LGBT+ Rights and the Fight Against Apartheid: An Interview With Peter Tatchell

Abstract

My reason for initiating this discussion now is the Netflix documentary that was released in 2021 titled Hating Peter Tatchell. This documentary focuses on your human rights activism over five decades and maps a compelling history of the fight for LGBT+ rights in Britain. But our conversation today emerges in response to a glaring gap in the story that the documentary tells about you. In particular, the documentary is silent on your work in the anti-apartheid movement, and, more specifically, your work in refiguring the relationship between the anti-apartheid movement and LGBT+ rights. So, I think a good point of departure, then, given its omission from the documentary, is for me to ask you about your personal experiences of being part of the anti-apartheid movement in London in the 1970s and 1980s, and specifically being a gay activist in the movement. There have, for instance, been several accounts of homophobia.