Celebrating Maureen Duffy, humanist icon | Lesbian Visibility Week

This Lesbian Visibility Week we are shining the light on the life of a true hero of ours: the pioneering humanist, lesbian, author, and first President of LGBT Humanists, Maureen Duffy. As one of the first people to fight for lesbian visibility in this country, Maureen Duffy has become a living legend of the humanist movement, whose courage and openness with her sexuality transformed gay and lesbian acceptance in the UK, breaking down barriers and prejudice, and giving confidence to other women like her to do the same.

One of the first British women to come out publicly as a lesbian, Duffy became a prominent activist for LGBT rights, and a champion of visibility and advocacy. A campaigner, a novelist, and a patron of Humanists UK, her record of campaigning for equality for lesbians and the wider liberation movement changed the country around us for the better. Everyone should know her name.

‘No gay bookshop or list of books on gay themes would be complete without titles by Maureen Duffy. But she is primarily a writer, rather than a gay writer (whatever that may be), who naturally includes her sexuality within her writing. Her writing, poems, and other works explore the variety of human experience, which, of course, includes her gay life.’ Excerpt from ‘Maureen Duffy – A Profile’ by Jim Herrick in the newsletter of the Gay Humanist Group, March 1980

Maureen Duffy is a British writer, poet, and playwright who was born on October 21, 1933, in Worthing, Sussex, England. Duffy attended King’s College London, where she earned a degree in English in 1954. She then worked as a teacher, freelance journalist, and copywriter before devoting herself to writing full-time in the 1960s.

Her first novel, That’s How It Was (1962), was a semi-autobiographical account of growing up in post-World War II England. Her second novel, The Microcosm (1966), was a feminist work that explored the lives of a group of women in 1960s London. Watch this fantastic video of Duffy in 1967 speaking about the bravery it takes to come out. This interview happened before the Sexual Offences Act 1967 was enacted – meaning ‘homosexuality’ was still a crime in the UK.

The Microcosm is considered the first ‘openly’ lesbian novel in English, and was banned in Ireland, Vatican, and South Africa for showing black and white characters socialising together. But Ms Duffy also received many messages from young women thanking her for showing them that being a lesbian is okay. In her novel Ms Duffy expresses the need for visibility for LGBT community: ‘We’re part of society, part of the world whether we or society like it or not, and we have to learn to live in the world and the world has to live with us.’

A lot has changed since then, LGBT community in Britain is out of the closet and out of The Microcosm. We are allowed to live and love in the open. As Ms Duffy said in her essay: ‘We have come a long way, but we must never forget the clock can always be put back. Ms Duffy echoed this in her inaugural lecture as the first President of the Gay Humanist Group, which would become LGBT Humanists. As well as proposing the group’s role in developing what she called ‘the ethics of compassion’, she made the case for LGBT visibility: ‘We have to leave the lump of society with our visible and acknowledged presence in it… I believe that we must grasp our own existence and participate in the whole of human life.’ These were words Ms Duffy lived by, and – like the group she was addressing –she made significant contributions to the LGBT rights movement in the UK.

In that first address as honorary President of the Gay Humanist Group she defined one of the group’s goals as being to contribute to ‘the ethics of compassion’, which she defined as a ‘fluid morality, based on a perception of ‘fellowness, fellow feeling, fellow suffering’. ‘It is immensely appealing to a writer,’ she said. ‘Because it requires a continuing act of the imagination in order to identify with others and it also needs the continuing exercise of the reason if there is to be some bony structure to it, for it not to become mere sloppiness.’

To conclude the talk, Duffy quoted from The Microcosm, using the character of Matt to express a gentle but resolute promise to be part of the world, while remaining true to herself:

‘I’m just taking up my whole personality and walking quietly out into the world with it. We’ll see what happens.’

Maureen Duffy was among the first women to fight for lesbian visibility. In an essay published in Pride: The Story of the LGBTQ Equality Movement edited by Matthew Todd she described a feeling that in the calls for decriminalisation of male homosexuality ‘the fact that there were also gay women receded further into the background – as just the left-behinds who couldn’t get a man.’

This is what prompted her to write a nonfiction book about British lesbians. She interviewed several gay women but when she presented the idea to the publisher she was rejected since she didn’t have a degree in sociology. It was instead suggested that she should write a novel about this topic. And so she did. Now in her late 80s, Maureen Duffy continues to write and publish works that challenge societal norms and promote social justice. To this day she remains a patron of Humanists UK.

And the world is better for having her in it.

Notes:

LGBT Humanists is a section of Humanists UK. For over 40 years, LGBT Humanists has fought for equality for LGBT people. LGBT Humanists was founded in 1979 in response to the Gay News blasphemy trial, and we’ve blazed a trail since then arguing for equality by challenging religious opposition to LGBT rights. From equalising the age of consent and campaigning for same-sex marriage, to more recent campaigns to ban the horrific practice of ‘conversion therapy’, we have been resolute in calling for equal rights.

Humanists UK is the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people. Powered by 100,000 members and supporters, we advance free thinking and promote humanism to create a tolerant society where rational thinking and kindness prevail. We provide ceremonies, pastoral care, education, and support services benefitting over a million people every year and our campaigns advance humanist thinking on ethical issues, human rights, and equal treatment for all.