"I had good legs. Some boys used to wolf-whistle me."

One of our heroes Peter Tatchell celebrated his 60th birthday last week! Heavens... Here is his article in Time Out marking the occasion, reprinted in full:

I've just marked my sixtieth birthday and I'm now celebrating 45 years of human rights campaigning and 10 years of my human rights organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation. It seems so unreal, so implausible. After all, nothing in my family background inclined or prepared me for a lifetime of LGBT and human rights activism.

I was born in Melbourne in 1952; growing up in a period of illiberal government and anti-communist witch-hunts. My parents were ultra-conservative evangelical Christians, similar to those depicted by Jeanette Winterson in her book, 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit'. On the positive side, they taught me to stand up for what is right and to not follow the crowd - a maxim I still live by.

My father, Gordon, worked in an engineering factory, as a lathe operator. Mardi, my mother, alternated between being a housewife and working in a biscuit factory. She had bouts of chronic, life-threatening asthma. There was no NHS in Australia in those days, so much of our family income went on medical bills. We were dirt poor. This hardship probably honed my passion for justice.

From the age of eight, whenever my mother was ill, I had to run the house and bring up my younger brother and sisters; cooking and washing when I got home from school. It restricted my play time with friends but made me independent and resourceful. Being born a few years after the end of the Second World War, many comics, books and films had war themes.

By the age of 11, I used to ask adults: 'Why did people allow Hitler to get power? Why didn't they stop him?' No one gave me a satisfactory answer. I vowed that if I ever saw tyranny and injustice I would not remain silent and do nothing. In 1963, I saw reports about the racist bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four young girls who were about my own age. I was stunned, horrified. It made me a life-long anti-racist. I was inspired by Dr Martin Luther King and the black civil rights movement.

My campaigning for human rights began in 1967, aged 15, when I protested against the hanging of an alleged killer, Ronald Ryan, despite doubtful, conflicting evidence. His execution destroyed my trust and confidence in the police, courts and government; resulting in a lifetime of scepticism towards authority. It opened my eyes to other injustices: the mistreatment of the indigenous Aboriginal people and the brutal war being waged against Vietnam by the US and Australian governments.

At school, I was rebel. I demanded and won the right of pupils to have a say in running the school. On July 4, 1968, we burnt the US flag in protest at the Vietnam War. I was not aware of my gayness.

I had good legs. Some boys used to wolf-whistle me. I was gently teased with jibes of 'poofter Pete'. It didn't upset me, because I was confident that I was straight. Besides, I was popular and well liked.

My fellow pupils voted me school captain in 1968. That year, aged 16, I had to leave school to get a job, to help the family income. My passion was art and design. I wanted to go into architecture but I had no qualifications. So I settled for design and display in a big department store. That's where I first met gay people and soon after realised I was gay.

I fell in love, aged 17. I read a report about gay protests in New York in late 1969 and immediately decided that I wanted to be part of the fight for gay liberation. Drawing lessons from the black civil-rights movement, I concluded that gay people were an oppressed minority just like black people - and that the black tactics of non-violent direct action and civil disobedience could be applied to the struggle for LGBT freedom.

Australia had conscription for Vietnam. I was not willing to fight an unjust war. The penalty for refusal was two years jail. So I skipped the country and came to London in 1971. Within five days I was at my first meeting of the newly formed Gay Liberation Front.

Modelled on the methods of the black civil-rights movement, I helped organise sit-ins at pubs that refused to serve 'queers'. We forced the pub owners to back down. Little did I imagine that 30 years later, in 2011, I'd be standing outside the John Snow pub in 'gay' Soho, protesting against the eviction of a gay couple for kissing. It just goes to show that the price of queer freedom is eternal vigilance.

What a man! And still looking good for his age...

Peter Tatchell Foundation

February is LGBT History Month.