Exclusive tours to celebrate Pride Month at The Real Mary King’s Close

To celebrate Pride Month, The Real Mary King’s Close is sharing its research in a series of educational and thought-provoking ‘Pride History Tours’. These have been designed to reveal the hidden histories of LGBTQIA+ community life in Edinburgh from as far back as the mid-16th century until 1912.

The LGBTQIA+ community tend to be missing in history books, and it can be difficult to imagine the struggles they had to face throughout the centuries. 

It is important to remember that terms such as “gay”, “lesbian”, and “bisexual” didn’t exist until around the mid-20th century. When talking of homosexuality from the 16th to 19th century it was described in various terms such as “buggery” and mainly “sodomy”. Furthermore, the death penalty for Sodomy was not abolished until 1887.