Gayinthe80s.com Website Review

ja*ascript is disabled. please enable ja*ascript on your browser to best view this site.. a personal account of lgbt life in the 1980s in the uk, usa and australia. that decade saw a major shift towards the emergence of a global ga* culture. the ga* genie came right out of its little pink bottle and into the streets (and the media…and politics…and the arts…) communities but, at the same time, engendered a spirit of unity and resistance that transcended national borders. but there were many other storms – great and small – that had to be weathered too. for example, in the us, the court of appeal ruled in the uk, the thatcher government created section 28 of the local government act, making it illegal for local authorities to support anything that might promote homose*ual relationships as a viable alternative to heterose*ual ‘family life’. in 1986 pope john paul ii labelled us “evil” and ordered the church to withdraw all support from ga* catholic  organisations. the battle was on – at a global, national, and local level. and i’m proud to say i was in there doing my bit! of course, it wasn’t all doom and gloom; every now and then there was a glimmer of hope. some regional legislators in places like the uk, us and australia introduced anti-discrimination laws. and even the us army, who had declared homose*uality to be “incompatible with military service” in 1982, were forced to admit in 1989 that ga* recruits were “just as good or better” than heterose*uals. (a finding that the us government tried – lgbt history during that period was, indeed, a rich tapestry. and that’s basically what i’m trying to docu*ent here. maybe it’s a sign of my advancing years but i’m increasingly coming to appreciate the value of knowing our history. it’s not just reminiscing about ‘the good old, bad old days’, it’s also about recognising what we’ve been up against and how we’ve come through it (not least because we’re still going to be up against it for a while yet).