Tatchell was born in Melbourne, Australia. His father was a lathe operator and his mother worked in a biscuit factory. His parents divorced when he was four and his mother remarried soon afterwards. Since the family finances were strained by medical bills, he had to leave school at 16 in 1968.

To avoid conscription into the Australian Army, Tatchell moved to London in 1971. He had accepted being gay in 1969, and in London became a leading member of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) until its 1974 collapse. During this time Tatchell was prominent in organising sit-ins at pubs that refused to serve "poofs" and protests against police harassment and the medical classification of homosexuality as an illness. With others he helped organise Britain's first Gay Pride march in 1972. In 1973, he attended the 10th World Youth Festival in East Berlin on GLF's behalf. His actions triggered opposition within and between different groups of national delegates including the Communist Party of Great Britain and National Union of Students. He was banned from conferences, had his leaflets confiscated and burned, was interrogated by the secret police (the Stasi) and threatened and assaulted by other delegates, mostly communists. Tatchell later claimed that this was the first time gay liberation politics were publicly disseminated and discussed in a communist country, although he noted that, in terms of decriminalisation and the age of consent, gay men had greater rights in East Germany at the time than in Britain and much of the West. Describing his time in the Gay Liberation Front, he wrote in The Guardian that: [The] GLF was a glorious, enthusiastic and often chaotic mix of anarchists, hippies, leftwingers, feminists, liberals and counter-culturalists. Despite our differences, we shared a radical idealism - a dream of what the world could and should be - free from not just homophobia but the whole sex-shame culture, which oppressed straights as much as LGBTs. We were sexual liberationists and social revolutionaries, out to turn the world upside down. [...] GLF's main aim was never equality within the status quo. [...] GLF's strategy for queer emancipation was to change society's values and norms, rather than adapt to them. We sought a cultural revolution to overturn centuries of male heterosexual domination and thereby free both queers and women. [...] Forty years on, GLF's gender agenda has been partly won. [...] Girlish boys and boyish girls don't get victimised as much as in times past. LGBT kids often now come out at the age of 12 or 14. While many are bullied, many others are not. The acceptance of sexual and gender diversity is increasing. In 1978, Tatchell joined the Labour Party and moved to a council flat in Bermondsey, south-east London. From October 1979, he became a leading member in a group of left-wingers planning to depose the right-wing caucus of Southwark councillors that controlled the Bermondsey Constituency Labour Party (CLP). At the CLP's AGM in February 1980, the left group won control and Tatchell was elected Secretary. When the sitting Labour MP, Bob Mellish, announced his retirement in 1981, Tatchell was selected as his successor. The selection was a surprise, as Arthur Latham, a former MP and former Chairman of the Tribune Group, was the favourite. Later, the Militant group was cited as the reason for Tatchell's selection, but he has said that it had only a handful of members at that time in the constituency; he had never been a member and Militant did not support his selection. Tatchell ascribed his selection to the support of the "older, 'born and bred' working class; the younger professional and intellectual members swung behind Latham". Due to Tatchell's support for direct action in the London Labour Briefing newsletter, Tatchell was denounced by party leader Michael Foot for allegedly supporting extra-parliamentary action against the Thatcher government; according to Tony Benn, Foot lied about Tatchell's alleged extremism in order to allow the Social Democratic Party to rejoin the Labour Party. Neil Kinnock stated that the whole affair was a matter of political judgement, asking "the question is: are we talking of extra-parliamentary or anti-parliamentary behaviour?" The fact that Tatchell was a gay man was also considered by some as a factor as to why Tatchell should not be supported. Labour subsequently allowed him to stand in the Bermondsey by-election, held in February 1983. In an article for a left-wing magazine, Tatchell urged the Labour Party to support direct action campaigning to challenge the Margaret Thatcher-led Tory government. Social Democratic Party MP James Wellbeloved, arguing the article was anti-Parliamentary, quoted it at Prime Minister's Questions in November 1981 to embarrass Labour leader Michael Foot. Unexpectedly, Foot denounced Tatchell, stating that he would not be endorsed as a candidate. Foot narrowly won a vote at the Labour Party National Executive Committee to deny Tatchell's endorsement. However, the Bermondsey Labour Party continued to support him and he worked on convincing Foot that his article was in the tradition of the Chartists and the Suffragettes and had been misinterpreted by his political opponents. It was eventually agreed that when the selection was rerun, Tatchell would be eligible, and he duly won. When Mellish resigned from Parliament and triggered a by-election, Tatchell's candidacy was endorsed. The divisions in the Labour Party, which Tatchell's far left views had exposed, and his homosexuality (which he refused to confirm or deny in media appearances), were used against him, in an election campaign widely regarded as one of the dirtiest and most violent in modern British history. Tatchell was assaulted in the street, had his flat attacked, and had a death threat and a live bullet put through his letterbox in the night. Although the Bermondsey seat had long been a Labour stronghold, the Liberal candidate, Simon Hughes, won the election. During the campaign, allegations were made that some Liberal canvassers stirred up xenophobia and homophobia on the doorsteps, playing up the fact that Tatchell was born in Australia and making an issue of his homosexuality. Members of the Liberal Gay Action Group campaigned wearing lapel badges emblazoned with the words, "I've been kissed by Peter Tatchell" to rebut the view held by some that he was attempting to hide his sexuality (see Bermondsey by-election, 1983). One of Hughes' campaign leaflets was condemned for claiming the election was "a straight choice" between Liberal and Labour, but this phrase is regularly used by many parties within the UK, and Hughes has since apologised for what may have been seen as an inadvertent slur. Hughes later came out as bisexual in 2006. In the mid- and late 1980s, Tatchell wrote books including The Battle for Bermondsey (the story of the by-election), Democratic Defence and a ground-breaking guide to surviving with HIV and AIDS, AIDS: A Guide to Survival. His book Europe in the Pink described the varying laws on homosexuality through the European Union. In 1990 Tatchell sought (unsuccessfully) the Labour nomination for Hampstead and Highgate, but was defeated by actress Glenda Jackson. CANNOTANSWER

Answer the following question by taking a quote from the article: Did he hold a political office?

Due to Tatchell's support for direct action in the London Labour Briefing newsletter, Tatchell was denounced by party leader Michael Foot