In a word, bad. Being "outed" would not just lead to social rejection and discrimination, but under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 could be sentenced to a maximum of 2 years hard labor. Perhaps the most famous case was that of Alan Turning's. The full scope of this man's achievements are too broad to fully explain here, but suffice to say he virtually invented computer science, the concept of artificial intelligence, and made immeasurable contributions to the war effort as one of the primary members of the team that broke the German enigma code. After his homosexuality was discovered in 1952, Turning was fired from his job at the British government and sentenced to be chemically castrated via injection of female hormones. He committed suicide 2 years later at age 41, a broken and rejected man.

Homosexuality wasn't legalized in the UK until 1967. In 2009 the British government belatedly issued an apology and in 2013 he was formally pardoned by the Queen. To this day his sad fate is one of the best examples how how prosecution of homosexuality not just destroys the lives of those it targets, but deprives us all of the contributions these people might give us.