Official magazine of Gay Pride, London 2007
143 pages including articles and listings of events.
Gay Pride events are now common in cities across the world, public celebrations of equal rights for people of all orientations and sexualities. But they began as intensely political events, challenges to a world where homosexual activities were persecuted.
The first Gay Pride march took place in London on 1 July 1972, inspired by the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York. These were triggered by police harassment at the Stonewall Inn, a bar catering to New York's gay, lesbian, transgender and crossdressing community. The bar's patrons fought back, striking a symbolic blow for gay liberation.
Londoners also faced violence and police hostility. The leaflet from Gay Pride Week 1978 mentions increasing attacks on gay people over the past year, including the attack on the Royal Vauxhall Tavern by the National Front. With the slogan 'Lesbians and Gay Men Come Out On the Streets', Pride was an opportunity for LGBT Londoners to show their strength and numbers, and show "the positive side of the being gay: GAY IS FUN; GAY IS PROUD; GAY IS BEAUTIFUL!"
By 2007, the year of the 35th annual London Pride parade, the event had swelled to one of the largest Pride celebrations in the world. This magazine from Pride 07 is celebratory rather than combative, reflecting the huge progress towards equal rights made during the intervening years - progress won by tireless struggle for political and social change.