Yet Mason also manages to convey a positive expectation of progress in noting the strides toward equality made by gay men and lesbians in the years since the formation of advocacy groups such as Stonewall. In Stonewall 25 (1994), she and coeditor Emma Healy document the diversity and cultural contributions of gay men and lesbians, while outlining the development of the community's political identity. Mason's own contribution to this collection explores the possibilities for gay and lesbian parenting.

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Mason was awarded the Order of the British Empire "for services to homosexual rights" in the Queen's Birthday Honours list of June 1999. She has also received the Mike Rhodes Award and the Liberty and Justice Human Rights Award. The UK's Gay and Lesbian Awards honored her for Lifetime Achievement in 2005.

Known as tireless and formidable, Mason has contributed to a considerable shift in British public attitudes since the 1980s. Critics have sometimes faulted her reformist efforts as a piecemeal approach, pointing to numerous gaps in the legal code that still require action. But working within the system, she has demonstrated the effectiveness of persistent grass roots organizing.

Violence perpetrated against people thought by their attackers to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered occurs with disturbing frequency in the United States and other countries.

The capital of the United Kingdom and one of the world's largest and most interesting cities, London has recently become home to an active and diverse glbtq population.

Twentieth-century efforts to reform British law and public opinions about homosexuality met with mixed results, but at the beginning of the twenty-first century the United Kingdom has emerged as a leader in recognizing the rights of its glbtq citizens.

In British law, Section 28 of the Local Government Act, enforced from 1988 until 2003, prohibited the promotion of homosexuality and teaching the acceptability of homosexuality as a "pretended family relationship".

The European Commission on Human Rights was the first international human rights organization to condemn homophobia; the European Court of Human Rights, which replaced the Commission, has also helped enforce glbtq rights.

Formed soon after the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the short-lived but influential Gay Liberation Front brought a new militancy to the movement that became known as gay liberation.

Arguably the finest Shakespearean actor of his generation, Ian McKellen was the first British subject to be knighted after publicly revealing his homosexuality, an event that proved more controversial within the gay community than in the mainstream.

The confrontations between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City the weekend of June 27-29, 1969 mark the beginning of the modern glbtq movement for equal rights.

British activist Peter Tatchell, a vocal proponent of glbtq rights since the early 1970s, is controversial figure even within the glbtq community.

The Wolfenden Report, a 1957 British government study, recommended that homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private no longer be criminalized in England.