Earlier this week, I came across a really interesting article which shined a spotlight on a story which was published 65 years ago and hailed as a rare positive light on the LGBTQ+ community at the time.

Published in the Sunday Pictorial (now the Sunday Mirror), the June 26, 1960 article focused on “four self-confessed homosexuals” who met together to discuss the Wolfenden Report - a government-commissioned report published in 1957 which recommended the decriminalisation of homosexual acts.

As The Mirror’s Matt Roper writes, it would have perhaps have shocked readers at the time (despite not really being shocking whatsoever) because such coverage would just not have really occurred in a mainstream publication at a time when homosexuality was considered to be both a crime and a mental illness.

Whilst still using some language that we would question today, the piece asked: “What are homosexuals like? Can they be cured? Would a change in the law free them to increase in number? Are they a basic danger to society?”

In the article, written by John Knight, the four men were assigned aliases - ready to speak out but not perhaps ready to be identified so publicly - as they spoke about their lives.

Sadly, they were also asked to answer whether they felt there was a link between homosexuality and paedophilia (which does dim the piece slightly for me but I’m trying to remember it’s of the time).

Estate agent Roger Butler - given the name of Steven G, 27 in the article - was one of the men to speak in the piece. A forgotten pioneer of the gay rights movement, he is believed to be the first man to come out voluntarily to the entire British public.

“The normal homosexual is revolted by men who run after little boys, just as a normal man, presumably, is revolted by men who chase little girls,” he said, standing his ground around the attempted connections.

When another of the men, described as an eminent surgeon, was asked if he wanted to be “cured” he replied: “This is an illogical question to people like myself. How can you want to be cured of something you know is incurable?”

I won’t divulge any more of the piece here, but it is well worth a read - especially as we’re in the midst of Pride Month. It did highlight to me how things have changed so much for the LGBTQ+ community, but it also made me remember that the community has always been paired with some kind of negative connotation.

Perhaps that’s enlightening in a way, to know that things have always been the case and it’s not a new thing, but it’s also very saddening to realise that, actually, whilst a lot of things have indeed changed - some things may be quite similar to how they have always been.