against ISIS, and argued that the US and EU had been wrong to designate it as a terrorist organisation.
Syrian civil war
A previous supporter of the Stop the War Coalition, Tatchell and many other public personalities expressed concern with the coalition's allegedly unduly favourable view of Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria, and has called for the Labour leader and former Stop the War Chair Jeremy Corbyn not to attend the Coalition's Christmas fundraiser 2015. In December 2016, Tatchell and others disrupted Corbyn's speech on human rights on the basis that the Labour leader had responded insufficiently to the bombing of Aleppo and urged him to condemn Russian military intervention in Syria.
On 14 February 2015, Tatchell was one of a number of signatories to a letter criticising the trend in the National Union of Students to apply a No Platform policy to feminists who criticised the sex industry or challenged demands made by certain groups of trans people. In particular, the letter cited the denial of a platform to Kate Smurthwaite at Goldsmiths College and to Germaine Greer at the University of Cambridge.
Tatchell received death threats after signing the letter. He later stated that he would have worded the letter differently to clarify that he supported the human rights of trans people and sex workers, but that he had signed the letter nonetheless because he believed in the message of free speech on campuses. He said that the initial draft that he signed contained the sentence "Some of us have disagreements with the views expressed ", and that he was "not happy" that this was cut out of the final letter.
On 13 February 2016, Fran Cowling, the national LGBT representative for the NUS, refused to share a platform with Tatchell at Canterbury Christ Church University to discuss the topic of "re-radicalising queers". Cowling said that Tatchell supported speakers who are "openly transphobic and incite violence" against transgender people, and also that Tatchell had used "racist language". Tatchell responded that no evidence could be produced to support either claim, and that Cowling had never consulted the NUS membership before deciding to make pronouncements on their behalf, and said, "This sorry, sad saga is symptomatic of the decline of free and open debate on some university campuses. There is a witch-hunting, accusatory atmosphere. Allegations are made without evidence to back them—or worse, they are made citing false, trumped-up evidence."
Campaigning
Peter Tatchell has campaigned for many civil rights issues, including protests against repression, racism, homophobia, censorship and the death penalty. As a result of his protests and campaigning, Tatchell has been attacked more than 300 times, has had a live bullet through his door and has survived two stabbing attempts (all as of 2009). He was beaten unconscious by Robert Mugabe's bodyguards in Brussels and far-right protestors in Moscow left him with permanently blurred vision in his right eye. He suffers memory loss, concentration issues and problems with balance and coordination as a result.
OutRage!
Tatchell took part in many gay rights campaigns over issues such as Section 28. Following the murder of actor Michael Boothe on 10 May 1990, Tatchell was one of thirty people to attend the inaugural meeting of the radical gay rights non-violent direct action group OutRage!—and although he did not convene this first meeting, he drafted its first Statement of Aims, and has remained a leading member. The group fuses theatrical performance styles with queer protest. As the most prominent OutRage! member, Tatchell is sometimes assumed to be the leader of the group, though he has never claimed this, saying he is one among equals.
In 1991, a small group of OutRage! members covertly formed a separate group to engage in a campaign of outing public figures who were homophobic in public but gay in private. The group took the name FROCS (Faggots Rooting Out Closeted Sexuality). Tatchell was the group's go-between with the press, forwarding their news statements to his media contacts. Considerable publicity and public debate followed FROCS's threat to out 200 leading public personalities from the world of politics, religion, business and sport. With Tatchell's assistance, members of FROCS eventually called a press conference to tell the world that their campaign was a hoax intended to demonstrate the hypocrisy of those newspapers that had condemned the campaign despite having themselves outed celebrities and politicians.
Some OutRage! activities were highly controversial. In 1994, it unveiled placards inviting ten Church of England bishops to "tell the truth" about what Outrage! alleged was their homosexuality and accusing them of condemning homosexuality in public while leading secret gay lives. Shortly afterwards, the group wrote to twenty UK MPs, condemning their alleged support for anti-gay laws and claiming they would out them if the MPs did not stop what they described as attacks on the gay community. The MP Sir James Kilfedder, an opponent of gay equality who received one of the letters, died two months later of a sudden heart attack—on the day one of the Belfast newspapers planned to out him. In a comment in The Independent in October 2003, Tatchell claimed the OutRage! action against the bishops was his greatest mistake because he failed to anticipate that the media and the church would treat it as an invasion of privacy.
On 12 April 1998, Tatchell led an OutRage! protest which disrupted the Easter sermon by George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, with Tatchell mounting the pulpit to denounce what he said was Carey's opposition to legal equality for lesbian and gay people. The protest garnered media coverage and led to Tatchell's prosecution under the little-used Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 (formerly part of the Brawling Act 1551), which prohibits any form of disruption or protest in a church. Tatchell failed in his attempt to summon Carey as a witness and was convicted. The judge fined him the trivial sum of £18.60, which commentators theorised was a wry allusion to the year of the statute used to convict him.
The LGBT press dubbed him "Saint Peter Tatchell" following further OutRage! campaigns involving religion.
A number of African LGBTI leaders signed a statement condemning the involvement of Tatchell and OutRage! in African issues, which led Tatchell to respond that he favoured working with the radical LGBTI groups in Africa rather than the more conservative (according to him) leaders who had signed the statement. Tatchell and OutRage! published a refutation of the allegations.
OutRage!'s protest against Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, who supported the idea of genetic engineering to eliminate homosexuality, led to accusations that Tatchell was antisemitic, following OutRage!'s leaflets citing the similarity of Jakobovits ideas for the eradication of homosexuality to those of Heinrich Himmler were distributed outside the Western and Marble Arch Synagogue on Rosh Hashanah in September 1993.
Rabbi Dame Julia Neuberger, who had campaigned for gay rights, said, "Drawing a comparison between Lord Jakobovits and Himmler is offensive, racist and makes OutRage appear antisemitic". She stated that the action and leaflet would "alienate Jews who are sympathetic to gay rights".
Stop Murder Music campaign
Main article: Stop Murder MusicTatchell has said that a number of Afro-Caribbean artists produce music that glorifies murder of homosexual men, and incites violence against homosexuals. He argued that British laws against incitement to violence were not being enforced on foreign artists performing in the UK. He also organised protests outside the concerts of singers, mainly Jamaican dancehall and ragga artists, who he says glorify violence toward lesbians and gay men, including murder. Tatchell's campaign began in 1992 when Buju Banton's song "Boom bye-bye" was released. He has picketed the MOBO Awards ceremony to protest at their inviting performers of what he terms "murder music".
Tatchell argues that murder is not legal in Jamaica, and glorification of murder is not a legitimate form of Afro-Caribbean culture. In response, Tatchell received death threats and was labelled racist. He defended himself by noting that the campaign was at the behest of the Jamaican gay rights group J-Flag, and the UK-based Black Gay Men's Advisory Group, with which he works closely. He pointed to what he described as his life's work campaigning against racism and apartheid, and stated that his campaigns against "murder music" and state-sanctioned homophobic violence in Jamaica were endorsed by many black gay rights activists and by many straight human rights activists in Jamaica (male homosexuality remains illegal in Jamaica). The campaign has had positive effects, with seven of eight original murder music singers signing the Reggae Compassion Act, which says that signatories will not "make statements or perform songs" that incite hatred or violence.
Members of the Rastafari movement accused Tatchell of racism and extremism, saying, "He has gone over way over the top. It's simply racist to put Hitler and Sizzla in the same bracket and just shows how far he is prepared to go." Tatchell denies equating Sizzla with Hitler.
UK campaigning
LGBT equality legislation
In 2006, Peter Tatchell opposed the appointment of Ruth Kelly as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government as Kelly had not supported equal treatment of lesbians and gay men in any parliamentary votes. Tatchell said "her appointment suggests the government does not take lesbian and gay rights seriously", adding "Tony Blair would never appoint someone to a race-equality post who had a lukewarm record of opposing racism".
Age of consent legislation
In 1996, Tatchell led an OutRage! campaign to reduce the age of consent in the UK to 14 years (as per Romeo and Juliet laws), to adjust for studies that showed nearly half of all young people had their first sexual experiences prior to 16 years old, regardless of sexuality. He stated that he wished to exempt these people from being "treated as criminals by the law", and that there should be no prosecution if the difference in ages of the sexual partners was no more than three years, provided that these youths were consenting and were given a more comprehensive sex education at a younger date. He was quoted in the OutRage!'s press release as saying, "Young people have a right to accept or reject sex, according to what they feel is appropriate for them".
In 1997, Tatchell wrote a letter to The Guardian defending an academic book about "boy-love" against what he has said was "censorship". The letter said that it may be "impossible to condone paedophilia" but argued that publishing the book—which featured the work of anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists—was "courageous". Tatchell later said the letter was edited and has explained his views in more detail:
My Guardian letter cited examples of youths in Papuan tribes and some of my friends who, when they were under 16, had sex with adults (over 18s), but who do not feel they were harmed. I was not endorsing their viewpoint but merely stating that they had a different perspective from the mainstream opinion about inter-generational sex. They have every right for their perspective to be heard.
Tatchell has, on several occasions, since reiterated that he does not condone adults having sex with children. On his personal website, under the subsection Age of Consent, he writes:
My articles urging an age of consent of 14 are motivated solely by a desire to reduce the criminalisation of under-16s who have consenting relationships with other young people of similar ages. I do not support adults having sex with children. I do not advocate teenagers having sex before the age of 16. But if they do have sex before their 16th birthday, they should not be arrested, given a criminal record and put on the sex offenders register.
On 10 March 2008, in the Irish Independent, he repeated his call for a lower age of consent to end the criminalisation of young people engaged in consenting sex and to remove the legal obstacles to upfront sex education, condom provision and safer sex advice.
In 2012, in an article responding to claims about his views on the age of consent, he pointed to an interview he conducted in the late 1990s on the subject of paedophilia and child prostitution. In the interview, he interviewed a 14-year-old boy (under the pseudonym "Lee") who had had sex with older men, in some cases for money. In this interview, Tatchell makes various counterarguments against Lee's point of view, such as: "How can a young child understand sex and give meaningful consent?", "Perhaps your friends were particularly mature for their age. Most young people are not so sophisticated about sex", "Many people worry that the power imbalance in a relationship between a youth and an adult means the younger person can be easily manipulated and exploited", "Many people fear that making sex easier for under-age teenagers will expose them to dangers like HIV. Isn't that a legitimate worry?"
In July 2021, in an article by Hayley Dixon, Melanie Newman and Julie Bindel for the Daily Telegraph, it emerged that a positive review of the pro-paedophilia book Betrayal of Youth, attributed to Peter Tatchell, had appeared in the June 1987 edition of 7 Days, the newsletter of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Tatchell said he hadn't read the book at the time and that a colleague wrote the review for him. He apologised for the review and said it did not reflect his views.
Following the publication of a photo of Tatchell alongside the Irish Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O'Gorman, on Twitter, at a Pride event, O'Gorman issued a statement outlining that the apparent views in Tatchell's letter—written 23 years ago, when O'Gorman was just 15—were "abhorrent" to him, and that he appreciated that Tatchell had since clarified his own position.
Anti-pornography laws
In 1998 and 2008, he supported relaxation of the then strict laws against pornography, arguing that pornography can have some social benefits, and he has criticised what he calls the body-shaming phobia against nudism, suggesting that nudity may be natural and healthy for society.
Civil partnerships
Tatchell has pledged his support for opposite-sex couples to be allowed to have civil partnerships, stating that some opposite-sex couples dislike the "sexist, homophobic history of marriage", and allowing them into civil partnerships "is simply a matter of equality".
Writing for PinkNews, he said:
David Cameron has betrayed the principle of equality by refusing to allow opposite-sex couples to have a civil partnership. His government is maintaining legal discrimination against straight partners. ... Not everyone wants to get married, given that marriage has a long sexist and homophobic history. ... Some LGBT and straight people don't like the sexist, homophobic traditions of marriage. They'd prefer a civil partnership; believing it to be more equal and without the historical baggage that goes with matrimony. They should have the choice of a civil partnership if they wish. Marriage should not be the only option. Couples should not be forced to marry to get legal recognition and rights. They should have the alternative option of a civil partnership.
In June 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships was in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights. The government, headed by Theresa May, announced it would change the law in October 2018. On 2 December 2019, the law came into effect in England and Wales, although the law was not extended to Northern Ireland until 13 January 2020. The Scottish Parliament enacted its own law to the same effect on 1 June 2021.
International campaigning
Australia
While still at school, Tatchell campaigned in favour of better treatment of, and full human rights for, Aboriginal Australians. He has said that Australian cities should be renamed with their original Aboriginal place names. For example, the Tasmanian capital Hobart would be renamed Nibberluna. Tatchell said this would be a fitting tribute to Australia's Aboriginal heritage, which he said has been discarded and disrespected for too long.
Balochistan
Since 2006, he expressed concern for the Baloch people facing military operations in their homeland, Balochistan in Pakistan. From 2007 to 2009, he campaigned in defence of two UK-based Baloch Muslim human rights activists, Hyrbyair Marri and Faiz Baluch, accused of terrorism charges and tried in London. Both men were acquitted in 2009. He alleged collusion by the British and U.S. governments in regards to the suppression of the Balochs, including arms sales to Pakistan, which he says were used to bomb and attack Baloch towns and villages.
Gaza and the West Bank
In May 2004, he and a dozen other lesbians and gay men from OutRage! and the Queer Youth Network joined a London demonstration organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Their placards read: "Israel: stop persecuting Palestine! Palestine: stop persecuting queers!" Tatchell says that others present accused him of being a Mossad agent sent to disrupt the march, of being a racist or a Zionist, of being a supporter of Ariel Sharon, and of being an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency or MI5. Tatchell has written a number of articles in The Guardian on the issue.
Iran
Tatchell is a critic of Iran's criminal code, which has parts based on sharia and which prescribes punishments for zina offenses, including consensual sexual relations between same-sex partners.
In 2005, Iran executed two teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, aged 16 and 18, who were accused of raping a 13-year-old boy at knifepoint. Tatchell said that Iran has a history of arresting political activists on false charges and extracting false confessions from death penalty convicts, and declared that he believed the original crime was consensual sex between the two, which is illegal in Iran.
Tatchell reiterated his long-standing view that Iran is an "Islamo-fascist state". He said that information from Iranian exile groups with contacts inside Iran was that the teenagers were at a secret gay party before they were arrested. International human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch preferred campaigners to focus on Iran violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child (which forbids the execution of juveniles) rather than the allegation of consensual sex.
Israel
In 2006, Israel's hosting of WorldPride in Jerusalem was criticised by Israeli religious groups. The event was welcomed by LGBT groups such as Jerusalem Open House (JOH), a local advocacy organisation which supports the rights of both Israeli and Palestinian LGBT people, and by OutRage! in the UK. Tatchell issued a statement on behalf of the latter, in which he said that OutRage! opposed a boycott of WorldPride Jerusalem because holding the event would be a "huge defeat for the Christian, Judaist and Muslim fundamentalists who want it banned and who believe lesbian and gay people should be jailed, flogged or executed".
In a 2009 article for The Guardian, Tatchell condemned what he described as "disproportionate" and "reckless" attacks by the Israeli military on Gaza, but also argued that Western liberals and progressives should not support Hamas which he described as an Islamist group that represses Palestinians.
In 2011, he opposed the International LGBTQI Youth and Student Organisation's (IGLYO) plan to hold its general assembly in Tel Aviv that December. While noting the progressive attitude to LGBT people in the country, he said the decision was "divisive, exclusionist, mistaken and regrettable", and could "inflame homophobia" in the region by giving Arab states the view that LGBT people supported the Israeli government. He urged the IGLYO and the Israeli Gay Youth movement to protest the occupation of Palestine just as LGBT activists had protested against South African apartheid previously.
Mozmabique and Guinea-Bissau
Upon moving to London in 1971, Tatchell was active in solidarity work with the independence movements in Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau.
People's Republic of China
Further information: 2008 Summer Olympics torch relayIn April 2008, Tatchell attempted to disrupt the procession of the Olympic torch though London. As a protest against China's human rights record, he stood in front of the bus carrying the torch along Oxford Street while carrying a placard calling on Beijing to "Free Tibet, Free Hu Jia" (the name of a recently jailed human rights activist). Tatchell was taken away by police but was not charged. In an interview Tatchell called on the world to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympics, or to take other visible action.
Russia
Tatchell has written articles condemning the Russian anti-LGBT propaganda law. In 2014, Tatchell protested Valery Gergiev's support for Vladimir Putin.
Tatchell protested the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi over the gay rights stance of Russia, comparing the event to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Tatchell was arrested at the Moscow Pride parade in 2011 amid a spate of anti-LGBT violence by neo-Nazis.
Mayor of Moscow
In February 2007, the Mayor of Moscow, Yury Luzhkov, visited London mayor Ken Livingstone for an annual meeting that also involved the Mayors of Berlin and Paris, with the mayor of Beijing present as well. Nikolay Alexeyev, one of the organizers of the Moscow gay pride parade, joined Tatchell in protesting the visit. A notice of the protest quoted Talgat Tadzhuddin saying that the Moscow pride marchers should be flogged.
Livingstone asserted that he supported LGBT rights, and said, "In Moscow the Russian Orthodox church, the chief rabbi and the grand Mufti all supported the ban on the Gay Pride march with the main role, due to its great weight in society, being played by the Orthodox church. The attempt of Mr Tatchell to focus attention on the role of the grand Mufti in Moscow, in the face of numerous attacks on gay rights in Eastern Europe, which overwhelmingly come from right-wing Christian and secular currents, is a clear example of an Islamophobic campaign."
In response, Tatchell said that Livingstone's remarks were "dishonest, despicable nonsense", adding, "The Grand Mufti was not singled out". He further said the Mayor had brought his "office into disrepute" and "has revealed himself to be a person without principles, honesty or integrity."
Moscow Pride
In May 2006, Tatchell attended the first Moscow Pride Festival. He appears in the documentary Moscow Pride '06 featuring this event.
In May 2007, Tatchell returned to Moscow to support Moscow Pride and to voice his opposition to a ban on the march, staying at the flat of an American diplomat. On 27 May 2007, Tatchell and other gay rights activists were attacked. He was punched in the face and nearly knocked unconscious, while other demonstrators were beaten, kicked and assaulted. A German MP, Volker Beck, and a European Parliament deputy from Italy, Marco Cappato, were also punched before being arrested and questioned by police. Tatchell later said "I'm not deterred one iota from coming back to protest in Moscow." On his release, Tatchell made a report on the incident to the American Embassy.
Moscow protest against Yuri Luzkhov
On 16 May 2009, the day of the final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, Russian gay rights activists staged a protest in Moscow in defiance of the city's mayor, Yuri Luzkhov, who had long banned gay demonstrations and denounced them as "satanic". Tatchell was among 32 campaigners arrested when they shouted slogans and unfurled banners.
South Africa
Tatchell has been involved in anti-apartheid activism since the late 1960s, when he was a teenager. In an essay for the book Sex and Politics in South Africa, he describes how his lobbying of the ANC and Thabo Mbeki in 1987 contributed to it renouncing homophobia and making its first public commitment to gay and lesbian human rights. In 1989 and 1990, he and others helped persuade the ANC to include a ban on anti-gay discrimination in the post-apartheid constitution. He assisted in drafting model clauses for what became Section Nine.
In January 2005, after Tatchell was named as one of the UK's three most "hate filled bigots" in the Desi Xpress newspaper, Aaron Saeed, Muslim Affairs spokesperson for the gay human rights group OutRage!, pointed out that Tatchell had, by that point, been involved in the anti-apartheid movement for over 20 years and had campaigned against racism for 35 years.
Vietnam and Cambodia
Tatchell participated in the mass Vietnam Moratorium protests in Melbourne in 1970. The same year, Tatchell founded and was elected secretary of the inter-denominational anti-war movement, Christians for Peace.
In 2002, he brought an unsuccessful legal action in Bow Street Magistrate's Court for the arrest of the former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, on charges of war crimes in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Zimbabwe
Part of Tatchell's political activism and journalism in the 1970s involved the Rhodesian Bush War, in which he supported the black nationalist movement, including the Zimbabwe African National Union and its military wing. He even sent medical kits to the black nationalists, who were otherwise unable to get the right to vote or other equal rights from the white government at the time. But he became disenchanted with Robert Mugabe's regime and by the 1990s, Zimbabwean activists had contacted him for support in highlighting Mugabe's increasing human rights abuses. After Mugabe denounced male homosexuality in 1995, Tatchell helped organise a high profile protest for LGBT rights in Zimbabwe outside the Zimbabwe High Commission in London.
Two years later, he passed through police security disguised as a TV cameraman to quiz Mugabe during the "Africa at 40" conference at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster. Mugabe told him that allegations of human rights abuses were grossly exaggerated; he reportedly spat out his tea when Tatchell told him that he was gay. Mugabe's minders then summoned Special Branch guards, who ejected Tatchell. On 26 October 1997, a letter from Tatchell to The Observer argued that the United Kingdom should suspend aid to Zimbabwe because of its violence against LGBT people.
Tatchell researched the Gukurahundi attacks in Matabeleland in the 1980s, when the Zimbabwean Fifth Brigade attacked supporters of the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union. He said that Mugabe had broken international human rights law during the attack, which is estimated to have involved the massacre of around 20,000 civilians. Then in 1999, journalists Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto were tortured by the Zimbabwe Army.
Tatchell said that the arrest of Augusto Pinochet in London had set a precedent that human rights violations could be pursued against a head of state, thanks to the principle of universal jurisdiction. On 30 October 1999, Tatchell and three other OutRage! activists approached Mugabe's car in a London street and attempted to perform a citizen's arrest. Tatchell opened the car door and apprehended Mugabe; he then called the police. The four OutRage! activists were arrested, on charges including criminal damage, assault and breach of the peace; charges were dropped on the opening day of their trial. Mugabe responded by describing Tatchell and his OutRage! colleagues as "gay gangsters"—a slogan frequently repeated by his supporters—and claimed they had been sent by the United Kingdom government.
On 5 March 2001, when Mugabe visited Brussels, Tatchell again attempted a citizen's arrest. Mugabe's bodyguards were seen knocking him to the floor. Later that day, Tatchell was briefly knocked unconscious by Mugabe's bodyguards and was left with permanent damage to his right eye. The protest drew worldwide headlines, as Mugabe was highly unpopular in the Western world for his land redistribution policy. Tatchell's actions were praised by Zimbabwean activists and many of the newspapers that had previously denounced him. Police, however, warned Tatchell that he could be the victim of an assassination attempt.
Tatchell ultimately failed in his attempt to secure an international arrest warrant against Mugabe on torture charges. The magistrate argued that Mugabe had immunity from prosecution as a serving head of state.
In late 2003, Tatchell acted as a press spokesman for the launch of the Zimbabwe Freedom Movement (ZFM), which claimed to be a clandestine group within Zimbabwe committed to overthrowing the Mugabe government by force. The civic action support group Sokwanele urged Tatchell to check his sources, speculating that the group might have been set up by the Zimbabwe government to justify violent action. This speculation proved to be unfounded; the Mugabe regime initially dismissed the ZFM as a hoax before claiming it was an effort orchestrated by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. However, two Central Intelligence Organization members were spotted and turned away from the ZFM launch, as shown in the film Peter Tatchell: Just who does he think he is? by Max Barber.
Social issues
Animal rights
Tatchell is an active supporter of animal rights, saying "human rights and animal rights are two aspects of the same struggle against injustice", and that he advocates for a "claim to be spared suffering and offered inalienable rights" for both humans and animals.
Cornwall
Tatchell campaigned on the issue of the constitutional status of Cornwall. In November 2008, The Guardian carried an article by him entitled "Self-rule for Cornwall," in which he said:
Like Wales and Scotland, Cornwall considers itself a separate Celtic nation—so why shouldn't it have independence? Nationalists argue that Cornwall is a subjugated nation, in much the same way that Scotland and Wales once were. Not only is the historic Cornish flag—a white cross on a black background—excluded from the Union Jack; until not so long ago Cornish people needed planning permission to fly it. Comparisons with Scotland and Wales are valid. After all, Cornwall has all the basic cultural attributes of a nation: its own distinct Celtic language, history, festivals, cuisine, music, dance and sports. Many Cornish people perceive themselves to be other than English. Despite the government's resistance, under Commission for Racial Equality and Council of Europe guidelines, they qualify for recognition as a national minority. Cornwall was once separate and self-governing. If the Cornish people want autonomy and it would improve their lives, why shouldn't they have self-rule once again? Malta, with only 400,000 people, is an independent state within the EU. Why not Cornwall?
This article received the largest number of comments to any Guardian article, according to This Is Cornwall. Over 1,500 comments were made, and while some comments were supportive, Tatchell found himself "shocked and disgusted" by the anti-Cornish sentiment shown by many commenters.
Environmental issues
For over 20 years, Tatchell has written and campaigned about environmental problems including global warming and resource depletion, pointing out that they often have a disproportionately negative impact on developing countries. In the late 1980s, he was co-organiser of the Green and Socialist Conferences, which sought to ally reds and greens. He championed energy conservation and renewable energy; in particular tidal, wave and concentrated solar power. On 24 May 2009, he appeared on the BBC Daily Politics programme to oppose the Elephant and Castle regeneration scheme, which he said would bring few benefits to local working-class people. However, most of his campaigning continues to be in the areas of human rights and "queer emancipation".
In August 2008 Tatchell wrote about speculative theories concerning possible atmospheric oxygen depletion compared to prehistoric levels, and called for further investigation to test such claims and, if proven, their long-term consequences.
Free speech
In 2006, during the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Tatchell spoke at a 25 March 2006 rally called the Freedom of Expression Rally.
In 2007, he wrote an opinion piece in The Guardian saying, "The best way to tackle prejudice is by presenting facts and using reasoned arguments, to break down ignorance and ill-will." In 2016, Tatchell chose threats to free speech in Britain as the topic of his British Humanist Association annual conference lecture. Speaking with reference to a number of censorship controversies in the 2010s, he said that "the recent trend against freedom of speech means that we must fight the battles of the Enlightenment all over again."
In 2015, because of his stance on free speech, Tatchell signed an open letter denouncing no-platforming policies in some universities. This resulted in the National Union of Students' LGBT representative, Fran Cowling, refusing to appear alongside him at a discussion at Canterbury Christ Church University. Cowling cited what she saw as the letter's endorsement of transphobic campaigners. Tatchell has said that although he "totally disagreed" with anti-trans activists, he supported their right to free speech and felt it was better to debate them than silence them.
However, in 2018, Tatchell voiced his support for Mark Meechan's conviction under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 for posting a "grossly offensive" video on YouTube.
Multiculturalism and cultural relativism
Tatchell has said he is committed to "multiculturalism and the right to be different". In a 2009 lecture at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Tatchell said:
A good, beneficial multicultural society is one in which everyone has the freedom to pursue their own different ethics and lifestyles, while in the public sphere all citizens are treated as equals and are bound together by a shared commitment to universal human rights, regardless of the differences in their personal morality and private lives. I do not, for example, insist that people of faith approve of homosexuality, but I do expect them to not discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation.
Tatchell said that moral and cultural relativism should not be used as an excuse for "collusion with the violation of human rights when it comes to issues like women’s rights and incitements to homophobic violence". He also said multiculturalism shouldn't be used to institutionalise discrimination, giving as an example the state funding of religious schools, which he said "factionalises pupils along religious lines". He said that fear of being branded racist or religiously intolerant should not allow dictators and human rights abusers to avoid criticism for their actions.
Religion
Anglican and Catholic churches
Tatchell criticised the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI, whom he described as "the ideological inheritor of Nazi homophobia". Tatchell said of the Pope, "He'd like to eradicate homosexuality, but since he can't put LGBT people in physical concentration camps, is doing his best to put them in psychological concentration camps."
Channel 4 indicated in June 2010 that Tatchell would be the presenter of a documentary film examining "the current Pope's teachings throughout the world". The plans sparked criticism from some prominent British Catholics including Conservative politician Ann Widdecombe, who accused Channel 4 of trying to "stir up controversy". Tatchell asserted that the documentary "will not be an anti-Catholic programme".
On 15 September 2010, Tatchell, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter, published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom.
With respect to Anglicanism, he stated that "it's very sad to see a good man like the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, going to such extraordinary lengths to appease homophobes within the Anglican Communion".
In 2017, Tatchell praised the Church of England's new "Valuing all God's Children" scheme for schools, which seeks to stop homophobic and transphobic bullying.
Islam
Tatchell has been critical of Islamic extremism and the use of religion to justify discrimination, though he has also said he supports the rights of Muslims and freedom of expression. In 1995, in an article about the risk to LGBT rights from Islamic fundamentalism in Britain, Tatchell wrote that "although not all Muslims are anti-gay, significant numbers are violently homophobic homophobic Muslim voters may be able to influence the outcome of elections in 20 or more marginal constituencies."
Tatchell has also been critical of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims' definition of Islamophobia, which he said is "well-intended but worrisome". He said he prefers the term "anti-Muslim hatred", since it "focuses on the prejudice against Muslim people that undermines their well-being and life chances" rather than on defending Islam as an ideology. He said that the APPG's definition, based on Muslimness, is a vague and subjective term, that it could be used to persecute Muslims themselves, and that it could become "a de facto threat to free speech and liberal values". He said the definition also didn't account for religious sectarianism from Christians and Jews.
Tatchell has described Sharia, the traditional Islamic religious law, as "a clerical form of fascism". He was the keynote speaker at a 2005 protest at the Canadian High Commission, opposing proposals to extend Ontario's arbitration law to cover Sharia. Tatchell said, "It is wrong in principle to create a separate, segregated legal system for Muslims."
In 2017, Tatchell wrote to the organisers of Pride in London to defend the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. In response to calls by the East London Mosque for CEMB to apologise for placards alleging the mosque "incites murder of LGBTs", Tatchell stated "East London Mosque has refused all dialogue with LGBT community. It refuses to meet LGBT Muslims. I have asked them 11 times since 2015".
Tatchell has previously condemned Islamophobia, saying "any form of prejudice, hatred, discrimination or violence against Muslims is wrong. Full stop". He described the Qur'an as "rather mild in its condemnation of homosexuality".
He points out that much of his prison and asylum casework involves supporting Muslim prisoners and asylum seekers—heterosexual as well as LGBT. In 2006, he helped stop the abuse of Muslim prisoners at a Norwich jail and helped secure parole for other Muslim detainees. Half his asylum cases are, he reports, male and female Muslim refugees. Two of his highest-profile campaigns involved Muslim victims—Mohamed S, who was framed by men who first tried to kill him and then jailed him for eight years, and Sid Saeed, who brought a racism and homophobic harassment case against Deutsche Bank.
In February 2010, Women Against Fundamentalism defended Tatchell against allegations of Islamophobia and endorsed his right to challenge all religious fundamentalism: "WAF supports the right of Peter Tatchell and numerous other gay activists to oppose the legitimisation of fundamentalists and other right wing forces on university campuses, by the Left and by the government in its Preventing Violent Extremism strategy and numerous other programmes and platforms".
Muslim Council of Britain
Tatchell had described the Muslim Council of Britain as being "anti-gay", asking how can "they expect to win respect for their community, if at the same time as demanding action against Islamophobia, they themselves demand the legal enforcement of homophobia?". He noted that the MCB had joined forces with the "rightwing Christian Institute" to oppose every gay law reform from 1997 to 2006. In January 2006, the MCB Chairman Iqbal Sacranie said that homosexuals are immoral, harmful and diseased on BBC Radio 4.
Tatchell argued that "Both the Muslim and gay communities suffer prejudice and discrimination. We should stand together to fight Islamophobia and homophobia". Tatchell subsequently criticised Unite Against Fascism for inviting Sacranie to share its platforms, describing him as a "homophobic hate-mongerer."
When the MCB boycotted Holocaust Memorial Day, partly because it was "not sufficiently inclusive", Tatchell wrote that "the only thing that is consistent about the MCB is its opposition to the human rights of lesbians and gay men".
Islam and LGBT rights
See also: LGBT topics and IslamIn 2006, Tatchell wrote an opinion column in The Guardian arguing that Muslims deliberately conflate offence with violence, in an effort to suppress Muslim reformers in Britain. He argued that Islamist groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain see "any criticism of Islam is an insult and that all such insults are unacceptable" in order to suppress the "free exchange of ideas". The Muslim gay rights organisation IMAAN criticised Tatchell, saying, "OutRage! doesn't understand our cultural and religious sensitivities. Often, the way they word and phrase their press releases can and does antagonise Muslims. Much as we’ve invited them to meetings so we can talk about the best way to tackle Muslim LGBT issues, they insist on doing things their way."
In the book "Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality", in a chapter called "Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the 'War on Terror'", Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem wrote, "rather than help, politics such as Tatchell's have worsened the situation for the majority of queer Muslims. It has become increasingly difficult for groups such as the Safra Project, who are forced into the frontline of the artificially constructed gay v. Muslim divide, to contest sexual oppression in Muslim communities. The more homophobia is constructed as belonging to Islam, the more anti-homophobic talk will be viewed as a white, even racist, phenomenon, and the harder it will be to increase tolerance and understanding among straight Muslims The dialogue which Safra and other queer Muslim groups have long sought over this is more often than not ignored or disregarded, and white gay activists such as Tatchell have proved indifferent to the fact that the mud which they sling onto Muslim communities lands on queer Muslims themselves."
Despite previously attending a "rally for free expression", where the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons were celebrated, Tatchell sued the small publisher Raw Nerve Books, who issued an apology, and replaced links to the book on their site with that apology, but were later forced to shut down. The Monthly Review described this as censorship, adding, "the violent suppression of "Gay Imperialism" and the book in which it appeared also works as a warning to the authors, editors, and other critics and potential critics of Tatchell to better keep their mouths shut."
Yusuf al-Qaradawi
In July 2004, then-Mayor of London Ken Livingstone invited Yusuf al-Qaradawi to attend a talk called "A woman's right to choose" about the wearing of the hijab. Livingstone had read positive coverage of Qaradawi in The Guardian and The Sun.
In October 2004, 2,500 Muslim academics from 23 countries condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving "Islam a bad name and foster hatred among civilizations" and "providing a religious cover for terrorism".
Tatchell argued that Qaradawi expresses liberal positions to deceive the Western press and politicians, while being "rightwing, misogynist, anti-semitic and homophobic", using his books and fatwas to advocate female genital mutilation, blame for rape victims who dress immodestly, and the execution of apostates, homosexuals, and women who have sex outside marriage.
Livingstone issued a 2005 dossier praising Qaradawi as a moderate, based on positive press coverage he had received previously. Livingstone pronounced that Tatchell has "a long history of Islamophobia", and asserted that he is in a "de facto alliance with the American neo-cons and Israeli intelligence services." Tatchell strenuously denied the accusations, pointing out that he has never said any of the things that Livingstone accused him of saying. Livingstone continued to describe Qaradawi as "one of the leading progressive voices in the Muslim world" in 2010, after having been denied entry to the UK for his extremist views.
Two years after condemning Tatchell, Livingstone stated he "probably shouldn't" have called Tatchell an "Islamophobe".
Adam Yosef
In December 2005, Respect Party activist Adam Yosef came under criticism for an article in Desi Xpress opposing registered civil partnerships. He asserted that Tatchell needed "a good slap in the face" and his "queer campaign army" should "pack their bent bags and head back to Australia". Desi Xpress staff expressed regret to Tatchell and gave him a right of reply, while Yosef apologised and retracted his article, claiming the "slap in the face" remark was a "figure of speech" and the remark about Australia was not racist. Yosef later backed Tatchell's 2009 election campaign.
Writing
Tatchell has written numerous articles in newspapers and magazines related to his various campaigns. He was highly critical of the media coverage of the Admiral Duncan pub bombing, claiming than the homophobic attitudes of news outlets had helped fuel the attack, and that the press concerned themselves almost exclusively with the one heterosexual victim, rather than the two other deaths and the dozens of maimed patrons, saying that:
As soon as it became known that not all the victims of the blast were gay, the media suddenly de-gayed its coverage by focusing almost exclusively on the heterosexual victims. The News of the World led with "Pregnant wife killed", and The Sun reassured its readers that "the victims were certainly not all gay". Nik Moore, the gay man who died, was not even mentioned in The Mail on Sunday, and he was relegated to a footnote in The Mirror.
In 1987 Tatchell appeared on the second programme of the first series of After Dark, a discussion on press ethics with, among others, Tony Blackburn, Victoria Gillick, Johnny Edgecombe and a Private Eye journalist.
On 5 August 1995 Tatchell was interviewed at length by Andrew Neil on his one-on-one interview show Is This Your Life?, made by Open Media for Channel 4.
As of 2009, he has been an Ambassador for the penal reform group, Make Justice Work.
In 2011, he became the Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation.
Tatchell is a patron of Humanists UK, an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a committed secularist, saying, "As an atheist, secularist and humanist I believe that reason, science and ethics—not religious superstition—are the best way to understand the world and promote human rights and welfare."
He contributes to The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2.
Opposition to child sexual assault
In 2011, Tatchell wrote an obituary in The Independent for Scottish gay rights activist Ian Dunn, unaware that he had been a founder of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) in 1974. On subsequently learning of Dunn's paedophile activism, Tatchell recanted his tribute:
Neither I nor most other people had any knowledge of link with at the time. I only found out many years after I wrote his obituary. I would not have written it if I had known about his PIE work.
In a 2020 interview with the Irish Gript Media news network, Tatchell further denounced PIE as "disgusting":
I condemn without reservation child sex abuse, the rape of children and adults having sex with kids. It is abhorrent, totally wrong and unacceptable. The perpetrators should be jailed. I have never condoned paedophilia. There are no circumstances where it is acceptable for adults to have sex with children.
In line with his comments about cultural relativism, Tatchell has said,
I reiterate my view that sexual relations with children are despicable and always wrong, even if other people document societies where these relationships are acceptable and deemed positive. They are profoundly mistaken and are colluding with child sex abuse.
Role models
Tatchell chose Malcolm X as his specialist subject when appearing on Celebrity Mastermind, explaining that he considered him an inspiration and a hero (his other inspirations were Mahatma Gandhi, Sylvia Pankhurst and Martin Luther King Jr.). On Malcolm X's birthday in 2005, Tatchell endorsed Bruce Perry's biography of the African American activist in an article calling for black gay role models, outlining the book's reports of X's same-sex relationships and sex work. This led to criticism from Peter Akinti, editor of Black in Britain, who said the article was insulting and reductive; he said it was the wrong time to write about Malcolm X's alleged sex work and that gay black men did not Tatchell's recommendations for role models.
Awards
In 2006, New Statesman readers voted him sixth on their list of "Heroes of our time".
In 2009, he racked up multiple awards. He was named Campaigner of the Year in The Observer Ethical Awards, London Citizen of Sanctuary Award, Shaheed Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti Award (for reporting the Balochistan national liberation struggle), Evening Standard 1000 Most Influential Londoners (winning again in 2011), Liberal Voice of the Year and a Blue Plaque in recognition of his more than 40 years of human rights campaigning.
In 2010 he won Total Politics Top 50 Political Influencers. A diary journalist reported rumours that he had been recommended for the award of a life peerage in the British New Year Honours. He was said to have turned it down.
In 2012, the National Secular Society awarded Tatchell Secularist of the Year, in recognition of his lifelong commitment to the defence of human rights against religious fundamentalism.
On 21 September 2012, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement award at the UK's first National Diversity Awards. Alongside Misha B, Jody Cundy, Peter Norfolk and others he was a patron for 2013 National Diversity Awards.
In January 2014, Tatchell was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by De Montfort University.
Legacy
The Peter Tatchell Papers are held at the London School of Economics in the Hall Carpenter Archive. Supplementary papers are housed at the British Library. The papers can be accessed through the British Library catalogue.
Peter Tatchell Foundation
The Peter Tatchell Foundation (PTF) is a non-profit, nonpartisan organisation based in the United Kingdom which "seeks to promote and protect the human rights of individuals, communities and nations, in the UK and internationally, in accordance with established national and international human rights law" and its stated aims and objectives are "to raise awareness, understanding, protection and implementation of human rights, in the UK and worldwide". Tatchell started the Foundation as a company in 2011, which gained charitable status in 2018. The organisation was named after Tatchell to honour his 50+ years of globally campaigning for human rights. The charity's celebrity patrons include Sir Ian McKellen and Paul O'Grady.
The organisation works with a variety of human rights issues globally, such as homophobia, transphobia, sexism, gender inequality, racism, political freedom, censorship, religious discrimination, unjust detention, freedom of association, capital punishment, asylum and refugees, trade union rights, self-determination of oppressed peoples, torture, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and poverty.
In 2012 the foundation gained funding from The Funding Network for three projects: "Casework & Advice", including adding an "Advice" section to its website; "Equal Love", campaigning on same-sex marriage and opposite-sex civil partnerships; and "Olympic Equality Initiative", working against sexism and homophobia in the Olympic movement.
Bibliography
- Tatchell, Peter (1983). The Battle for Bermondsey. Heretic Books. ISBN 0-946097-10-0.
- Tatchell, Peter (1985). Democratic Defense. Millivres-Prowler Group Ltd. ISBN 0-946097-16-X.
- Tatchell, Peter (1987). AIDS: a Guide to Survival. Gay Men's Press. ISBN 0-85449-067-1.
- Tatchell, Peter (1990). Out in Europe. A guide to lesbian and gay rights in 30 European countries. Channel Four Television. ISBN 1-85144-010-0.
- Tatchell, Peter (1992). Europe in the Pink. Gay Men's Press. ISBN 0-85449-158-9.
- Tatchell, Peter; Taylor, Robert (1994). Safer Sexy: the Guide to Gay Sex Safely. Freedom Editions. ISBN 1-86047-000-9.
- Tatchell, Peter (1995). We Don't Want to March Straight: Masculinity, Queers and the Military. Cassell. ISBN 0-304-33373-5.
Documentary
Tatchell was the subject of the widely-acclaimed Netflix documentary Hating Peter Tatchell.
See also
References
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{{cite web}}
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This extraordinary dedication has protected him in what ought to be, and once was, the solid Labour seat of Southwark Bermondsey. This is the constituency Hughes famously won for the then Liberal-SDP Alliance in a 1983 by-election, a contest described by Gay News as "the dirtiest and most notorious by-election in British political history" because of the slurs on the Labour candidate Peter Tatchell, now better known as the force behind gay rights group Outrage!. During the campaign, some male Liberal workers wore badges reading "I've been kissed by Peter Tatchell" and anonymous leaflets were circulating which asked "which Queen do you support?".
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{{citation}}
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Any of those views would be completely abhorrent to me.
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{{cite news}}
:|last=
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it was The Sun—through its columnists Gary Bushell, Richard Littlejohn and Norman Tebbit—that has for years stirred the very prejudice it now claims to deplore
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Sources
- Lucas, Ian (1998). OutRage!: an oral history. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-33358-1.
- Power, Lisa (1995). No Bath But Plenty of Bubbles: An Oral History Of The Gay Liberation Front 1970-7. Cassell. ISBN 0-304-33205-4.
- Walter, Aubrey (1980). Come together: the years of gay liberation (1970–73). Gay Men's Press. ISBN 0-907040-04-7.
External links
- Official website
- Peter Tatchell on Twitter
- Peter Tatchell Foundation
- Contributor page at The Guardian
- Interview with The Third Estate.
- Archived WAF statement on Tatchell
- Catalogue of the Tatchell papers held at LSE Archives
Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award Recipients | |
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- 1952 births
- Living people
- Activists from Melbourne
- British HIV/AIDS activists
- Alumni of the University of North London
- British anti–Vietnam War activists
- Australian atheists
- Australian human rights activists
- Australian emigrants to England
- Australian socialists
- British atheists
- British humanists
- British human rights activists
- British republicans
- British critics of religions
- Critics of the Catholic Church
- British socialists
- Australian gay politicians
- Gay journalists
- Green Party of England and Wales parliamentary candidates
- Labour Party (UK) parliamentary candidates
- Australian gay writers
- Australian LGBTQ journalists
- Australian LGBTQ rights activists
- Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
- People with traumatic brain injuries
- Anti-apartheid activists
- 20th-century Australian LGBTQ people
- 21st-century Australian LGBTQ people
- 20th-century British LGBTQ people
- 21st-century British LGBTQ people