Under the rainbow – love and Pride
The Royal Mail’s new Pride stamp set celebrates how far the expanding LGBTQIA+ community event has come in 50 years of protest rallies and parties
Reflecting a gloriously vibrant rainbow world of inclusivity and positivity, Pride, the Royal Mail’s new set of Pride-themed stamps, celebrate the 50th anniversary, on 1 June 2022, of the first Pride rally in London.
Created by queer British artist Sofie Birkin, the eight-stamp set deploys all the colours of the rainbow to tell the story of Pride from its early days to the present, where the traditional rainbow Pride flag has been modified to allow greater inclusivity of queer representation. The most recent addition, in 2021, was incorporating the flags of trans and intersex people and representing the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people of colour. One of the First Class Pride stamps shows a diverse crowd celebrating under the banner of the modern Progress flag.
Pride today is a celebration for LGBTQIA+ people and their allies: a giant party with revellers in flamboyant costumes, an all-embracing feel-good carnival atmosphere and fabulous affirmations of identity. Corporate sponsors, wanting to be associated with the event’s vibrancy and joie de vivre, clamour to be involved. Fifty years ago, though, it was very different.
The original 1972 rally, organised by the Gay Liberation Front, was born out of anger and defiance. ‘To combat the invisibility and denigration of our community we decided to organise a “Gay Pride” march, with the theme of being out and proud,’ wrote veteran activist and GLF member Peter Tatchell in 2019. As a campaigning group, the GLF demanded greater legal equality for gay people. It was desperately needed.
Homosexuality in the UK had been only partially decriminalised in 1967. Discrimination, police harassment and arrest were very real facts of life for gay people, and the age of consent for same-sex male couples was, at 21, higher than for heterosexuals.
In a climate of defiance and dissent, protest marches for LGBTQ+
rights took place – in 1970, 150 men walked through London’s Highbury Fields and an Age of Consent Protest was organised by the GLF’S Under21s group and held in Trafalgar Square in 1971.
The inspiration for the first ‘Gay Pride Rally’ came from the US, where Pride events had taken place to commemorate the 1969 clashes between the LGBTQ+ community and the police, known as the Stonewall Riots. The date for the first UK Pride rally was chosen as 1 July – the nearest Saturday to the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. A parade set off from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, with between 200 and 500 people estimated to have taken part, including people from the GLF and campaign group CHE (The Campaign for Homosexual Equality). The slogan was ‘Innovative. Don’t assimilate.’ Lesbians marched under the banner of ‘Gay Women’s
Liberation.’ The £1.85 stamp represents marchers on the UK’S first Pride.
The early Pride rallies were marked by defiant visibility – the first London event had a same-sex kiss-in, and early Pride slogans included ‘Gay is fun! Gay is proud! Gay is beautiful!’ But underlying the fun and flamboyance, the early Gay Pride rallies were about liberation and equality – direct action that politicised identity at a time when visibility could be an enormous act of personal courage. Acts of violence against LGBTQ+ people were common, and in 1978, the programme for Gay Pride Week highlighted a recent attack by the National Front on popular gay venue The Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
In the 1980s, the AIDS pandemic saw the gay community facing increasing levels of homophobia and discrimination, and Manchester Pride, the first Pride event outside London, began as an AIDS fundraiser. In 1985, a wonderful act of solidarity saw coachloads of striking miners descend on Hyde Park for Pride in a recognition of an alliance between two beleaguered communities. Based on real events, the 2014 film Pride shows lesbian and gay activists fundraising during the Miners’ Strike and forming bonds with mining communities that paved the way for greater understanding and acceptance. But by the end of the 1980s, another blow had been dealt to the LGBTQ+ community with 1988’s Section 28 law, which banned local authorities from ‘promoting’ homosexuality. In response, protesters demonstrating against the bill meant that year’s Pride saw its greatest ever turnout.
The 1990s, a time when a more inclusive party spirit reigned, saw Pride events spreading across the UK. Attendance at Pride events grew at the same time as support for LGBTQ+ rights. Pride Scotia launched in Scotland and Cardiff Pride in Wales. 1996 saw the name change from ‘Lesbian and Gay Pride’ to ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride’ to signal its inclusivity for bi and trans people. UK Black Pride was launched in 2005 to support LGBTQ+ people of colour. The cultural climate was
changing, and Pride, which had helped to shape the change, reflected this.
The 2000s saw massive advances in LGBTQ+ equality. In 2002 samesex couples won the right to adopt. In 2004, same-sex civil partnerships became legal, then in 2013, same-sex marriages. Pride grew alongside these milestones, attracting commercial sponsorship that pointed to the fact that what had once been a defiant response to injustice and inequality had become a mainstream celebration of diversity, inclusivity and queer identity. Although Pride had to be cancelled during the pandemic, the 2022 London Pride march on 2 July followed the same route as the original 1972 protesters. Half a century on, though, an estimated 30,000 marchers took part!
As this joyful set of stamps shows, the Pride community has innovated and evolved. It has marched out of the shadows and expanded to make space for a multiplicity of queer identities, all welcomed and celebrated under the rainbow banner.
The Pride presentation pack includes the eight stamps designed by Sofie Birkin, and tells the story of Pride in the UK, written by journalist and author Amelia Abraham. The First Day Cover, which includes a filler card with key details about the stamps, can be personalised with a choice of two special edition postmarks and the name and address of the customer’s choice. The standard Tallents House postmark reads ‘Love’ and the alternative postmark has an illustration of a rainbow. Also available are First Day envelopes, a set of eight postcards, a Collector’s Sheet, framed sets, and a Pride Coin Cover. This includes all eight stamps and the Royal Mint’s new Brilliant Uncirculated Pride 50p coin, which has been entered into general circulation, so you may find one in your loose change. This coin has been designed by artist and LGBTQ+ activist Dom Holmes, who has included the word ‘protest’ in the coin’s design to reflect the fight for change behind the Pride movement. The coin featured on the special cover is a limited edition of 10,000. There are small limited edition of silver (750) and gold (50) Pride coins also available.