🏳️🌈TODAY’S PRIDE HERO🏳️🌈
Peter Thatchell
@PeterTatchell
(1952 - p)
Thatchell is a UK human rights campaigner, best known for his work with #LGBTQ social movements.
He has worked to end anti-LGBTQ laws in the UK & helped LGBTQ people worldwide.
#LGBTVoices #PrideMonth
Born in Australia, he first worked to help aboriginal people & to end the death penalty in that country.
Thatchell moved to London & became a leading member of the Gay Liberation Front, organizing sit-ins at pubs that refused to serve gays & protested police harassment.
He helped to organize Britain’s first Gay Pride march in 1972.
He joined Labour in & ran for the Bermondesey Parliament seat in 1981, though he was unsuccessful. In 1983, he ran again in a by-election, though his far left views & suspected homosexuality cost him the election. During the campaign, he was assaulted & received death threats.
Thatchell wrote many books in the 1980s, including ‘AIDS: A Guide to Survival.’
Think about that for a minute – Thatchell wrote a book about surviving AIDS at a time when many denied the disease existed.
Thatchell was a leading member of OutRage!
The group was formed in 1990 & was dedicated to radical, non-violent direct action and civil disobedience. Its purpose was to advocate that #LGBTQ people have the same rights as heterosexuals and fought to end homophobia and violence.
On two occasions, Thatchell attempted a citizen’s arrest on Robert Mugabe, former leader of Zimbabwe, for human rights violations. On the second attempt, Mugabe’s body guards knocked Thatchell unconscious and left him with permanent damage to his right eye.
The attack, along with attacks by neo-Nazis in Moscow, left him with minor brain damage, & ended his run to be a candidate for the Green Party in 2009.
He has continued his work for the community & for human rights overall. He was arrested in Russia at Moscow Pride in 2011.
Thatchell now works full time with the Peter Thatchell Foundation, which is an independent political organization in the UK which ‘seeks to promote and protect the human rights of individuals, communities, and nations, in the UK and internationally.’
petertatchellfoundation.org
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