I'm an LGBT rights lawyer, and these are some of the strangest cases I've had to fight in court

This July marks the official 50^th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act – the landmark law that decriminalised homosexuality in the UK. This was a seminal piece of legislation that overturned centuries of discrimination – from the 1^st century when Roman Britain adopted Lex Iulia de Adulteriis Coercendis, which criminalised “unspeakable lust” among "males", to the Criminal Law Act of 1885 which prohibited “buggery” between men.

In short, Britain was a pretty bleak place to live if you were gay before 1967. While the death penalty for “buggery” was repealed in 1861 (the last execution being in 1835), right up to the Fifties prominent figures from Alan Turing to John Gielgud were being prosecuted for homosexual acts.

So, when the 1967 act was passed it really was a turning point. Arguably it wasn’t quite as grand and sweeping as some critics have made out (it only made it legal for consenting male adults to conduct homosexual acts in private), but it was a milestone. You might not have been able to shout from the rooftops that you were “gay and proud”, but the act showed times were a-changing and society was becoming more tolerant of the LGBT community.

Fast-forward 50 years and the general perception is that we live in a beautiful, tolerant society where LGBT couples can get married, become parents, and are on the same legal footing as everyone else. But the reality is that the LGBT community still face tough legal issues which remind us that there is still some way to go before we live in a truly equal society.

During my career as an LGBT rights lawyer, these are the top six legal challenges I deal with on a regular basis.

While the law does protect individuals against this kind of discrimination, there is a real lack of awareness of the laws, and very often employers simply don’t follow them nor educate their staff.

Despite monumental advances in treatment, there is huge social stigma attached to someone who has HIV – which can result in that person being ostracised by colleagues or blocked from pay or career progression.

I worked with a client who was HIV-positive and was dealing with a stressful working environment, causing the exacerbation of his condition. The employers failed to acknowledge his condition or make any reasonable adjustments which caused greater ill health, weakening him to a point where he contracted a life-threatening illness. We intervened for disability discrimination and the client was awarded a long-term retirement plan, which enabled him to recover fully, given he was unable to return to work and in need of intensive healthcare to recuperate.

Although the law is fairly robust, we need greater awareness and education to ensure people realise those with HIV pose no risk and are fully functioning human beings.

Perhaps the last great legal triumph for the LGBT community was the legalisation of sames sex marriages in 2013. But there are some academic legal differences between “gay” and “straight” marriages which could be interpreted as discriminatory.

For instance, if you are a same sex married couple you cannot get divorced on the grounds of adultery – adultery being a biblical definition that relates to an extramarital affair between a man and a woman.

In reality, a same sex couple can get divorced on the grounds of “unreasonable behavior”, which can cover infidelity, but in the interest of equality this should be changed.

The discrepancy also affects heterosexual couples. I represented a wife whose husband had engaged in relations with another man, but citing “adultery” was not an available option to her.

There have been many high-profile stories about gay celebrity parents – from Elton John to Ricky Martin – and as long ago as the 1980s, the media were reporting a “Gayby Boom”.

Despite important progress there are still barriers facing LGBT couples wanting to become parents. Two such areas include surrogacy and IVF. Both processes are incredibly complex, and while these issues affect straight couples too, same sex couples are much more likely to be faced with such problems.

When a couple uses a surrogate, she is automatically the child’s legal parent. In order to change this, the couple needs to apply for what’s known as a “parental order”. The problem is that this can only be granted if the couple is in a marriage or civil partnership, and one parent can’t apply alone.

One of my clients separated from his partner because of domestic violence issues. They had previously decided to use a surrogate, who was abroad. But since my client is now single, he is unable to apply for a parental order. His only recourse is to adopt the child, which is a separate process entirely, made even more complex if the child has been born overseas since you cannot legally pay a woman in order to adopt her child, but money can change hands when she is a surrogate.

These situations are common enough to make women less likely to want to enter into a surrogacy arrangement, and make the process of having a child exponentially more complex and costly for same sex couples.

Much like in surrogacy, a man who donates sperm for IVF is considered the child’s legal father unless the couple are married or civil-partnered, making the legal process incredibly complex.

Currently, to receive free IVF treatment through the NHS, you must be able to prove you are infertile. However, being a lesbian is not considered proof of infertility by all NHS Trusts and, therefore, some gay women struggle to get approved and end up having to pay for private care – which can be prohibitive in cost for most people looking at this avenue and with still no guarantee of success.

The “bathroom bill” in the US has made transgender issues a hot legal topic. The bill (which was passed in North Carolina in 2016) essentially stated that people must use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate.

Many people presume the UK would never pass such a blatantly discriminatory law, and while that may be true, we do still have draconian indecency laws going back to the 1800s, meaning that if a transgender person uses the bathroom which corresponds to the gender they identify with, they are technically committing an offence. While it seems extremely unlikely that someone would ever be prosecuted under these historical laws, it’s not impossible, and the only way to secure rights for transgender people is to abolish this law altogether.

The 2004 Gender Recognition Act gives legal recognition to people who change gender, but requires an extremely complex, lengthy, and time-consuming process. Given how society has evolved in the past 13 years, the act is incredibly outdated, and in order to achieve equality for trans people we need a wider debate and new legislation designed to protect the community.

Many of the big LGBT legal issues (marriage, parenting, decriminalisation) have pleasingly already been fought and won. In my opinion, the big challenge we now face is to refine these laws and to raise awareness. In the end, the law is there to protect us, but what really matters is social change and greater tolerance.

Andrew Spearman is an award-winning LGBT solicitor and Director of A City Law Firm