Contagious Diseases Acts: How Victorian Laws Targeted Sex Workers and Shaped Public Health

When the British government passed the Contagious Diseases Acts, a series of laws from 1864 to 1869 that allowed police to forcibly examine women suspected of prostitution for venereal disease. Also known as CD Acts, these laws didn’t target men—even though they were the main customers. They turned women into medical suspects, not patients. This wasn’t about public health. It was about control. The state believed that if you locked up or examined women in port cities and garrison towns, you could stop syphilis and gonorrhea from spreading through the military. But the laws ignored the men who spread the infections. They ignored consent. They ignored the fact that many of these women were poor, trapped, or just trying to survive.

The venereal disease, a term used in the 19th century for sexually transmitted infections like syphilis and gonorrhea became a moral panic wrapped in medical language. Doctors and politicians claimed these diseases were destroying the empire’s fighting force. But the real threat, as activists like Josephine Butler saw, was the system itself. The sex work regulation, the state’s attempt to manage prostitution through surveillance, medical exams, and detention became a legal excuse for harassment. Women were arrested on suspicion alone—no proof needed. If they refused the exam, they went to jail. If they had an infection, they were locked in lock hospitals for months. Meanwhile, the men who paid for sex walked free. This double standard didn’t just hurt women. It made the problem worse. Fear drove sex work underground. People stopped getting tested. Diseases spread silently.

The backlash was immediate. Women organized. They wrote pamphlets. They held rallies. They called the laws immoral and unconstitutional. This wasn’t just a health issue—it was a civil rights fight. The campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts became one of the first large-scale feminist movements in Britain. It forced people to ask: Who gets to decide who’s dangerous? Who gets to control bodies? And why are women always the ones punished?

What you’ll find here aren’t just old laws. You’ll find stories of resistance, medical myths, and the quiet ways power hides behind science. From forced exams to the silence around male responsibility, these articles dig into how disease policy shaped gender, class, and sexuality—and why the echoes of these laws still matter today.