117 – Emperor Hadrian, from AD117 to 138, who openly slept with boys, ruled England. Hadrian's particular favourite, Antinous, died under mysterious circumstances. Hadrian had him deified.[2]
4th century
342 – The Roman emperorsConstantius II and Constans issued an imperial decree to the Codex Theodosianus, which imposes an "exquisite punishment" for the crime which occurs "when a male gives himself in marriage to an effeminate [femina, literally 'a woman'] and what he wants is for the effeminate to play the male role in sex [literally 'project the male parts']," thus for himself to play the female role.[1][3]
390 – The Roman emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I, and Arcadius issued an imperial decree to the Codex Theodosianus, that criminalises "all persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people." "[1]
1327 – The deposed King Edward II of England is killed. The popular story that the king was assassinated by having a red-hot poker thrust into his anus has no basis in accounts recorded by Edward's contemporaries.[6] Edward II had a history of conflict with the nobility, who repeatedly banished his former lover Piers Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall. The Annales Paulini claims that Edward loved Gaveston "beyond measure", while the Lanercost says the intimacy between them was "undue".[7] The Chronicle of Melsa states that Edward "particularly delighted in the vice of sodomy", without making special reference to Gaveston.[8] Chroniclers called the King's relationship with Gaveston as excessive, immoderate, beyond measure and reason and criticised his desire for wicked and forbidden sex.[9] It was hinted at by medieval chroniclers, and has been alleged by modern historians, that the relationship between Gaveston and Edward was homosexual.
1533 – King Henry VIII passes the Buggery Act 1533 making all male-male sexual activity punishable by death. Buggery related only to intercourse per anum by a man with a man or woman or intercourse per anum or per vaginum by either a man or a woman with an animal. Other forms of "unnatural intercourse" amounted to indecent assault or gross indecency, but did not constitute buggery.[10] The lesser offence of "attempted buggery" was punished by two years of jail and often horrific time on the pillory.
1541 – The Buggery Act 1533 only ran until the end of the parliament. The law was re-enacted three times, and then in 1541 it was enacted to continue in force "for ever".[11]
1543 – Henry VIII gives royal assent to the Laws in Wales Act 1542, extending the buggery law into Wales.
1547 – King Edward VI's first Parliament repealed all felonies created in the last reign of King Henry VIII.[11]
1548 – The provisions of the Buggery Act 1533 were given new force, with minor amendments. The penalty for buggery remained death, but goods and lands were not forfeit, and the rights of wives and heirs were safeguarded.[11]
1558 – Elizabeth I ascends the English throne and reinstates the sodomy laws[12] of 1533 (not 1548), which were then given permanent force.[11]
1580 – King James VI of Scotland, King James I England, made his formal entry into Edinburgh and began a relationship with Franco-Scottish Lord Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox. Lennox was a relative and 24 years senior to James, married and the father of 5 children. The influence Lennox his "favourite" had on politics, and the resentment at the wealth they acquired, became major political issues during his reign.[13] Scottish nobles ousted Lennox by luring the young king to Ruthven Castle as a guest but then imprisoned him for ten months. The Presbyterian nobles forced King James to banish Lennox to France. Lennox and James remained in secret contact. Lennox remained in France. He died in Paris in 1583. William Schaw took Lennox's heart back to James in Scotland, since in life its true place had been with the King.
17th century
1606 – King James I of England began a relationship with Robert Carr,[14] who had broken his leg at a tilting match at which the king was present. The king instantly fell in love with the young man, even helping nurse him back to health all the while teaching him Latin. Entirely devoid of all high intellectual qualities, Carr was endowed with good looks, excellent spirits, and considerable personal accomplishments. These advantages were sufficient for James, who knighted the young man and at once took him into favour. James made his lover Viscount of Rochester (1611), Knight of the Garter and Earl of Somerset (1613).[15]
1614 – King James met the last of his three close male lovers, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, the son of a Leicestershire knight. Villiers could dance well, fence well, and speak a little French. In August, Villiers, reputedly "the handsomest-bodied man in all of England",[16] was brought before the king, in the hope that the king would take a fancy to him, diminishing Carr's power at court. Villiers gained support as the king's preferred lover from those who opposed Carr.
1615 – King James knighted Villiers as a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. Restoration of Apethorpe Hall, undertaken 2004–2008, revealed a previously unknown passage linking the bedchambers of James and Villiers.[17]
1617 – King James made Villiers Earl of Buckingham
1618 – King James made Villiers Marquess of Buckingham.
1623 – King James made Villiers Earl of Coventry and Duke of Buckingham. Villiers was now the highest-ranking subject outside the royal family.[18]
1682 – A same-sex marriage is annulled. Arabella Hunt had married "James Howard" two years earlier but the marriage was annulled on the ground that Howard was in fact Amy Poulter, a 'perfect woman in all her parts', and two women could not validly marry.[19]
1690 – King William III of England had several close, male associates, including two Dutch courtiers to whom he granted English titles: Hans Willem Bentinck became Earl of Portland and Arnold Joost van Keppel was created Earl of Albemarle. These relationships with male friends and his apparent lack of more than one female mistress led William's enemies to suggest that he might prefer homosexual relationships. Keppel was 20 years William's junior, described as strikingly handsome, and rose from being a royal page to an earldom with some ease.[20]
1697 – The Earl of Portland wrote to King William III that "the kindness which your Majesty has for a young man, and the way in which you seem to authorise his liberties... make the world say things I am ashamed to hear".[21] This, he said, was "tarnishing a reputation which has never before been subject to such accusations". William tersely dismissed these suggestions, saying, "It seems to me very extraordinary that it should be impossible to have esteem and regard for a young man without it being criminal."[21]
18th century
18th century illustration of a "Molly" (Contemporary term for an effeminate homosexual)
1722 – John Quincy, M.D., writes about lesbianism in his second edition of the Lexicon Physico Medicum. According to Quincy, confricatrices or confictrices were terms used by authors for lesbians "who have learned to titulate one another with their clitoris, in imitation of venereal intercourse with men.[22]
1724 – Margaret Clap better known as Mother Clap, ran a coffee house from 1724 to 1726 in Holborn, London. The coffee house served as a Molly House for the underground gay community.[23][24] Her house was popular,[25] being well known within the gay community. She cared for her customers, and catered especially to the gay men who frequented it. She was known to have provided "beds in every room of the house" and commonly had "thirty or forty of such Kind of Chaps every Night, but more especially on Sunday Nights."[26]
1726 – Three men (Gabriel Lawrence, William Griffin, and Thomas Wright) were hanged at Tyburn for sodomy following a raid of Margaret Clap's Molly House.[27]
1727 – Charles Hitchen, a London Under City Marshal, was convicted of attempted sodomy at a Molly House. Hitchen had abused his position of power to extort bribes from brothels and pickpockets to prevent arrest, and he particularly leaned on the thieves to make them fence their goods through him. Hitchen had frequently picked up soldiers for sex, but had eluded prosecution by the Society for the Reformation of Manners.[28]
1735 – Conyers Place wrote "Reason Insufficient Guide to Conduct Mankind in Religion."[29]
1749 – Thomas Cannon wrote "Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified."[31]
1772 – The first public debate about homosexuality began during the trial of Captain Robert Jones who was convicted of the capital offence of sodomising a thirteen-year-old boy. The debate during the case and with the background of the 1772 Macaroni prosecutions considered Christian intolerance of homosexuality and the human rights of men who were homosexual.[32][33] Jones was acquitted and received a pardon on condition that he left the country. He ended up living in grandeur with his footman at Lyon, in the South of France.
1773 – Charles Crawford wrote "A Dissertation on the Phaedon of Plato."[34]
1785 – Jeremy Bentham becomes one of the first people to argue for the decriminalisation of sodomy in England, which was punishable by hanging.[12] The essay Offences Against One's Self,[1] written about 1785, argued for the liberalisation of laws prohibiting homosexual sex. He argued that homosexual acts did not weaken men, nor threaten population or marriage. The essay was never published in his lifetime.
1800 – William Blake paints "Lot and His Daughters." The Book of Genesis chapters 11-14 and 18-19 describes Lot and his family, living through the fire and brimstone sent against Sodom and Gomorrah apparently for either rape, transgression of the laws of hospitality, or homosexuality. "Lot and His Daughters" however portrays the part of the story that involves incest, not homosexuality: the story in Genesis describes how the daughters of Lot, along the road as they fled from Sodom and Gomorrah, got their father drunk so that after he fell asleep they could have sex with him and in this way get children from him.
1810 – The nineteenth century began with a wave of prosecutions against homosexual men. On 14 January, a farmer in West Yorkshire wrote in his diary that capital punishment seemed an unacceptably cruel response to a sexual behavior that nature or God had ordained in an individual. (The diary entry was discovered in 2020.)[36] On 8 July, the Bow Street Runners raided The White Swan, a tumbledown pub of Tudor origin near Drury Lane. Twenty-seven men were arrested on suspicion of sodomy and attempted sodomy.[37]
1812 – James Miranda Barry graduated from the Medical School of Edinburgh University as a doctor. Barry went on to serve as an army surgeon working overseas. Barry lived as a man but was found to be female-bodied upon his death in 1865.[38]
1835 – The last two men to be executed in Britain for buggery, James Pratt and John Smith, were arrested on 29 August in London after being spied upon while having sex in a private room; they were hanged on 27 November.
1852 – John Martin paints The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorah. Sodom was (supposedly) destroyed for the sin of sodomy, although a strong case has been made that violence against persons and transgression of the laws of hospitality, including a demand that he hand over his houseguests (who happened to be angels) to the ruffian citizens of the town, were more important at the time of the composition of the story in Genesis, chapter 19.
1861 – The death penalty for buggery was abolished. A total of 8921 men had been prosecuted since 1806 for sodomy with 404 sentenced to death and 56 executed.[40]
1866 – Marriage was defined as being between a man and a woman (preventing future same-sex marriages). In the case of Hyde v. Hyde and Woodmansee (a case of polygamy), Lord Penzance's judgment began "Marriage as understood in Christendom is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others."[41]
1871 – Ernest 'Stella' Boulton and Frederick 'Fanny' Park, two Victorian transvestites and suspected homosexuals appeared as defendants in the celebrated Boulton and Park trial in London, charged "with conspiring and inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence". The indictment was against Lord Arthur Clinton, Ernest Boulton, Frederic Park, Louis Hurt, John Fiske, Martin Cumming, William Sommerville and C.H. Thompson. The prosecution was unable to prove either that they had committed any homosexual offence or that men wearing women's clothing was an offence in English law.[42] Lord Arthur Clinton killed himself before his trial.
1872 - Sheridan Le Fanu publishes the novella Carmilla which depicts the tale of a lesbian vampire luring young women for her mother to sacrifice
1885 – The British Parliament enacted section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, known as the Labouchere Amendment which prohibited gross indecency between males. It thus became possible to prosecute homosexuals for engaging in sexual acts where buggery or attempted buggery could not be proven.[43][44]
1895 – The gay English poet A. E. Housman writes a poem about the trial of Oscar Wilde. Due to its content, it was not published until after Housman's death.[47]
1897 – George Cecil Ives organises the first homosexual rights group in England, the Order of Chaeronea. Dr Helen Boyle and her partner, Mabel Jones, set up the first women-run General Practice in Brighton, including offering free therapy for poor women. Helen Boyle also founded the National Council for Mental Hygiene (which subsequently becomes MIND) in 1922.[38] British sexologist Havelock Ellis publishes Sexual Inversion, the first volume in an intended series called Studies in the Psychology of Sex. He argues that homosexuality is not a disease but a natural anomaly occurring throughout human and animal history, and should be accepted, not treated. The book is banned in England for being obscene; the subsequent volumes in the series are published in the US and not sold in England until 1936.[38]
1906 – Dr. Louisa Martindale set up a private practice in Brighton and became the first woman GP. With a group of other Brighton feminists she developed the New Sussex Hospital for Women and Children, where she was Senior Surgeon and Physician. She later became a specialist in the early treatment of cervical cancer and was appointed a CBE in 1931. Louisa lived with her partner Ismay FitzGerald for three decades, and wrote of her love for her in her autobiography A Woman Surgeon, published in 1951.[38]
1910 – While homosexuals in London had always socialised in public places such as pubs, coffee houses and tea shops, it possibly became more overt. Waitresses ensured that a section of Lyons Corner House in Piccadilly Circus was reserved for homosexuals.[50] The section became known as the Lily Pond.
1912 – London's first gay pub (as we now know the term), Madame Strindgberg's The Cave of the Golden Calf opened in Heddon Street, off Regent Street.[51]
1918 – The gay English poet and writer W. H. Auden attended his first boarding school where he met Christopher Isherwood; when reintroduced to Isherwood in 1925, Auden probably fell in love with Isherwood and in the 1930s they maintained a sexual friendship in intervals between their relations with others.[56]
1921 – The Criminal Law Amendment Act was amended in the House of Commons to include a section to make sexual "acts of gross indecency" between women illegal, and was passed in the House of Commons. However the section was defeated in the House Of Lords and thus never became law.
1928 – The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall was published in the UK by Jonathan Cape. This sparked great legal controversy and brought the topic of homosexuality to public conversation.[58] James Douglas, editor of the Sunday Express newspaper, began a campaign to suppress the book with poster and billboard advertising. Publisher Jonathan Cape panicked and sent a copy of The Well of Loneliness to the Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks (a Conservative) for his opinion; he took only two days to reply that The Well of Loneliness was "gravely detrimental to the public interest" and if Cape did not withdraw it voluntarily, criminal proceedings would be brought against him.[59]Cape suppressed the book after only two editions.
1932 – Sir Noël Coward wrote "Mad About the Boy", a song which dealt with the theme of homosexual love. It was introduced in the 1932revue, but due to the risque nature of the song, it was sung by a woman. The News of the World published a story, 'Amazing Change of Sex', about a trans man from Sussex who transitioned 'from Margery to Maurice'. Colonel Sir Victor Barker DSO (1895 - 1960) married Elfrida Haward in Brighton. Barker's birth sex (female) is later revealed and the marriage is consequently annulled. Barker went on to appear in 'freakshow' displays in New Brighton, Southend-on-Sea and Blackpool.[38]
1936 – A 30-year-old British athletic champion, Mark Weston of Plymouth, transitioned from female to male. The story appeared in some national newspapers, including the News of the World (31 May 1936). The reportage was accurate and sensitive. In the words of L. R. Broster, the Harley Street surgeon who treated him, 'Mark Weston, who has always been brought up as a female, is a male and should continue to live as such'.[38]
1939–1945 World War II – Over five million men served in the British armed forces during World War II. Of these, it is likely that at least 250,000 were gay or bisexual (based on projections from the 1990-91 National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles which found that six per cent of men report having had homosexual experiences).
1940 – Urania, the genderqueer feminist journal, is disestablished; the journal remained privately published for its 24-year history.[60]
1945 – Sir Harold Gillies and his colleague Ralph Millard carried out female-to-male confirmation surgery on Michael Dillon. Sir Harold Gillies developed his pioneering pedicle flap surgery with injured soldiers from World War II. Initially developed as reconstructive surgery, phalloplasty is now offered as a genital surgery option for trans men. Dillon underwent at least 13 surgeries between 1946 and 1949 and was elected for surgery on the pretext of treating a malformation of the Urethra (hypospadias), in order to conceal the exact nature of the surgery.[38]
1950s
1950 – On 31 July in Rotherham, an English schoolteacher, Kenneth Crowe, aged 37, was found dead wearing his wife's clothes and a wig. He approached a man on his way home from the pub, who upon discovering Crowe was male, beat and strangled him.[61] The killer, John Cooney, was found not guilty of murder and sentenced to five years for manslaughter.[62] In response to the violence and unfair treatment of gay men, the Sexual Offences Act 1967 was passed seventeen years later.
1952 – Sir John Nott-Bower, commissioner of Scotland Yard began to weed out homosexuals from the British Government[63] at the same time as McCarthy was conducting a federal homosexual witch hunt in the US.[64] During the early 1950s as many as 1,000 men were locked into Britain's prisons every year amid a widespread police clampdown on homosexual offences. Undercover officers acting as 'agents provocateurs' would pose as gay men soliciting in public places. The prevailing mood was one of barely concealed paranoia.[citation needed]
1953 – John Gielgud, the actor-director, was arrested on 20 October in Chelsea for cruising in a public lavatory, and was subsequently fined. When the news broke he was in Liverpool on the pre-London tour of a new play. He was paralysed by nerves at the prospect of going onstage, but fellow players, led by Sybil Thorndike, encouraged him. The audience gave him a standing ovation, showing that they didn't care about his private life. The episode affected Gielgud's health and he suffered a nervous breakdown months later. He did not acknowledge publicly that he was gay.
1953 – Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood were arrested and charged with having committed specific acts of "indecency" with RAF airmen Edward McNally and John Reynolds; they were also accused of conspiring with Edward Montagu (the 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu) to commit these offences. The Director of Public Prosecutions gave his assurance that the witnesses Reynolds and McNally would not be prosecuted in any circumstances, but Pitt-Rivers, Montagu and Wildeblood were tried and imprisoned at Winchester in 1954.[65]
1954 – Alan Turing, an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist, influential in the development of computer science, committed suicide. He had been given a course of female hormones (chemical castration) by doctors as an alternative to prison after being prosecuted by the police because of his homosexuality.[66] The trial of Edward Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood began on 15 March in the hall of Winchester Castle. All three defendants were convicted. The Sunday Times published an article entitled "Law and Hypocrisy" on 28 March that dealt with this trial and its outcome. Soon after, on 10 April, the New Statesman printed an article called "The Police and the Montagu Case". A month after the Montagu trial the Home SecretarySir David Maxwell Fyfe agreed to appoint a committee to examine and report on the law covering homosexual offences (this would become known as The Wolfenden report).
1957 – The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report, after Lord Wolfenden) was published. It advised the British Government that homosexuality should be made legal.[68]
1959 – Alan Horsfall, Labour councillor for Nelson, Lancashire, tables a motion to his local Labour party to back the decriminalisation of homosexuality. The motion is rejected, but Horsfall and fellow activist Antony Grey later form the North West Homosexual Law Reform Committee.[38]ITV, at the time the UK's only national commercial broadcaster, broadcasts the UK's first gay TV drama, South, starring Peter Wyngarde.[70]
1960s
1961 – Victim was the first English-language film to use the word "homosexual". It premiered in the UK on 31 August 1961.
1963 – The Minorities Research Group (MRG) became the UK's first lesbian social and political organisation. They went on to publish their own lesbian magazine called Arena Three.[67]
1964 – The North West Homosexual Law Reform Committee was founded, abandoning the medical model of homosexuality as a sickness and calling for its decriminalisation. The first meeting was held in Manchester. The North West branch of the national Homosexual Law Reform Committee became the national Committee for Homosexual Equality in 1969.[38] and in 1971 after the advent of the Gay Liberation Front in 1970, changed its name to Campaign for Homosexual Equality.
1965 – In the House of Lords, Lord Arran proposed the decriminalisation of male homosexual acts (lesbian acts had never been illegal). A UK opinion poll finds that 93% of respondents see homosexuality as a form of illness requiring medical treatment.[38]
1966 – In the House of Commons Conservative MP Humphry Berkeley introduce a bill to legalise male homosexual relations along the lines of the Wolfenden report. Berkeley was well known to his colleagues as a homosexual, according to a 2007 article published in The Observer and was unpopular.[71] His Bill was given a second reading by 164 to 107 on 11 February, but fell when Parliament was dissolved soon after. Unexpectedly, Berkeley lost his seat in the 1966 general election, and ascribed his defeat to the unpopularity of his bill on homosexuality. The Beaumont Society, a London-based social/support group for people who cross-dress, are transvestite or who are transsexual, was founded.[38]
The book Homosexual Behavior Among Males by Wainwright Churchill breaks ground as a scientific study approaching homosexuality as a fact of life and introduces the term "homoerotophobia", a possible precursor to "homophobia".[74] The courts decided that transsexuals could not get married; Justice Ormerod found that in the case of Talbot (otherwise Poyntz) v. Talbot where one spouse was a post-operative transsexual their marriage was not permitted. Justice Ormerod stated that Marriage is a relationship which depends on sex, not on gender.[75][76]
1970 – Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was established at London School of Economics on 13 October, in response to debates many gay men and lesbians were having in Britain about the way they were treated. The formation of GLF also influenced by the Stonewall Rebellion in the USA that started on 28 June 1969. In the case between April Ashley and Arthur Cameron Corbett, their marriage was annulled on the basis that Ashley, a transsexual woman, was a man under then-current British law. This set a legal precedent for trans people in Britain, meaning that the birth certificates of transsexual and intersex people could not be changed.[38]
1973 – London Icebreakers forms, offering a 24-hour helpline staffed exclusively by LGB people and offered gay-affirmative support. The Campaign for Homosexual Equality holds the first British gay rights conference in Morecambe, Lancashire. The Manchester Gay Alliance formed by the University's Lesbian & Gay Society, CHE, a lesbian group and transvestite/ transsexual group.[38] In late 1973 Dr. Carol Steele and another transsexual woman (Linda B.) formed the Manchester TV/TS Group (a group for transvestites and transsexuals).[Ref: Trans Britain - Our Long Journey from the Shadows - Unbound Books 2018]
1974 – Maureen Colquhoun came out as the first Lesbian MP for the Labour Party. When elected she was married in a heterosexual marriage. After coming out, her party refused to support her.[82] The First National TV/TS (Transvestite/Transsexual Conference) is held in Leeds. Jan Morris, one of Britain's top journalists who has covered wars and rebellions around the globe and climbed Mount Everest in 1952, publishes Conundrum, a personal account of her transition, widely hailed as a classic.[38]
1975 – The groundbreaking film portraying homosexual gay icon Quentin Crisp's life, The Naked Civil Servant (based on the 1968 autobiography and starring John Hurt) was transmitted by Thames Television for the British Television channel ITV. British journal Gay Left begins publication.[83]British Home Stores sacked openly gay trainee Tony Whitehead; a national campaign subsequently picketed their stores.[81] The Liberal Party passed a conference resolution in support of equality for gay people including an equal age of consent.[84]
1976 – Britain's political pressure group Liberty, under its original name National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), called for an equal age of consent of 14 in Britain.[85] The term Gay Bowel Syndrome was coined to describe a range of rectal diseases seen among gay male patients; in the pre-AIDS era, this is the first medical term to relate to gay men.[38]
1976 – The London Gay Teenage Group was established by Phillip Cox and Paul Welch. It was chaired and run by Steven Power, a 1970s gay activist, from its inception until 1980 when he became 21. It was the first gay youth group in the world.[86]
1977 – The first gay lesbian Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference took place to discuss workplace rights for Gays and Lesbians.
The red ribbon is a symbol for solidarity with HIV-positive people and those living with AIDS
1980 – The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age "in private" in Scotland.[87] British documentary A Change of Sex aired on BBC2, enabling viewers to follow the social and medical transition of Julia Grant; also provides a snapshot of the Gender Identity Clinic at Charing Cross Hospital in London.[38] The Self Help Association for Transsexuals (SHAFT) was formed as an information collecting and disseminating body for trans-people. The association later became known as 'Gender Dysphoria Trust International' (GDTI).[88] The first Black Gay and Lesbian Group was formed in the UK.[89]Lionel Blue became the first British rabbi to come out as gay.[90] The UK's first television series specifically aimed at a gay audience is broadcast on London Weekend Television. Called Gay Life, the programme airs late on Sundays and runs for two series.[91]
1985 – AIDS hysteria grows in the UK when passengers on the Queen Elizabeth 2 curtailed their holiday as a person with AIDS was discovered on board. Cunard were criticised for trying to cover this up.[99] A London support group Body Positive was set up as a self-help group for people affected by HTLV-3 and AIDS.[100]Health Minister, Kenneth Clarke, enacted powers to detain people with AIDS in hospital against their will, potentially preventing people coming forward for treatment[101]
1987 – Conservative Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher at the 1987 Conservative party conference, issued the statement stating "Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay". Backbench Conservative MPs and Peers had already begun a backlash against the 'promotion' of homosexuality and, in December 1987, Clause 28 is introduced into the local government bill by Dame Jill Knight, Conservative MP for Birmingham Edgbaston.[102] The first UK specialist HIV ward was opened by Diana, Princess of Wales; at the opening she made a point of not wearing protective gloves or a mask when she shook hands with the patients.[103]AZT, the first HIV drug to show promise of suppressing the disease was made available in the UK for the first time.[104] In Manchester, Operation Spanner carried out by police resulted in group of homosexuals being convicted for assault occasioning actual bodily harm for their involvement in consensualsadomasochism over a ten-year period.
1988 – Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 enacted as an amendment to the United Kingdom's Local Government Act 1986, on 24 May 1988 stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". The act was introduced by Margaret Thatcher.[105] Almost identical legislation was enacted for Scotland by the Westminster Parliament. Princess Margaret opens the UK's first residential support centre for people living with HIV and AIDS in London at London Lighthouse.[106]Sir Ian McKellencame out on BBC Radio 3[107] in response to the governments proposed Section 28 in the British Parliament.[108] McKellen has stated that he was influenced in his decision by the advice and support of his friends, among them noted gay author Armistead Maupin.
London gay pub bombing in 1999 killed three and injured 70
1990 – In July, following the murders in a short period of time, of Christopher Schliach, Henry Bright, William Dalziel and Michael Boothe, hundreds of lesbians and gay men marched from the park where Boothe had been killed to Ealing town hall and held a candlelit vigil.[110] The demonstration led to the formation of OutRage, who called for the police to start protecting gay men instead of arresting them. In September, lesbian and gay police officers established the Lesbian and Gay Police Association (Lagpa/GPA).[110] The first gay pride event is held in Manchester. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, a semi-autobiographical screenplay about her lesbian life was shown on BBC television. Justin Fashanu became the first professional footballer to come out in the press (he subsequently committed suicide).[111]Northern Ireland held their first Pride Parade. UKCrown Dependency of Jersey decriminalised homosexuality.
1992 – UK Crown Dependency of Isle of Man repealed sodomy laws (homosexuality was still illegal until 1994). The first Pride Festival was held in Brighton.[113]Europride was inaugurated in London and was attended by estimated crowds of over 100,000. Britain's first black gay play Boy with Beer by Paul Boakye opened in January at The Man in the Moon Theatre with nudity, simulated sex, and AIDS as a core concern.[114]
1993 – The radio DJ and comedian Kenny Everett and singer with the group Frankie goes to Hollywood, Holly Johnson, announced that they were HIV positive.[115] Serial killer Colin Ireland was convicted of killing five gay men, who he picked up in the Coleherne leather bar. He was sentenced to life and died in 2012.
1994 – The Conservative Member of Parliament Edwina Currie introduced an amendment to lower the age of consent for homosexual acts, from 21 to 16 in line with that for heterosexual acts.[72] The vote was defeated and the gay male age of consent was instead lowered to 18. The lesbian age of consent was not set. UK Crown Dependency of Isle of Man decriminalised homosexuality. Charity Save the Children dropped lesbian Sandi Toksvig as compere of its 75th-anniversary celebrations after she came out, but following a direct action protest by the Lesbian Avengers,[116] Save the Children apologised. British filmmaker Derek Jarman died of AIDS.
1996 – A breakthrough is made in the area of AIDS treatment; Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) is found to significantly delay the onset of AIDS in people living with HIV. The NHS makes the treatment available in the UK.[117] HAART has a dramatic effect and many bed ridden AIDS patients return to work.[118] The European Court of Human Rights heard Morris v. The United Kingdom and Sutherland v. the United Kingdom, cases brought by Chris Morris and Euan Sutherland challenging the homosexual inequality in divided ages of consent. The government stated its intention to legislate to negate the court cases, which were put on hold.
1997 – Angela Eagle, Labour MP for Wallasey, becomes the first MP to come out voluntarily as a lesbian. Gay partners were given equal immigration rights. Equality Network established in Scotland.
1998 – The Bolton 7, a group of gay and bisexual men were convicted at Bolton Crown Court of the offences of gross indecency under the Sexual Offences Act 1956 and of age of consent offences under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Although gay sex was partially decriminalised by the Sexual Offences Act 1967, they were all convicted under section 13 of the 1956 Act because more than two men had sex together, which was still illegal. The Lord Alli, a Labour Party life peer, becomes the first openly gay member of the House of Lords and one of a few openly gay Muslims.[119][120] The Labour party introduced an amendment to Crime and Disorder Bill to set the age of consent at 16 for homosexual men.[121] The amendment was then removed by the House of Lords.
2000 – The Labour government stops banning homosexuals from the armed forces after the European Court of Human Rights rules it unlawful.[127] The law will not actually be repealed until the Armed Forces Act 2016.[128] The Labour government introduces legislation to repeal Section 28 in England and Wales - Conservative MPs oppose the move. The bill is defeated by bishops and Conservatives in the House of Lords.[129]Scotland abolished Clause 2a (Section 28) of the Local Government Act in October though it remains in place in England and Wales. HIV charity London Lighthouse merged with Terrence Higgins Trust as the Aled Richards Trust and Body Positive London, closed. Shrinkage of the HIV charity sector occurred largely as a result of Management of HIV/AIDS HAART treatment allowing people living with HIV to be more self-sufficient.[130][131]
2001 – The last two pieces of unequal law regarding gay male sex are changed.[109] In 1997 the European Commission of Human Rights found that the European Convention on Human Rights were violated by a discriminatory age of consent; the government submitted that it would propose a Bill to Parliament for a reduction of the age of consent for homosexual acts from 18 to 16. The Crime and Disorder Bill which proposed these amendments, was voted for in the House of Commons but rejected in the House of Lords. In 1998 it was reintroduced and again was voted for in the House of Commons but rejected in the House of Lords. It was reintroduced a third time in 1999 but the House of Lords amended it to maintain the age for buggery at 18 for both sexes. Provisions made in the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 made it possible to enact the bill without the Lords voting it through. The provisions of the Act came into force throughout the United Kingdom on 8 January 2001, lowering the age of consent to 16. Under the act consensual group sex for gay men is also decriminalised.[132]
2002 – Same-sex couples are granted equal rights to adopt. Alan Duncan becomes the first Conservative MP to admit being gay without being pushed.[109]Brian Dowling becomes the first openly gay children's television presenter in the UK on SMTV Live.
2003 – Section 28, which banned councils and schools from intentionally promoting homosexuality, is repealed in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Employment Equality Regulations made it illegal to discriminate against lesbians, gays or bisexuals at work.[133]EuroPride was hosted in Manchester. Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson, both British university professors, legally married in British Columbia, Canada, however on their return their same-sex marriage was not recognised under British law. Under the subsequent Civil Partnership Act 2004, it was instead converted into a civil partnership. The couple sued for recognition of their same-sex marriage.[134]
2004 – The Civil Partnership Act 2004 is passed by the Labour Government, giving same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as married heterosexual couples in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.[109] The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is passed by the Labour Government. The Act gives transsexual people legal recognition as members of the sex appropriate to their gender (male or female) allowing them to acquire a new birth certificate, affording them full recognition of their acquired sex in law for all purposes, including marriage.[135]
2005 – File:Francis Scott-Morgan and Peter Scott-Morgan, first Civil Partners in Devon, UK.jpgFrancis (left) and Peter Scott-Morgan, the first civil partners in Devon, at their televised ceremony at Oldway MansionThe first civil partnership formed under the Civil Partnership Act 2004 took place at 11:00 GMT 5 December between Matthew Roche and Christopher Cramp at St Barnabas Hospice, Worthing, West Sussex. The statutory 15-day waiting period was waived as Roche was suffering from a terminal illness: he died the following day.[136] The first partnership registered after the normal waiting period was held in Belfast on 19 December.[137] The Adoption and Children Act 2002 comes into force, allowing unmarried and same-sex couples to adopt children for the first time.[138] Twenty-four-year-old Jody Dobrowski is murdered on Clapham Common in a homophobic attack. Chris Smith one of the first openly gayBritish MPs, (1984), becomes the first MP to acknowledge that he is HIV positive.[139][140]
2006 – The Equality Act 2006 which establishes the Equality and Human Rights Commission (CEHR) and makes discrimination against lesbians and gay men in the provision of goods and services illegal, gains Royal Assent on 16 February. The age of consent is equalised and Section 28 "successfully repealed" in the UK Crown Dependency of the Isle of Man.[141]LabourMP, Ben Bradshaw holds a civil partnership ceremony with partner, Neal Dalgleish, a BBC Newsnight journalist. David Borrow, a Labour MP also holds a civil partnership with his boyfriend in May.[142] In May, Margot James becoming the first 'out' lesbian to be elected as a local councillor for the Brompton ward of Kensington & Chelsea. She subsequently became the first Tory Lesbian MP.[143] In total 3,648 couples formed civil partnerships in England and Wales between 21 December 2005 and 31 January 2006. Male partnerships are more popular (2,150 ceremonies) than women's (1,138).[144]
2007 – The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations becomes law on 30 April making discrimination against lesbians and gay men in the provision of goods and services illegal. Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham declared his opposition to the act, saying that the legislation contradicted the Catholic Church's moral values. He supported efforts to have Catholic adoption agencies exempted from sexual orientation regulations (they were ultimately successful in a judgement given on 17 March 2010).[145] Some 8,728 Civil Partnerships were conducted in 2007.[146] Dr Lewis Turner and Professor Stephen Whittle publish Engendered Penalties Transsexual and Transgender People's Experience of Inequality and Discrimination (Equalities Review) which is instrumental in ensuring the inclusion of trans people in the remit of the new Commission for Equalities and Human Rights.[38]Channel 4 released Clapham Junction, a TV drama partially based on the murder of Jody Dobrowski almost two years after his murder, to mark the 40th anniversary of decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. Four openly gay, lesbian or bisexualMSPs are elected in the 2007-2011 Scottish Parliament, Ian Smith, Patrick Harvie, Margaret Smith and Joe FitzPatrick.[147]
2008 – Treatment of lesbian parents and their children is equalised in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008.[148] The legislation allows for lesbians and their partners (both civil and de facto) equal access to legal presumptions of parentage in cases of in vitro fertilisation ("IVF") or assisted/self insemination (other than at home) from the moment the child is born. Angela Eagle becomes the first female MP to enter into a civil partnership (with partner Maria Exall).[149][150] Parliament passes provisions in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, creating a new offence of incitement to homophobic hatred. Some 7,169 Civil partnerships were conducted in 2008.[151]Michael Causer, a gay teenager living in Liverpool, is seriously assaulted on 25 July because of his sexual orientation and later dies in hospital, aged 18.[152][153]
2009 – The Labour Government Prime Minister Gordon Brown makes an official public apology on behalf of the British government for the way in which Alan Turing was chemically castrated for being gay, after the war.[66] Opposition leader David Cameron apologises on behalf of the Conservative Party, for introducing Section 28 during Margaret Thatcher's third government.[154]Welsh rugby star Gareth Thomas becomes the first known top-level professional male athlete in a team sport to come out while still active.[155]Nikki Sinclaire becomes first openly lesbian member of the European Parliament for the UK delegation. Some 6,281 Civil Partnerships were conducted in 2009.[156]
2010s
2010 – Pope Benedict XVI condemns British equality legislation for running contrary to "natural law" as he confirmed his first visit to the UK.[157] The Equality Act 2010 makes discrimination against lesbians and gay men in the provision of goods and services illegal. The Supreme Court ruled that two gay men from Iran and Cameroon have the right to asylum in the UK and Lord Hope, who read out the judgment, said: To compel a homosexual person to pretend that his sexuality does not exist or suppress the behaviour by which to manifest itself is to deny him the fundamental right to be who he is.[158] Some 6,385 Civil Partnerships were conducted in Britain in 2010, 49% were men.[159]Claire Rayner, ally of the gay rights movement, dies.[38] Shadow Home SecretaryChris Grayling MP said that he thought bed and breakfast owners should be able to bar gay couples, however, under the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 no-one can be refused goods or services on the grounds of their sexuality. Grayling subsequently was passed over as Home Secretary when the Coalition government came to power.[160]
2011 – England, Wales and Scotland allow gay and bi men to donate blood after a 1-year deferral period.
2012 – In the year in which London hosted the Olympic Games, London hosts World Pride but the committee fails to secure funding and has to drastically cut back the parade and cancel many of the events.[161] The coalition government committed to legislate for gay marriage by 2015, but by 2012 still had not been included in the Queen's Speech.[162] Thousands of people sign an e-petition to feature Alan Turing, father of Computing and of Artificial Intelligence on the ten pound note.[163]Government Ministers pledge to push through legislation granting same-sex couples equal rights to get married despite the threat of a split with the Church of England and the continuance of current arrangements for the state recognition of canon law.[164]
2014 – Same-sex marriage becomes legal in England and Wales on 29 March under the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. Legislation to allow same-sex marriage in Scotland was passed by the Scottish Parliament in February 2014, received Royal Assent on 12 March 2014 and took effect on 16 December 2014.[172]Queen Elizabeth II praises the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard for their 40-year history, the first time the Crown has ever publicly supported the LGBT community. The Switchboard receives a comment from the Queen saying: "Best wishes and congratulations to all concerned on this most special anniversary."[173]
2015 – Mikhail Ivan Gallatinov and Mark Goodwin became the first couple to have a same-sex wedding in a UK prison after marrying at Full Sutton Prison in East Yorkshire.[174] Northern Ireland's assembly voted narrowly in favour of gay marriage equality but the largest party in the devolved parliament, the Democratic Unionist Party, subsequently vetoed any change in the law.[175] The Royal Vauxhall Tavern became the first ever building in the UK to be given a special "listing" status based on its LGBT history; it was accorded Grade II listed status by the UK's Department of Culture, Media and Sport.[176]Inga Beale, CEO of Lloyd's of London, became the first woman and the first openly bisexual person to be named number one in the OUTstanding & FT Leading LGBT executive power list.[177]
2016 – There are 40 LGBT MPs in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which in 2016 is the most in any parliament around the world.[178] Hannah Blythyn, Jeremy Miles, and Adam Price became the first openly gay members of the Welsh Assembly.[179]Carl Austin-Behan was sworn in as Manchester's first openly gay Lord Mayor.[180] Northern Ireland allow gay and bi men to donate blood after a 1-year deferral period. Prince William became the first member of Britain's royal family to appear on the cover of a gay magazine when he appeared on the cover of the July issue of Attitude; in the cover story, he also became the first British royal to openly condemn the bullying of the gay community.[181] British Government minister Justine Greening revealed that she was in a same-sex relationship, thus becoming the first out LGB female cabinet minister.[182]Elle printed special collectors' covers for their September 2016 issue, and one of them featured Hari Nef, which was the first time an openly transgender woman had been on the cover of a major commercial British magazine.[183] The British women's field hockey team won gold at the Olympics; as Kate and Helen Richardson-Walsh were both on that team, this made them the first same-sex married couple to win Olympic medals.[184]Nicholas Chamberlain became the first bishop in the Church of England to come out as gay, which occurred following threats of an outing from an unnamed Sunday newspaper. He said he lived with his partner in a celibate same-sex relationship, as required by the Bishops' guidelines, under which gay clergy must practice abstinence and may not marry.[185][186][187][188]Ivar Mountbatten came out as gay and revealed that he was in a relationship with James Coyle, an airline cabin services director whom he met whilst at a ski resort in Verbier.[189] While not being a member of the British royal family, he is the first member of the extended family to come out as gay.[190]Anwen Muston, a British Labour Party politician, was elected to Wolverhampton City Council at the 2016 elections; this makes her the first openly transgender woman to be elected as a Labour representative.[191][192] The Armed Forces Act 2016 finally repeals "homosexual acts as a grounds of discharge from the armed forces".[128]
2017 – Andy Street became the United Kingdom's first openly gay, directly elected metro mayor.[193]Philippa York, formerly Robert Millar, came out as transgender, thus becoming the first former professional cyclist to have publicly transitioned; she had been one of Britain's most successful cyclists of all time.[194] British voters returned a record number of LGBTQ MPs to Parliament in the general election. Forty-five gay, lesbian or bi MPs were elected on Thursday 8 June – six more than in the previous parliament. The SNP registered the largest proportion of LGBTQ elected members in its parliamentary party, with seven of its 35 MPs identifying as such.[195] Ryan Atkin became the first openly gay official in English football.[196]
2018 – Lord Ivar Mountbatten married his same-sex partner, James Coyle, on 22 September 2018,[197][198] becoming the first member of the British monarch's extended family to have a same-sex wedding.[198][199][200]
2019 – Laverne Cox was one of fifteen women chosen by guest editor Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to appear on the cover of the September 2019 issue of British Vogue; this made Cox the first openly transgender woman to appear on the cover of British Vogue.[201][202][203]Songs of Praise showed its first gay wedding, which was the wedding of Jamie Wallace and Ian McDowall at the Rutherglen United Reformed Church in Glasgow.[204]Lucia Lucas became the first transgender singer to perform with the English National Opera in London.[205] Pride in Surrey held the first Pride event on August 10 in the borough of Woking,Surrey. It was founded by Stephen A Ireland and his Partner Charlie Watts.[206]
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