Tom Robinson
Thomas Giles Robinson (born 1 June 1950) is a British singer, bassist, radio presenter and long-time LGBT rights activist, best known for the hits "Glad to Be Gay", "2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with his Tom Robinson Band. He later peaked at No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart with his solo single "War Baby".[1]
This article is about the musician. For other people named Tom Robinson, see Thomas Robinson.Early life[edit]
Tom Robinson was born into a middle-class family in Cambridge on 1 June 1950.[2] He attended Friends' School, Saffron Walden, a co-ed privately funded Quaker school, between 1961 and 1967. He played guitar in a trio at school called The Inquisition. Robinson has two brothers, Matthew (a former BBC executive producer) and George, and a sister, Sophy.
At the age of 13, Robinson realised that he was gay when he fell in love with another boy at school.[3] Until 1967, male homosexual activity was a crime in England, punishable by prison.[2] He had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide at 16.[2][3] A head teacher got him transferred to Finchden Manor, a therapeutic community, in Kent, for teenagers with emotional difficulties,[3] where he spent his following six years.[2] At the community, Robinson was inspired by John Peel's The Perfumed Garden on pirate Radio London, and by a visit from Alexis Korner.[3] The blues musician and broadcaster transfixed a roomful of people, using nothing but his voice and an acoustic guitar. The whole direction of Robinson's life and career became suddenly clear to him.[3]
Personal life[edit]
Robinson does not identify exclusively as gay. He has had past experiences with women and has said that he has always made it clear that he liked both men and women.[15] He now identifies as bisexual, but in the past he used the phrase 'gay', synonymous with 'queer', to encompass the entire LGBT community. He felt the term 'bisexual' was a cop-out.[15][16]
A longtime supporter and former volunteer of London's Gay Switchboard help-line, it was at a 1982 benefit party for the organisation that Robinson met Sue Brearley,[17] the woman with whom he would eventually live and have two children, and later marry.[2]
In the mid-1990s, when Robinson became a father, the tabloids ran stories about what they deemed as a sexual orientation change, running headlines such as "Britain's Number One Gay in Love with Girl Biker!" (The Sunday People).[2] Robinson continued to identify as a gay man, telling an interviewer for The Guardian: "I have much more sympathy with bisexuals now, but I am absolutely not one."[2] He added, "Our enemies do not draw the distinction between gay and bisexual."[2]
In a 1994 interview for The Boston Globe newspaper, Robinson said: "We've been fighting for tolerance for the last 20 years, and I've campaigned for people to be able to love whoever the hell they want. That's what we're talking about: tolerance and freedom and liberty—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So if somebody won't grant me the same tolerance I've been fighting for for them, hey, they've got a problem, not me."[2]
In 1996 Robinson released an album Having It Both Ways.[3] On it, he added a verse to "Glad to Be Gay", in which he sings: "Well if gay liberation means freedom for all, a label is no liberation at all. I'm here and I'm queer and do what I do, I'm not going to wear a straitjacket for you."[18][19] In 1998, his epic album about bisexuality, Blood Brother, won three awards at the Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards in New York.[3] In the same year, he also performed at the fifth International Conference on Bisexuality at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Peter Tatchell criticised "Glad Not to Be Gay", an article written by Vanessa Thorpe about Robinson in The Independent newspaper, for suggesting the LGBT community would be "shocked and angered" that a gay man would "go straight". Tatchell stated: "Tom Robinson has behaved rather commendably, in my view. Ever since the beginning of his relationship with Sue, he has continued to describe himself as 'a gay man who happens to be in love with a woman'. Who could quarrel with that? I can't."[17]
Activism[edit]
Robinson is a supporter of Amnesty International and Peter Tatchell's OutRage! human rights organisation and was a leader of the Rock Against Racism campaign.[2]