Sussex LGBTQ was founded in the late 1960's ("Sussex University Gay Soc" back then) and is one of the longest established student groups of its kind in the UK. We've got a pretty interesting history!
Today the society boasts over 300 members and an active society which engages in social events, welfare, campaigns, lobbying, representation and much more! We even have the most visited website of all the Students' Union societies.
Sussex University students and LGB people from Brighton established the Sussex Gay Liberation Front (SGLF) in February 1971. They organised the first gay demonstration in Brighton in October 1972 and the first Brighton Gay Pride march in July 1973. Only a tiny minority of the town's gay population was ready to take to the streets however, and there was not another Brighton Pride until 1991. It's pretty amazing to see what Brighton Pride has become to day from it's rather humble (and political) roots!
In 1979 the society organised a screening of a documentary called "Word Is Out" in conjunction with an organisation named CHE. According to Brighton Ourstory, "It was publicised in the Argus and was showing to a packed hall when several skinheads invaded. Widely thought to be National Front sympathisers, the thugs overturned tables, injuring two of the organisers. The next day, The Evening Argus ran an editorial which enraged local lesbian and gay groups who regarded it as condoning the attack. After a demonstration outside the newspaper's offices a right of reply was won and also a compensatory feature, later that year, about Brighton Gay Switchboard. This was probably the first positive report about lesbian and gay issues the paper had ever made."
