Icons: Antony Grey

Originally posted on www.differentscene.co.uk

In the last two sections on gay icons we’ve mentioned two men from the entertainment industry, this week I’m looking at something completely different, Gay rights activist Antony Grey.

Often regarded as Britain’s first gay rights activist due to his central role in pushing through the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, Antony Grey was born Anthony Edgar Gartside Wright on October 6th 1927 in Wilmslow Cheshire, he chose to adopt the Pseudonym Antony Grey in 1962 fearing the dangers of police attention for campaigners of gay rights, during a time when being homosexual could result in life imprisonment.

After winning a place at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he studied history, Grey left with his degree determined to fight the laws that he said had destroyed the genius Oscar Wilde, and brought misery to thousands of otherwise blameless men.

Oscar Wilde himself had been imprisoned due to section 11 of the 1885 Criminal Amendment Act, which had become known as “the blackmailers’ charter”, along with the Vagrancy Act of 1898 which had made it illegal for homosexual men to do so much as flirt.

After leaving college Grey worked for the British Iron & Steel Federation, that later dissolved into British Steel. During his time here he also began voluntary work for the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS), where he began lobbying for gay equality and to change the laws that criminalised gay men.

After two years in 1960 he became the society’s honorary treasurer and then later became its secretary by the end of 1962, which he continued to do for the next two decades.

During his time there, he was one of the driving forces behind the groundbreaking 1967 Sexual Offences Act. Although he was not happy with the changes made to his original draft legislation which had made it no where near as liberal as he had proposed and wanted, it did include the passage that said, “not withstanding any statutory or common law provision, a homosexual act in private shall not be an offence, provided that the parties consent there to and have attained the age of 21”.

Due to his help in pushing this Act through, it paved the way for other groups such as the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, the Gay Liberation Front and Outrage, to change the laws and attitudes further and further, during the course of the last 40 years.

Along with working for the Homosexual Law Reform Society he also ran the Albany Trust, a charity that helped gay men who had developed psychological problems from being persecuted, before retiring as its director in 1977, but remaining a patron for the remainder of his life.

In his later years he also qualified as a therapist and ran his own blog, along with serving on the executives of the National Council for Civil Liberties and the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy. Along with this he was the author of several books that included a memoir Personal Tapestry and Quest for Justice about the 1967 Act.

Later in life he became hurt due to being written off as a trimmer and compromiser, who gave away too much to get the 1967 Act through, that was seen as imperfect by people who didn’t understand the anguish of the 1950s.

After Grey’s death, on April 30^th 2010 gay rights activist Peter Tatchell said that he didn’t “believe in the honors system but it is absolutely outrageous and despicable that he was never offered even an OBE, let alone the knighthood that his work for homosexual equality merited”, before adding “I salute Antony Grey and his trail-blazing contribution to LGBT equality and human rights. We all walk in his shadow. Even though he hadn’t been recognized within the honors system for the great things he did for gay rights, the gay community has honored him and in 2007 he was named Stonewalls ‘Hero of the Year’.

When collecting his award Grey said, “The road to homosexual emancipation which I and a few others embarked upon following the Wolfenden Report has been a long and arduous one,” he said in accepting the 2007 award. “But now here we are, and we can be thankful for what has been achieved. At least, we are able to celebrate our identities in this magnificent building, instead of being thrown off the top of it for being who we are — as some of our enemies would like to happen. But the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and ours is a never-ending struggle not just for our own rights, but for human rights.”

As you can see this man lead an incredible and inspirational life, which has allowed all of us to able to live how we want and have the same equal rights as our heterosexual counterparts, some people don’t even know his name but we owe so much to him.