1884
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is founded.
1885
The British Government pass the Criminal Law Amendment Act, raising the age of consent from 13 to 16 and setting down a series of other regulations for the protection of young women.
1886
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing publishes Psychopathia Sexualis which is credited with establishing sexology as a scientific field.
1889
The Prevention of Cruelty to, and Protection of, Children Act is passed in the United Kingdom, protecting children within marriage.
1894
Edward Carpenter publishes 'Sex-Love and Its Place in a Free Society' and 'Homogenic Love and Its Place in a Free Society'.
1896
Commonly regarded as the earliest known pornographic film, Le Coucher de la Mariée [Bedtime for the Bride] is screened in Paris.
1897
Havelock Ellis publishes his seminal work Sexual Inversion, detailing cases of homosexuality.
1910
The United States White-Slave Traffic Act is passed, generally known as the "Mann Act".
1910
Magnus Hirschfeld publishes The Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress.
1912
The Xinhai Revolution toppled the Qing dynasty in 1911 and outlawed footbinding in 1912, but this law was later abolished by the succeeding states.
1913
Havelock Ellis coins the term 'Sexo-Aesthetic Inversion' to describe transvestism.
1914
Magnus Hirschfeld publishes Homosexuality of Men and Women.
1915
Margaret Sanger publishes Woman Rebel, a magazine that advocates birth control.
1918
Elsa Gidlow and Roswell George Mills launch Les Mouches Fantastiques. It is the first publication in Canadian and North American history to be LGBT-themed.
1918
Margaret Sanger appeals her conviction for the Brownsville clinic, securing a court ruling that exempts physicians from laws that prohibit the distribution of contraception information to women.
1919
The first Institute for Sexology is opened in Berlin.
1921
The National Research Council’s (NRC) Committee for Research in the Problems of Sex is founded.
1921
American Birth Control League is founded by Margaret Sanger.
1923
The Clinical Research Bureau is established by Margaret Sanger. This became the first legal birth control clinic in the United States and was staffed entirely by female workers.
1926
The Legitimacy Act enabled children to be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents, provided that neither parent had been married to someone else at the time of conception.
1927
Robert Latou Dickinson publishes The Safe Period as a Birth Control Measure and The Birth Control Movement.
1927
The American Medical Association formally recognizes birth control as a part of medical practice.
1928
The Word League for Sexual Reform is founded.
1928
Radclyffe Hall publishes The Well of Loneliness, a novel of lesbian love. The book is banned for obscenity within the UK later the same year.
1928
Havelock Ellis publishes the last volume of his Studies in the Psychology of Sex, a seminal work in the history of sexology.
1929
The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 makes abortion legal within the UK for the sole purpose of preserving the life of the mother.
1929
The Davis Report is published, detailing the findings of the Davis Committee's studies into female sexual behavior.
1930
Magnus Hirschfeld publishes The Sexual History of the World War.
1930
Danish painter Einar Wegener undergoes a male-to-female transition in Germany, becoming among some of the first recipients of such an operation.
1930
The Anglican Church's Lambeth Conference sanctions use of birth control by married couples under Article 15.
1930
Fred Killian patents and installs the first fully automated assembly line for manufacturing condoms in Akron, Ohio.
1930
In response to article 15 of the Lambeth Conference, Pope Pius XI releases Casti connubii. This stressed the sanctity of marriage, prohibited Catholics from using any form of birth control, and condemned abortion.
1932
Sulphonamide, the first antibiotic, provides an effective non-invasive treatment for gonorrhoea.
1932
Robert Latou Dickinson and Lura Beam publish A Thousand Marriages: A Medical Study of Sex Adjustment.
1933
Robert Latou Dickinson publishes Human Sex Anatomy.
1934
A. P. Herbert publishes the novel Deadlock, satirising divorce proceedings. Divorce could only take place if there had been adultery by either spouse.
1934
Robert Latou Dickinson and Lura Beam publish The Single Woman: A Medical Study in Sex Education.
1934
Henry Miller publishes Tropic of Cancer in France. The novel is banned from being imported into the U.S. under obscenity laws.
1935
The Committee for the Study of Sex Variants is founded.
1936
In the United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries court case, the Supreme Court overturns the anti-contraceptive provisions within the Comstock Law.
1937
The Matrimonial Causes Act extends grounds for divorce to include desertion for over three years, cruelty, and incurable insanity.
1938
Congress passes the Venereal Diseases Control and Prevention Act of 1938 to aid states in establishing preventative healthcare for venereal diseases.
1939
Henry Miller publishes Tropic of Capricorn in France. As with Tropic of Cancer, it is banned from being imported into the U.S. until a Justice Department ruling in 1961 that deemed its contents not obscene.
1941
Alfred Kinsey receives his first grant of $1,600 by the Rockefeller Foundation.
1941
George Henry publishes Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns, based on case studies of 80 volunteers.
1941
Alfred Kinsey publishes 'Criteria for a hormonal explanation of the homosexual' in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology.
1942
Carney Landis publishes 'The Personality and Sexuality of the Physically Handicapped Woman', recording data gathered through interviews with women about their sex lives.
![[Correspondence from the American Association of Marriage Counselors]](media/MarriageCounselors.jpg)
1942
The American Association of Marriage Counselors is founded.
1942
The development of penicillin provides an effective treatment of syphilis.
1942
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is founded.
1945
Ernest Burgess and Harvey Lock publish The Family: From Institution to Companionship in which they argue that companionate marriages have replaced patriarchal families.
1946
Harold Gillies and Ralph Millard perform the first female-to-male confirmation and sex reassignment surgery on Michael Dillon.
1947
Kinsey Institute is founded as the Institute for Sex Research.
1947
Alfred Kinsey publishes 'Sex Behavior in the Human Animal' in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
1948
Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, the first of his two reports about human sexuality that are based on interviews with the American public.
1949
A Mass Observation British Sex Survey is conducted.
1949
The Adoption Act tightened regulations for adoption. It required a probationary period of three months to be completed under the supervision of a local authority before an adoption order was granted.
1949
The Communist Party of China take power and shut down 224 brothels. Thousands of prostitutes and procurers and pimps are also arrested.
1949
Robert Latou Dickinson publishes Atlas of Human Sex Anatomy.
1949
Paediatrician Douglas Gairdner formally questions the practice of circumcision for the first time in his article 'The Fate of the Foreskin' in the British Medical Journal.
1950
The Immorality Act 1950, along with the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 1949, serve to make interracial sex a crime in South Africa.
1950
The Mattachine Society is founded as an organization for the advocation of gay rights.
1951
The New York Sex Offender Study, undertaken by the Institute for Sex Research, gets underway.
1952
The International Planned Parenthood Foundation is founded.
1952
Christine Jorgensen undergoes sex reassignment surgery and becomes a well-known figure in the U.S.
1953
Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female.
1953
First publication of Playboy magazine.
1954
The Rockefeller Foundation withdraws funding for sex research projects, leaving Dr Kinsey and his colleagues to find alternative means to support their research.
1955
The foundation of the Daughters of Bilitis, an advocacy group for lesbian rights.
1956
Paul Gebhard is appointed as director of the Institute for Sex Research after the death of Alfred Kinsey.
1956
Psychologist Evelyn Hooker presents her research into the psychology of homosexuality at a convention of the American Psychological Association.
1957
The Institute for Sex Research receives its first grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
1957
The Institute for Sex Research wins their case against U.S. Customs granting an exemption for the importation of erotic and pornographic material.
1957
The Supreme Court redefines existing obscenity laws in the case of Roth v. United States.
1957
The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality is formed.
1958
Paul Gebhard publishes Pregnancy, Birth, and Abortion.
1958
Marriage Counseling: A Casebook is published by New York Associated Press. The book lays out theories of marriage counseling and illustrations of the practice.
1959
The bans on Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer and Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure are overturned in the U.S.
1960
Penguin Books wins a case to publish an unexpurgated version of Lady Chatterley's Lover in the UK.
1960
Enovid, previously used to treat menstrual disorders, is approved for use as an oral contraceptive.
1960
The first issue of Transvestia, a magazine for heterosexual crossdressers, is published.