Ian Campbell Dunn

Ian Campbell Dunn (1 May 1943 – 10 March 1998) was a gay rights campaigner who lived and worked in Scotland.

Life and career

Dunn began his work in gay rights activism after growing to believe that the amendments to the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which officially decriminalized homosexuality, did not apply in Scotland.

In July 1967 he wrote to Antony Grey, who was secretary of the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS) in London. They met in London in September when Dunn asked about setting up a Scottish branch of the HLRS; Grey was less than enthusiastic, having experienced difficulties with the North-Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee.

In January 1969 Dunn organised the first meeting which led to the foundation of the Scottish Minorities Group (SMG).

In January 1971 he helped start "SMG News" and was its editor for many years.

He visited the United States and Canada in the summer of 1971 to find out how activism was organised in other countries.

Ian Dunn was frequently alleged to have been a founder member, along with Michael Hanson, of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). This unsubstantiated allegation, though strongly denied by Ian Dunn and those who knew him, was resurrected by tabloid newspapers on a regular basis and repeated even after his death.

At the first International Gay Rights Congress in Edinburgh in 1974 he was involved in setting up the International Gay Association.

Also in 1974 he helped to establish the Edinburgh LGBT Centre, the first such centre in Britain.

He joined the Labour Party in 1977. He had been active in labour organisations for some time, having worked for lesbian and gay rights through Edinburgh City Labour Party and the local government union NALGO.

In 1977 he became involved in the Edinburgh Books Collective, an organisation that opened a bookshop in Edinburgh called the First of May selling left-wing political and lifestyle books.

Dunn was an active Humanist minister and celebrated ceremonies of affirmation for lesbian and gay couples.

Ian Dunn died in 1998 at the age of 54 of a suspected heart attack.

Posthumous recognition

One of the Pride Scotia awards, the Ian Dunn Memorial Award for Activism, was named in his memory by Outright Scotland.

A meeting room is named after him in the Glasgow LGBT Centre.

External links

* [http://www.scotsgay.co.uk/io20a/obit.html ScotsGay Obituary] with photographs.
* [http://www.knittingcircle.org.uk/iandunn.html The Knitting Circle: Movement] biography, writing, press cuttings.