LGBT+ History Month: Standing up for LGBT+ rights

January 2025

This LGBT+ History Month, WAY member Andrew shares how activism and social change shaped his own gay identity and how his campaign on behalf of same-sex marriage helped to make it possible for him to marry his partner, Jerry…


“The theme of this year’s LGBT+ History Month is activism and social change.

Both of those were big themes in my life at the time I met my future husband, back in December 2009. I’d just led a successful campaign to persuade Stonewall, the UK’s largest LGB charity (it hadn’t yet added the T at that point), to come out in support of same-sex marriage. Later, I organised a local campaign against the blanket ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood. It’s only 15 years ago, but it already feels like a different historical era: one where we hadn’t yet won the battles for some of the rights we now take for granted, but where progress seemed to be moving in the right direction. 

I quickly became an Activist with a capital A. I was regularly at protests with homemade banners, calling for change not just on LGBT+ rights but a whole range of political and environmental issues. Activism was an important part of how I related to my own gay identity. I wasn’t quite sure yet how I fit into the community, so fighting for our collective rights gave me a clearer sense of having a place within it.

Jerry was very different. He had precisely zero interest in politics – and made precisely zero effort to feign any for my benefit. The things he was passionate about were fashion, cooking, dancing, shopping, romantic comedies, pop music. When I did manage to drag him to a protest in London, I had to bribe him with the promise that we’d stay in a fancy hotel and watch a musical in the evening.


I’ve always remembered our very different responses when I took him to Pride in Brighton for the first time. While I was sneering at the cynical rainbow capitalism – big, amoral corporations using the rainbow flag as a branding and marketing opportunity – for him it was a revelation to see such an open show of support for people like him from organisations he’d assumed would be indifferent or even hostile. It was like a step into a big new world. He was also very much on board with the party atmosphere – and rather miffed when, the second time we went, I took him to the alternative Pride event that was just a group of people sitting on the grass in a park, without a stage or corporate-sponsored stall in sight.

It might sound like there’d be quite a clash of personalities between us (and indeed there often was), but I loved Jerry precisely for the fact he was so different and challenged me to see the world in a different way. It was extremely refreshing to come home from political meetings to someone who would want to talk about anything but politics. And he pricked some of the pomposity and self-seriousness that came with being a capital A activist, teaching me to appreciate some of the other things any self-respecting gay man should love: camp spectacle, fierce and fabulous divas, sassy drag queens (even if he was a little scared of drag queens himself in case they were mean to him).

Rewriting history

Our interests did occasionally overlap. When same-sex marriage passed in the UK, he sent me an excited text. For me, it was a political victory. For him, it meant he’d one day be able to have the wedding of his dreams, with every last detail planned by him.

And while he wasn’t an activist of the placard-carrying, capital A variety, he did his own small, quiet acts of activism too. Like at work when he showed solidarity with female colleagues after discovering they were being paid less than him and made sure to let them know despite being instructed not to. He understood the importance of building community, through kindness and, especially, food: he cooked several delicious meals for an LGBT+ asylum seeker group I volunteered with and talked about plans to liven up local LGBT+ events by bringing in more of his fellow Filipinos and organising massive buffets. During lockdown, he co-founded an online community that brought together hundreds of LGBT+ Filipinos. He provided support to people going through tough times, had discussions on themes like “What does pride mean to you?” and even organised pageant events.

Jerry died at the end of that lockdown year. He was unexpectedly diagnosed with advanced cancer, aged just 30. He often worried that he’d not achieved a lot in his life by the time he reached that milestone age. But he made a difference to the lives of so many people he knew through his small, unshowy gestures of love and kindness. He made more change in the world around him than I managed with all the protests I’ve been to.

Grieving and commemorating him over the past four years has at times been like the work of a historian. Poring over photos and chat transcripts, interrogating half-forgotten memories, listening to the stories people have to tell about him. My time with him sometimes already feels like a different historical era – just like those heady days of my early activism, when it felt like things were only going to get inevitably better for LGBT+ people. Now the world is sadder and emptier without Jerry, and the gains of past activists under greater threat than ever before in my life.”