When I think of Brighton Pride in 1991, I think of a rather rough old affair, just a renamed Anti-Section 28 march really. Lots of angry shouty people with banners, spending a Saturday afternoon marching from Hove Town Hall to Brighton Town Hall. And a fair number of the general public weren’t pleased to see us – they glared and swore at us from the pavements as we passed by.
And whilst all that was all true, it wasn’t the full picture – hell no! It was a impressive four day lesbian and gay festival of events, with it’s own programme and everything.
Events included: A ‘Tack’ disco at the University of Sussex, screenings of Torch Song Trilogy and Poison at the Duke of York’s cinema (the same year it got its legs), pavement drawings in Churchill Square from Guardian cartoonist David Shenton, a ‘Lesbian & Gay Brighton’ walking tour from Brighton Ourstory, a cabaret show at the Sallis Benney Theatre with The Well Oiled Sisters, a women only barn dance at the NALGO Club, and a Pink Picnic in Preston Park on the Monday – “look for the pink balloons”.
Also that weekend there was an Alternative Miss Brighton event (link goes to YouTube) in the train station car park hosted by Lily Savage (Paul O’Grady) and Simon Fanshawe followed by a huge party at Club Shame (The Zap Club).
The whole event was very homemade yet very powerful in it’s determination. It was arranged by passionate volunteers and funded by gay friendly local businesses and the odd jumble sale at the Hanover Community Centre, literally!
Origins of Pride
It wasn’t the first Gay Pride Brighton had seen – that took place in 1973, organised by the Sussex Gay Liberation Front, formed in 1971 by a group of student from the University of Sussex with lesbians and gay men from the town. They staged a Gay Day in 1972 to test the waters. However only a tiny minority of Brighton’s gay population were ready to take to the streets in 1973 and it wasn’t until 1991 that Pride returned.
I don’t remember the 1991 march so much as how I felt, there was a new sense of direction
– we may have failed to stop Section 28 of the Local Government Act in 1988 (banning the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality), but it had made so many of us angry, we were determined to reclaim the one thing that law was supposed to stop us having – pride in being lesbian and gay people.
The homophobia of the then Conservative government had inadvertently galvanised lesbians and gay men across the country into co-ordinated opposition. In Brighton we turned it into Pride.
This originally appeared in Brighton Ourstory newsletter 28, Summer 2011.
