My icons

Who are my icons? It depends on how you define one. I think for a person to be iconic, they must be more than admired, more than a hero, even. They should have a special 'aura' about them which gives them a permanent significance for people.

As I'm a community campaigner, Peter Tatchell would be top of my list.

His thirty years of incessant campaigning on behalf of every lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender person in this country and around the world cannot go uncelebrated.

If there had been no Peter Tatchell to challenge the establishment and push our political leaders in the direction of gay equality, we would have taken (even) longer to reach, or perhaps never arrived at, where we are now in that battle. Today, we have civil partnerships, the new Equality Act, protection for LGBT people in employment and the repeal of the hated Section 28, although there's still more to do.

Peter has devoted his whole life to campaigning and just draws a small living allowance. If he had not been beaten as the Labour candidate by Simon Hughes in the infamous Bermondsey by-election of 1983 (the most anti-gay tabloid press election in British history) he may have become a Labour cabinet minister.
But fate had its own plan and as a campaigner (now also a member of the Greens), his impact on human rights has been greater than any Blairite minister.

Some dislike his confrontational style, but his targets have always been those with power: the rich or those in authority who have had double standards.
Like Zimbabwe's homophobic dictator Robert Mugabe, who was famously subjected to a citizen's arrest by Peter for 'human rights crimes' when he visited London, these people are big enough and ugly enough to look after themselves.

So, yes, Peter with his courageous campaigning, is my top icon. If you want to see him, you're lucky: he's visiting us this month. He'll address a public meeting at Hove Town Hall at the national Green conference on Saturday 23 September at 7pm on the subject of LGBT equality in the UK and is there more to do? All welcome.

Any other icons?

Taking a less rigid definition of an icon: I pick Gore Vidal and Q Boy.
Gore Vidal, the American writer, political essayist and campaigner for gay rights, wrote one of the first modern novels to tackle homosexuality (in the 1940s) and has been a persistent critic of the America's two party political system - a system that's led to the mess America and the world is in today. And Q Boy? He's that pioneering gay rap artist who could give Buju Banton a run for his money any day. And, yes, he's rather attractive, too!