Peter Tatchell : “There are only two options: run and hide or stand and fight”


For GayRussia.Ru, the main figure of OutRage! talks of his youth, his fight against homophobia, and his campaign for LGBT rights in Eastern Europe

Project GayRussia.Ru met Peter Tachell, the gay activist from OutRage! For us, he talks about his youth, his activism in the fight against homophobia, his campaign for LGBT rights in Eastern Europe which he started 33 years ago but also Tony Blair’s policy and his private life.

Peter Tatchell: “Yuri Luzhkov’s bigoted attitudes towards gay people are closer to those of Islamist fundamentalists than to the humanitarian values of the European Enlightenment”

With over 37 years of experience and fight in gay activism Peter Tatchell has become a worldwilde known legend. Those who called him "gay terrorist" 10 years ago are now full of compliment of his courage. Some hate him, some idolise him. Some are scared of him, some see in him their unique hope for freedom.

Always ready to fight against homophobia, Peter Tachell devoted his life to gay activism. His courage has no limit. So do his desire to struggle for rights of sexual minorities which made him become an icon of the gay activism. Peter is not scared to come to Moscow for the first Gay Pride. There is nothing new for him. Already 33 years ago, he walked in the streets of East Berlin with a rainbow flag making it the first Gay Pride in the East. A month ago, on March 2nd, he took part to the protest in front of the Russian Consulate in London.

We thank Peter for his courage, his friendship and his eternal support.



Nikolai Alekseev: Peter, you came out at 17 and already at this age, activism was boiling in your blood, can tell us about the start of your fight?

Peter Tatchell: I was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1952, the son of a lathe operator in an engineering factory. I first came out as gay in 1969 at the age of 17, inspired by press reports of the early gay liberation protests in New York. Reading about those protests motivated me to start challenging homophobia. I wanted to help make a difference.

NA: How long have you worked for gay movement? What have changed in situation of gays in the UK during this time?

PT: I have been involved in the campaign for queer freedom for nearly 40 years. When I first started, in the 1960s, male homosexuality was totally illegal and punishable by up to life imprisonment. Same-sex love was defined as a mental illness and queers could be locked up in psychiatric hospitals and given electric shock treatment in a bid to “cure” their homosexuality. All those crimes against queer humanity have now been abolished. It was often a tough fight. I have been arrested hundreds of times, and hundreds more times beaten up by homophobic gangs and neo-Nazis. My home has been attacked and even fore-bombed. I get hate mail and death threats all the time. Although sometimes exhausting, stressful and dangerous, overall my last four decades of campaigning have been an exciting, joyful and immensely fulfilling experience. Never a dull moment.

NA: Where does you determination come from? Where do you take this source of courage?

PT: I take my inspiration from earlier human rights activists like Mahatma Gandhi, Sylvia Pankhurst and Martin Luther King. I have adopted many of their tactics of non-violent civil disobedience and direct action – and invented a few of my own. I also have admiration for the pioneering Russian left-wing feminists Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollantai.

NA: You are known worldwide for your attempt to conduct a citizen’s arrest of the homophobic President of Zimbabwe, Mugabe in London a few years ago. What was the positive outcome of this action?

PT: In protest at President Mugabe’s homophobia and other human rights abuses, four of us from our gay rights group OutRage! ambushed his motorcade in central London in 1999. We attempted a citizen’s arrest. Running out into the road, we forced the President’s limousine to halt. I opened his car door and grabbed Mugabe. I put him under arrest on charges of torture, citing the UN Convention Against Torture 1984. When I summoned the police to formally arrest the President, officers knocked aside my Amnesty International dossier on human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. My OutRage! colleagues and I were arrested, while Mugabe was given a police escort to go Christmas shopping at Harrods department store. But our attempted citizen’s arrest has a big impact. It catapulted gay rights into the headlines inside Zimbabwe, resulting in more media coverage of gay issues over the following few weeks than in the previous ten years combined. It also drew international attention to the widespread mass arrests, detention without trial and torture perpetrated by Mugabe’s henchmen. Our protest gave hope and confidence to the downtrodden and ignored people of Zimbabwe.

NA: Can you tell us about the incident at the conference of Prof Hans Eysenck, a psychologist who was offering electric-shock aversion therapy to treat homosexuals: “Just like a visit to the dentist” he was saying?

PT: I was heavily involved in the London Gay Liberation Front campaign against the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness. In 1972 I was violently manhandled by doctors and psychologists when I disrupted a lecture by one of the world's leading psychiatrists, Professor Hans Eysenck. He had endorsed the use of electric-shock aversion therapy to "cure" homosexuals, dismissively claiming that the treatment was no harsher than "a visit to the dentist". As a result of this and similar protests, the British medical profession eventually abandoned its insulting, unscientific designation of homosexuality as a sickness.

NA: In 1973, in Eastern Germany, you made the first gay rights protest in the streets of East Berlin. Thirty-three years later, you will come to Moscow for our Pride celebrations. The Moscow authorities seem not keen on the event. How would you say that Gay Pride can help to change the society?

PT: In 1973, I was the Gay Liberation Front delegate to the World Youth Festival in East Berlin; smuggling thousands of gay rights leaflets into the then communist-ruled German Democratic Republic. My speech on gay liberation at the Youth Rights Conference at Humbolt University went ahead, despite efforts by communist officials to drag me off the platform. It was the first time anyone had publicly advocated the ideas of lesbian and gay liberation in a communist country. My attempt to lay a pink triangle wreath at the site of the former concentration camp at Sachsenhausen - in memory of the gay victims of Nazism - was blocked on the orders of the communist government. Later I was interrogated by East German secret police – the Stasi - and assaulted by communist officials. I narrowly escaped arrest after marching in East Berlin’s main square, Alexanderplatz, with a "homosexual liberation" banner. It was the first gay liberation protest ever staged in the Soviet bloc. These protests helped inspire the establishment of the first gay rights group in the GDR, which was also the first such group in any communist nation.

Gay Pride marches and festivals help raise visibility and awareness of LGBT people. The create queer identity, community and solidarity. These things are the precondition for understanding and acceptance. Faced with homophobic attitudes that want to marginalise and exclude us, we need events like Gay Pride to assert our right to claim public space and secure public respect.

NA: What are your reactions and comments regarding the Moscow Mayor’s threat to ban Moscow Pride?

PT: The homophobic attitudes of the Moscow Mayor are very worrying. It is tragic to see him adopt such an intolerant stance. Has he learned nothing from the decades of czarist and communist totalitarianism? Yuri Luzhkov echoes the homophobia of Joseph Stalin. He is stirring up ugly, nasty anti-gay sentiments.

NA: What should happen to the Mayor of Moscow when he travels to London and other European capitals?

PT: If he disrespects the rights of gay Russians he shouldn’t be invited to other European capitals. If he does visit, I hope Yuri Luzhkov will be dogged by gay rights protests and by questions from journalists about his homophobic attitudes. We need to name and shame him wherever he goes.

NA: The Mayor of Moscow is threatening to outlaw Moscow Pride. But this is against Russian and European law, against our constitution. Do you think that the Mayor is behaving like the leader of a modern, democratic, European city? Is the Moscow leadership conforming to European standards?

PT: The Moscow city government seems hell-bent on distancing itself from the family of European nations and our commonly understood standards of human rights. Yuri Luzhkov’s bigoted attitudes towards gay people are closer to those of Islamist fundamentalists than to the humanitarian values of the European Enlightenment. Osama bin Laden would no doubt approve of the Mayor’s hardline homophobia.

NA: Do you think the courts might be an effective way to challenge any ban on Moscow Pride?

PT: Taking the Mayor of Moscow to the European Court of Human Rights could be a very good, effective tactic. It is a slow and long process, but it can produce positive results. This is the way some of Britain’s key anti-gay laws were overturned. We won cases in the Strasbourg human rights court and that forced the UK government to scrap key discriminatory laws, like the unequal age of consent and the ban on gay people serving in the armed forces.

NA: How do you suggest Russian LGBTs should respond to the rising intolerance of some Russian leaders? What should Russian LGBTs do now?

PT: Faced with bigoted leaders, there are only two options: run and hide or stand and fight. I hope the Russian LGBT movement will take the path of resistance, as did their forebears when faced with Nazi occupation. I don’t mean fight using guns or bombs, but non-violent resistance in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King – using moral power to challenge the power, authority and legitimacy of the anti-human rights Moscow Mayor. We need courage and sacrifice to expose injustice. With determination the weak can defeat the strong, as tiny Vietnam proved against the mighty superpower, the US.

One tactic worth considering is outing. Expose the hypocritical, homophobic gay politicians, bishops, judges, editors and police chiefs who promote homophobic prejudice and discrimination. Post their names and crimes all over the internet, and on cards in phone boxes, public toilets, café tables and parking meters. Show these two-faced hypocrites no mercy. Create fear and terror in the hearts and minds of high-placed queers who abuse their power and authority to harm other lesbian and gay people. Bring the hateful, homophobic Christian, Judaist and Muslim leaders to their knees by exposing those who preach against gay people in public while having secret gay affairs in private. These people are hypocrites who deserve to be exposed.

NA: Sections of the gay community are thinking that we should be quiet and wait patiently for improvements. What do you think about a wait and see idea?

PT: Keeping our heads down is not an option. Hiding and compromising just gives homophobes encouragement. They think they can get away with bashing us. It is only when we are strong and defiant that the bigots will start giving us respect.

NA: What about those who say that lobbying is the best method to achieve change?

PT: Good campaigners fight on many fronts, in many different ways. As well as attacking the homophobic system from the outside, like I do, we also need respectable people on the inside to lobby and persuade the authorities with rational, moral arguments for the acceptance of LGBTs. Lobbying President Putin, the EU and the Council of Europe is crucial. It is vital to persuade the European Parliament and the European Commission to call the Moscow Mayor to account for his anti-gay stance. If he refuses to respect queer human rights, perhaps the EU should apply sanctions and penalties against him? If Yuri Luzhkov goes ahead and bans Moscow Pride he should be banned from EU summits and functions.

NA: What do you think about gays or lesbians who vote for right wing parties, for example, for economic reasons?

PT: Lesbians and gays who vote for right-wing homophobic parties are the equivalent of turkeys voting for Christmas. It is madness. What is the point of having a bit more money if you are stigmatised as an inferior, second class citizen and have to live in fear of discrimination and harassment? More money doesn’t make you free if you live in a society that hates you.

NA: You are a legend of gay movement. You know how we should struggle! How gays and lesbians should fight! What is your practical advice for Russian gay activists and associations? What methods of struggle we can use?

PT: It is not up to me to dictate how the Russian people should defend the rights of women and gay people. You know your country better than me. All I can do is throw out some suggestions. It is up to you to determine whether they are appropriate and useful.

NA: What is Your biggest achievement and defeat in gay matters?

PT: My biggest achievement was helping stop the police harassment of the LGBT community in the early 1990s. OutRage! invaded police stations, busted undercover police operations and ambushed the police commissioner. We embarrassed and shamed them for wasting public money on arresting people for victimless crimes, while claiming they did not have enough resources to tackle serious offences like rape and robbery. Within three months of the start of this campaign, the police began their first serious negotiations with the LGBT community. Within a year they agreed to most of OutRage!’s demands for a non-homophobic policing policy. Within three years the number of gay and bisexual men arrested for consenting offences fell by two-thirds – the biggest, fastest fall ever.

My biggest failure was not succeeding in invading and occupying the main debating chamber of the Houses of Parliament in 1994 in protest at the unequal age of consent (MPs voted for 18 for gay and bisexual men, compared to 16 for heterosexuals and lesbians).

NA: Is Tony Blair’s government good for gays and lesbians in the UK?

PT: Blair’s government has initiated some good gay law reforms, but some of these key changes were forced on his government by the EU and by the European Court of Human Rights. Right now, Blair is blocking LGBT rights on 11 issues. The latest discrimination is a proposed ban on lesbians receiving fertility treatment, such as donor insemination, through the public health service.

NA: What do you do in your private life, when you are not campaigning for gay rights?

PT: Private life. What is that? Yes, it would be nice to have one, but not much chance. I don’t get paid, and I haven’t got an office or staff. So I have to do the work of four people to sustain my campaigns. Everyone in OutRage! is a volunteer. My activism is therefore 24/7. Not the way I want it, but what can I do? Nevertheless, I get the fantastic emotional reward of helping, little by little, roll back homophobia and injustice. That is priceless.


Interview GayRussia.Ru / April 2006

Original article published at : http://www.gayrussia.ru/en/actions/detail.php?ID=4481


Further information about Peter Tatchell’s human rights campaigns: www.petertatchell.net