[13] The Month is intended as a means to raise awareness of, and combat prejudice against the LGBTQ community while celebrating its achievement and diversity and making it more visible.
The initiative received UK Government backing from the deputy DfES and Equalities Minister Jacqui Smith, although some sections of the press argued against its political correctness, and pointed out that the sexuality of some historical figures is more a matter of speculation than fact.
These events took place in the following locations: On 5 March 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown hosted a reception at Downing Street to mark the Month.
In addition, Schools OUT UK (the initiative's founding charity) also created a unique website of free-to-download lesson plans for teachers – The Classroom – in 2011.
After Schools OUT UK paid tribute to Alan Turing in November 2012 (the centenary of his birth) at the launch of STEM 2013, Promotions Officer Andrew Dobbin suggested the month regularly feature LGBTQ figures whose lives have been forgotten or 'straight-washed' by history, to illustrate the group's tagline of "claiming our past", and to give LGBTQ students some of the role-models and heroes their straight classmates had an abundance of.
The idea was adopted from 2014, with every February since highlighting the life of a lesbian, gay man, bisexual and trans person.
(In order of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, +): OUTing The Past is an annual festival of LGBTQ history.
The first production was a three part heritage premiere called "A Very Victorian Scandal", which dramatised new research about a drag ball in 1880 in Hulme.
The national heritage premiere was "The Adhesion of Love", which toured to a number of venues in the North West of England.
[19] The festival also premiered another play, A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe, based on events in Ulster's LGBTQ history.
[23] Wilson, the first openly gay public school teacher in Missouri, originated the idea, served as founder on the first coordinating committee, and chose October as the month of celebration.
[24][25] Among early supporters and members of the first coordinating committee were Kevin Jennings of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN); Kevin Boyer of the Gerber/Hart Gay and Lesbian Library and Archives in Chicago; Paul Varnell, writer for the Windy City Times; Torey Wilson, Chicago area teacher; Johnda Boyce, women's studies graduate student at The Ohio State University and Jessea Greenman of University of California, Berkeley.
[25] Many gay and lesbian organizations supported the concept early on as did Governors William Weld of Massachusetts and Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, Mayors such as Thomas Menino of Boston and Wellington Webb of Denver, who recognized the inaugural month with official proclamations.
[3] In 2006, Equality Forum began picking 31 LGBTQ icons from all over the world through all eras of history and highlighting one each day in October.
[28] such as African-American, athlete, California, Germany, HIV/AIDS, Military, Religion, Transgender, Youth; visitors to the site will be provided with links to all Icons in that category.
[30][31] Historian Raúl Pérez Monzón told Inter Press Service "we want to rescue the history of people with non-heteronormative sexualities and create spaces to promote research".
[31] Juan Carlos Gutierrez Perez of the University Marta Abreu of Las Villas, a festival co-organizer, said a "great wave of conservative religious fundamentalism has been developing in Cuba".