A HUMAN rights campaigner has said the fight for LGBT equality is not yet over.

Peter Tatchell is one of the UK’s most prominent LGBT activists and said he has attended Brighton Pride for many years.

He said: “It’s great to see the way Brighton Pride combines celebratory and fun things with a strong LGBT rights message.

“I marched at the parade with the Peter Tatchell Foundation to commemorate and venerate the Stonewall uprising heroes of 1969.”

The Stonewall riots were a series of demonstrations by members of the LGBT community against a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York.

It is considered one of the key events to trigger the gay liberation movement and modern day fight for LGBT rights.

Peter said: “It’s really important that we continue the struggle they began, both here in the UK and world wide.

“Since 1969 every major anti LGBT law in the UK has been repealed.

“But, still, a third of LGBT people report that they have been victims of hate crime.

“Nearly 50 per cent of young LGBT pupils in school have been bullied.

“This shows that the battle is not over yet.”

Peter moved to London and joined the Gay Liberation Front, founded in New York in 1969, two years after it began.

He organised a series of sit-ins at pubs which refused to serve members of the LGBT community and fought the medical classification of homosexuality as an illness.

But Peter said progress still needed to be made in some areas of society.

He said: “It’s very clear that, still, LGBT people don’t feel safe to come out in sports like professional football and in conservative religious communities.”

On Sunday a film about Peter’s life was premiered at Latest TV in Manchester Street, Brighton.

Bill Smith, the film’s director, said: “Tickets were completely sold out and it received a standing ovation.

“I think he is up there with the likes of Emily Davison, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King as an activist.

“He made Pride what it is today.

“He would never agree though, he is too humble.

“It was great working with him, he is a lovely guy.”

Bill said he was shocked nobody had made a film about Peter’s life before and is currently in talks to have the film screened in cinemas and on television.