Fifty years on from the decriminalisation of homosexuality the papers today are carrying a range of articles covering its significance – see, for instance, Queer politics has been a force for change; celebrate how far we’ve come by Jeanette Winterson. Within her piece, she remembers the infamous Clause 28.

In 1988 the Thatcher regime passed into law clause 28 of the Local Government Act, making it an offence to “promote” homosexuality in schools. Nobody really knew what this meant, with its malign claims of “pretend” family relationships; all teachers knew was that they couldn’t be positive about any sexual identity other than straight. For me, also 28 at the time, it felt like legalised hatred.

Led by lesbian youth workers, in particular, many of us refused to abide by this deeply prejudiced legislation. Ironically, I’ve just been trawling the Youth & Policy archive, now online in its entirety, and there you can find evidence of this resistance in two articles from the time –  Mike Heathfield’s ‘The Youth Work response to lesbian and gay youth’ in Youth and Policy 23, Winter 1987/88  and Peter Kent-Baguley’s fierce polemic,’One Too Many’ in Youth & Policy 24, Spring 1988.

This is a bit rushed. Other folk of the time might have links to other materials.

But for a living example of where the struggle is up to in 2017 and the strides made, see, for example,  the Proud Trust – home of LGBT+ youth