page_title: LGBT culture in Liverpool
section_title: Liverpool LGBT facts, feats and firsts
hierarchical_section_title: LGBT culture in Liverpool / Liverpool LGBT facts, feats and firsts
caption_attribution_description: English: Openly gay Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Cllr Gary Millar, is sworn in at Liverpool Town Hall (22 May 2013)
context_page_description: LGBT life in Liverpool, England is made up of persons who are either lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender/transsexual. Research commissioned by the North West Regional Development Agency approximated that there were around 94,000 LGBT persons living in the city's metropolitan area by mid-2009 - equivalent to the GLB population of San Francisco, making it the single largest minority group on Merseyside.
  Out of 100 cities around the world, Liverpool was voted number 51 most LGBT friendly in 2017. The poll was taken by the gay community in major hubs around the world.
  As the location of Britain's first and only official gay quarter, the only LGBT combined arts organisation in the North of England, the UK's most gay friendly university and one of Europe's largest free LGBT Pride festivals, life in modern Liverpool allows many more liberties for gays and lesbians than it ever did. However, up until quite recently the city was often thought of as a 'lesser gay-friendly' destination and compared negatively in comparison to other metropolitan areas of similar size and stature.
context_section_description: Over time, the city of Liverpool has achieved an impressive catalogue of LGBT feats and firsts. On no less than twenty occasions Liverpool has been at the epicentre of the UK gay rights movement. Liverpool born men and women have championed equality for half a century whilst major turning points in the history of the national and international LGBT community have been marked right in the heart of the city.
  1960: Liverpool born April Ashley became Britain's first transsexual.
  1976: Gay Youth 'R' Out (GYRO) was founded in Liverpool, now officially the UK's longest running LGBT youth group.
  1984 (June): Liverpool pop band Frankie Goes To Hollywood, fronted by openly gay band members Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford, scored the longest-running number-one single in the UK of the 1980s. Their song Two Tribes spent nine weeks at the top spot. The band were also the second act ever to top the Official UK Singles Chart with their first three singles since Gerry & The Pacemakers (also from Liverpool). Frankie Goes To Hollywood rose to initial fame thanks to their first single Relax, widely noted as one of the most controversial songs of the decade. To date it is the 6th best selling single in the UK of all time.
  1985: Liverpool based soap opera, Brookside, featured the first openly gay character on a British TV series.
  1994: Liverpool based soap opera, Brookside, broadcast the UK's first pre-watershed lesbian kiss.
  1994 (Feb): Liverpool born Edwina Currie became the first British MP to introduce a motion in the House of Commons to equalise the age of consent for gay men. Her motion was narrowly defeated and instead of an equal age at 16, the age of consent was instead lowered to 18. Currie has since said "As a Jewish Scouse female, I knew enough about discrimination and could never see the justification for [an unequal age of consent]".
  1997: Angela Eagle, MP for Wallasey (Merseyside), became Britain's first 'out' lesbian MP.
  1999: Wallasey born Caroline Paige became the first openly-serving transgender officer in the British Armed Forces. She joined the Royal Air Force in 1980 prior to her transition and then continued to serve after her gender reassignment in 1999.
  2001: The UK's first ever televised gay wedding was screened live on air from Liverpool's Albert Dock on ITV's This Morning.
  2002 (Oct): A 30-year-old lesbian from Liverpool became the first person to successfully challenge the British government's unfair discrimination against homosexual couples under the Mental Health Act 1983. Following her landmark legal proceedings against Liverpool City Council and the Secretary of State for Health, the government was forced to change the law under the European Convention on Human Rights. It was accepted that the gay partners of mental health patients in same sex relationships would qualify as 'nearest relatives' and, therefore, they would have the same rights as heterosexual unmarried couples.
  2005: Liverpool Register Office became the UK's first to include a gay couple on the front cover of official civil ceremony promotional material.
  2008: Angela Eagle, MP for Wallasey (Merseyside), became the first female Member of Parliament to enter a civil partnership.
  2010 (Aug): Hollyoaks, produced and filmed at the Liverpool-based Lime Pictures studios, became the first ever British soap opera to introduce a teenage transsexual storyline.
  2010 (Sept): The Lib Dems became Britain's first major political party to formally endorse same-sex marriage. They made the official announcement at their Liverpool party conference.
  2011 (Mar): Liverpool born Anton Hysén came out as Sweden's first openly gay male footballer and the second openly gay high-level footballer in the world, ever.
  2011 (Nov): Liverpool became the first British city to officially recognise a gay quarter with rainbow street signs.
  2012 (May): Liverpool was the first city in the world to officially mark IDAHO with a programme of free events.
  2012 (June): Ullet Road Unitarian Church, Liverpool, hosted the first UK civil partnership on religious premises.
  2012 (July): Liverpoo
caption: 2013: Openly gay Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Cllr Gary Millar, becomes the first British Lord Mayor in a civil partnership
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