<B>Col Richardson:</B> Vlence agast gay people is still rife, but the law and police attus are beg transformed.
Contents:
CEL, ANTI-ENGLISH AND ALMOST CERTALY GAY: MEET THE REAL RICHARD THE LNHEART
* richard gay barrister *
Historil ntextUnlike the first woman or the first BAME barrister admted to the Bar, there will never be a rerd of the first gay man or woman, the first bisexual or the first trans person to be lled by the Inn. Of urse, that’s not to say their nam are not ntaed our archiv: LGBTQ+ people have always existed and, arguably, jt as London has always been a queer cy (to quote Peter Ackroyd’s Queer Cy: Gay London om the Romans to the prent day (Chatto & Wd, 2017)) so ed have the hallowed grounds of the Temple. In their effemate rol, the men would later bee associated wh the French word ‘gai’ (cheerful), which overtime gave the term ‘gay’ that we know and have embraced today.
Que what the alleged victim thought would happen when he weled his would-be attacker ‘to the same box’ we n only some gay men of the Inn prumably had fun of an eveng, the Temple district was also an area which some of the worst persecutn of LGBTQ+ dividuals was displayed for all to see. In 1810, the Whe Swan on Vere Street was raid by officers of the urt, who were horrified to fd an tablishment ntag beds, a ladi’ drsg area, and a ‘chapel’ for gay marriag to be celebrated.
At the lnch event last November, for example, there were dividuals who had ‘e out’ much later life and who lived through those now nceivable days when sexual acts between gays remaed illegal. Practilly all my school years were spent unr the cloud of sectn 28 of the Lol Government Act 1988, which serted Sectn 2A to the Lol Government Act 1986 a prohibn on tnal thori promotg homosexualy schools or publishg material wh the tentn of promotg homosexualy. In my 14 or so years of school life, I never heard a teacher refer to homosexualy, not even the ntext of art or lerature.