So, apparently Haringey council was actually funding a unit to ‘develop’ lesbians and gays and they were trying to recruit these young ‘mentally handicapped’ girls. Was there no depths that these fanatical homosexuals wouldn’t stoop to?

Of course Jill Knight was never interested in facts, she was more concerned about pushing through the homophobic legislation that was Section 28*.  As I have posted previously, she lied unashamedly about her other key evidence – Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin and The Playbook for Kids About Sex.

So caught up was she in her dangerous fantasy that, even in 1999, during a debate on the repeal of Section 28*, she was insisting that:

Haringey Council made a video ‘How to become a lesbian in 35 minutes’. It was intended to be shown in a school for mentally handicapped girls, some of whom were extremely young…From my experience of those children it is difficult enough for them to understand normal sexual relations without having homosexuality foisted upon them. I find it horrifying that anyone would support that.

What some of us might find even more horrifying is the fact that the vicious and unsupported fabrications of this woman and her kind led to genuine fear and suffering within our community.

It would be nice to think that we have learned our lessons from those episodes, although I fear there are plenty more Jill Knights and Parents Rights Groups still awaiting their day. That’s why we need to remember what really happened, rather than what certain people want us to believe happened.

Sadly, there appears to be no trace of the video ‘How to become a lesbian…’. This despite a pretty wide search involving the likes of the Hall Carpenter Archives, Lesbian and Gay History Month, Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive(LAGNA) , the British Film Institute, Haringey Equalities Unit, Haringey Wise Thoughts and various individuals. I’m particularly indebted to Gill Spraggs for details of the Parliamentary debates.

And I’d still like to find a copy of ‘How to be a lesbian…’ so that it can be placed somewhere like the Hall Carpenter Archives as a permanent counterpoint to this whole sorry history.

• There is more detailed coverage of Section 28 in my book Gay in the 80s: From Fighting for Our Rights to Fighting for Our Lives. Available in bookshops or downloadable here

Save