But Daniels hopes incremental progress can continue to be achieved in the UK - and especially in the Premier League, which remains without any openly gay players. Arriving in London in the last few months of the 1980s, I discovered that there were more than a few hundred of us and that books still had a potent force. Shared among gay friends, we could celebrate our growing confidence and visibility with new work from Alan Hollinghurst and Jeanette Winterson, develop a camp sensibility by quoting to each other lines from EF Benson and Ronald Firbank, imagine that London could become the queer Arcadia depicted in Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City.

But human worthiness runs along a continuum. I consider myself to be a deeply flawed person, and I identify with those whose character flaws have led them into grave troubles, whose momentary impulses have caused lasting harm. Ask for advice. Letter writers: Please think carefully! By sending a letter to [email protected], you are giving Salon permission to publish it. Once you submit it, it may not be possible to rescind it. So be sure. If you are not sure, sleep on it. You can always send tomorrow. Ready? OK, Submit your letter for publication. Strictly Come Dancing features its first same-gender dance pairing, consisting of former Olympic boxer Nicola Adams and professional dancer Katya Jones. A year later, Great British Bake-Off winner John Whaite and professional dancer Johannes Radebe, both of whom are gay, became the show’s first all-male dance pairing – making it all the way to the final. 2021Comic Relief admitted the recent fallout came about due to “a stance being taken on a public issue without any prior consultation with the board or Eric as chair”. Calls for ceasefire have also caused major political fractions in the Labour Party after several shadow cabinet members resigned last week over their position. Having been through the asylum system with varying degrees of success, both Jason and Joel believe more could be done to make the process fairer for LGBTQ+ refugees. During WW2, and until 1999, there was an official ban on lesbians and gays serving in the armed forces. Indeed, homosexuality was grounds for dismissal from the forces and for harsh imprisonment. In 2022, Shakespeare’s Globe announced I,Joan as part of its schedule. Written by Charlie Josephine and starring Isobel Thom, the play retelling the life of Joan of Arc – the 15th century female saint and French military leader – received praise from left-leaning theatre critics whilst being heralded as the poster for “woke culture” by more conservative titles. I had just spent a few weeks in the area around Taupo, on the north island of New Zealand. Hiking, biking and generally having a good time with a bunch of lovely people. On the last day, some sweet German girls dropped me off at a junction which turned out to be an awful spot for hitchhiking.

We have shared many rooms together over the years, but this time our housing arrangement required us to share a bed, which did not give me a moment of pause. Like many gay men, our platonic friendship began with a roll in the hay. That first time was something of a quirk for both of us, fueled by too much drinking and ecstasy. We are not each other's types at all. I should also mention that I have boyfriend and my friend is married, but neither of our partners came with us on this trip. Our broadcasting rules also act to protect minority groups from harm. And our studies into audiences’ attitudes towards offensive language on TV and radio look at how the public views different words and phrases – including a range of terms which affect the LGBTQ+ community – and how those attitudes change over time. There were none of the anti-gay witch-hunts we had after WW2", he told me. "Homosexual soldiers were more or less accepted".

Rate this page

While we celebrate 50 years of Pride this year, Metro.co.uk is shining a light on two charities that offer life saving support to the LGBTQ+ community - and asking readers to please donate whatever you can to help them both continue to help others. I hooked up with a guy and we went to the park after opening hours. I was f***ing him in the trees when we realised there were loads of men in the bushes watching us.’ And finally: The one who broke his penis…

Writer and presenter Paris Lees effortlessly uses her platform to spotlight trans experiences and discuss wider LGBTQ+ and societal issues. Growing up, Paris faced bullies and a difficult upbringing, but after spending time in prison, she decided to turn her life on its head. She got an education, moved to London and worked at GAY TIMES, a magazine she had read in prison, as well as a string of other publishers, before carving out the successful career she has today. Since then she has experienced a lot of firsts; She was the first openly trans woman to present a show on Radio 1, the first to present a show on Channel 4, the first to appear on Question Time and Vogue’s first transgender columnist. Recently documenting the first stages of her life in her 2021 book What It Feels Like For A Girl, the novel-memoir is based on Lees’ life aged 13–18, beginning in 2001 and has received widespread critical acclaim. Son of a Tutu Indeed, Cave was dismissed from his job as manager of the Majestic Cinema in Wembley, London, in 1954 after it was discovered he was gay. Ultimately, if you make a claim for asylum based on your sexuality, you are going to be asked about your sexuality,’ Reiss says. ‘But there certainly needs to be a sensitivity when asking these questions. It’s not just language barriers that can lead to difficulties in the asylum process, with cultural differences sometimes leading to legitimate claims being rejected. His behavior also gave me new insight into the falling-out he had with a mutual friend several years ago, while we vacationed in the same resort town. They had been sharing a bed, and I noted that our other friend had begun to sleep on the sofa, too. They had an angry fight one night on that trip and they've never spoken to each other again.In that regard, the Home Office have their cake and eat it,’ he explains. ‘If you don’t “look” gay, interviewers may say: “Well, you don’t present as a gay man so what’s the risk? We don’t accept you are gay as claimed.” This season, Josephine’s new show Cowbois centring transmasculinity is set to premiere at the Royal Shakespeare Company and serves as an opportunity to upend traditional connotations surrounding the figure of the cowboy. “I wanted to disrupt the Hollywood version of cowboys – the white cis straight male gaze, that’s often racist and misogynistic,” Josephine explains. “I wanted to dive into the genre, embrace the swagger, and be cheeky with gender.” My first time hitchhiking was in winter last year when some friends and I decided to go an adventure whilst tripping on acid. The day started off typically at a hostel; everyone had the day off, we were smoking a lot and wanted to get our trip on. We walked by the Bow River (Canada) towards the Hoodoos. If you don’t have a gay partner, you’re forced to do an awful lot more to prove you’re gay,’ he says. ‘You need optics. You need support from charities for gay people to have a chance.’

Brian Dowling becomes the first openly gay children’s TV presenter in the UK on ITV’s SMTV Live, after taking part in the second series of Big Brother. 2010 People were trying to turn the hippo around so that it could walk away, but it was so heavy that they were having a hard time. I don’t know what happened to the hippo…but it definitely made my hitchhiking experience so much more interesting.” Gay Hitchhiker: Celebrating Pride

The one who got high…

Journalist Chen takes a rigorous approach to her subject, interviewing hundreds of people who fall under the ace spectrum. Critiquing the centrality of sex in western society, Chen rightly notes that “true sexual liberation means having many choices – no sex forever, sex three times a day, and everything in-between – that all feel equally available and accepted.” Her observations on what she describes as the conspicuous consumption of sex as a way to perform feminist/radical politics is thought-provoking, while her dissection of social norms and how these can inhibit sex and relationships is both expansive and inclusive. In 1999, Faisal Alam founded Al Fatiha UK as a support network for LGBTQ+ Muslims. It was later renamed Imaan and has gone on to become the UK’s leading LGBTQ+ Muslim charity. Their mission is make sure no LGBTQ+ Muslim person living in the UK feels excluded from their family, their faith or their communities. Following 9/11 and later the 7/7 bombings in London, Islamaphobia became more rampant in the gay scene and Imaan was there to make sure they provided a safe space for those who needed it, but also connected with communities to break down the bigotry and discrimination that pervaded the LGBTQ+ community. They marched in anti-terrorism protest rallies in rainbow-coloured hijab, and featured in a Channel 4 documentary to educate the mainstream on what it really means to be LGBTQ+ and Muslim in the UK. But most importantly of all, it has served as a support network for LGBTQ+ Muslims who need it most, allowing them to create meaningful connections and celebrate the breadth of identities and experiences that LGBTQ+ people have within the Islamic faith. Russell T Davies Czech Republic's Jakub Jankto became only the second current openly gay top-flight male professional footballer in the world in February, after Adelaide United player Josh Cavallo in October 2021. If you need to ask me the questions, ask me the questions as a humanist. If you have not experienced our pain and suffering, you can’t sit down and question us without having empathy. It’s like they weren’t seeing me. All they saw is a commodity of someone you need to pass or fail, almost like an exam.’ Although his early work pre-dates the modern Pride movement, the late Antony Grey was widely regarded as Britain’s first gay rights activist. The former press officer for the British Iron and Steel Federation started volunteering for the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS) in 1958, which campaigned to change laws that criminalised gay men. Four years later, he became secretary of the HLRS and the Albany Trust, a charity to assist gay men who developed psychological problems after being persecuted. Antony was also instrumental in forcing the government to push through the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which laid the foundations for modern law reform. During his years post-1972 he continued to passionately fight for LGBTQ+ rights, challenge censorship, and became Secretary of the Sexual Law Reform Society. Following his death in 2010, fellow activist Andrew Lumsden credited Antony with paving the way for the Gay Liberation Front, Outrage!, Stonewall and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality. The former chief executive of Stonewall, Ben Summerskill, hailed Antony as a “real hero for gay equality” and said the British LGBTQ+ community “owe him a huge debt of gratitude”. Allan Horsfall