Lisa Power

Lisa Power MBE (born 1954) is a British sexual health and LGBT rights campaigner. She worked at the Lesbian & Gay Switchboard and International Lesbian and Gay Association. She co-founded the Pink Paper and Stonewall, becoming policy director at the Terrence Higgins Trust. She was the first openly LGBT person to speak at the United Nations and continues to work as a LGBTIQ activist in Wales with groups such as National Museum Cardiff and Pride Cymru.

Lisa Power
Born1954  (age 66)
OccupationLGBTIQ+ rights activist 

Early life

Power was born in 1954.[1] She came out as lesbian in 1970s in a time when homosexuality was still controversial in British society.[2] She worked at the Lesbian & Gay Switchboard in London.[3] At the switchboard, she started to take calls about a mystery illness which became known as GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) and later HIV/AIDS. She then set up the National AIDS Helpline and worked for Hackney Council as HIV policy officer.[4]

Career

Power became Secretary-General of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (now the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) in 1988 and then helped to set up the Pink Paper.[3][5] She co-founded Stonewall in 1989 and subsequently was the policy director of the Terrence Higgins Trust.[3]

In 1991, Power was the first openly LGBT person to speak about gay rights at the United Nations in New York.[2][6] She received the Order of the British Empire in 2011 for her services to the LGBT community and was named on the 2017 Pinc List of leading Welsh LGBT figures.[7][3]

In 2020, she collaborated with National Museum Cardiff and curator Dan Vo on a program called "Queer Tours", which aimed to uncover hidden LGBTQ histories in Cardiff.[8][9] She is also the Organiser for Pride History Month at Pride Cymru, chairperson of the HIV Justice Network and a trustee the planned Queer Britain museum.[5][8] On International Women's Day 2020, Power commented "Women are raised with an inner voice of self doubt; tell yours to shut up and let you have a go".[10]

Selected works
  • Power, Lisa. No bath but plenty of bubbles: An oral history of the Gay Liberation Front, 1970–1973. Cassell. p. 288. ISBN 978-0304332052.

References
  1. "The Discovery Service". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives. Archived from the original on 16 June 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  2. Pollock, India (2019-03-15). "'Huge distance' travelled on LGBT attitudes". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2020-04-09. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  3. "Terrence Higgins Trust's Lisa Power awarded MBE". PinkNews. 9 February 2011. Archived from the original on 3 August 2019. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
  4. Warriner, Colin (29 June 2011). "Being honest about HIV: Lisa Power, policy head at Terrence Higgins Trust". So So Gay. Archived from the original on 24 October 2014.
  5. Power, Lisa (26 April 2019). "In 1989, I could legally be fired for being a lesbian. Now, 30 years after I co-founded Stonewall, we're more visible than ever". inews.co.uk. Archived from the original on 8 July 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  6. "Speakers". www.ilga-europe.org. ILGA-Europe. Archived from the original on 13 May 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  7. "Pinc List 2017". Wales Online. 2017-08-19. Archived from the original on 2017-08-20. Retrieved 2017-08-20.
  8. "Wales' first Queer Tours – "Re-interpreting" art like a gay man". InterCardiff. 2020-03-05. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  9. "Tours to reveal museum's LGBT stories". BBC News. 2020-03-15. Archived from the original on 2020-03-16. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  10. Stephens, Lydia (8 March 2020). "International Women's Day- 'what I wish I knew when I was younger'". Wales Online. Archived from the original on 9 March 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
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