Did you know that forum+ is celebrating our 20th birthday this year?

Founded as Camden LGBT Forum in 2002, the charity rebranded to forum+ in 2019, and we’re incredibly proud to be celebrating 20 years of supporting the local LGBT communities across Camden and Islington.

The past two decades have seen huge changes in terms of LGBT rights in the UK.

Section 28 was repealed in 2003, in 2004 the Civil Partnership Act 2004 allowed same-sex couples to legally enter into binding partnerships, similar to marriage and in 2013 the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013 allowed same-sex couples in England and Wales to marry.

The Gender Recognition Act 2004, which came into effect on April 4, 2005, gave trans people full legal recognition of their gender. Many long-standing battles for equality and legislative change have been won.

There can be no doubt that over the last 20 years there has been immense progress and great strides forward but the work for equality and social acceptance continues today.

Challenges remain and sadly hate crime and discrimination still exist.

We were set up to support victims of hate crime and we continue to work in the community to build a safer, more supportive and cohesive society.

In recent years we have also evolved to be an education force and organise arts, culture and social events to celebrate the achievements, lived experiences and culture of local LGBT people.

Throughout the year we’ll be sharing memories from our social media and we look forward to joining together for special celebration events and activities to mark our milestone 20th birthday.

We’d love to hear your memories. Did you work for forum+? Are you a previous volunteer? Have you been supported by our services? Did you enjoy attending our cultural and social events?

Please contact info@forumplus.org.uk to share your stories and we’d love to receive any memorabilia that you may have such as flyers, campaign materials, newspapers cuttings and photographs.

For updated information on the work of forum+ and all our upcoming events please follow forum+ social media and website: twitter.com/forumplus, facebook.com/forumplus, instagram.com/forumplus and  forumplus.org.uk

Tessa Havers-Strong is director of forum+