Historical Organization
COC
COC
Details
Organization Timeline
COC begins as the Shakespeareclub
📅 7 December 1946A reading circle linked to the magazine Levensrecht became the Shakespeareclub in Amsterdam, creating a durable organization for gay community life and advocacy under criminalization and social...
Article 248bis repealed
📅 8 April 1971Parliament repealed a discriminatory criminal-law provision that had set a higher age of consent for same-sex relations between men than for heterosexual relations. COC and other advocates had...
Civil marriage opens to same-sex couples
📅 1 April 2001The Netherlands became the first country to open civil marriage to same-sex couples. This legal change followed LGBTQ organizing and years of public and parliamentary debate; legal equality in...
Respect2Love supports bicultural LGBTQ+ communities
📅 1 January 2008COC and partners create space for LGBTQ+ people of color, recognizing that inclusion requires attention to intersecting identities and community-specific needs. Source gives the year or month only;...