In 1970, gay campaigners in the UK were in something of a quandary. The 1967 Sexual Offences Act had lifted only some of the criminal sanctions against sex between men and left immense social stigma unchallenged. At the same time, the media reacted to partial decriminalisation by largely losing interest in homosexuality.
Just one non-fiction television programme and two radio programmes were devoted to the topic in the late 1960s. In these programmes, like those before 1967 explored in my current project Re-viewing LGBTQ+ Lives, all the gay interviewees were either anonymous or else spoke of homosexuals in the third person and distanced themselves from “promiscuous types”.
