category_description() shows raw html after version 3.x?

Just looking for some history on the output of category_description()

I have categories whose “description” fields are formatted with rich text and I’m trying to understand the differences in WP version with respect to the output of this method so that I can do a version check if necessary to implement desired output.

For example, before 3.0.1, it appears that category_description() returned the output stripped of any html markup. However, with the current 3.3.1 release, the output appears to be raw.

Actually HTML is stripped on input, using wp_filter_kses function hooked into pre_term_description filter. So if this hook isn’t removed HTML would be stripped.