LGBT History in The United Kingdom - 1970s

1970s

• 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 the UK 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 UK law. This set a legal precedent for trans people in the UK, meaning that the birth certificates of transsexual and intersex people could not be changed.

• 1971 The Nationwide Festival of Light supported by Cliff Richard, Mary Whitehouse, Malcolm Muggeridge and Lord Longford was held by British Christians who were concerned about the development of the permissive society in the UK and in particular, homosexuality and out of wedlock sexual activity. The GLF interrupted the festival with a series of demonstrations. Lesbians invaded the platform of the Women’s Liberation Conference in Skegness, demanding recognition The Nullity of Marriage Act was passed, explicitly banning same-sex marriages between same-sex couples in England and Wales. The parliamentary debates on the 1971 act included discussion on the issue of transsexualism but not homosexuality.

• 1972 The First UK Gay Pride Rally was held in London with 1000 people marching from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park. Gay News, Britain's first gay newspaper was founded.

• 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 UK 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.

• 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. Stephen Whittle, trans-man and prominent activist, co-founds a Manchester based "TV/TS" group, a group for transsexual people who crossdress. 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.

• 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. UK journal Gay Left begins publication. British Home Stores sacked openly gay trainee Tony Whitehead; a national campaign subsequently picketed their stores.

• 1976 The UK's political pressure group Liberty, under their alternate name National Council for Civil Liberties, (NCCL) called for an equal age of consent of 14 in Britain. The term Gay Bowel Syndrome was coined to describe a range of peri-anal and rectal diseases seen among gay male patients; in the pre-AIDS era this is the first medical term to relate to gay men.

• 1977 The first gay lesbian Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference took place to discuss workplace rights for Gays and Lesbians.

• 1978 The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) was founded as the International Gay Association (IGA) on 8 August during the conference of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in Coventry, England, at a meeting attended by 30 men representing 17 organisations from 14 countries. The Coventry conference also called upon Amnesty International (AI) to take up the issue of persecution of lesbians and gays.

• 1979 At the end of the decade trans-people still had no identity rights nor legal protection.