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This is a report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, (the Wolfenden Report) Published in 1957 it was commissioned in response to evidence that homosexuality could no longer be regarded as a disease, as previously categorised and aimed to bring change in the law by making recommendations to the Government including

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.

Ten years after the publication of the Wolfenden Report, the Government took recommendations and introduced the Sexual Offences Act 1967. The act had the backing of 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.

In 1969 the solicitation of homosexual relations in public remained an illegal act in many parts of the world including the UK and New York City in the USA. Gay bars were places of refuge where gay men and lesbians and other individuals who were considered sexually suspect could socialize in relative safety from public harassment, although were continually raided by Police.

Stonewall riots, also called Stonewall uprising, series of violent confrontations that began in the early hours of June 28, 1969, between police and gay rights activists outside the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. As the riots progressed, an international gay rights movement was born.

Although this particular event took place in New York, the event sparked the formation of scores of gay rights organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, OutRage! (U.K.-based), GLAAD (formerly Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation).

The London Gay Liberation Front organised the first UK Gay Pride march in London. The march ran from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park with around 1,000 people marching through the capital.

1 July 1972Ìý was chosen as the nearest Saturday to the anniversary of the Stonewall riots of 1969 with approximately 2,000 participants.

The first UK case of AIDS was recorded when a 49-year-old man was admitted to Brompton Hospital, London suffering from Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia. He died 10 days later.

Throughout the decade panic grew around AIDS, gay people were pushed further into the shadows by a homophobic press campaign endorsed by the Prime Minister at the time Margaret Thatcher. Terms like the "gay plague" were widely used, and people believed HIV could be transmitted by any kind of proximity to those with the virus.

Sadly the stigma of AIDS and HIV live on. Even into the 1990's and early 2000's gay men applying for a mortgage would still be refused if the lender knew of their sexuality, linking it to AIDS and therefore high risk to loan money to.

Section 28 of the Local Government Act was enacted in May 1988. It was brought in to "prohibit the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities". This meant homosexuality could not be talked about in places such as Schools and social care settings.

The law was partly inspired by a 1983 story book called Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, which aimed to give children information about different types of family relationships

Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said at the time: "Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay. All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life".

This caused a long lasting affect on a generation of young people who had no support from local councils or schools around their sexuality, with children bullied at school for identifying as LGBT not being able to talk to access the support they needed as teachers feared they would be breaking the law.

Before this time, anyone identifying as gay and lesbian could not serve in the Armed Forces. Serving members would have to keep their sexual orientation secret, or they could be fired. The ban was not lifted on those identifying as trans, this would not happen until over a decade later in 2014.

After three defeats in the House of Lords, the Labour Government forced through legislation lowering the age of consent for gay men to 16. The Scottish parliament also voted to adopt this legislation.

The Adoption and Children Act 2002 allowed gay and lesbian single people, as well as same-sex couples, to adopt a child in the UK. Before this, neither same-sex couples nor unmarried heterosexual couples could adopt or foster children.

Section 28 led to so many insecurities around how people looked, how they behaved, how they developed. Although Section 28 was repealed in Scotland in 2000, it wasn't until 2003 that England, Wales and Northern Ireland, lifted the ban on local authorities from the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality.

This Act came into effect on 4 April 2005, giving trans people full legal recognition in their appropriate gender. It allowed trans people to acquire a new birth certificate, although gender options were still limited to male or female.

Although since 2004 same-sex couples could enter into Civil Partnerships, you were not permitted to marry. This Act gave same-sex couples the opportunity to get married just like any other couple. Same-sex couples already in a Civil Partnership could also now convert this to a marriage.

The change came into effect in 2014 in Scotland, England and Wales. The first same-sex marriages took place in England and Wales on 29 March 2014. It wasn't until 2020 that same-sex marriage was to be recognised in Northern Ireland.