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Weekly free newspaper for lesbians and gays in London and Brighton
Capital Gay
was a weekly free
gay
newspaper
published in London founded by
Graham McKerrow
and
Michael Mason
. Its first issue was published on 26 June 1981, during Pride Week; the paper folded with the issue dated 30 June 1995. Despite its name, it was also distributed in
Brighton
and had a combined circulation, in the two cities, of around 20,000 at the time when publication ceased.
[1]
Initially priced at 20p, it became a
freesheet
after six months.
[1]
McKerrow and Mason met while working at
Gay News
[2]
and designed
Capital Gay
as a complementary publication.
[2]
Compared with
Gay News
, which was fortnightly and had an 11-day lead time between print deadline and its availability,
Capital Gay
had a shorter production time of 24 hours, and came out more frequently, every week.
[2]
The aim was to provide a news service for London and Brighton, particularly for users of the growing
commercial lesbian and gay scene
,
[2]
to provide a link between the
political movement
and the commercial scene, and to facilitate swifter political responses by the LGBT movement than had previously been possible.
[2]
The news pages covered politics and non-political news, while regular contributors provided comment and analysis.
Capital Gay
sponsored the
London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard
and involved itself in events in the wider gay community in London; its editorial line tended to be strong. It is credited by the
Oxford English Dictionary
with being the first publication in the world to use the term
HIV
(the second being the international science journal
Nature
);
[1]
[3]
it also hosted the world's first regular column on
AIDS
, which was written by
Julian Meldrum
in 1984. For some years, with no reliable information on the threat of AIDS publicly available in the medical or national press,
Capital Gay
widened its distribution to cover cities with large gay populations including
Manchester
and Brighton. Copies were sent by rail and distributed to local clubs, bars and hotels by volunteers.
During the controversy over
Section 28
in December 1987, the paper's offices were targeted in an
arson
attack. After being accused by Labour MP
Tony Banks
of legitimising the incident,
Conservative
Member of Parliament
Dame
Elaine Kellett-Bowman
was quoted in
Hansard
as saying: "I am quite prepared to affirm that it is quite right that there should be an intolerance of evil."
[4]
[5]
Editors
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References
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