On Monday the BBC’s flagship arts programme, Front Row, marked the 40th anniversary of the release of The Age of Consent, Bronski Beat’s debut album, on 15th October 1984. Presenter Samira Ahmed talked to Laurie Belgrave, founder and director of the south London queer bar and performance collective, The Chateau, and novelist, Matt Cain, formerly editor of Attitude. How far […]
Category: sexuality
Equal marriage: the time for debate is over — in 2024 we must kick-start progress to shore up hard won rights
When (if ever) is it reasonable to argue that the debate is over? As 2022 ended, this was a question with which I had long grappled. And for me, as a gay man, it is a question which has always been personal and political. As the rallying cry sounded out back in the day, the […]
All we have ever wanted is to live our best lives — Jake Daniels’ courage means many more might do just that
The term ‘breaking news’ has become a byline for shocking news of late. So, when Evan Davies uttered those words towards the end of this afternoon’s PM, I braced myself. Was this to be news of yet further atrocities in Ukraine? I was, as it happens, driving home from a weekly session with my personal […]
Coming Out — an act of repetition — because the personal is still political
TS Eliot died in 1965, four years before the birth of the modern gay liberation movement. What he might have made of being quoted on National Coming Out Day, goodness knows. And yet his words, from the final stanza of part three of East Coker, came to me this morning — as they often do. […]
Attitudes to same-sex relationships – no time to call it a day
An apparent stalling in the pace of liberalisation on attitudes to same-sex relationships and a welter of angry protest about LGBT inclusive education in schools provide a sharp reminder of the need to re-double and re-focus our efforts in the battle for equality. And as we look forward it’s worth looking back. In 1987, my […]
A letter to Toby Young about Pride and ‘woke corporations’
Dear Toby, I read your column in the Spectator, about the notion that Pride has been taken over by ‘woke corporations.’ We’ve never met, and I think if we did, we’d disagree rather a lot. I don’t mind that. But your piece irked me, and I felt I had to respond. Lurking in its midst […]
Inclusive education – the hard lessons from Birmingham
There are some political moments that you keep coming back to. No matter the sands of time. They resonate. Sometimes for the right reasons, but not always. Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the Conservative Party conference on October 9th 1987 is, for me, one such moment. ‘‘Children are being taught they have an inalienable right to […]
The love that dared to speak its name
When I was 12, our English teacher, Mrs Greenwood, asked us to write an extended composition. Our task was to tell a story in three parts — to go wherever our imagination took us and take her, the reader, with us. While other boys wrote tales of adventure and ambition — on the playing field and elsewhere — I wrote about […]
Growing up gay — what we must learn from the tragic death of Jamel Myles
How old were you when you first knew you were straight? If you are straight, I wonder if anyone has ever asked you that question. You may be the exception that proves the rule but I’d hazard a guess they haven’t. Because that’s not how it works. But as the tragic death of Jamel Myles […]
Why marriage is still a thrill one year on
‘I’m still strangely excited about being married.’ Not my words, but those of one of my oldest friends who married his long-term partner just a few weeks ago. Theirs, he said, was not a wedding. Just a signing on the dotted line before they whisked each other away for a few days. When my husband […]