The Gay Liberation movement of the early 70s regarded "gay" as an all-inclusive term. For UK collectives such as Gay News, Gay Switchboard, Gay Sweatshop and the Gay Liberation Front the word covered embraced the entire LGBT spectrum - female, male, bisexual, homosexual and all points in between.

My song Glad To Be Gay was written in 1976 to perform at the Gay Pride march and rally in London that year - see gladtobegay.net for full background & history. It was released in 1978 on an EP called Rising Free by my band TRB which reached No.18 in the UK charts despite an unofficial BBC ban. (John Peel was the only Radio One DJ who played the song at the time).

With TRB we played concerts in support of Rock Against Racism and Amnesty International as well as gay and women's rights. And having always had a preference for men I identified myself as a gay man, while openly acknowledging that I did also like women.

"Everybody has the right to do what they want with their own body if nobody else is being hurt. However, I want it on record that I was with a woman the other night, and it would be a shame if in singing out about the rights of gay women and men I would be then regarded as a traitor if I then went to bed with whoever I wanted to.... As far as Joe Public is concerned, if you’re interested in other guys you’re a queer... to call ourselves bi-sexual is a cop-out. Some of the top musicians in rock make me laugh."
Melody Maker – October 22 1977

Some years later I did - rather inconveniently - end up falling head over heels in love with a woman. I mentioned this in interviews with the London gay press who didn't think it was much of a story at the time. But in 1987 The Sunday People decided it was - and ran a sensationalist centre page spread about how I'd "turned straight". A brief period in tabloid hell followed.

I still like both men and women... always have, and probably always will. This site bothways.com was first put together to promote my album Having It Both Ways in 1996, but it's here now to celebrate the fact that sexuality is a lot wider, looser and more unpredictable than some people would have you believe...

Tom Robinson
London 2010