--- title: "Happy birthday, Maureen Duffy: remembering the humanist, poet, and LGBT+ trailblazer" date: "2026-10-21T15:57:00+01:00" modified: "2026-10-21T17:28:54+01:00" url: "https://humanists.uk/2026/10/21/remembering-maureen-duffy-pioneering-humanist-author-today-on-her-birthday/" post_id: 200681 categories: ["LGBT Humanists", "News"] --- # Happy birthday, Maureen Duffy: remembering the humanist, poet, and LGBT+ trailblazer ![Maureen Duffy](https://i0.wp.com/humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/Duffy-2222.png?resize=1200%2C628&ssl=1)Today, 21 October, would have been the 93rd birthday of **[Maureen Duffy](https://heritage.humanists.uk/maureen-duffy/)** (1933–2026): novelist, poet, campaigner, and the first President of the Gay Humanist Group, now [LGBT+ Humanists](https://humanists.uk/community/lgbt-humanists/). It is the first since her death in May, so we are remembering one of Britain’s most [prominent humanists](https://heritage.humanists.uk/types/people/), and the ethics of compassion that shaped everything she wrote. Duffy wrote more than 30 books and was a humanist for the whole of her adult life. She was one of the first women in British public life to be open about being a lesbian, and a [patron of Humanists UK](https://humanists.uk/about/our-people/patrons/) until her death. You can read her full life story on [Humanist Heritage](https://heritage.humanists.uk/maureen-duffy/). --- Maureen Duffy and The Microcosm ------------------------------- Born in Worthing in 1933 and raised in poverty by her mother, Duffy won a scholarship to grammar school and went on to study English at King’s College London. Her novel *The Microcosm* (1966), set around the Gateways Club in Chelsea, was the first British novel to depict a whole community of gay women. It was banned in Ireland, South Africa, and the Vatican. In 1967, weeks before the Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalised sex between men, she spoke openly on BBC television about being a lesbian. ![Cover of the 1989 Virago edition of The Microcosm by Maureen Duffy](https://i0.wp.com/humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/Duffy-Microcosm-1.jpg?resize=600%2C800&ssl=1)‘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.’ Maureen Duffy, *The Microcosm* (1966) --- First President of the Gay Humanist Group ----------------------------------------- In 1977 Mary Whitehouse won her blasphemy prosecution of *Gay News* and warned of a ‘homosexual humanist lobby’. Duffy replied with a broadside in verse, *The Ballad of the Blasphemy Trial*. In 1979 activists including [George Broadhead](https://heritage.humanists.uk/george-broadhead/) decided that if such a lobby was so feared it had better exist, and founded the Gay Humanist Group. Duffy became its first President. Her inaugural address at [Conway Hall](https://heritage.humanists.uk/conway-hall/) in March 1980, [Separate Development? Out of the closet, into the ghetto](https://heritage.humanists.uk/from-the-archives-separate-development/), said the group’s purpose was not ‘simple church bashing’ but ‘to speak up wherever necessary from the rationalist stance’. ![](https://i0.wp.com/humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/GHG-president-Maureen-Duffy-cuts-the-cake-at-the-5th-anniversary-celebration-1984-711x1024-1.jpg?resize=711%2C1024&ssl=1)‘As war is far too important to be left to the generals, so morality is far too important to be left to the theologians.’ Maureen Duffy, inaugural address to the Gay Humanist Group, Conway Hall, 17 March 1980 She remained President as the group became the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) in 1987. A year later, as President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, she carried a motion at the Trades Union Congress condemning Section 28 as an attack on free expression. --- How humanism shaped Maureen Duffy’s thinking -------------------------------------------- In the same address Duffy set out what she called the ethics of compassion, her answer to [what it means to be a humanist](https://humanists.uk/humanism/): > ‘I would define it as a fluid morality, based on a perception of fellowness, fellow feeling, fellow suffering. It is immensely appealing to a writer 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.’ > > Maureen Duffy, [Separate Development?](https://heritage.humanists.uk/from-the-archives-separate-development/) (1980) Imagination and reason, working together, run through all her writing. ‘The true humanist,’ she said, ‘is always an existentialist, in the sense that he believes nothing is given except oneself and that every decision has to be lived and relived.’ She extended that compassion to other animals. A vegetarian from 1967, she wrote *Men and Beasts: An Animal Rights Handbook* (1984) and the novel *Gor Saga* (1981), filmed by the BBC as *First Born*. --- Maureen Duffy in New Humanist ----------------------------- Browsing through the [*New Humanist* ](https://newhumanist.org.uk/about/)archive (which every New Humanist subscriber can access online) shows her humanism in action over three decades: - **1972:** a leader, with [Brigid Brophy](https://heritage.humanists.uk/brigid-brophy/), of the campaign for a Public Lending Right, she wrote in to explain what authors would earn when libraries lent their books. The campaign won the Public Lending Right Act in 1979. - **1973:** in a letter headed ‘Everybody’s Lib’, she insisted that ‘Homosexuals may be male or female’. - **1978 and 1989:** she signed public statements against the blasphemy law. - **1990:** as GALHA President, she presented a portrait of [E. M. Forster](https://heritage.humanists.uk/e-m-forster/) to Conway Hall. - **2002:** she backed the campaign to open BBC Radio 4’s *Thought for the Day* to non-religious speakers. Reviewing her novel *Restitution* in 1999, Peter Faulkner wrote that ‘Duffy never suggests that anyone’s life is easy – at least if lived with a sense of responsibility to others.’ A lifelong friend of Humanists UK --------------------------------- When GALHA became part of Humanists UK in 2012, Duffy became a patron. In 2023 her humanist mass, *Missa Hermana*, set to music by Dolly Collins, had its first performance at Conway Hall. In 2025, aged 91, she won the Royal Society of Literature’s first Pioneer Prize. She died on 27 May 2026, aged 92. Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK, said: > ‘Maureen was a brilliant writer and an irreplaceable pioneer of our movement… She embodied the very best of humanist values – using reason, creativity, and empathy to build a fairer world. Everyone should know her name.’ She ended her 1980 address with the words of Matt, the central character of *The Microcosm*, leaving the safety of the rock pool for the open sea: ‘I’m not running. I’m just taking up my whole personality and walking quietly out into the world with it. We’ll see what happens.’ Maureen Duffy, *The Microcosm* (1966) Discover more [LGBT+ humanist history](https://heritage.humanists.uk/category/lgbt/) and other [famous humanists](https://heritage.humanists.uk/types/people/) on Humanist Heritage. ![Cover of the Gay Humanist Group pamphlet 'Separate Development? Out of the closet into the ghetto', a talk by Maureen Duffy, 1980](https://i0.wp.com/humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/00-683x1024-1.jpg?ssl=1) From the archives, on Humanist Heritage Read Maureen Duffy’s 1980 address in full *Separate Development? Out of the closet, into the ghetto* – her first speech as President of the Gay Humanist Group, and her case for an ethics of compassion built on imagination and reason. [Read the address →](https://heritage.humanists.uk/from-the-archives-separate-development/) Conway Hall, London, 17 March 1980 #### Notes For further comment or information, media should contact Humanists UK Head of Press and Campaign Communications Nathan Stilwell at or phone 020 3675 0959 (media only). Read more about [Maureen Duffy](https://humanists.uk/2026/05/29/humanists-uk-mourns-maureen-duffy-1933-2026-trailblazing-author-and-first-lgbt-humanists-president/) and the work of [LGBT+ Humanists](https://humanists.uk/community/lgbt-humanists/). 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 over 150,000 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.