2026-2027 marks the 70th anniversary of the final year of work of the Departmental Committee on Homosexuality Offences and Prostitution which was published in the “Wolfenden Report” of 1957. The Wolfenden Report would prove influential to campaigns and political developments which would, a decade later, see homosexuality partially decriminalised through the Sexual Offences Act 1967.
With generous support from the Society of Legal Scholars, this one-day conference explores the contemporary significance of the Wolfenden Report and the Sexual Offences Act 1967 as they approach their 70th and 60th anniversaries. In person attendees will join speakers in the Passmore Centre at London South Bank University and those joining online will receive an MS Teams link to follow each of the panels online.
Registration is open here:https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/csa6M9A407
Programme
0930-1015 Registration
1015-1025 Welcome
1025-1215 Panel 1: Wolfenden’s history and legacies
Collins: A 1950s Culture War? Liberalism, Populism and the Wolfenden Report (Collins)
Monk: Decriminalisation and Divorce on Film: The Tenacity of Family (Monk)
Correia-Hopkins and Shopland: Wolfenden in Wales: Tracing an Understudied History and Legacy
Lee: A Report on Wolfenden
1215-1230 Mini-Screening: The BBC’s First Homosexual
1230-1315 Lunch Served
1315-1505 Panel 2: Gender within and beyond Wolfenden
Catterall: Wolfenden and Gender Nonconformity
Boulton: Let the Dolls Play! A critical analysis of the FA decision to ban trans women from football following the Supreme Court judgment of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16
Gray: After the Pinnacle: Wolfenden’s Unfinished Arc and the Trans Rights Rollback as Warning, Not Exception
Derry: The Wolfenden Report and the sexual double standard
1505-1525 The National Archives: Wolfenden and Accessing the Collection (Iglikowski-Broad)
1525-1540 Coffee Break
1540-1730 Panel 3: Wolfenden and the Private
Diab: No Place to Be Private: Wolfenden, Displacement, and Queer Criminalisation in Lebanon
Balaji: The Ghost of Wolfenden In India: Protecting Private Lives, Producing Public Exclusions
Saxena: Wolfenden and Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code
Raj: Public Disgust, Privatised Queerness: Contesting the Emotional Grammar of the Wolfenden Report
1730-1740 Closing Remarks