In 2005, the Belfast-based writer and queer activist Shannon Sickels made history alongside her partner, Grainne Close, as the first public UK civil partnership. All these years later in 2018, Shannon and Grainne are still battling for equal rights and equal marriage. A momentous deadline looms for Northern Ireland, a date which could have a massive impact on the lives of its LGBT+ community for years to come. The author explains. Illustrations by SOAK.

The North was ‘Last’. For a long time.

It was the last place in the UK to decriminalise homosexuality in 1983, requiring an individual, Jeffrey Dudgeon, to take a case to the European Court of Human Rights. Many LGBT+ people believed the North would never be ‘Next’, rather, it was ‘Never in My Lifetime.’ Then the North was ‘First’ in 2005. It wasn’t supposed to be. If the North had been ruling itself, rather than under the direct rule of Westminster because Stormont had collapsed, then civil partnership legislation would not have passed, despite years and years of activism. An administrative loophole meant paperwork processing times were shorter in the North, and voilá - Gráinne and I had the UK’s first public civil partnership in Belfast, followed by Chris and Henry Flanagan-Kane.