Craig Fredric Johnston (born 1951) is an LGBT activist and former politician.
He is considered a founding member of the gay rights movement in Sydney in the 1970s and 1980s, having established the Gay Rights Lobby with Lex Watson in 1980, four years before homosexuality was decriminalised in New South Wales in 1984.
[1] An activist and office-holder with the Australian Union of Students, he dropped out of a University of New South Wales Commerce degree and then completed a Political Science degree with Honours at the University of Sydney.
Along with independents Brian McGahen and Bill Hunt, aldermen elected in the same year, he was one of the first gay city officials in Sydney.
Johnston is the author of several works on the gay rights movement, with a particular focus on Sydney,[12][13][14] including: Political and academic writing, generally focused on local and Australian social issues, has included texts for the Australian Left Review[15] Alternative Law Journal, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal,[16] and Labour History (journal),[17] while for the gay press he contributed to the Sydney Star Observer.