While she did not give her approval publicly, comedian Stephen Fry claimed she celebrated the moment. In 2013, Britain legalized gay marriage after Queen Elizabeth II gave her royal stamp of approval. It was the first time she had signaled her support for gay rights in her then 61-year reign, The Daily Mail claimed at the time. While specific references to gay people were not included to avoid antagonizing Commonwealth countries that retained anti-LGBTQ laws, insiders still called it a “watershed” moment for the Queen. The words “other grounds” were said to refer to sexual orientation. In a ceremony to mark Commonwealth Day, the then-86-year-old monarch gave a speech endorsing a new agreement between the Commonwealth nations stating that the signatories oppose “all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, color, creed, political belief or other grounds.” Turing died by suicide in 1954 – during her reign.Īlso in 2013, the Queen signed a historic equal rights charter supporting LGBTQ people. He was punished by the British government for his sexuality and was chemically castrated after being convicted in 1952 of “gross indecency” with another man. That year, she granted a pardon to Alan Turing, who is widely considered to be the father of computer science and is most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes during World War II. Her public support seems to have begun in 2013.

For most of her reign, she was rather quiet about LGBTQ issues, but in the last few decades, she began to take a more publicly pro-LGBTQ stance. While the Queen notoriously maintained an air of political neutrality, she is generally recognized as a supporter of LGBTQ rights.

Homosexual acts weren’t fully legalized in the country until the mid-90s. While gay men were no longer put to death as they were in the 1500s, their sexual acts were criminalized and many were subject to chemical castration or imprisonment. When the Queen first came to power, police were still enforcing the country’s strict anti-sodomy laws that had first been implemented by Henry VIII in 1533. Throughout her reign, the Queen saw Britain transform from a nation that threw gay men behind bars to one where they could legally marry.

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