Resources | Human Dignity Trust

Breaking the Silence: Criminalisation of Lesbians and Bisexual Women and its Impacts

24th September 2024

This report, the second edition to an original published in 2016, considers the history, extent and nature of laws criminalising consensual sexual intimacy between women, and the anti-LGBT criminal laws of all varieties that foster and perpetuate homophobia against lesbian and bisexual women as a particular group.

Long read

Norris v Ireland, 13 Eur. H.R. Rep. 186 (1988)

26th Oct 1988

Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights ruling against the provisions criminalising 'buggery' between males in Ireland

Dudgeon v United Kingdom, 4 Eur. H.R. Rep. 149 (1981)

22nd Oct 1981

Decision of the European Court of Human Rights holding that laws prohibiting homosexual acts between consenting adult males constitutes a violation of the European Convention.

Wolfenden Report, ‘Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in Great Britain’

4th Sep 1957

This public report published in 1957 paved the way for decriminalisation of same-sex activity in England & Wales in 1967.

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