RolloTreadway<p>Here in the UK, it's currently <a href="https://beige.party/tags/LGBTHistoryMonth" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>LGBTHistoryMonth</span></a>. I want to mention something that's very relevant to this right now, but doesn't seem to be getting appropriate attention. </p><p>Another matter that's enjoying prominence right now is the fiftieth anniversary (this month, possibly today now I come to think of it, around now anyhow) of Margaret Thatcher becoming leader of the Conservative party. Articles, tv shows and whatnot about Thatcher are appearing all over.</p><p>That is a significant matter, for many reasons, and the coverage is far from uniformly hagiographic. The things she did wrong that continue to haunt us - destruction of communities, driving inequality, disastrous privatisations, selling off sovereign wealth, etc etc etc - are not being swept under the carpet. Which is all well and good. </p><p>But what I'm not seeing at all is any marking of Section 28, which was very much her work, introduced at the height of her powers (it formed a central part of her victorious 1987 general election campaign and came into law the following year). And it was grotesque, inexcusable, unforgivable. Perhaps that is why there's an unwillingness to talk about it. </p><p>For those outside the UK, or who are too young to have been aware of it, section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 stated:</p><p>"A local authority shall not—</p><p>(a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality;</p><p>(b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship."</p><p>('maintained school' in this context means any school that receives public funds)</p><p>The word 'promote' was deliberately vague; the result was that in all schools and any other organisation (such as youth clubs) supported by local authorities, anything which even hinted that it was even slightly okay to be LGBTQIA+ was banned for fear of prosecution. Thatcher and her Government did not hide that this was the intention - a campaign poster in the 1987 election explicitly attacked Labour for suggesting that someone could be gay and proud. </p><p>There was nothing about this which was not an outright attack on LGBTQIA+ people. Gay sex had been legalised twenty years earlier, and LGBTQIA+ people and issues in the media were becoming more prominent (as with musicians like Tom Robinson and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, comedians like Julian Clary, films like My Beautiful Launderette, the Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners campaign - and the reciprocal support from the National Union of Mineworkers). There was still a lot of homophobia, of course, violently so, and Thatcher's response to discrimination and abuse was: good. More of that. Pass a law to promote discrimination and abuse. Pass a law to criminalise this growing prominence of LGBTQIA+ people.</p><p>This was hateful resentment against the idea that LGBTQIA+ people could lead normal happy lives. The 60s and 70s had been a time when rights were starting to be protected in law and discrimination opposed - not just for LGBTQIA+ people, but for people of colour, for women, for disabled people - and Thatcher chose through spite and inhumanity to reverse that with a law that made discrimination mandatory in schools. </p><p>One thing you'll hear about a lot with these discussions around Thatcher's anniversary (from both pro- and anti- viewpoints) is her commitment to shrinking the state. But section 28 wasn't shrinking the state. It was expanding the state in order to oppress. It's something we're seeing many countries do right now, and again, it's supposed small state politicians doing it. It's something that transphobes are fighting for in the UK, right now, including (shamefully) from within the Labour Government.</p><p>We can't let this be overlooked just because it's awkward for Thatcher's apologists. The whole reason we mark LGBT History Month in February is because it's the anniversary of when the Section 28 law was abolished (in 2003; such was the opposition from Tories in the Lords, it took the Labour Government six years of hard work to get the law changed). </p><p>So for this LGBT History Month, and this anniversary of Thatcher's rise to prominence, let's not allow anyone to forget or to bury this: Thatcher, at the height of her power, decided to use that power to attack LGBTQIA+ children and young adults.</p>