Terry Sanderson (writer)

{{Short description|British LGBT rights activist, secularist, author and journalist (1946–2022)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Terry Sanderson

| image = Terry Sanderson 01.jpg

| birth_name = {{nowrap|Terence Arthur Sanderson}}

| birth_date = {{birth date|1946|11|16 |df=y}}

| death_date = {{death date and age|2022|06|12|1946|11|16 |df=y}}

| birth_place = Maltby, South Yorkshire, England

| nationality = British

| occupation = Secularist, gay rights activist, author, journalist

| partner = Keith Porteous Wood

| website = {{URL|https://gtmediawatch.org/}}

}}

Terence Arthur Sanderson{{cite web |title=Obituary: Former NSS president Terry Sanderson |url=https://www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2022/06/obituary-former-nss-president-terry-sanderson |website=National Secular Society |date=13 June 2022 |access-date=17 June 2022}} (16 November 1946 – 12 June 2022) was a leading British secularist and gay rights activist, author, and journalist. He served as president of the National Secular Society from 2006 to 2017 and was a long-standing columnist for Gay Times.

Early life and career

In 1946, Sanderson was born to a poor mining family in the South Yorkshire village of Maltby.{{cite book |title=The Reluctant Gay Activist |date=7 August 2021 |publisher=independently published |location=45 of 5039 |isbn=979-8452007791 }}{{Cite news |last=Wood |first=Keith Porteous |date=2022-07-19 |title=Terry Sanderson obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/19/terry-sanderson-obituary |access-date=2022-07-21 |newspaper=The Guardian |language=en}} He came out as gay after starting work in Rotherham at the age of seventeen. His parents found out after reading an interview with Sanderson in a local newspaper, concerning his booking a venue for a meeting of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality.Garner, Lesley "How to be a Happy Homosexual", interview with Terry Sanderson, Evening Standard, 13 April 1999, p.26 Moving to London in the early 1970s, Sanderson worked as a disability support worker or other similar jobs, and on the Woman's Own.

Career

File:Terry Sanderson panel opening.webm 2014]]

Sanderson began campaigning for equality for gay people in 1969. His MediaWatch columns for Gay Times have been a feature since 1982, and were described as "probably the most informative record of the extent of press homophobia in the UK in the 1980s".Dollimore, Jonathan (1991) Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault, Oxford University Press, p.235 In 1986, after experiencing problems with a Christian-owned publisher, Sanderson established The Other Way Press as a specifically gay-themed publishing house. Sanderson was elected President of the National Secular Society in 2006, having previously served as a vice-president for a number of years. He helped organize protests during the state visit by Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom.[http://www.secularism.org.uk/protests-planned-for-popes-visit.html Protests planned for Pope’s visit] National Secular Society, 23 September 2009

Personal life

Sanderson was in a relationship with Keith Porteous Wood, the current president of the National Secular Society. They had been together for over two decades before the recognition of same-sex relationships by the state, and they entered into a civil partnership in 2006.Annual Report, 2005–06 Campaign for Homosexual Equality In 2015 his autobiography The Adventures of a Happy Homosexual was published and then revised with a new epilogue in 2021 as The Reluctant Gay Activist following his diagnosis and treatment for bladder cancer.{{cite web |title=Terry Sanderson's memoir shows gay and secularist activism go hand in hand |url=https://www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2021/10/terry-sandersons-memoir-shows-that-gay-and-secularist-activism-often-go-hand-in-hand |website=National Secular Society |date=7 October 2021 |access-date=18 January 2022}} His cancer returned in 2022 and he died at his home in London on 12 June that year, aged 75.{{cite web |title=NSS mourns the loss of Terry Sanderson |url=https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2022/06/nss-mourns-the-loss-of-terry-sanderson |publisher=National Secular Society |date=13 June 2022}}{{cite web |url= https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2022/06/nss-mourns-the-loss-of-terry-sanderson |title= NSS mourns the loss of Terry Sanderson |date= 13 June 2022 |website= National Secular Society |access-date= 18 June 2022}}

Works

How to be a Happy Homosexual (1986) London: The Other Way Press, {{ISBN|0-948982-00-4}}, (5th ed, 1999)
The Potts Correspondence and Other Gay Humour (1987) London: The Other Way Press, {{ISBN|0-948982-01-2}}
"Gays and the Press" (1989), in Shepherd, Simon and Wallis, Mick, Coming on strong: gay politics and culture London: Routledge; Chapter 13, pp. 231–241,{{ISBN|0-04-445352-3}}
Making Gay Relationships Work (1990) London: The Other Way Press, {{ISBN|0-948982-02-0}}
Stranger in the Family: how to cope if your child is gay (1991) London: The Other Way Press, {{ISBN|0-948982-03-9}}, (2nd ed, 1996)
Mediawatch: treatment of male and female homosexuality in the British media (1995) London: Continuum International Publishing, {{ISBN|978-0-304-33186-4}}
The Potts Papers (1996) London: The Other Way Press, {{ISBN|0-948982-09-8}}
Assertively Gay: how to build gay self-esteem (1997) 2nd revised edition, London: The Other Way Press, {{ISBN|978-0-948982-10-1}}
The Gay Man's Kama Sutra (2003) London: Carlton Books, {{ISBN|978-1-84222-794-7}}
The Adventures of a Happy Homosexual: Memoirs of an Unlikely Activist (2015) The Otherway Press {{ISBN|978-1786102331}}
The Reluctant Gay Activist (2021) Independently published, {{ISBN|979-8452007791}}

References

External links

[https://gtmediawatch.org/ Sanderson's "Mediawatch" site]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070625221107/http://www.otherway.dircon.co.uk/ The Other Way Press]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080602062457/http://dogmafreeamerica.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=215929 Interview with Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society] Dogma Free America podcast
[https://www.theguardian.com/profile/terrysanderson Profile of Terry Sanderson] The Guardian, 26 May 2010
[http://www.anamariarivera.com/how-to-be-happy-heresy-webtv/ How to be happy ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303225848/http://www.anamariarivera.com/how-to-be-happy-heresy-webtv/ |date=3 March 2016 }}anamariarivera, 26 June 2013
[https://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/this-man-spent-25-years-fighting-newspapers-over-their This Man Spent 25 Years Fighting Newspapers Over Their Homophobic Reporting And Finally Won]

Category:1946 births

Category:2022 deaths

Category:British atheism activists

Category:English male journalists

Category:English atheists

Category:English gay writers

Category:English LGBTQ rights activists

Category:English LGBTQ journalists

Category:British critics of religions

Category:English male non-fiction writers

Category:20th-century English male writers

Category:21st-century English male writers