Australian activist Peter Tatchell was BOTD in 1952. Born in Melbourne, he launched campaigns at his secondary school supporting Australian Aborigines and opposing the death penalty. He left school at 16 to support his family, working as a signwriter and department store window-dresser, and joined the anti-Vietnam protest movement. Moving to London in 1971, he quickly became a central figure in the Gay Liberation Front, organising sit-ins at pubs refusing to serve gay people and protesting the medical classification of homosexuality as a mental illness. He helped organise Britain’s first Gay Pride march in 1972, famously carrying a placard in the 1973 march reading “Homosexuals Are Revolting”. During the 1980s, he established Outrage!, a radical non-violent action group (modelled on ACT-UP) to combat Margaret Thatcher‘s homophobic Section 28 legislation. More controversially, he outed a number of closeted gay bishops and politicians, putting him at odds with gay moderates and conservatives. He also raised controversy in 1996 by campaigning to lower the age of sexual consent to 14, triggering backlash from critics who claimed he was endorsing paedophilia. While a prominent supporter of same-sex civil partnerships, which he argued should be extended to heterosexual couples, he was withering about the campaign to legalise same-sex marriage. In 2011, he established the Peter Tatchell Foundation to promote human rights in the UK and around the world. Now acknowledged as a central figure in gay rights, he has shifted his activist focus to Zimbabwe, Russia, Iran and former British colonies where homosexuality is still illegal.