Richard Moore, chief of the UK Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), has publicly apologised for the organisation’s historic treatment of LGBTQ+ people, including a ban on queer staff which was in place until 1991.
Moore posted a video on Twitter, 30 years after the ban had been lifted, where he described the treatment of LGBTQ+ spies as “wrong, unjust and discriminatory”, adding MI6 “deprived ourselves of some of the best talent Britain could offer” by rejecting LGBTQ+ workers.
The MI6 HQ in LondonHe continued: “Committed, talented, public-spirited people had their careers and lives blighted because it was argued that being LGBTQ+ was incompatible with being an intelligence professional.