LGBT+ Pride: where does the UK stand, 53 years on?

June marks the beginning of global LGBT+ Pride celebrations, providing the opportunity for LGBT+ communities to celebrate their identity and culture, but also to raise awareness about the inequalities they face, and to advocate for change.

The beginning of Pride as we know it today began with the Stonewall Riots of 1969, where a group of LGBT+ individuals protested against police brutality and discrimination faced by their community following the raid of the LGBT+ bar ‘The Stonewall Inn’ in New York City (NYC). The first Pride demonstration followed this action in NYC in 1970, which sparked global movements to fight back against LGBT+ discrimination, with the first Pride marches in the UK taking place in London in 1972, on the anniversary of the riots at the Stonewall. Scotland followed over 20 years later, with its first large scale Pride march taking place in Edinburgh in 1995.

At that time, same-sex sexual acts for adults over 21 years of age had recently been decriminalised in the UK but remained illegal in Scotland until 1981, and the education and promotion of homosexuality was illegal in schools under ‘Section 28’ of the Local Government Act 1988. Same-sex civil partnership and marriage were also prohibited. These laws  affirmed homophobic beliefs in a society that viewed being LGBT+ as immoral. There were no legal protections for LGBT+ people facing discrimination based on their sexual or gender identity. The public health effects of this lack of recognition and support for LGBT+ communities were seen, for example, during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, where homophobia fuelled misconceptions about the disease, how it spread and how it could be treated. The disease was initially named ‘GRID’ (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency), as it was depicted inaccurately as only targeting gay men. The lack of response and fear-based messaging around the disease increased discrimination and stigma around LGBT+ identities at the time, meaning many people lived in fear and could not access the treatment they needed.

Although more recently, equality and representation has significantly improved for LGBT+ communities in the UK - due to the abolishment of discriminatory anti-LGBT+ laws and the creation of laws offering protection to LGBT+ individuals, such as the Equality Act 2010 - LGBT+ people still face inequalities today.

A recently published evidence review from Chris Harkins of GCPH and LGBT Health and Wellbeing highlights the effects of stigma, discrimination and intolerance on the health and wellbeing of LGBT+ people. One of the report’s starkest example of this is powerful evidence demonstrating that across the UK, lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adults have a higher prevalence of poor mental health and lower wellbeing compared to heterosexual adults.  Data on the health and wellbeing of transgender communities remain limited, however the report highlights studies that explore the wellbeing of this population which demonstrate higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicidality. The evidence review also finds that LGBT+ groups are reported to have higher rates of drug and alcohol consumption, have poorer diets, and engage in lower levels of physical activity than the general population, all of which increases their risk of health issues such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Human rights experts have stated that LGBT+ rights in the UK have regressed in recent years, with the ILGA-Europe’s annual Rainbow Map, demonstrating that Britain has worryingly plummeted from being the best place in Europe for LGBTQ+ rights in 2015, to twenty-second place in 2025. We see the erosion of these rights in examples such as the UK Supreme Court’s recent ruling that gender and sex will be legally defined based on biological sex, which is assigned at birth. This ruling affects transgender and intersex individuals who may no longer be able to access the spaces that they feel safe in, and that align with the gender that they identify with. Much of the rhetoric in support of this ruling concerns fears from cisgender women around trans women using women’s spaces, however, it seems to ignore that this will mean that transgender men could be forced to use women’s spaces due to their ‘biological sex’ being registered as female. This complexity brings fears for trans people that they could be excluded from all single-sex spaces, essentially making it harder for them to exist and participate in public life. However, a spokesperson from the Equality and Human Rights Commission reassures: “it is our legal duty to uphold the equality and the human rights of everyone in Britain, including trans people, and this is core to everything we do”. This ruling coincides with a decline in public support  from 2016 to 2023 for trans people in the UK, revealed by the British Social Attitudes Survey 2023. As a population with already recognised and evidenced lower rates of wellbeing compared to the general population, it is important to acknowledge the potential risks to health and wellbeing that changes in legislation and public attitudes towards LGBT+ groups will have on individuals in this community.

The historical lack of population-level LGBT+ identification data inhibits our ability to fully understand the scale and nuances of LGBT+ inequalities, although the inclusion of sexual and gender identity questions within the 2022 Scottish Census is a positive development. As public health professionals, we must harness this opportunity to further explore the health needs of LGBT+ groups, and to advocate for better support and inclusion to prevent the exacerbation of health inequalities for this population.

In the lead up to Glasgow Pride on the 19^th July, we will continue to highlight key public health issues relating to LGBT+ equality, and to spotlight the vital work of local grassroots organisations that support LGBT+ people to thrive in Scotland.