LGBT History Month: The journey towards full citizenship in the UK
The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) formed at the London School of Economics in
1970 in response to debates many gay men and lesbians were having about
the way they were treated, leading to...
Leo Abse (Leopold Abse, 1917–2008) was a
Welsh lawyer, Labour politician and gay rights
campaigner.
Adoption and Children Act 2002 Equal rights are granted to same-sex couples to apply
for joint adoption but it only comes into force from 2005.
Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners
(LGSM) campaign is launched in of
support of workers in the miners’ strikes
in 1984 and 1985.
In 2003 Section 28 is repealed in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, lifting the ban on
local authorities from ‘the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of
homosexuality’.
In 1962 he began pushing for a bill to implement
the provisions of the Wolfenden Report and this
eventually bore fruit as the Sexual Offences Act
1967.
The Civil Partnership Act 2004 is passed, granting civil partnership in the United
Kingdom. The Act gives same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as
married straight couples in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
The Sexual Offences Act 1967 is an
Act of Parliament, it decriminalised
homosexual acts in private between
two men over the age of 21. The Act
applied only to England and Wales.
It did not extend to the Merchant
Navy or the Armed Forces, or
Scotland, Northern Ireland, the
Channel Islands or the Isle of Man,
where sex between two men
remained illegal.
Sir Ewan Forbes (1912–1991) was a Scottish
doctor who registered a change of gender and became a baronet. At birth, he was christened
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill, and officially
registered as the youngest daughter of John, Lord
Sempill. After an uncomfortable upbringing, he
began living as a man at the start of his medical
career in 1945. He formally re-registered his birth
as male in 1952, adopting the name of "Ewan
Forbes-Sempill", and was married a month later.
In 1966, trans support group, The Beaumont Society, is founded to provide
Information and education to the general public, the medical and legal professions
on ‘transvestism’ and to encourage research aimed at creating fuller understanding.
In Manchester, an
early LGBT campaigning group, the
Committee for Homosexual Equality
(CHE), is formed —before later changing
its name to the Campaign for Homosexual
Equality in May 1971.
In 1985, miners, along with LGSM,
lead the parade at London Lesbian
and Gay Pride.
...the first London Gay March in 1971, organised by the GLF.
Jackie Forster (1926–1998, née Jacqueline Moir
Mackenzie) was an actress and television personality,
and a lesbian and feminist activist. Despite an early
lesbian affair, she married the author Peter Forster in
1958, but later accepted her lesbian identity and was
divorced.
She came out publicly in 1969 when she joined the
Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) and went to
serve on its Executive Committee. She was on the first
gay march in the UK in August 1971.
In 1970 The Corbett v Corbett divorce case established a precedent that a
person's sex cannot legally be changed from that which is assigned at birth.
The Nullity of Marriage Act 1971 was the first time in British law that marriage was
explicitly defined by statute as being between a male and a female. A marriage
could therefore be annulled if the partners were not respectively male and female,
thus explicitly banning same-sex marriages between same-sex couples in England
and Wales.
1972 TV broadcasts the
ground breaking film ‘The
Naked Civil Servant’ based
on the memoirs of gay icon
Quentin Crisp
1985 At the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, a resolution committing
the party to support LGBT equality rights passes due to block voting support
from the National Union of Mineworkers.
Its most controversial provision was that it repealed Section 28 as far as
Scotland was concerned.
1980 British documentary
‘A Change of Sex’ is aired
on the BBC following the
social and medical
transition of Julia Grant.
The BBC also gives an
inside view of the Gender
Identity Clinic at Charing
Cross Hospital in London.
In 1992 the World Health Organisation finally declassifies same-sex attraction
as a mental illness.
1992 Press For Change, a key lobbying and legal support organisation for trans people in the
UK, is formed. Founders included Professor
Stephen Whittle and Mark Rees.
The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 was an Act of Parliament in the United
Kingdom (which still legislated for Scotland at that time). It made many changes
to the law in Scotland, but most notably Section 80 decriminalized private
homosexual acts between two consenting adults (with an Age of consent of 21),
bringing Scottish law in line with what had been enacted for England and Wales
in the Sexual Offences Act 1967. A similar change for Northern Ireland did not
come into effect until 1982.
To promote the principle that lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
people are entitled to lead their lives
openly without fear.

To fight for social and legal equality
and respect for the human rights of all
people irrespective of their sexuality.

To eradicate prejudice and hostility
directed at LGBT people.

To campaign for improved sex
education in schools to eliminate
negative attitudes to LGBT people.
In 1999 Michael Cashman was elected as
Member of the European Parliament for the
West Midlands constituency. He has since
been appointed to the House of Lords. On
23 September 2014, Lord Cashman was
appointed the Labour Party's special envoy
on LGBT issues worldwide.
In 1980 the first Black Gay and Lesbian Group is formed in the UK.
1972 Gay News, Britain’s first gay
newspaper is founded
1973 The Campaign for Homosexual
Equality holds the first British gay rights
conference in Morecambe, Lancashire
1974 London Lesbian and Gay
Switchboard, a London-based
information and support helpline, is
established.
In 2012 the Protection of Freedoms Act is passed in the
UK allowing for historic convictions for consensual sex
between men to be removed from criminal records. In
2013 Alan Turing is given a posthumous royal pardon
for his conviction of ‘gross indecency’ which resulted in
his being chemically castrated and later committing
suicide.
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is passed giving trans people full legal recognition
in their appropriate gender. The Act allows trans people to acquire a new birth certificate, although gender options are still limited to ‘male’ or ‘female’.
In 2007 Stephen Whittle OBE was made Professor of Equalities Law at Manchester
Metropolitan University.
In 2013 the first Trans Pride event takes place in Brighton.
1992 Stonewall begins its
first major
campaign for
an equal age
of consent in
the UK.
The aims of CHE are:

The Ethical Standards in Public Life etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 was an act of
the Scottish Parliament which required Scottish ministers to establish a code
of conduct for local councillors in Scotland.
The Equality Act 2010 legally
protects people from
discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It
replaced previous antidiscrimination laws with a
single Act, making the law
easier to understand and
strengthening protection in
some situations. It sets out
the different ways in which
it’s unlawful to treat someone.
The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples)
Act 2013 is an Act of Parliament
introducing marriage between same
-sex couples in England and Wales.
It became law on 17 July 2013.
The first same-sex marriages took
place on 29 March 2014
In 1988 Sir Ian McKellen comes out
on the UK’s BBC Radio in response to
the government’s proposed Section
28 in the British Parliament.
In 1989 Stonewall UK is formed in response to Section 28 and other barriers to
equality. Founding members include Ian McKellen and Michael Cashman.
Jan Morris was a renowned Welsh
historian, author, travel writer, and as
one of Britain's top journalists,
covered wars and rebellions around
the globe. She also climbed Mount
Everest in 1952. In 1974, she
published Conundrum, a personal
account of her transition, which is
widely hailed as a classic.
Eastenders screen the first ever gay kiss in a
UK soap. The actor Michael Cashman was also
a volunteer at London Friend, the UK’s oldest
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans charity. He is
now a patron.
1977 sees the first gay & lesbian focussed Trade Union Congress (TUC)
conference take place to discuss workplace rights for Gays and Lesbians
Mark Rees, a trans-man, brings a case
to the European Court of Human Rights,
stating that UK law prevented him from
gaining legal status recognising him as
male. The case was lost but the court
noted the seriousness of the issues
facing trans people.
In 2015 Stonewall extends its remit to campaign
for Trans Equality and unveils its new tagline...
The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act, 1993 was an act of the Irish Parliament,
which decriminalised male homosexual acts in the Irish Republic, with an age of
consent of 17, the same as for heterosexual intercourse, overturning laws that
had been passed by the United Kingdom parliament in the 19th Century.
1995 Rank Outsiders and Stonewall
launch a major campaign to end the
ban on LGB people openly serving in
the British military and in 2000 the UK
Government lifts the ban on lesbians,
gay men and bi people serving in the
armed forces.
In 1974 Stephen Whittle, trans-man and
prominent activist co-founds a Manchester
based "TV/TS" group; a group for trans
people. In the same year, the First National
TV/TS (Transvestite/Transsexual
Conference) is held in Leeds.
In 1972 National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) begins a survey on police harassment of gays
1996 The landmark case - P vs S and Cornwall County Council - finds
that an employee who was about to undergo gender reassignment was
wrongfully dismissed. It was the first piece of case law, anywhere in the
world, which prevented discrimination in employment or vocational
education because someone is trans.
Peter McGraith and David
Cabreza (left) married at 00:01
BST at Islington Town Hall
having been together for 17
years. Mr McGraith said: "I
don't think things have
changed for us in many ways,
we were already in a long-term
relationship, we already had
two kids, except the visibility of
gay marriage across the world
starts to make a difference.
The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 equalised the age of consent for
both homosexual and heterosexual acts, for both men and women, as 16 in Great
Britain, (still) 17 in Northern Ireland.
The Bill which eventually became the Act was introduced in response to a ruling
of the European Court of Human Rights. It was rejected by the House of Lords,
and was eventually forced through when the Government invoked the Parliament
Act, 1949.
Baroness Young argued that "This is a piece of legislation driven by Metropolitan,
London attitudes and is completely out of step with the rest of the country," but
Stonewall’s Sebastian Sandys countered that "This bill is about the principle of
equality and principle of protecting young people”.
In 2016 the film Pride is released based on the story of the LGSM
campaign to support miner’s in the ‘80s