On this day in 1982 France removed homosexuality from the official list of mental disorders, and equalised the age of consent.
The World Health Organisation would not remove the mental health classification until 1990.
The age of consent had been changed many times over the decades. In 1832 the age of consent was set at just 11 years, and it was raised to 13 years in 1863.
In 1942 the Vichy government changed the age of consent to 15 years for heterosexual relationships, and 21 years for homosexual relationships. In 1974 the age of consent for homosexual relationships was lowered to 18 years.
Homosexuality had generally been legal in France since the French revolution in the late 18th century, but gay and lesbian people were still targeted by police via other laws including indecent exposure laws
In 2010 France became the first country in the world to remove being transgender from the list of mental disorders. The World Health Organisation would follow suit in 2018.
The TV show ‘Oz’ made its debut in 1997
The prison drama Oz first aired on this day in 1997. The show featured many actors across it’s six seasons who would go on to have substantial careers, as well as some established actors.
Ernie Hudson, best known for Ghostbusters played Warden Leo Glynn, Harold Perrineau would got on to appear in Lost, Eamonn Walker, first came to our attention on British show The Bill, and would later star in Chicago Fire.
Kirk Acevedo would later appear in Band of Brothers, Fringe and the US version of Prime Suspect. J.K Simmons, Edie Falco, B.D. Wong, Kathryn Erbe, Christopher Meloni, Seth Gillam were all in the cast. Musical film star Rita Moreno played nun Sister Peter Marie Riemondo, and Betty Buckley, Joel Grey, Patti LuPone, Jon Seda, and Bobby Cannavale all appeared in later seasons.
The show featured full frontal nudity, homosexuality, drug use, violence, sexual assaults and ethnic and religious conflicts, and was seen as boundary pushing when it first came out. The show aired on SBS in Australia.
OIP Staff, this post was originally published in 2020 and has subsequently been updated.
