As it’s LGBTQ+ History Month, this feels like a good time to remind ourselves that queer history isn’t comfortable. It’s built on protests, legal battles, secret parties, courtrooms, moral panics, and the quiet, devastating ways the law has been used against us. Fun! (But important – and worth being grateful to the queer elders who fought before us.)
Enter Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7 – an award-winning BBC podcast that takes a sharp, human look at one of the most significant miscarriages of justice in recent British LGBTQ+ history. It’s heavy. But it’s also essential listening.
Released in February 2025 as part of the BBC Sounds Audio Lab, the five-part docuseries explores a late-90s legal case that changed the lives of seven gay and bisexual men from Bolton forever – and went on to play a surprisingly pivotal role in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights in the UK.
If you think you know queer legal history, there’s a good chance this case passed you by.
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What’s it about?
Without giving too much away, Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7 looks back at how seven men became caught up in a moral panic fuelled by outdated laws, homophobia, and a justice system that was not built with queer people in mind. What unfolds is a story that’s by turns shocking, infuriating, and heartbreaking.
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The podcast unravels what went wrong, why it mattered, and how the fallout from this case rippled far beyond Bolton – influencing legal thinking around gay rights in the years that followed.
Listen to Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7
Highly recommended listening for LGBTQ+ History Month – or, any month for that matter.
Nonchalant x
This article was written by one of our creative team writers here at Nonchalant Magazine.
