Gay Left

Gay Left

Formation	1975
Type	Marxist organisation for gay men based in the United Kingdom
Purpose	Marxist analysis, gay activism
Headquarters	London, England
Region served	UK
Membership	15

Gay Left was a collective of gay men and a journal of the same name which they published every six months in London between the years 1975 and 1980. It was formed after the dissolution of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Gay Marxist Group. Gay Left formed out of a reading group made up of members of the defunct Gay Marxist group.

Its goal was to contribute towards a Marxist analysis of homosexual oppression and to encourage in the gay movement an understanding of the links between the struggle against sexual oppression and the struggle for socialism.

The journal Gay Left initially described itself as "A Socialist Journal Produced by Gay Men", which evolved into "A Gay Socialist Journal" by the magazine's end, reflecting the internal debates that ran throughout Gay Left's life between the collective and lesbians who, though none ever joined the collective, frequently contributed articles.

The Collective

In all a total of 15 gay men became part of the collective at one point or another, with nine members at the start and nearly half of them forming part of the final eight. The group met on alternate Fridays and Sundays from 1974 until 1980. As well as editorial planning, the members also wrote a collective statement keynoting each issue. The collective espoused radical leftist politics, influenced by thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Sigmund Freud and Michel Foucault, and by the successes of the gay rights and feminist movements.

Issue/Name	Issue 1 Autumn 1975	Issue 2 Spring 1976	Issue 3 Autumn 1976	Issue 4 Summer 1977	Issue 5 Winter 1977/8	Issue 6 Summer 1978	Issue 7 Winter 1978/9	Issue 8 Summer 1979	Issue 9 Winter 1979/80	Issue 10 Summer 1980
Keith Birch	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Gregg Blachford	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Bob Cant	Y	Y	Y	Y
Derek Cohen		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Emmanuel Cooper	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Phil Derbyshire							Y	Y	Y	Y
Richard Dyer							Y
Ross Irwin	Y
Randall Kincaid	Y	Y	Y	Y
Ron Peck		Y	Y
Angus Suttie	Y	Y	Y
Simon Watney						Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Jeffrey Weeks	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Tom Woodhouse									Y	Y
Nigel Young	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

Journal

The journal published by the collective, Gay Left, combined theoretical articles with reviews and political reports. Alongside more historical articles like ‘Where Engels Feared to Tread’ (GL 1), which traced the evolution of Marxist attitudes towards sexuality and gender, were articles on struggles in the workplace like ‘Gays and Trade Unions’ (GL 1), ‘The Gay Workers’ Movement’ (GL 2), ‘All Worked UP’ (GL 3), ‘Gays at Work’ (GL 6 and 7), and ‘Work Place Politics: Gay Politics’ (GL 10); and pieces on the attitudes of leftist organisations towards the gay issue, such as ‘A Grim Tale’, about the International Socialists’ Gay Group (GL 3) or ‘Communists’ Comment’ (GL 4).

Gay Left was also a leader in exploring gay culture in its broadest sense. Gays in film formed a continuous theme following a ground- breaking article by Richard Dyer in GL 2, with regular reviews (for example, of Rainer Werner Fassbinder (GL 2)), and coverage of Ron Peck's attempts to make his film, Nighthawks (1978 film)|Nighthawks (1978 film)]] (Peck was then a member of the collective and other members were involved in the film making). Andrew Britton challenged ‘Camp’ (GL 6), and there were pioneering articles on ‘Gay Art’, the gay singer, Tom Robinson and the theatre group Gay Sweatshop (GL 7). Richard Dyer's article ‘In Defence of Disco’ (GL 8) was one of the first to take disco seriously as an expression of the new gay consciousness. Mandy Merck explored Gays on TV in GL 10 at the start of what proved to be a revolution in the ways in which lesbians and gays were represented.

Controversies

Gay Left tackled many controversial issues in its ten issues, including BDSM, pornography and paedophilia, opening itself up to varied views. The contributions on paedophilia were the most controversial. Gay Left did not endorse paedophilia but believed it was important that issues like the age of consent and teenage sexuality should be open to rational debate.

These articles were published between 1975 and 1980 it is not safe to assume that the views expressed in them still represent the opinions of the authors or the men who were members of the Gay Left Collective at the time.

• Issue 1 - contained a contained a book review in which Jeffrey Weeks took issue with the Sunday People's description of PIE as the 'vilest men in Britain', citing it as an example of how "The oppression of sexual minorities still sells newspapers."
• Issue 2 - Angus Suttie, in an account of his life entitled 'From Latent to Blatant', writes sympathetically of a scoutmaster who molested him when 10, and also of a local man in his home town who was rumoured to be a paedophile and jeered by local schoolchildren. The issue also contained a letter from self-professed paedophile Roger Moody, of London, who was seeking to create a political paedophile movement.
• Issue 3 - featured an advert for the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).
• Issue 6 - the introductory article expressed concern that "Lesbian mothers and paedophiles have recently been attacked and pilloried in the press" due to "an increase in public hostility towards those whose lifestyles pose any threat to the traditional values of the family."
• Issue 7 - the front cover headline and lead article of this issue was 'Happy Families? Paedophilia Examined', jointly written by the Gay Left Collective. The article, though not explicitly pro-paedophilia, was broadly sympathetic: "It is striking that over the past two or three years conservative moral anxiety throughout the advance capitalist countries has switched from homosexuality in general to sexual relationships between adults and young people...in Britain this has led to the rapid passage through Parliament of a restrictive Child Pornography Bill which received no proper scrutiny and very little principled libertarian opposition from MPs." This was followed by a short response to the piece by Tom O'Carroll of PIE, as well a longer article by O'Carroll protesting the use of chemical castration on paedophiles. This article had been due to be published by the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL; now Liberty), but had been vetoed due to the controversy within the organisation over support for PIE.
• Issue 8 - contained a much longer piece by O'Carroll outlining his philosophy on paedophilia. The issue also featured an article by Jamie Gough, in which he envisages the liberation of children and child-adult relationships in a future socialist society: "Relations between adults and children, including sexual ones, could then [under socialism] be on a much more equal basis" and later "The intertwined process of children's and women's liberation would therefore inevitably mean a widening of sexual relationships between adults and children." The article concluded, "Seen in this way, it is evident that the questions of child sexuality and paedophilia cannot be solved except by a massive social and political struggle...the oppression of children and young people, and in a secondary way that of paedophiles, is a cruel oppression, and the struggle against it cannot be 'managed' or postponed."
• Issue 10 - the final issue contained a piece by David Landau of the Campaign Against Public Morals (CAPM) examining the potential impact of the recent election of Margaret Thatcher and the rise of what he sees as a right-wing backlash against the sexual liberation movement. Landau protested the recent arrest of several PIE members and, talking of the upcoming trial (in which Tom O'Carroll was sentenced to two years imprisonment for conspiracy to corrupt public morals), he states that "it is a paramount necessity for the gay community to educate itself on the issues of child sexuality and paedophilia and to initiate a debate in the sexual politics movements, the left and ultimately the labour movement on these questions."

Contributors

Gay Left's contributors included many experienced activists, particularly in the field of feminism, education and workplace politics.

Issue/Name	Issue 1 Autumn 1975	Issue 2 Spring 1976	Issue 3 Autumn 1976	Issue 4 Summer 1977	Issue 5 Winter 1977/8	Issue 6 Summer 1978	Issue 7 Winter 1978/9	Issue 8 Summer 1979	Issue 9 Winter 1979/80	Issue 10 Summer 1980
Alison Hennegen									Y
Andrew Britton			Y				Y
Barry Davis									Y
Bea Campbell				Y
Caroline Airs										Y
Celia Holt				Y
Chris Jones						Y
David Fernbach							Y			Y
David Landau										Y
David Thompson								Y
David Widgery	Y
Dennis Altman						Y			Y
Fred Bearman							Y
Glenn McKee									Y
Hans Klabbers							Y	Y
Helen Bishop					Y
Jacky Plaster								Y
Jamie Gough								Y
Jane Lewis						Y
Jeff Dudgeon							Y
John de Wit									Y
John Lindsay		Y
John Quinn						Y
John Shiers						Y
John Warburton								Y
Kate Ingrey								Y
Kay Young						Y
Ken Plummer					Y
Lindsay Taylor										Y
Lindsay Turner									Y
Mandy Merck										Y
Margaret Coulson
Margaret Jackson							Y	Y
Marie Walsh								Y
Patrick Hughes				Y
Paul Hallam					Y
Peter Bradley										Y
Ros Coward										Y
Sarah Benton				Y	Y
Sarah Maguire								Y
Shauna Brown							Y
Stephen Gee							Y
Sue Bruley		Y					Y
Sue Cartledge					Y	Y	Y
Teresa Savage				Y
Tom O'Carroll							Y	Y

Other activities

Gay Left organised a conference in London in July 1977 titled "What is to Be Done?" (possibly after the famous pamphlet of the same name by Vladimir Lenin) and edited and wrote chapters for a book published by Allison and Busby in 1980 titled Homosexuality, Power and Politics. The book was re-published by Verso in October 2018. https://www.versobooks.com/books/2895-homosexuality ISBN 978-1788732406.

See also

• List of fictional gay characters
• LGBT social movements
• 1970s in LGBT rights
• LGBT rights by country or territory

External links

• Gay Left
• The Politics of Homosexuality