British Medical Association Conference

British Medical Association Conference on Pyscho-Sexual Disorders Zapped, 1974

This 'zap' of the BMA conference was where I first met Colm Clifford and Gary de Vere from the South London Gay Liberation Front. Colm invited me down to London and a month later (October 1974) I moved into one of the Brixton gay squats. From the frying pan of a relatively simmering sizzle in Lancaster to the fiery maelstrom of political activity in Brixton.

*Article about the zap (transcribed below)*

BRADFORD: First it was Levis, then it was hamburgers, and now British gays have imported the American 'zap'. Sixty gay women and men moved in on the British Medical Association 'Congress on Pscyho-Sexual problems' to demand, among other things, that delegates discuss with them the subject of homosexuality and other related topics.
"The whole thing went like clock work," said one of the gay demonstrators afterwards. "It was just better than anything we had hoped for in our wildest dreams."
The whole episode started several weeks ago when it was first learnt that a congress was being organised, and would be held at Bradford University. Members of Bradford GLF were annoyed to see subjects such as homosexuality, transvestism and transsexualism down on the agenda for a medical conference on "Psycho-Sexual Problems."
"Homosexuality," said Don Milligan, a member of Bradford GLF and one of those responsible for the zap, "is not a medical problem. When are they going to get that into their heads. Of course doctors are concerned with homosexuality because those homosexuals who have anxieties about being gay will often go to the doctors in the first instance. But if doctors are going to be able to give proper advice then they need help and guidelines from gay people."
Other gay groups were alerted. A leaflet went out, noting that the conference was being sponsored by Geigy Pharmaceuticals a drug company which manufactures Anquil (benperidol) a drug to eliminate sexual desire in the recipients. A disco was arranged for the Thursday night of the conference for any gays who wanted to attend.
At 6.00 on Thursday evening when most of the demonstrators had arrived in Bradford, a planning meeting was called in the University building on the floor above the BMA conference hall. Groups represented at the meeting included Bradford Lesbian Group, Bradford CHE, Bradford Socialist Women's Action Group, Leeds GLF, Manchester Lesbian Collective, Manchester GLF, South London GLF, (Lancaster GLF - omitted in report) and CHE activists. Letters of solidarity were received from Bristol Gay Awareness Group, Sussex GLF, and Edinburgh Science for People, among others. After this they had a very well-attended disco in the Bradford Students' Union.
The following morning, Friday 13 September 1974, demonstrators started arriving at the Students' Union at 8.25am. At 8.50 sixty people headed for the conference hall via a linking corridor between the Students' Union and the main building.
Between the conference hall and the corridor was a large ante-room connected to the conference hall by a narrow passage. At the doors to the ante-room, two university protesters checking delegates passes stopped the gay contingent and held the doors against them. Demonstrators said they had agreed at their planning meeting that no sort of force must be used against the porters, so they stayed quietly at the door negotiating with the conference organisers. BMA delegates were effectively prevented from entering the hall by the gay groups who were blocking the doors.
At 9.00 a number of university cleaners arrived to collect their weekly pay from the Cashiers' desk situated in the ante-room. At first they were kept out by the porters, who had been instructed by the organisers to let no one in. But the demonstrators let them through to the front of the crowd in the corridor, and after repeated chants of "Let them through," the women were allowed to duck under the porters' arms and collect their money.
Two of the cleaners who had been talking with a GLF contingent told Gay News that they thought the gay group should be allowed in.
Acting as a go-between, Professor Tom Stoakes of Bradford University suggested that the gays be allowed into the conference to take part in the discussion. The organisers turned them down. They said they could let three gay people in, because there was not enough room for everyone. But this was turned down flat by the demonstrators. Don Milligan pointed out that "three people did come in a day or so ago quite quietly, and sat down quite quietly, and didn't heckle, and behaved themselves - and we....
(the rest of the article is missing. I will try and trace its whereabouts)

Don Milligan addressed the conference after it had been taken over by gay liberationists. Here is his account of the zap:

“The criminologist. Oh yes, yes! There was an international conference on psycho-sexual disorders held at the University of Bradford. The local gay group....we decided that we couldn't allow this and we would have to do something about it. The conference was to last for a whole week and we thought how should we get into it. So we decided that we would picket it everyday and leaﬂet it and have a bookstall outside it to lull them into a false sense of security so that they would think that this is all that we are doing and so on. So that's what we did and then on the final day, the night before the final day, the Thursday night, we organised a big gay disco to which we invited people from all over the country. Loads of people came and I remember Louise Hart was in charge of organising Weetabix in the morning. Because she had to get everybody up at the crack of dawn before we broadcasted it?

We then went to unveil our plans in martial spirit about how we were going to invade the conference hall and occupy it. This is in fact what we did. The high court judge who was supposed to be chairing the session on psycho-sexual disorders and about homosexuality nearly bust a gasket. All the men were in frocks and the women were in various kinds of outfits except for lta Casey, I remember, who was an Irish catholic woman mother of several children, a wonderful dyke, who insisted on having a great mass of peroxided hair and a large patent leather handbag. Very conventional clothes. She always took down the details of all our meetings and activities in her catholic diary. lt was there and of course in all her conventional clothes she looked like a man in drag (laughter). She was such a conventional figure.

I had a long, blue velvet gown with a sequinned top and a clutch bag and a fur cape. We broke up their conference and we zapped it in the sense that we addressed it. I made a speech at it and the delegates came in and they were furious that they had to participate. Our demand was that they suspend the agenda and discuss homosexuality with us which is in fact what they did do in the end. At the end of that session we then withdrew much to the chagrin of the popular press who were demanding that we should stay because they wanted us to be hauled out by the police and all the rest.”

The following photos and account were sent to us by the lovely Terry Waller

In September, 1974, I was one of about 60 or so lesbian and gay demonstrators who zapped the British Medical Association's 'Congress on Psycho-sexual Problems' in Bradford, Yorkshire. Don Milligan was one of the leaders of the zap. We demanded a discussion on why the medical profession viewed lesbians and gay men negatively and why 'aversion therapy' in the form of electric shocks was still used to attempt to make lesbians and gay men heterosexual. Many of the Congress attendees were angry initially as their programme was disrupted. As time wore on many of them did take part in a discussion about the issues.