Pride and Prejudice: The Gay 1980s

Simon Garfield, Peter Tatchell and Lisa Power address key gay issues from the 1980s, including the AIDS crisis and Section 28

Simon Garfield -- AIDS at Number 10

How did the great upholder of family values and moral rearmament react to the greatest health crisis of her government? How did the world of anal sex, needle exchanges and infected blood banks play in the corridors of Westminster?

Simon Garfield, journalist and author of The End of Innocence: Britain in the Time of AIDS, relates a story of prejudice, fear, nervous education and some enlightenment.

Peter Tatchell -- The Gay 1980s: From Backlash to Defiance

Writer, broadcaster and gay and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell argues that the early 1980s was a period of queer optimism, with great hopes for advancement. The expected gains were, however, abruptly thwarted by the AIDS pandemic and by government policy, but this only temporarily halted the push for queer freedom.

The homophobic backlash of the 1980s produced a defiance and radicalism that paved the way for all the eventual gains of the last few years.

Lisa Power -- ‘Get off your Arses and March!’: How Section 28 brought lesbians and gay men together

Following on the separatism of the early eighties, first the shock of HIV then the insult of Section 28 encouraged lesbians and gay men to work together in the fight for rights. Faced with a Parliamentary battle over Section 28, the things gay women and men had in common took precedence over the things that separated them. But, like all real families, things didn't always run smoothly...

Lisa Power is Corporate Head of Policy and Public Affairs at Terrence Higgins Trust.

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