2003
2003 – Section 28, which banned councils and schools from intentionally promoting homosexuality, is repealed in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Employment Equality Regulations made it illegal to discriminate against lesbians, gays or bisexuals at work.
Transsexual buys string of hotels
Stephanie Booth, "who was once jailed for selling porn and runs a sex-change and cross-dressing website and a set of shops under the trading name “Transformation”, has bought five hotels and pubs in Ruthin." With her husband David Booth they bought the 600-year-old Bodidris Hall, Llandegla, the Plough Hotel, also in Llandegla, the Anchor Hotel, Ruthin, the Castle Hotel and adjoining Myddleton Arms in St Peter's Square, Ruthin, and the Clwyd Gate Restaurant, between Mold and Ruthin.
She founded the Albany Clinic as a centre for transsexuals to seek specialist medical advice and guidance on their condition. She starred in a reality television series about her businesses' Hotel Stephanie for BBC Wales in 2008 and 2009. In 2011 her hotels went into financial administration. On 18 September 2016, Booth was killed in a tractor accident at her smallholding farm on the outskirts of Corwen, Denbighshire.
Source: Daily Post, 3 July 2003; Wikipedia
Odyssey Crossdressing Group was founded in Prestatyn in 2003 and meets monthly at the Offa’s Dyke Tavern to support Crossdressing and androgynous people. In 2005 it becomes part of Unique.
At a Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, John Sam Jones gave evidence, beginning:
My name is John Sam Jones. I am a Welsh-speaking Welshman from Meirionnydd (originally). Currently I work as the Adviser for Personal and Social Education (PSE) in Denbighshire Education Service. For the past five years I have chaired the North Wales Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual (LGB) and Police Liaison Group and for the last 18 months I have been the chair of the LGB Forum Cymru. On two occasions in the last four years I have been a trustee of the West Rhyl Young People's Project. I am the author of Welsh Boys Too (Parthian, Cardiff 2000) a collection of short stories about the lives of gay men in North Wales. This collection of stories was an Honour Book winner in the American Library Association LGB Book Awards in 2002. I am 46 years old and have been living openly as a gay man since I was 18.
John’s full report can be read on LGBTQ Cymru (external website), Blogs.
2004 – The Civil Partnership Act 2004 is passed by the Labour Government, giving same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as married heterosexual couples in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is passed by the Labour Government. The Act gives transsexual people legal recognition as members of the sex appropriate to their gender (male or female) allowing them to acquire a new birth certificate, affording them full recognition of their acquired sex in law for all purposes, including marriage.