The Corbett v Corbett divorce case establishes a precedent that a person's sex cannot legally be changed from that which is assigned at birth. It is based on a parallel movement in the US based on revolutionary politics. London Gay Liberation Front (GLF) is established in the UK. This key event triggers the modern LGBT liberation movement in the US and beyond.
#FAMOUS GAY MEN IN HISTORY SERIES#
The Stonewall riots in America - a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the LGBT community against a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, Manhattan. The Committee attracts support from leading figures in the medical profession, the arts and the church. North West Homosexual Law Reform Committee becomes a UK-wide organisation and is renamed as the Committee for Homosexual Equality (CHE). 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. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalises sex between two men over 21 and ‘in private’. The North Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee (NWHLRC) is founded to promote legal and social equality for lesbians, gay men and bi people.ġ966 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 fuller understanding. The Minorities Research Group becomes the UK’s first lesbian social and political organisation and goes on to publish a monthly journal – Arena Three. The Homosexual Law Reform Society is founded to campaign for the legalisation of same-sex relationships in the UK.
Despite this, the recommendations are rejected by the government. Supporters of this recommendation include the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher, and the British Medical Association. The Wolfenden Committee publishes a report, recommending that ‘homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence’. The Wolfenden Committee is formed after successions of well-known men are convicted of ‘indecency’, calling into question the legitimacy of the law. Roberta Cowell is the first known British trans woman to undergo reassignment surgery and have her birth certificate changed. This is an overview of key dates not just in Stonewall's history, but in the development of lesbian, gay, bi and trans history in terms of social, political and legislative change, representation and visibility.