‘Hating Peter Tatchell’ is a new netflix film about the Australian-born LGBTQ+ and human rights activist, who over half a century has charged headlong into battle without regard for his safety, protesting against homophobia, apartheid and the death penalty. He says: ‘I’ve been violently assaulted over 300 times, had 50 attacks on my flat, been the victim of half a dozen murder plots and received tens of thousands of hate messages and death threats over the last five decades, mostly from homophobes and far-right extremists.’
Odd examples of his protests: 2003 ambush of Tony Blair’s motorcade in protest at the Iraq war; a bid for an arrest warrant for Henry Kissinger over the indiscriminate bombing of Cambodia in the 1970s; an exposé of the Nazi war criminal Dr Carl Værnet; confronting Hans Eysenck over his advocacy of electric shock aversion therapy to “cure” gay people; his efforts to persuade world health chiefs to stop the persecution HIV/Aids sufferers; and the outing of bishops who colluded with an anti-LGBTQ+ church despite their own homosexuality. He has spoken out against the dictatorships in Franco’s Spain, Pinochet’s Chile and Khomeini’s Iran and his attempted citizen’s arrest in 2001 of Robert Mugabe on charges of torture, saw him beaten unconscious by two bodyguards and left with brain damage. At an appearance at a gay pride march in Moscow recently he was punched by rightwing thugs which left him with permanently blurred vision in his right eye.
He considers himself lucky in comparison to pro-democracy campaigners in Iran, environmentalists in Russia or political activists in Zimbabwe. “If I was doing what they are doing, I’d be dead.”
He was born 25 January 1952 at 2.30am Melbourne, Australia, with his parents splitting when he was four. His mother remarried and his stepfather, an evangelical Christian of Prussian heritage beat him regularly. “He was a monster – I used to think he was an escaped Nazi war criminal.”
I was intrigued to see what astrologically drove his obsessive need to fly into danger and indulge in David and Goliath battles with the forces of darkness.
Two things stand out from his chart. One unsurprisingly is a marked Uranus in a Cardinal Grand Cross. It sits in opposition to Mercury square Saturn opposition Jupiter which gives him a yen to become a cloaked crusader in pursuit of social justice. It makes for an impatient, overly restless temperament who revels in causing disruption, a freedom fighter and innovator. Well handled it points to an individual who is a light-bearer for enlightened causes who has a good deal to offer.
The other is his Aquarius Sun square Mars in vengeful Scorpio, which would make him combative, always spoiling for a fight and likely to attract strong responses.
He also has an opinionated Pluto in the 9th giving him entrenched beliefs.
Certainly not designed for a quiet life.
His raison d’etre for allowing the film to be made was to show people that one person could make a difference. Which he undoubtedly has though at a considerable cost to his health. Some years back he managed to get himself tied in a knot over the age of consent since he argued many people under 16 started their sex lives without damage, some as young as nine! But it brought the wrath of the lobby against child abuse down on his head and blotted his copybook.
Marjorie, he does not care about physical harm, he is truly that rare person, one who lays down his life for others in the pursuit of justice. I just wish he had been more circumspect about child abuse.
Thanks Marjorie – he’s an extraordinary, boundary-less figure. I’m curious about his Scorpio Mars aspecting the Nodes on the MC/IC axis, plus (if birth time is right) that self-contained Moon in Capricorn. It seems to me that his enormous, relentless drive is working out through his connections with ‘the public’, or humanity as a whole – and with the victim/saviour themes of the Nodes in Pisces and Virgo.
Peter Tatchell is one of my all-time great heroes, I have nothing but admiration for him. I was intending to look up his chart, and I’m glad it’s here. It explains a lot, including the Scorpio Mars in the 11th house. I also have Mars (in Gemini) in the 11th house, and I feel deeply passionate about injustice – in fact if I was true to myself I’d also be an activist, but I have not an iota of the courage or determination or chutzpah that my hero possesses.
Well remember the controversial Bermondsey by election of 1983 in which Peter Tatchell was the Labour candidate, much to the chagrin of Bob Mellish, whom Tatchell replaced. Mellish broke down in tears on TV, he didn’t want to be deselected.
A bizarre sideshow to the election campaign was of John O’Grady, the mayor of Southwark, riding along the streets of Bermondsey in a horse and cart bawling out “Tatchell is a Poofter”, to the tune of Lonnie Donegan’s 1960 hit ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’.
Tatchell is uncompromising and he does not seek easy popularity unlike so many people who espouse liberal cases. Lots of cardinal energy in that chart so he is not just going to sit around pontificating about the things he believes but is going to act. The fact he has put himself at physical risk so often shows he is more than an empty showboater. I am sure he irritates lots of people right across the political spectrum. I have to confess to having a sneaking admiration for him perhaps because he has the courage that so many people in the western world seem to lack.
Tatchell is uncompromising and he does not seek easy popularity unlike so many people who espouse liberal cases.
Seriously? Ok then.
Tatchell was on the barricades on many issues before the causes became “fashionable”. Like it or not I suspect many people take up political stances or causes only when they perceive it is relatively safe or to their personal advantage. It is easy to take up a cause with the law, corporations and media behind you. Not so easy when it has negative consequences
I must say I’m torn about Tatchell -as you say in admiration for his gung-ho courage, but wondering about the insanity which drives his relentless determination to throw himself in harm’s way.
I suspect in a different age he would be the sort of person who would win a VC or have ended up as a religious martyr. Over the years Tatchell has taken on more dangerous adversaries and walked a more painful road than you would expect from someone who just had a desire for fame and notoriety. He really ought to retire but as you rightly say he is clearly driven to take on opponents a lot bigger than himself. I don’t pretend to understand his motivation but he is clearly different from many who like to grandstand on far safer ground.
I agree with Hugh, I feel the same.
What I see is not just a cardinal grand cross, which is enough on it’s own, but a cardinal grand cross comprising an exalted Saturn in Libra in an exact station and an out-of-bounds Moon. I’ve tried and failed many times to explain what I see in declinations, but out-of-bounds planets to me are kind of like “f**k it, I’m gonna” 🙂 See also Dominic Cummings recently. It doesn’t make someone inherently good or bad, but they do and say things that other people just think about
When you have no dependents ( any more) and you realize that we all have to die sometime, why not use this time up for a cause or something you feel passionate about ??
I don’t know if you’ve noticed Hugh but these days Liberals aren’t exactly popular. Unlike the populists.
I think that depends on where you are, but we certainly live in very polarised times.
That was exhausting to read! But I did think he might have some heavy Aquarian energy there and so he has. And look, yet again, the stereotype of the dark, perverse religious nut is there damaging his childhood. I wonder if psychologically he is fighting his step-father whom I can only imagine would be against everything Peter Tatchall stood for?
I do wish I had a smidge of steel to go out and fight for a cause but I am just not built for it, though I do have strong opinions on how people should be treated. But endangering your life is either completely wreckless or takes guts or a bit of both!