Within the collective memory of queer Britain, the Wolfenden Report – a 1957 publication that recommended the decriminalisation of private gay sex between men – could be seen to have lost much of its widespread recognition in recent years.
Edward Carpenter: the Granddaddy of the Gay Rights Movement, by Tim Jahnke
Edward Carpenter was born in 1844 in Brighton to a middle-class naval family. He grew up with nine siblings. All of his brothers pursued careers in the armed forces, while he decided to go to university. He was admitted to Cambridge University in 1864. In 1867 Carpenter was offered a clerical fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He accepted and was ordained into holy orders.
A crime before its time
Last month, the Belgians legalised euthanasia, a definitive moment in the changing understanding of suicide. Helen Chapman discovers how the definition of crime has changed through time.
Gay rights and the end of history
An overview of the history of gay rights in Britain (and in nations across the world) could easily be perceived as evidence for Francis Fukuyama’s theories of history having an end point – that homosexual men and women obtain full rights and acceptance in all societies and therefore their story ends. A closer look however Continue Reading