#in 1967 the wolfenden report's recommendations were implemented

[identityarchitect]

so tired of people saying elias would be gay and homophobic..... that man lived through the death penalty for homosexuality. even just a letter expressing affection could be enough to get someone imprisoned. he was over a century old when it stopped being completely illegal to be gay and it was still illegal to talk about being gay until he was over 2 centuries and gay marriage wasnt even legal at that point. come the fuck on

[nafjohannahairas]

A Short History Of LGBT Rights In The UK

The Buggery Act of 1533, passed by Parliament during the reign of Henry VIII, is the first time in law that male homosexuality was targeted for persecution in the UK. Completely outlawing sodomy in Britain – and by extension what would become the entire British Empire – convictions were punishable by death. 

It was not until 1861 with the passing of the Offences Against the Person Act, that the death penalty was abolished for acts of sodomy – instead being made punishable by a minimum of 10 years imprisonment.

The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 however, went a step further once again, making any male homosexual act illegal – whether or not a witness was present – meaning that even acts committed in private could be prosecuted. Often a letter expressing terms of affection between two men was all that was required to bring a prosecution. The legislation was so ambiguously worded that it became known as the ‘Blackmailer's Charter’, and in 1895, Oscar Wilde fell victim.

Female homosexuality was never explicitly targeted by any legislation. Although discussed for the first time in Parliament in 1921 with a view to introducing discriminatory legislation (to become the Criminal Law Amendment Bill 1921), this ultimately failed when both the House of Commons and House of Lords rejected it due to the fear a law would draw attention and encourage women to explore homosexuality. It was also assumed that lesbianism occurred in an extremely small pocket of the female population.

In the post-war period, transgender identities started to become visible. In 1946 Michael Dillon published Self: A Study in Endocrinology. The book, which in contemporary terms could be described as an autobiography of the first transgender man to undergo phalloplasty surgery, recounted Dillon’s journey from Laura to Michael, and the surgeries undertaken by pioneering surgeon Sir Harold Gillies. Dillon wrote: ‘Where the mind cannot be made to fit the body, the body should be made to fit, approximately at any rate, to the mind.’

In May 1951 Roberta Cowell, a former World War II Spitfire pilot, became the first transgender women to undergo vaginoplasty surgery in the UK. Cowell continued her career as a racing driver and published her autobiography in 1954. 

Meanwhile, a significant rise in arrests and prosecutions of homosexual men were made after World War II. Many were from high rank and held positions within government and national institutions, such as Alan Turing, the cryptographer whose work played a decisive role in the breaking of the Enigma code. This increase in prosecutions called into question the legal system in place for dealing with homosexual acts.

The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, better known as the Wolfenden Report, was published in 1957, three years after the committee first met in September 1954. It was commissioned in response to evidence that homosexuality could not legitimately be regarded as a disease and aimed to bring about change in the current law by making recommendations to the Government. Central to the report findings was that the state should focus on protecting the public, rather than scrutinising people’s private lives.

The Wolfenden Report, 1957 recommended that 'homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should be no longer a criminal offence'.

It took 10 years for the Government to implement the Wolfenden Report’s recommendations in the Sexual Offences Act 1967. Backed by the Church of England and the House of Lords, the Sexual Offences Act partially legalised same-sex acts in the UK between men over the age of 21 conducted in private.  Scotland and Northern Ireland followed suit over a decade later, in 1980 and 1981 respectively. The Sexual Offences Act represented a stepping stone towards equality, but there was still a long way to go.

In 1966 The Beaumont Society was set up to provide information and education to the general public, medical and legal professions on ‘transvestism’ and encourage research aimed at a fuller understanding. The organistaion is now the UK’s largest and longest running support group for transgender people and their families.

In the wake of the Stonewall Riots in New York in June 1969 over the treatment of the LGBT community by the police the UK Gay Liberation Front was founded (GLF)  in 1970. The GLF fought for the rights of LGBT people, urging them to question the mainstream institutions in UK society which led to their oppression. The GLF protested in solidarity with other oppressed groups and organised the very first Pride march in 1972 which is now an annual event.

The Gender Recognition Act 2004, which came into effect on 4 April 2005, gave transgender people full legal recognition of their gender, allowing them to acquire a new birth certificate – although gender options are still limited to ‘male’ or ‘female’.

The LGBT community continues to fight for equality and social acceptance.

[filmstruck]

In late 19th century England, the Criminal Law Amendment Act was implemented, not only banning homosexuality, but making it a criminal offense. For decades, this senseless, discriminatory and repulsive law targeted, and subsequently ruined, the lives of countless gay men in England. Fear of becoming social outcasts, these men were also at risk of losing their jobs and homes. But what made this law even worse was that it left the door wide open for blackmail. If these gay men weren’t already frightened of the serious consequences brought about by this inhumane law, they had to worry about being exposed and outed to their families and employers without consent. Much like Prohibition in America encouraged the rise of an extremely violent criminal underworld peddling booze and drugs, the Criminal Law Amendment Act created a lucrative business for unscrupulous individuals to profit off of secrets. Blackmail was such an issue within the gay community, that the Criminal Law Amendment was known as “The Blackmailer’s Charter.” In 1957, seven decades after the law was enacted, John Wolfenden, an educator, along with a committee comprised of doctors, religious leaders, lawyers and professors, came to a near-unanimous decision to recommend that homosexuality be decriminalized—their findings became known as the “Wolfenden Report.” While many of the observations made by the committee are archaic by today’s standards, they were both groundbreaking and controversial for the time. Unfortunately, it took England another ten years to decriminalize homosexuality. But in the years between the Wolfenden Report and the Sexual Offences Act of 1967, there were no shortage of harsh social commentaries and protests in favor of equal rights for the gay men targeted by the law. In 1961, director Basil Dearden and producer Michael Relph released VICTIM ('61), a cinematic masterpiece, with a groundbreaking, unflinching look at the shameful treatment of the gay community and condemnation of its blackmailers.

Read More On StreamLine: Desperation and Bravery in Basil Dearden’s  VICTIM ('61)