Mary McIntosh: Activist and academic

A Dorothy Project first, as Alice speaks to our first male interviewee - Andrew Lumsden, who was a key part of the UK Gay Liberation Front in the 1970s. They discuss the life and work of his Gay Liberation Front comrade Mary McIntosh. TLDR: she sounds like an absolute baller.

Mary was an academic as well as an activist, and her contribution to the rights held by British gay men today is massive. In 1968, she published an academic paper arguing that homosexuality is not a psychiatric or medical condition, based on a survey she conducted of gay men in Leicester and London. In her time on the Criminal Law Revision Committee, she advocated for the lowering of the age of consent for gay men. She also studied the letters of gay prisoners from the 16th century onwards, observing the 18th century gay subculture of ‘mollies’.

Mary and her partner Elizabeth Wilson contributed to founding and shaping the direction of the London Gay Liberation Front. Throughout her life McIntosh continued to forge links between the gay liberation movement, the women's movement and lesbian movements.