On this day (9 January) in 1988, more than 10,000 gay men and lesbians took to the streets of central London to protest Section 28, the Thatcher government law that banned the “promotion” of homosexuality by local authorities.
Marchers gathered in anger and defiance, calling out a piece of legislation that sought to silence LGBTQ+ people, erase queer lives from schools, and stigmatise an entire community under the guise of protecting children.
The protest became a defining moment in modern British LGBTQ+ history, galvanising activism across the country and fuelling a movement that would continue for more than a decade until Section 28 was finally repealed in Scotland in 2000, and then in England and Wales in 2003.
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