Gay rights timeline - Definition and Overview

This page is a timeline of significant events in gay rights over the past few centuries. Each year is annotated with a significant event for the LGBT communities as a reference point.

• 20th century in gay rights:
  • 1900s - 1910s - 1920s - 1930s - 1940s - 1950s - 1960s - 1970s - 1980s - 1990s
• 21st century in gay rights:
  • 2000s

See also History of sexuality

16th century

• 1533 - King Henry VIII begins the English common law tradition of sodomy laws, proclaiming sodomy, then-defined as any non-procreative sexual activity, a crime. This includes masturbation, anal and oral sex.

17th century

• 1624 - Richard Cornish of the Virginia Colony is tried and hanged for sodomy.
• 1649 - The first known conviction for lesbian activity in North America occurs in March when Sarah White Norman is charged with "lewd behavior" with Mary Vincent Hammon in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

18th century

• 1726 - Mother Clap's molly house in London is raided by police, resulting in Clap's death and the execution at Tyburn of all the men arrested
• Between 1730 and 1811, a widespread panic in the Dutch Republic leads to a spectacular series of trials for sodomy, with persecutions at their most severe from 1730 to 1737, 1764, 1776, and from 1795-1798.
• 1792 - France decriminalizes sexual acts between men

19th century

• 1813 - Bavaria decriminalizes sexual acts between men
• 1836 - The last known execution for homosexuality in Britain
• 1861 - In England, the penalty for conviction for sodomy is reduced from hanging to imprisonment
• 1869 - The term "homosexuality" appears in print for the first time in a German pamphlet written by Károly Mária Kertbeny (1824-1882).
• 1871 - Homosexuality is criminalized throughout Germany by Paragraph 175 of the Reich Criminal Code
• 1886 - The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, outlawing sexual relations between men (but not women) is given Royal Assent by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
• 1892 - the word bisexual is first used in its current sense in Charles Gilbert Chaddock's translation of Kraft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis.
• 1895 - Oscar Wilde prosecuted under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 for "gross indecency" and sentenced to two years in prison.
• 1897 - Magnus Hirschfeld founds the Scientific Humanitarian Committee on May 14 to organize for gay rights and the repeal of Paragraph 175

1900s

• 1907 - Adolf Brand, a journalist working to overturn Paragraph 175, publishes a piece "outing" the imperial chancellor of Germany, Prince Bernhard von Bülow. The Prince sues Brand for libel and clears his name; Brand is sentenced to 18 months in prison.

1910s

• 1910 - Emma Goldman first begins speaking publicly in favor of gay rights
• 1914 - The word faggot is first used in print in reference to gays in a vocabulary of criminal slang published in Portland, Oregon": "All the fagots [sic] (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight".

1920s

• 1923 - The word fag is first used in print in reference to gays in Nels Anderson's The Hobo: "Fairies or Fags are men or boys who exploit sex for profit."
• 1925 - Kimitake Hiraoka, Japanese writer is born, January 14th
• 1929 May 22 - Katharine Lee Bates, author of America the Beautiful dies.
• 1929 October 16 - a Reichstag Committee votes to repeal Paragraph 175. The Nazis' rise to power prevents the implementation of the vote.

1930s

• 1933 - Nazis burn the library of Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Research, and destroy the Institute.
• 1937 - the first use of the pink triangle in Nazi concentration camps

1940s

• 1940 - Barney Frank, American politician is born March 31st
• 1945 - Upon the liberation of concentration camps by Allied forces, those interned for homosexuality are not freed, but required to serve out the full term of their sentences under Paragraph 175

1950s

• 1950 - East Germany partially abrogates the Nazi's emendations to Paragraph 175
• 1951 - Gay sex legalized in Bulgaria
• 1952 - Dale Jennings successfully uses the defense of entrapment against charges of solicitation.
• 1954 - June 7 - Alan Turing dies from cyanide poisoning, eighteen months after being given libido reducing hormone treatment for a year as a punishment for homosexuality
• 1955 - Daughters of Bilitis founded in San Francisco, California.
• 1957 - The Wolfenden Committee publishes its report recommending decriminalization of consensual homosexual behaviour between adults

1960s

• 1961 in gay rights - Decriminalization in Czechoslovakia and Hungary
• 1962 in gay rights - Illinois becomes first U.S. state to remove sodomy law from its criminal code.
• 1963 in gay rights - Israel decriminalizes de-facto sodomy and sexual acts between men by judicial decision against the enforcement of the relevant section in the old British-mandate law from 1936 (which in fact was never enforced).
• 1966 in gay rights - The National Planning Conference of Homophile Organizations is established. (It became NACHO (North American Conference of Homophile Organizations) in 1967).
• 1967 in gay rights - Sexual Offences Act passed in the United Kingdom allowing sex between 2 men who are 21 or over. The word homophobia makes its first appearance in print in Wainwright Churchill's Homosexual Behavior among Males.
• 1968 in gay rights - Paragraph 175 is eased in East Germany. Canada repeals all anti-sodomy laws.
• 1969 in gay rights - Stonewall riots - Paragraph 175 is eased in West Germany - Sodomy legalized in Canada

1970s

• 1970 in gay rights - First U.S. gay pride parade held in New York City
• 1971 in gay rights - Colorado, Oregon repeal sodomy laws; gay age of consent in the Netherlands changed from 21 to 16 (equalized; Penal Code Section 248bis dropped)
• 1972 in gay rights - Ann Arbor, Michigan becomes first city in United States to pass gay rights ordinance
• 1973 in gay rights - The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its DSM-II.
• 1974 in gay rights - Ohio repeals sodomy laws.
• 1975 in gay rights -
• 1976 in gay rights -
• 1977 in gay rights - Harvey Milk elected city supervisor in San Francisco. Dade County, Florida enacts a Human Rights Ordinance. It is repealed the same year after a militant anti-gay-rights campaign led by Anita Bryant.
• 1978 in gay rights - Harvey Milk assassinated
• 1979 in gay rights - first U.S. gay rights march on Washington, DC

1980s

• 1980 in gay rights -
• 1981 in gay rights - Moral Majority starts anti-gay crusade. Norway becomes the first country in the world to enact a law to prevent discrimination against homosexuals.
• 1982 in gay rights - Gay Games I
• 1983 in gay rights -
• 1984 in gay rights -
• 1985 in gay rights - First memorial to gay Holocaust victims is dedicated
• 1986 in gay rights - Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in New Zealand, legalizing sex between males over 16
• 1987 in gay rights - U.S. Congressman Barney Frank comes out as gay
• 1988 in gay rights - Section 28 passes in the UK - Canadian MP Svend Robinson comes out as gay. Israel decriminalizes (de-jure) sodomy and sexual acts between men (the relevant section in the old British-mandate law from 1936 was never enforced).
• 1989 in gay rights - Denmark enacts civil union laws for same-sex couples

1990s

• 1990 in gay rights - OutRage! forms in UK
• 1991 in gay rights - Hong Kong decriminalizes homosexuality
• 1992 in gay rights - The World Health Organization removes homosexuality from its ICD-10
• 1993 in gay rights - Third gay rights march on Washington, DC. Sodomy laws repealed in the Republic of Ireland brought about by Senator David Norris.
• 1994 in gay rights - AMA denounces supposed cures for homosexuality/Canada grants refugee status to homosexuals fearing for their well-being in their native country. Paragraph 175 is repealed in Germany. Israel’s supreme court defines gay-couple’s rights same as any common-law-couple’s rights.
• 1995 in gay rights - Egan v. Canada - protection on the basis of sexual orientation is read into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• 1996 in gay rights - South Africa extends constitutional protection to homosexuals.
• 1997 in gay rights - UK extends immigration rights to same-sex couples akin to marriage
• 1998 in gay rights - Matthew Shepard slain. Employment Equality Act introduced in Ireland, covering wrongful dismissal based on the grounds of sexual orientation.
• 1999 in gay rights - California adopts domestic partner law. France enacts civil union laws (PACS) accessible to same-sex couples. Israel’s supreme court recognizes lesbian partner as another legal mother of her partner’s biological son.

2000s

• 2000 in gay rights - Section 28 repealed in Scotland, age of consent equalised in the United Kingdom. German Bundestag officially apologizes to gays and lesbians persecuted under the Nazi regime, and for "harm done to homosexual citizens up to 1969". Vermont becomes the first U.S. state to legalize civil unions. Israel recognizes same-sex relations for immigration purposes for a foreign partner of Israeli resident.
• 2001 in gay rights - Same-sex marriage in the Netherlands legalized.
• 2002 in gay rights - Age of consent in Austria equalised at 14.
• 2003 in gay rights - Section 28 repealed in the rest of the UK; SCOTUS strikes down U.S. sodomy laws; Same-sex marriage in Belgium legalized; Same-sex marriage in Canada introduced.
• 2004 in gay rights - Same-sex marriage in the United States: Massachusetts legalizes same-sex marriage while other U.S. states ban the practice; 85% of the Canadian population lives in a province or territory with same-sex marriage. New Zealand passes the Civil Union Bill.
• 2005 in gay rights - Same-sex marriage in the United States: California extends some marriage rights to same-sex couples.

External links

• Extended Chronicle of gay history (http://www.geocities.com/gueroperro/Chron-44-page.wps.htm)