Coming Out From The Shadows
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast Date: TBC
On the 50th Anniversary of the groundbreaking 1967 Sexual Offences Act, the campaigner Peter Tatchell takes a sceptical look at its impact on Britain’s gay communities. Although it was a major staging post in the long and tortuous fight for the decriminalisation of male homosexual behaviour in Britain, Peter will show that in the years immediately were far from friendly towards homosexuality: for example, convictions of men for same-sex offences increased dramatically. Peter will go on to examine discrimination against homosexuals in areas such as employment and housing in the 1970s, and he revisits the fierce battles in the 1990s for the reduction of the age of consent for homosexuals from 21 to 16.
Drawing on extensive archive from the last fifty years, Peter will chronicle the continuing struggle for equal rights for Britain’s LGBTQ communities – a story that takes us right up to 2017.
