[4] Homosexuality, defined legally as male sodomy, was decriminalized in Gibraltar in 1993 following pressure from the European Court of Human Rights and Government of the United Kingdom.

[16][17][18] The issues were raised at the Foreign Affairs Committee enquiry into the overseas territories in 2008, where they concluded: On 18 May 2009, the Gibraltar Parliament rejected a private member's bill, proposed by the Minister for Justice, to equalise the age of consent.

[20] On 1 October 2009, new proposed legislation would enable the Government of Gibraltar to ask the Supreme Court to test whether existing or draft laws are compatible with the Constitution.

[22][23] On 1 April 2010, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband pointed out that if a British Overseas Territory is unwilling to meet "international obligations" such as equalising the age of consent it may be imposed by an Order in Council.

[9] In August 2011, the gender-neutral Crimes Act 2011 was approved, which sets an equal age of consent of 16 regardless of sexual orientation, and reflects the recent Supreme Court decision in statute law.

[35][36] The leader of the opposition Social Democrats Party announced his support for same-sex marriage in January 2016,[37][38] days before the Government ruled out a referendum.

[46] The GSLP–Liberal Alliance, who were re-elected in 2015, included the following commitment in their election manifesto: "We will now publish a Command Paper in order to take the views of the public on how to best deal with the request by some for civil marriage to be extended to same sex couples.

We are totally committed both to ensuring that religious denominations are not forced to change their practices, beliefs or sacraments in any way and to the principle that the State must not discriminate between individuals based on the grounds of sexual orientation.

[55][56] On 20 January 2016, it was announced by Chief Minister Fabian Picardo (GSLP) that there would be no referendum on same-sex marriage after a parliamentary debate on the issue was initiated by the Opposition.

[59] On 21 March 2016, the Government announced that it had received 3,490 responses in regards to the public consultation and that, due to the controversial nature of the subject, it would establish an Inter-Ministerial Committee (composed of four members of the Government: Gilbert Licudi, Samantha Sacramento, Neil Costa, and Albert Isola) to listen to the views of the various groups and many of the individuals who expressed a view on the subject, and report its findings back to the Cabinet by June 2016.

Based on their own statistics and past advocacy efforts, ERG claimed that over 63% of those consultation responses were in favor of same-sex marriage and that the situation shouldn't be made more complicated than it should be.

An amendment to remove a controversial part of the bill, which allows deputy registrars to opt out of conducting same-sex marriages was defeated 11 to 4 with only some of the Opposition MPs voting in favor.

This occurred despite the Gibraltar Equality Rights Group confirming that such a provision existed in the law, and that the matter was simply one of excessive paperwork.

[80] In June 2017, the Gibraltar Health Authority approved an amendment to its in vitro fertilisation policy to allow lesbian couples to access assisted reproductive technology.

[94] The ability to easily hide their orientation was also difficult in earlier periods as a lack of a large housing stock and the small size of Gibraltar meant the multiple generations of the same family often lived together.

Proposals, made public in early March 2002, specifically omitted direct reference to "sexual orientation" as a category to be constitutionally protected.

[95] The Equal Opportunities Act 2006, which came into force on 1 March 2007, prohibits discrimination in areas such as employment and the provision of goods and services on numerous grounds, including sexual orientation and "gender reassignment".

The move was revealed in Parliament by Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and comes against the backdrop of “disgusting lurking homophobia” on social media as a result of initiatives and events to mark Pride month earlier this year.

“The Government will therefore monitor whether it may be necessary to further bolster our legislation to make it a specific criminal offence to denigrate a person as a result of their sexual orientation.”[98] Also see: Recognition of same-sex unions in the British Overseas Territories