To mark the anniversary of the New York's Stonewall Riots of 1969, and the beginning of pivotal cultural changes in the western world, June is the month dedicated to celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride. It is also the time to reflect on the journey and improvements that the UK has implemented in the last few decades, to acknowledge issues which still exist, as well as to consider challenges and opportunities which lie ahead.
Challenging discrimination and granting equal rights to LGBTQ+ minorities is not an easy exercise, as prejudices against LGBTQ+ people have been rooted in western cultures for millennia. One of the first English written laws defining homosexuality as a crime against God is as old as c. 1290 AD; a few hundred years later, under King Henry VIII, the 'Acte for the punishment of the vice of Buggerie' (known as the "Buggery Act 1533") confirmed homosexuality to be punishable by death.
The British Parliament kept issuing homophobic laws through the centuries, which were eventually exported to the colonies.
We had to wait until the Sexual Offences Act 1967 to see homosexuality partially de-criminalised in the UK (homosexual acts between two men aged over 21 were no longer prosecutable, as long as such acts were consummated "in private"), and until the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for a full de-criminalisation.
In the years 2000s, the English Parliament enacted a series of reforms favourable to LGBTQ+ people, such as: the Adoption and Children Act 2002, allowing same sex couples (whether married or unmarried) to adopt children; the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which allows an individual with gender dysphoria to change their legally recognised gender, the Civil Partnership 2004, which allowed same sex couples rights similar to marriage; the Equality Act 2010, which protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society, currently in the public eye following the Supreme Court's decision For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16; and the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, granting equal marriage for all.
Not only had wider society slowly adjusted to these changes, but also professions traditionally considered conservative had to find a way to navigate them: prejudices against members of the LGBTQ+ community were (and sometimes still are) hard to die within the legal profession itself.
Especially before the years 2000s, there are not many accounts of prominent legal figures, although some exceptional individuals are worth remembering: the Chevalier de Beaumont (1728 – 1810), a noted celebrity diplomat, spy, soldier, writer, intellectual and an early icon for intersex and transgender people; Frances Power Cobbe (1822 – 1904), an feminist of the Victorian Era and possibly one of the earliest example of lesbian lawyers; and Dame Lilian Charlotte Baker (1874 – 1955), first woman to be appointed assistant commissioner of prisons and openly lesbian (further information on these inspiring women is available here).
Even after the 1967 Act, openness in the legal world was a rarity, and the risks of exposure remained high.
Helen Randall, Solicitor, who lived through the effects of the infamous Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 (abrogated in 2003), in February 2023 published an article on the Law Gazette, remembering the climate of fear that a professional would experience at on the workplace, stating that:
"Everyone had two separate lives. Being LGBTQ+ at that time was something everyone I knew hid from employers as Section 28 blighted the public's view against LGBTQ+ people, so it impacted on lots of things in our lives. This resulted in lots of mental health issues, including depression, loneliness and, sadly for the LGBTQ+ community, even suicides, plus of course the constant fear of being fired"
Similarly, the Rt Hon the Lord Etherton GBE KC PC (1951 – 2025), recognised as Britain's first openly gay senior judge and an extremely influential figure for the profession, reported having struggled to advance in his legal career due to being a gay man.
In the most recent years, we luckily have seen several positive changes within the legal world. The Solicitors Regulation Authority ("SRA") is attentive on safeguarding diversity and inclusion among its members by actively implementing EDI policies and monitoring progresses. In 2023, the SRA's diversity data report showed that 2.8% of lawyers are lesbian or gay, 1.5% of lawyers are bisexual, 0.4% of lawyers prefer another description, and 0.5% of lawyers confirmed that their gender identity was different to their sex at birth.
These are very encouraging data, which show that we are going in the right direction, but which need to be counterbalanced with those from a Research Paper published by Randstad in 2024, pursuant to which almost half (47%) of LGBTQ+ people who participated to their survey had experienced discrimination at work at some point in their career. These results are sadly not surprising, considering that an increase in hate crimes and homophobia in wider society had been observed by Stonewall UK as of October 2023.
We must acknowledge and be proud of our legal successes in the last two decades in terms of equality and inclusion, but we need to keep working on trans issues, intersex bodily integrity, hate crimes and on asylum policies (according to ILGA Europe's "Rainbow Map"), so as to allow our fellow citizens, members of those minorities, the opportunity to conduct their private lives without being subject to undue discriminations.
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