LGBT History Month - vital for our visibility

LGBT History Month offers a vital opportunity to recognise the struggles, achievements, and contributions of the LGBTQIA+ community. It is a time to reflect on the progress made towards equality and to highlight our ongoing challenges. This month-long celebration also fosters understanding and acceptance, helping to build a more inclusive society. LGBT History Month matters, perhaps more so than ever with the global push-back against LGBTQIA+ rights, in particular, those of our trans community. If you would like to understand more about why this month is so important, please read on!

Why LGBT History Month Matters

LGBT History Month began in the UK in 2005, inspired by similar events in the United States. It takes place every February, aligning with the anniversary of the abolition of Section 28, a law that prohibited the "promotion" of homosexuality by local authorities. This month serves several important purposes:

• Education and Awareness

• Visibility and Representation

• Celebration of Diversity

• Encouraging Allyship

Each of these goals are intrinsic to the core values that Room to Be holds. We might be a small community group local to Dundee, but we are mighty in our action to engage proactively and positively with our allies, to model community based on a culture of belonging, to help create safer spaces, to celebrate our queer diversity and to amplify LGBTQIA+ voices and lived experience.

Despite progress in many parts of the world, LGBTQIA+ individuals still face discrimination, violence, and social exclusion. LGBT History Month reminds us that the rights and freedoms enjoyed today were hard-won through decades of activism and sacrifice. It also highlights the work that still needs to be done.

The Role of Allies During LGBT History Month

Allies play a crucial role in supporting LGBTQIA+ individuals and advancing equality. During LGBT History Month, allies can:

• Listen and Learn: Take time to understand LGBTQIA+ experiences and history.

• Speak Up: Challenge homophobic or transphobic remarks and behaviours.

• Support LGBTQIA+ Organisations: Volunteer or donate to groups working for LGBTQIA+ rights.

• Promote Inclusion: Encourage inclusive policies in schools and workplaces.

  
  

Active allyship helps build stronger, more welcoming communities. Room to Be is committed to fostering new partnerships and strengthening allyship as a form of positive activism to help dispel misinformation and fear around the LGBTQIA+ community and to create opportunity for shared experiences and dialogue. We have always needed our allies and we always will. Please contact us if you would like to find out more about allyship.

Some Key Events Highlighted During LGBT History Month

The month often focuses on influential individuals and landmark events that has shaped the LGBTQIA+ rights movement. Some key landmark events in UK history include:

• The AIDS Crisis: The 1980s and 1990s epidemic deeply affected the LGBTQIA+ community and sparked activism that changed public health policies.

• The Decriminalisation of Homosexuality: Various countries have repealed laws criminalising same-sex relationships, a major step toward equality. In the UK, homosexuality was partially decriminalised in 1967. Full decriminalisation did not exist across all four countries in the UK until 2013.

• The Stonewall Riots: Six days of spontaneous rioting after a police raid in a gay bar. Although occurring in New York in 1969, the riots inspired UK activists to form groups like the Gay Liberation Front and later shape campaigns such as the Stonewall charity founded in 1989 to combat discrimination, and contribute to broader rights-advancing efforts including education and legal equality movements within the UK.

• Section 28: In 1988, Section 28 was created to prohibit local authorities and schools from “promoting homosexuality.” The legislation led to protests and long-term impacts on LGBTQ+ visibility in education. It was repealed first in Scotland in 2000 and then in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2003.

• Gender Recognition Act (2004): This act allowed transgender people to gain legal recognition of their gender, an important milestone in trans rights in the UK. It was further strengthened by the Equality Act (2010).

• Civil Partnership Act (2004): Same-sex couples were granted legal recognition and many of the rights associated with marriage through civil partnerships. Legalisation of same-sex marriage only began to happen in stages around ten years later from 2013-2014 in Scotland, England and Wales, and finally in Northern Ireland in 2020, allowing same-sex couples in the UK to marry and gain equal recognition under the law.

• Supreme Court Ruling, For Woman Scotland Ltd vs Scottish Ministers (2025): A highly controversial ruling that states that for the purposes of the Equality Act (2010), the words 'sex', 'man' and 'woman' refer to biological sex — male or female — rather than to a person’s acquired gender, even if they hold a Gender Recognition Certificate. This has caused widespread confusion due to high-level trans-exclusionary activists misusing the ruling to push further exclusion of the trans community within society, in particular trans women, posing them as a threat to children, women and girls. The trans community has since seen an immediate roll-back of their rights, negative media attention and increased discrimination, public harassment and hate crime. There is continued systemic erasure of the nonbinary and intersex community.

Challenges Still Facing the LGBTQIA+ Community

While LGBT History Month celebrates progress, it also highlights ongoing challenges:

• Legal Inequality: The UK is thought to be one of the most progressive LGBTQIA+ friendly countries in Europe. However, there have been multiple reports on notable backsliding with Supreme Court decisions eroding trans rights and debates over rolling back protections such as through Section 28-era rhetoric and gender reforms. This has contributed to the steep drop in the UK's ILGA's Rainbow Map ranking which tracks international LGBTQIA+ rights out of 49 European countries,

• Violence and Hate Crimes: There is evidence of an increase in violence and hate crime against LGBTQIA+ individuals, particularly amongst the trans community, with trans women of colour facing disproportionately high rates of violence. The low reporting and trust in police implies under protection and major gaps in support.

• Queer Erasure: Erasure refers to the systemic removal, omission or minimisation of LGBTQIA+ identities, experiences and histories from the public, cultural or historical narratives. This is done through outright exclusion, misrepresentation (straightwashing), or neglect and is often reflecting broader processes like gentrification and aesthetic or systemic erasure. Erasure tries to make LGBTQIA+ lives and history invisible, particularly where representation matters most like schools, workplaces, media and government records.

• Mental Health Disparities: Higher rates of depression, anxiety, self harm and suicide affect the LGBTQIA+ community. These disparities are not caused by sexual orientation or gender identity itself, but by social stigma, discrimination, and systemic exclusion. Conversion therapy is still legal in many contexts - a pseudoscientific practice which tries to change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity through various means, despite being labelled unethical and potentially harmful.

• Access to Healthcare: Many LGBTQIA+ people encounter barriers to appropriate medical care, in particular transgender and non-binary people, who are prevented from accessing life-saving gender-affirming healthcare due to scarcity of specialist centres, long waiting times, unclear guidelines, lack of training among primary care practitioners and cultural and social prejudice. Poor access to healthcare is particularly troubling for transgender children and young people whose voices are being silenced in the ongoing political debate around puberty blockers. This reversible treatment stalls onset of puberty and has been used since the 1980s. The medication is FDA-approved, well-studied and well-documented. It is still used for cis-children with precocious puberty, but despite being exactly the same medication used to treat young trans people, access to the treatment has been banned and the families of trans children threatened with criminalisation should they seek trans-affirming healthcare elsewhere.

• Intersex Rights: an estimated 1.7% of children in the world are born with variations of sex characteristics (it is as common as being a twin). Many of these children, too young to consent, undergo surgery during infancy to 'normalise' their genitalia. These interventions are not always emergency driven, they are invasive and irreversible. Parents are not given adequate information and support to make informed decisions on behalf of their children. These surgeries have a lasting impact on the individual's physical heath, wellbeing, sexual lives, gender identity and can severely impede fertility. Intersex people are not currently included in the Equality Act (2010) and face significant gaps in legal protections.

• Non Binary Recognition: Not everyone identifies as either male or female. Whilst non binary and genderfluid individuals are arguably represented in general terms under the Equality Act (2010) regarding freedom from discrimination, non binary or a third gender is not legally recognised in UK law. This means non binary people must choose either male or female on all official documents despite not identifying as such. In everyday terms non binary people are consistently misgendered and forced to choose between public single-sex spaces such as toilets and changing rooms.

  
  

Recognising all these issues during LGBT History Month encourages continued advocacy and change.

The Ongoing Importance of Remembering LGBT+ History

Remembering LGBT+ history is not just about looking back. It helps us understand the present and shape a better future. The stories of courage, resilience, and creativity inspire new generations to continue the fight for equality and acceptance.

LGBT History Month acts as a reminder that progress requires continued effort and our rights are not set in stone. Political tides can move and reshape our cultural and social landscape. As communities we must be stalwart in our celebration of diversity and human uniqueness whilst recognising the work still needed to ensure that everyone can live openly, safely and authentically themself.

If you are part of a group, CIC, organisation or charity that would like to action allyship, Room to Be is interested in creating partnerships and collaborative projects with the wider Dundee community.