Gay Liberation Front Manifesto
The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was founded by students Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter. The first meeting was held on 13 October 1970 at the London School of Economics. Click below to consult the GLF Manifesto, which was published in 1971 and set out the key demands and principles of the GLF. It challenged gay people to come out and be visible, while also exploring the means by which they were oppressed by society. For the GLF, gay liberation was not about law reform, it was about a revolutionary change in society. Also included below is the revised edition from 1979.
The diverse politics of people who joined the GLF however, meant that consensus on a single topic was often hard to come by. By the end of 1973 GLF had disbanded, but the organisation and its manifesto, cast a long shadow. Many gay rights organisations that emerged during the course of the 1980s and 1990s would have their core principles rooted in the work of the GLF.
The manifesto digitised here is the first in what will become an online library of key LGBTQ+ texts from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, held in the Special Collections and Archives here at the Institute.
