LGBTQ history

{{Main|LGBT history in China}}

File:Painting - 18th Century.jpg. 18th Century ]]

Male homosexuality has been acknowledged in China since ancient times and was mentioned in many famous works of Chinese literature. Confucianism, being primarily a social and political philosophy, focused little on sexuality, whether homosexual or heterosexual. In contrast, the role of women is given little positive emphasis in Chinese history, with records of lesbianism being especially rare. Still, there are also descriptions of lesbians in some history books.{{Rp|page=174}}

Chinese literature recorded multiple anecdotes of men engaging in homosexual relationships. In the story of the leftover peach (余桃), set during the Spring and Autumn Era, the historian Han Fei recorded an anecdote in the relationship of Mizi Xia (彌子瑕) and Duke Ling of Wei (衛靈公) in which Mizi Xia shared an especially delicious peach with his lover.Hinsch, Bret. (1990). Passions of the Cut Sleeve. University of California Press.{{Rp|page=32}}

The story of the cut sleeve (断袖) recorded the Emperor Ai of Han sharing a bed with his lover, Dong Xian (董賢); when Emperor Ai woke up later, he carefully cut off his sleeve, so as not to awake Dong, who had fallen asleep on top of it.{{Rp|page=46}} Scholar Pan Guangdan (潘光旦) came to the conclusion that many emperors in the Han dynasty had one or more male sex partners.Ed. Wayne Dynes, Encyclopaedia of Homosexuality, New York, 1990, p. 216 However, except in unusual cases, such as Emperor Ai, the men named for their homosexual relationships in the official histories appear to have had active heterosexual lives as well.

With the rise of the Tang dynasty, China became increasingly influenced by the sexual morals of foreigners from Western and Central Asia, and female companions began to replace male companions in terms of power and familial standings. The following Song dynasty was the last dynasty to include a chapter on male companions of the emperors in official documents. During these dynasties, the general attitude toward homosexuality was still tolerant, but male lovers were increasingly seen as less legitimate compared to wives and men were usually expected to get married and continue the family line.{{cite web |title=History of Chinese homosexuality |url=https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-04/01/content_319807.htm |access-date=2022-03-21 |website=www.chinadaily.com.cn}}

During the Ming dynasty, it is said that the Zhengde Emperor had a homosexual relationship with a Muslim leader named Sayyid Husain.{{cite book |author=Bret Hinsch |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1LmEC1b1bncC&q=zhengde%20sayyid%20husain&pg=PA142 |title=Passions of the cut sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China |publisher=University of California Press |year=1992 |isbn=0-520-07869-1 |page=142 |access-date=November 28, 2010}}{{cite book |author=Société française des seiziémistes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_KIrAQAAIAAJ&q=Asan+y+est+associ%C3%A9+aux+m%C3%A9faits+d'un+autre+favori+musulman+de+l'empereur+Zhengde.+le+Sayyid+Husain,+originaire+de+Hami.+Il+fut+ex%C3%A9cut%C3%A9+comme+Jiang+Bin,+peu+apr%C3%A8s+la+mort+de+l'empereur |title=Nouvelle revue du XVIe siècle, Volumes 15–16 |publisher=Droz |year=1997 |page=14 |access-date=November 28, 2010}} In later Ming dynasty, homosexuality began to be referred to as the "southern custom" due to the fact that Fujian was the site of a unique system of male marriages, attested to by the scholar-bureaucrat Shen Defu and the writer Li Yu, and mythologized by in the folk tale, The Leveret Spirit.

The Qing dynasty instituted the first law against consensual, non-monetized homosexuality in China. However, the punishment designated, which included a month in prison and 100 heavy blows, was actually the lightest punishment which existed in the Qing legal system.{{Rp|page=144}} In Dream of the Red Chamber, written during the Qing dynasty, instances of same-sex affection and sexual interactions described seem as familiar to observers in the present as do equivalent stories of romances between heterosexual people during the same period.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}

Significant efforts to suppress homosexuality in China began with the Self-Strengthening Movement, when homophobia was imported to China along with Western science and philosophy.{{cite web |last=Manoli |first=Maria |date=May 30, 2017 |title=Sexuality in ancient China, part 2 |url=https://gbtimes.com/sexuality-ancient-china-part-2 |access-date=March 8, 2020 |website=GBTimes |archive-date=April 23, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423120348/https://gbtimes.com/sexuality-ancient-china-part-2 |url-status=dead }}

In 2006, a shrine for the god of homosexual love, Tu'er Shen, was established in Taiwan centuries after the original temple was destroyed in Fujian by the Chinese government in the 17th century.{{cite web | last=Gold | first=Michael | title=Praying for a soul mate at Rabbit Temple | website=The Star Online | date=25 January 2015 | url=https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/people/2015/01/26/praying-for-a-soul-mate-at-rabbit-temple/ | access-date=6 February 2019 | archive-date=28 January 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150128044441/https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/people/2015/01/26/praying-for-a-soul-mate-at-rabbit-temple/ | url-status=live }} Thousands of queer pilgrims have flocked the site to pray for good fortune in love.{{cite web | last=Gold | first=Michael | title=Taiwan's Wei-Ming 'Rabbit' Temple Draws Gay Community | website=HuffPost | date=2 February 2016 | url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/19/taiwan-gay-temple-_n_6499210.html | access-date=6 February 2019 | archive-date=19 January 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150119202228/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/19/taiwan-gay-temple-_n_6499210.html | url-status=live }} In 2019, Taiwan became the first country in the region to legalize marriage equality.{{Cite web|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taiwan-legalizes-same-sex-marriage-in-first-for-asia-today-2019-05-17/|title=Taiwan's government legalize same-sex marriage in 1st for Asia|last=CBS News|website=CBS News|date=May 17, 2019 |access-date=2019-05-17}}

{{Main|LGBT history in South Korea|Homosexuality in Japan}}

File:'Bewhiskered Man Importuning a Wakashû' by Miyagawa Isshô.jpg, 1736 to 1744]]

Records of men who have sex with men in Japan date back to ancient times. However, they became most apparent to scholars during the Edo period. Historical practises of homosexuality is usually referred to in Japan as wakashudō (若衆道, {{Literal translation|way of the wakashū}}) and nanshoku (男色, {{Literal translation|male colors}}).{{Cite book |last=Furukawa |first=Makoto |title=The Changing Nature of Sexuality: The Three Codes Framing Homosexuality in Modern Japan |pages=99,100, 108, 112}} The institution of wakashudō in Japan is in many ways similar to pederasty in ancient Greece. Older men usually engaged in romantic and sexual relationships with younger men (the wakashū), usually in their teens.{{Citation |title=Life of a Wakashu, Japan's Third Gender (Male-Male Romance in Edo Japan) | date=March 13, 2021 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzG4UOaGy7M |language=en |access-date=2022-03-25}}{{Cite news |last=Chira |first=Susan |date=2017-03-10 |title=When Japan Had a Third Gender |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/arts/design/when-japan-had-a-third-gender.html |access-date=2022-03-25 |issn=0362-4331}}

In the classic Japanese literature The Tale of Genji, written in the Heian Era, men are frequently moved by the beauty of young boys. In one scene, the hero is rejected by a lady and instead sleeps with her young brother: "Genji pulled the boy down beside him ... Genji, for his part, or so one is informed, found the boy more attractive than his chilly sister".The Tale of Genji. Edward G. Seidensticker (trans.) p. 48. Some references also contain references to emperors involved in homosexual relationships and to "handsome boys retained for sexual purposes" by emperors.Ed. Wayne Dynes, Encyclopaedia of Homosexuality, New York, 1990, p6352 In other literary works can be found references to what Leupp has called "problems of gender identity",{{Cite book |last=Leupp |first=Gary P. |date=1995 |title=Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan |location=Berkeley, Calif. |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=052091919X |oclc=43475917}} such as the story of a youth's falling in love with a girl who is actually a cross-dressing male. Japanese shunga are erotic pictures which include same-sex and opposite-sex love.

As Japan started its process of westernizing during the Meiji era, homophobia was imported from western sources into Japan and animosity towards same-sex practices started growing. In 1873 Ministry of Justice passed the {{nihongo|keikan|鶏姦}} code, a sodomy law criminalizing homosexual practices.

Several members of Korea's nobility class and Buddhist monks have been known to declare their attraction to members of the same sex.{{cite web|url=http://www.utopia-asia.com/korlife2.htm |title=Korean Gay and Lesbian History |publisher=Utopia-asia.com |date= |accessdate=2011-01-20}} Some Korean emperors from a thousand years ago were also known for having male lovers.{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/southkorea.html#6|title=South Korea (Taehan Min'guk)|encyclopedia=International Encyclopedia of Sexuality|publisher=Continuum Publishing Company|author=Hyung-Ki Choi|accessdate=2007-01-01|display-authors=etal|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070110230319/http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/southkorea.html#6|archivedate=2007-01-10}}see also "Hyegong-wang" (惠恭王) in Samguk Sagi Silla Bon-gi

In Thailand, homosexuality has been documented as early as the Ayutthaya period (1351 to 1767). Temple murals have been found which depict same-sex relations between men and between women.{{cite news |last1=Osthananda |first1=Kamori |title=Thai LGBTQ+ history through the looking glass: religious freedom and LGBTQ+ rights in Thailand |url=https://www.thaienquirer.com/29087/thai-lgbtq-history-through-the-looking-glass-religious-freedom-and-lgbtq-rights-in-thailand/ |access-date=19 August 2023 |publisher=Thai Enquirer |date=June 29, 2021}} Concubines from the royal Thai family were known in the ‘Samutthakhot Kham Chan’ (สมุทรโฆษคำฉันท์), Thai literature from Ayuttaya times, to have lesbian relationships.{{Cite news|url=https://www.gotoknow.org/posts/591551|title=หญิงรักหญิงในวรรณคดีไทย : ผู้หญิงชอบสี่|work=GotoKnow|access-date=2017-11-08|language=th-TH}} Records of homosexuality are present since at least the 14th century in Vietnam.Oosterhoff P, Hoang TA, Quach TT (2014) Negotiating Public and Legal: The Emergence of an LGBT Movement in Vietnam. Hanoi: The Institute of Development Studies/CCIHP. In the Philippines, same-sex marriage was documented as normalized as early as the 1500s through the Boxer Codex, while various texts have elaborated on the powerful roles gender non-conforming peoples had prior to Spanish colonization.{{cite book|last=Garcia|first=J. Neil C.|title=Philippine Gay Culture: Binabae to Bakla, Silahis to MSM|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=93lag7tXriIC|year=2008|publisher=UP Press|isbn=978-971-542-577-3|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=93lag7tXriIC&dq=babaylan+%22cross-dressers%22+transvestites&pg=PA162 162–163]}} Many of these gender non-conforming people became shamans known as babaylan, whose social status were on par with the ruling nobility.{{cite book|last=Lewis|first=Nantawan B|title=Remembering Conquest: Feminist/Womanist Perspectives on Religion, Colonization, and Sexual Violence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VLnHBQAAQBAJ|year=2014|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-317-78946-8|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=VLnHBQAAQBAJ&dq=babaylan&pg=PT69 698]}}{{cite book | last=Scott | first=William Henry | title=Barangay: Sixteenth-century Philippine Culture and Society | publisher=University of Hawaii Press | year=1994 | isbn=978-971-550-135-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=15KZU-yMuisC | access-date=July 18, 2018 }} Many queer Filipinos during the Japanese occupation in World War II were forcefully and brutally enslaved as "comfort women" (or "comfort gays") by the Japanese imperial army.{{cite web|url=https://filipiknow.net/lgbt-personalities-philippine-history/|title=10 Amazing Pinoy LGBTs Who Broke Barriers And Made History|work=FilipiKnow|date=October 7, 2018}} In Indonesia, the Serat Centhini records the prevalence of bisexuality and homosexuality in Javanese culture.{{Cite web

|url = http://lgbtindonesia.org/main/?p=173

|title = Serat Centhini, Sexualitas Maskulin dalam Budaya Jawa

|publisher = LGBT Indonesia

|language = id

|access-date = 17 April 2014

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140419025619/http://lgbtindonesia.org/main/?p=173

|archive-date = 19 April 2014

}} Homosexuality has also been recorded as part of numerous indigenous cultures throughout Indonesia, where each culture has specific terminologies for gender non-conforming peoples, many of whom had high roles in society.{{cite web | last1=Oetomo | first1=Dede | last2=Emond | first2=Bruce | title=Homosexuality in Indonesia, in an International Conference on AIDS, Berlin (Unpublished)

| website=Academia.edu | date=1993 | url=https://www.academia.edu/download/34832956/Homosexuality_in_Indonesia_1991.pdf | access-date=2022-05-12}}{{dead link|date=July 2022|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}

Under British colonial rule, the British imposed Section 377 or its equivalent over territories it colonized in Asia, including Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. The law has left an anti-LGBTQ legacy in the countries that Britain colonized.{{Cite news |last=Wong |first=Tessa |date=2021-06-28 |title=377: The British colonial law that left an anti-LGBTQ legacy in Asia |language=en-GB |work=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57606847 |access-date=2023-11-30}}{{Cite web |last1=Han |first1=Enze |last2=O'Mahoney |first2=Joseph |date=2018-05-15 |title=How Britain's colonial legacy still affects LGBT politics around the world |url=http://theconversation.com/how-britains-colonial-legacy-still-affects-lgbt-politics-around-the-world-95799 |access-date=2023-11-30 |website=The Conversation |language=en-US}} In Cambodia, homosexuality and same-sex marriages are openly supported by the monarchy, which has called on its government to legalize marriage equality.{{Cite web |last1=Hunt |first1=Luke |last2=Pann |first2=Molyny |date=2017-05-26 |title=Cambodia's Gays: Out of the Shadows? |url=https://thediplomat.com/2017/05/cambodias-gays-out-of-the-shadows/ |access-date=2023-11-30 |website=The Diplomat |language=en-US}} In East Timor, Asia's youngest independent country since 2002, prime ministers and presidents have openly supported the LGBTQ community since 2017 when the nation celebrated its first pride march with religious and political leaders backing the movement.{{Cite news |last=Yi |first=Beh Lih |date=2017-07-19 |title=Asia's youngest nation offers glimmer of hope for LGBT rights |language=en-US |work=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1A5004/ |access-date=2023-11-30}}

In some societies of Melanesia, especially in Papua New Guinea, same-sex relationships were, until the middle of the last century, an integral part of the culture.{{Cite book |last=Herdt |first=Gilbert H. |title=Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia |publisher=University of California Press |year=1984 |isbn=0-520-08096-3 |pages=128–36}} Third gender concepts are prevalent in Polynesia, such as Samoa, where traditional same-sex marriage have been documented and trans people are widely accepted prior to colonization.{{cite web|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/men-women-pacific|title=The men-women of the Pacific|work=Tate.org|date=1 September 2010|last=Gauguin|first=Paul}}{{cite web|url=https://www.abc.net.au/ra/pacific/people/hazy.htm|title=Fa'afafine – Samoan boys brought up as girls|work=Charting the Pacific|date=}} In Australia, non-binary concepts have been recorded in the culture of the indigenous Aboriginal peoples since pre-colonial times,{{Cite web|url=http://archermagazine.com.au/2014/10/homosexuality-and-aboriginal-culture-a-lore-unto-themselves/|title=Homosexuality and Aboriginal culture: a lore unto themselves|date=2021-06-06|website=Archer Magazine|language=en-US|access-date=2019-08-23}} while homosexual terminologies are indigenous to Tiwi Islanders.{{Cite web|title=What do we know about queer Indigenous history?|date=2018-05-30|website=Triple j |publisher =Australian Broadcasting Corporation |language=en|access-date=2020-01-12|url=https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/the-hook-up/indigenousqueer/9815712}} In New Zealand, Maori culture has records of homosexuality through their indigenous epics, where queer people are referred to as takatāpui.David A.B. Murray, "Who Is Takatāpui? Māori Language, Sexuality and Identity in Aotearoa/New Zealand", Anthropologica, page 233-241, Canadian Anthropology Society, 2003, Vol. 45, No. 2. In Hawaii, queer people, referred to as māhū, are widely accepted since pre-colonial times. Intimate same-sex relationships, referred as moe aikāne, are supported by indigenous rulers or chieftains without any form of stigma.{{cite book|author=Kanalu G. Terry Young|title=Rethinking the Native Hawaiian Past|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PKTrAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT52|date=25 February 2014|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-317-77668-0|pages=51–52}} British colonialism and Christian churches have left an anti-LGBTQ legacy in parts of the Pacific due to the aggressive discriminatory impositions of Western conservatism on the region.{{cite news|last1=Smith|first1=Harriet|title=Australia's marriage-equality debate reverberates through the Pacific|url=https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/australias-marriage-equality-debate-reverberates-through-pacific|access-date=15 January 2018|work=The Interpreter|publisher=Lowy Institute|date=31 October 2016|archive-date=15 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180615190705/https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/australias-marriage-equality-debate-reverberates-through-pacific|url-status=dead}}

The earliest references to homophobia in South Asia are from Zoroastrianism around 250 BC. During the Parthian Empire, which encompassed the region currently known as Pakistan, the Zoroastrian text Vendidad was written. It contains provisions that are part of sexual code promoting procreative sexuality that is interpreted to prohibit same-sex intercourse as sinful. Ancient commentary on this passage suggests that those engaging in sodomy could be killed without permission from a high priest. These prohobitions had an influence during the implementations of other religions in the region such as during the spread of Buddhism in Central Asia, and eventually supplanted by the domination of Islam and Sharia Law.{{cite web |author1=Ervad Behramshah Hormusji Bharda |date=1990 |title=The Importance of Vendidad in the Zarathushti Religion |url=http://tenets.zoroastrianism.com/vndimp33.html |access-date=January 3, 2015 |website=tenets.zoroastrianism.com}}{{cite web |author1=Ervad Marzban Hathiram |title=Significance and Philosophy of the Vendidad |url=http://www.frashogard.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/the-vendidad-part-3.pdf |access-date=January 3, 2015 |website=frashogard.com}}{{cite web |title=Ranghaya, Sixteenth Vendidad Nation & Western Aryan Lands |url=http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/ranghaya/index.htm |access-date=January 3, 2015 |website=heritageinstitute.com |publisher=Heritage Institute}}{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Lesley-Ann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VJOPWGEUEZ4C&pg=PT28 |title=Freddie Mercury: The Definitive Biography: The Definitive Biography |date=2011-10-13 |publisher=Hachette UK, 2011 |isbn=9781444733709 |page=28 |access-date=3 January 2015}}{{cite book |last1=Darmesteter |first1=James |url=http://www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd8sbe.htm |title=Sacred Books of the East |date=1898 |edition=American |at=Vd 8:32 |quote=(...) Ahura Mazda answered: 'The man that lies with mankind as man lies with womankind, or as woman lies with mankind, is the man that is a Daeva; this one is the man that is a worshipper of the Daevas, that is a male paramour of the Daevas, that is a female paramour of the Daevas, that is a wife to the Daeva; this is the man that is as bad as a Daeva, that is in his whole being a Daeva; this is the man that is a Daeva before he dies, and becomes one of the unseen Daevas after death: so is he, whether he has lain with mankind as mankind, or as womankind. The guilty may be killed by any one, without an order from the Dastur (see § 74 n.), and by this execution an ordinary capital crime may be redeemed. (...) |access-date=January 3, 2015}}

Homophobia was notably introduced to the region that now encompasses India through Islam, though the totality of homophobic laws was introduced during British colonialism. Homophobic laws were introduced to parts of South India and Sri Lanka only through colonialism and not Islam.{{Cite web |last=Bhatt |first=Amy |date=2018-09-12 |title=India's sodomy ban, now ruled illegal, was a British colonial legacy |url=http://theconversation.com/indias-sodomy-ban-now-ruled-illegal-was-a-british-colonial-legacy-103052 |access-date=2024-04-15 |website=The Conversation |language=en-US}}

{{Main|LGBT history in India}}

File:Anal sex between men (Gouache 18th century).jpg

Throughout Hindu and Vedic texts there are many descriptions of saints, demigods, and even the Supreme Lord transcending gender norms and manifesting multiple combinations of sex and gender. There are several instances in ancient Indian epic poetry of same sex depictions and unions by gods and goddesses. There are several stories of depicting love between the same sex especially among kings and queens. Kamasutra, the ancient Hinduism based Indian treatise on love talks about feelings for the same sex. There are several depictions of same-sex sexual acts in Hindu temples like Khajuraho.{{cite web|url=https://thestrand.ca/now-you-see-us-now-you-dont/|title=Now you see us, now you don't|date=February 16, 2021 |publisher=The Strand|access-date=2022-05-28}} Currently one of the earliest discovered references to homosexuality in South Asia comes from a Hindu medical journal written in the holy city of Varanasi in 600 BCE, which describes the concept of homosexuality and transexuality in a neutral manner.{{Cite web |last=Pattanaik |first=Devdutt |title=Would ancient India have supported Section 377? |url=https://www.rediff.com/news/special/would-ancient-india-have-supported-section-377/20180717.htm |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=Rediff |language=en}}{{Cite journal |last=Raveenthiran |first=Venkatachalam |date=November 2011 |title=Knowledge of ancient Hindu surgeons on Hirschsprung disease: evidence from Sushruta Samhita of circa 1200-600 bc |url=https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2011.07.007 |journal=Journal of Pediatric Surgery |volume=46 |issue=11 |pages=2204–2208 |doi=10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2011.07.007 |issn=0022-3468 |pmid=22075360|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite web |title=Know all about Sushruta, the first ever plastic surgeon who was Indian |url=https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/sushruta-works-indian-physician-medicine-plastic-surgery-rhinoplasty-nose-job-1559599-2019-07-01 |access-date=2024-01-01 |website=India Today |date=July 2019 |language=en}}

In South Asia the Hijra are a caste of third gender or transgender people who live a feminine role. Hijra may be born male or intersex, and some may have been born female.{{cite web |title=Gay and Lesbian Vaishnava Association, Inc |url=http://galva108.org/deities.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131023063544/http://galva108.org/deities.html |archive-date=October 23, 2013 |access-date=2013-11-02 |publisher=Galva108.org |df=mdy-all}}

In the age of the Abbasid Caliphate, some references and anecdotes to same-sex love affairs and social views on gender and sexuality can be found in literary texts such as recorded poems.

In Jawāmiʿ al-ladhdha, a 10th century erotic compendium, individual proponents discuss their sexual preferences in contributed poems. Female poets, describe tribadism as a form of sexual gratification without the concomitant loss of reputation or risk of pregnancy.{{Cite book |last=Myrne |first=Pernilla |title=Female sexuality in the early medieval Islamic world: gender and sex in Arabic literature |date=2021 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=978-1-83860-501-8 |edition=Paperback |series=The early and medieval Islamic world |location=London New York Oxford New Delhi Sydney |page=146}} Other poets such as Abu'l-'Anbas Saymari, who is said to have written a book about lesbians and passive sodomites that has not survived to this day, described same-sex intercourse between two women as compatible due to the similarity of both love bodies and the equality of their relationship to other women.

The categorisation of different sex acts in Arabic-Islamic culture, was named according to the act rather than a particular orientation. A possible distinction according to El-Rouayheb is that of the active and passive part during the sexual intercourse.{{Cite book |last=El-Rouayheb |first=Khaled |title=Before homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic world, 1500-1800: Khaled El-Rouayheb |date=2005 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-72988-6 |location=Chicago}} Thus, the act of two women haven intercourse was known as "saḥḥāqāt", derived from "saḥq" for "rubbing"—in theory regardless of the gender identity of the partner.{{Citation |last=Murray |first=Stephen O. |title=Islamic Homosexualities |chapter=CHAPTER 5. Woman-Woman Love in Islamic Societies |date=1997-02-01 |pages=97–104 |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.18574/nyu/9780814761083.003.0007/html |access-date=2024-05-25 |publisher=New York University Press |language=en |doi=10.18574/nyu/9780814761083.003.0007 |isbn=978-0-8147-6108-3}}

An example of described homosexuality between men are the two poets Abū Nuwās and al-Buturī known for their affection for slave boys (ghulām) or socially inferior boys. In one story, al-Buturī's is selling Nasīm, a slave boy, to the son of a vizier, only to regret it later and buy him back at great financial sacrifice.{{Cite journal |last=Rowson |first=Everett K. |date=August 2008 |title=The Traffic in Boys: Slavery and Homoerotic Liaisons in Elite 'Abbāsid Society |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14752620802223798 |journal=Middle Eastern Literatures |language=en |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=193–204 |doi=10.1080/14752620802223798 |issn=1475-262X|url-access=subscription }}

Abū Nuwās explicitly describes his affection for young male lovers in his poems, often referring to socially subordinate boys such as Christian tavern boys, student from mosques, or apprentices in the bureaucracy.{{Cite journal |last=Bellamy |first=James A. |date=April 1976 |title=Der Dīwān des Abū Nuwās . Ewald Wagner |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/372480 |journal=Journal of Near Eastern Studies |language=en |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=144–145 |doi=10.1086/372480 |issn=0022-2968|url-access=subscription }}

{{Main|LGBT history in Egypt}}

{{Main|Homosexuality in ancient Egypt}}

File:Egyptian homosexual ostraca.jpg

The duo Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, manicurists in the Palace of King Niuserre during the Fifth Dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs, {{circa|2400}} BCE,Thomas A Dowson, "Archaeologists, Feminists, and Queers: sexual politics in the construction of the past". In Pamela L. Geller, Miranda K. Stockett, eds., Feminist Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future, pp. 89–102. University of Pennsylvania Press 2006, {{ISBN|0-8122-3940-7}} are speculated to have been gay based on a representation of them embracing nose-to-nose in their shared tomb, though critics say that they were likely brothers. King Neferkare and General Sasenet, a Middle Kingdom story, has an intriguing plot revolving around a king's clandestine gay affair with one of his generals. It may reference the actual Pharaoh Pepi II, but critics say that the story may have been written to tarnish what was considered to be an unloved monarch.Wit and Humour in Ancient Egypt, Houliban, PGreenberg, David, The Construction of Homosexuality, 1988; Parkinson, R.B., 'Homosexual' Desire and Middle Kingdom Literature Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 81, 1995, pp. 57–76; Montserrat, Dominic, Akhenaten: History, Fantasy, and Ancient Egypt, 2000. More details at [http://wanderingcaravan-bronzebuckaroo.blogspot.com/2007/11/clandestine-affair-pharaoh-neferkare.html] & [http://epistle.us/hbarticles/ancientegypt1.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170218052055/http://epistle.us/hbarticles/ancientegypt1.html|date=February 18, 2017}}

The sixth- or seventh-century Ashmolean Parchment AN 1981.940 provides the only example in Coptic language of a love spell between men. This vellum leaf contains an incantation by a man named Apapolo, the son of Noah, to compel the presence and love of another man Phello, the son of Maure. Phello will be restless until he finds Apapolo and satisfies the latter's desire.{{cite web |url=https://papyrus-stories.com/2021/06/15/ancient-same-sex-love-spells/ |title=Ancient Same Sex Love Spells |last=Cromwell |first=Jennifer |date=15 June 2021 |website=papyrus-stories.com |access-date=9 April 2022}}{{cite journal |last1=Smither |first1=Paul C. |date=1939 |title=A Coptic Love-Charm |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3854650 |journal=Journal of Egyptian Archaeology |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=173–174 |doi=10.2307/3854650 |jstor=3854650 |access-date=9 April 2022|url-access=subscription }}

Sunni Islam eventually supplanted Christianity as the dominant religion of Egypt in the centuries following the Muslim conquest of Egypt. The native Egyptian population was tolerant of homosexual behaviors, but Islamic religious authority was discouraging of homosexual behaviors and non-traditional gender roles.{{cite web |title=HOMOSEXUALITY ii. IN ISLAMIC LAW |url=https://iranicaonline.org/articles/homosexuality-ii |access-date=2020-12-12 |website=iranicaonline.org}} However, Islamic law tolerated a smaller subsection of homosexual behaviors of pederasty, as the attraction to feminine male youth was viewed as natural and compatible with traditional Muslim gender roles.{{Cite book |last=El-Rouayheb |first=Khaled |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/475493646 |title=Before homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic world, 1500–1800 |date=2005 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-72990-9 |location=Chicago |oclc=475493646}}{{Cite book |last=Volney |first=Constantin-François |title=Travels Through Syria and Egypt |publisher=Nabu Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-1144515759}}{{Cite book |last1=Murray |first1=Stephen O. |last2=Roscoe |first2=Will |year=1997 |title=Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature |location=New York |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=0-8147-7467-9 |oclc=35526232}}

The Siwa Oasis was of special interest to anthropologists and sociologists because of its historical acceptance of male homosexuality. Some argue the practice arose because from ancient times unmarried men and adolescent boys were required to live and work together outside the town of Shali, secluded for several years from any access to available women. In 1900, the German egyptologist George Steindorff reported that, "the feast of marrying a boy was celebrated with great pomp, and the money paid for a boy sometimes amounted to fifteen pound, while the money paid for a woman was a little over one pound."{{cite book|last=Steindorff|first=George|title=Durch die Libysche Wuste Zur Amonoase|year=1904|page=111|publisher=Velohgen and Klasing|location=Leipsig}}{{Better source needed|date=June 2021|reason=Source may be outdated}} The archaeologist Count Byron de Prorok reported in 1937 that "an enthusiasm could not have been approached even in Sodom... Homosexuality was not merely rampant, it was raging...Every dancer had his boyfriend...[and] chiefs had harems of boys.{{cite book|last=De Porok|first=Count Byron|title=In Quest of Lost Worlds|year=1936 |page=64|publisher=Dutton|location=New York}}{{Better source needed|date=June 2021|reason=Source may be outdated}}

Walter Cline noted that, "all normal Siwan men and boys practice sodomy...the natives are not ashamed of this; they talk about it as openly as they talk about love of women, and many if not most of their fights arise from homosexual competition....Prominent men lend their sons to each other. All Siwans know the matings which have taken place among their sheiks and their sheiks' sons....Most of the boys used in sodomy are between twelve and eighteen years of age."{{cite book|last=Cline|first=Walter|title=Notes on the People of Siwa|year=1936 |page=43|publisher=George Banta Publishing Co|location=Menasha, Wisconsin, US}}{{Better source needed|date=June 2021|reason=Information may be outdated.}} In the late 1940s, a Siwan merchant told the visiting British novelist Robin Maugham that the Siwan men "will kill each other for boy. Never for a woman".{{cite book|last=Maugham|first=Robin|title=Journey to Siwa|year=1950 |page=80|publisher=Chapman and Hall|location=London}}{{Better source needed|date=June 2021|reason=Information may be outdated}}

In modern Egypt, homosexuality is strongly repressed. Although homosxuality is not explicity criminalized, gay men have reportedly been getting arrested on the basis of anti-prostution and anti-debauchery laws since the 1990s.{{Cite news |last=Jankowicz |first=Mia |date=2017-04-03 |title=Jailed for using Grindr: homosexuality in Egypt |url=https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/apr/03/jailed-for-using-grindr-homosexuality-in-egypt?utm_source=chatgpt.com |access-date=2025-05-23 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}{{Cite web |title=Egypt: from bathhouse to prison |url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opensecurity/egypt-from-bathhouse-to-prison/?utm_source |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=openDemocracy |language=en}} Most notably, 52 men were arrested in 2001 at the clandestine gay disco Queen's Boat in Cairo: a case now known as the Cairo 52.{{Cite web |last=Wilson |first=Ewan |date=2018-02-16 |title=The Politics of Sexuality and the LGBTQ Crackdown in Egypt {{!}} GJIA |url=https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2018/02/16/the-politics-of-sexuality-and-the-lgbtq-crackdown-in-egypt/ |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=Georgetown Journal of International Affairs |language=en-US}} According to the Human Rights Watch, the men underwent inhumane trials.{{Cite journal |date=2004-02-29 |title=In a Time of Torture |url=https://www.hrw.org/report/2004/02/29/time-torture/assault-justice-egypts-crackdown-homosexual-conduct |journal=Human Rights Watch |language=en}} Two men were convicted for "insulting religion", and the 50 others were retried in a civil court. Of these 50 men, an additional 21 were convicted for "habitual debauchery".{{Cite web |last=Khalili |first=David |date=17 May 2008 |title=Exposing Oppression in Egypt |url=http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/article/homophobia_oppression_egypt_film_queen_boat |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130414024547/http://web.archive.org/web/20081216161335/http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/article/homophobia_oppression_egypt_film_queen_boat |archive-date=14 April 2013 |access-date=23 May 2025}} Several human rights organizations, among which the United Nations, heavily criticized this case for its human rights abuses.{{Cite web |date=2022-05-08 |title=Egypt: Cairo 52 - Activists Await Final Sentence November 14 {{!}} OutRight Action International |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220508230341/https://outrightinternational.org/content/egypt-cairo-52-activists-await-final-sentence-november-14 |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=web.archive.org}} The Cairo 52 case has been noted as an example of a continued crackdown on LGBTQ rights in Egypt.{{Cite journal |last=Pratt |first=Nicola |date=January 2007 |title=The Queen Boat case in Egypt: sexuality, national security and state sovereignty |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/abs/queen-boat-case-in-egypt-sexuality-national-security-and-state-sovereignty/2C82B9DA57DB8763B45D5437C7DE9F98 |journal=Review of International Studies |language=en |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=129–144 |doi=10.1017/S0260210507007346 |issn=1469-9044}}{{rp|131-4}} More recently, in 2017, 22 individuals were arrested at a concert by Lebanese band Mashrou' Leila.{{Cite web |date=2017-10-06 |title=Egypt: Mass Arrests Amid LGBT Media Blackout {{!}} Human Rights Watch |url=https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/06/egypt-mass-arrests-amid-lgbt-media-blackout |access-date=2025-05-23 |language=en}}{{Cite news |last=Aboulenein |first=Ahmed |date=2017-10-03 |title=Egypt arrests dozens in crackdown on gays |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-rights-idUSKCN1C72BW/ |access-date=2025-05-23 |work=Reuters |language=en-GB}} At the concert, a rainbow flag was raised in the audience, which led to further escalation and the later arrests of several concertgoers.{{Cite web |date=2017-10-02 |title=Egypt escalates LGBTI crackdown with fresh wave of arrests and anal examinations |url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2017/10/egypt-escalates-lgbti-crackdown-with-fresh-wave-of-arrests-and-anal-examinations/ |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=Amnesty International |language=en}} Again, these arrests and the following trials were condemned for being unfair by organizations like the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Despite this crackdown, contemporary Egypt has also seen the emergence of voices for change like the late Sarah Hegazi, who was one of the arrested concertgoers in 2017. Hegazi's actions became symbols of resistance to the government's crackdown on LGBTQ rights and her passing indicated for many the severity of the ongoing repression of LGBTQ individuals in Egypt.{{Cite web |title=‘Egypt failed her’: LGBT activist kills herself in Canada after suffering post-prison trauma |url=https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-lgbtq-activist-sarah-hegazi-suicide-trauma |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=Middle East Eye |language=en}} Similarly, trans woman and activist Malak al-Kashif has played an important role in fighting against LGBTQ repression in the country. Al-Kashif garnered international attention when her detention at a men's prison in 2019 was highly criticized by several international organizations.{{Cite web |title=Provisional release of Ms. Malak Al-Kashif |url=https://www.omct.org/en/resources/urgent-interventions/provisional-release-of-ms-malak-al-kashif |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=OMCT |language=en}} She was released later that year and has been an ardent defender of trans rights in Egypt since.{{Cite web |date=2024-02-20 |title=Malak Al-Kashif: From childhood dream to champion of trans rights in Egypt |url=https://raseef22.net/english/article/1096598-malak-alkashif-from-childhood-dream-to-champion-of-trans-rights-in-egypt |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=Raseef22 |language=en}}{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh7-SjGmXX4 |title=Diversity in Adversity: Malak Al-Kashif, Egypt |date=2022-05-18 |last=UN Human Rights |access-date=2025-05-23 |via=YouTube}} Despite the contribution of activists like Al-Kashif, trans persons still enjoy little rights and suffer from social stigma in Egypt.{{Cite web |date=2022-04-08 |title=Tough Territory for Transgender People in the Middle East and North Africa {{!}} Human Rights Watch |url=https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/08/tough-territory-transgender-people-middle-east-and-north-africa |access-date=2025-05-23 |language=en}} In general, LGBTQ individuals remain legally and socially marginalized in Egypt, but organizations like the Cairo 52 Research Institute and other activist voices continue to commit themselves to the improvement of LGBTQ rights.{{Cite web |date=2024-04-16 |title=About {{!}} Cairo 52 Legal Research Institute |url=https://cairo52.com/about/ |access-date=2025-05-23 |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |last=Wilson |first=Ewan |date=2018-02-16 |title=The Politics of Sexuality and the LGBTQ Crackdown in Egypt {{!}} GJIA |url=https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2018/02/16/the-politics-of-sexuality-and-the-lgbtq-crackdown-in-egypt/?utm_source |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=Georgetown Journal of International Affairs |language=en-US}}

The Middle Assyrian Law Codes (1075 BCE) state: If a man has intercourse with his brother-in-arms, they shall turn him into a eunuch.{{cite web|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/1075assyriancode.html|title=The Code of the Assura, c. 1075 BCE|access-date=10 March 2015|archive-date=November 11, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141111191530/http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/1075assyriancode.html|url-status=live}} This is the earliest known law condemning the act of male-to-male intercourse within the military.Being a Man: Negotiating Ancient Constructs of Masculinity (Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East), by Ilona Zsolnay, 2016, p. 48 {{ISBN?}} Despite these laws, sex crimes were punished identically whether they were homosexual or heterosexual in Assyrian society.Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective, by Martti Nissinen, Fortress Press, 2004, [https://books.google.com/books?id=-sHSNPG85tUC&pg=PA24 pp. 24–28] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200414092410/https://books.google.com/books?id=-sHSNPG85tUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA24 |date=April 14, 2020 }} Freely pictured art of anal intercourse, practiced as part of a religious ritual, dated from the third millennium BCE and onwards.Greenberg, p. 126 The Almanac of Incantations featured prayers praising the equality of love between heterosexual and gay male couples.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RKhFRgR-1awC&q=equal+basis|title=The Construction of Homosexuality|first=David F.|last=Greenberg|date=August 15, 1990|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=9780226306285|via=Google Books}}Homosexuality, a History, authored by Vern L. Bullough, New American Library, 1979, page 53 A man had the rights to visit any gay prostitute or sleep with another man, just as long as false rumors or rape were not involved. Nevertheless, a man taking the submissive role was perceived negatively in ancient Mesopotamia.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5qQaInUxSfwC&pg=PA8|title=Gay Rights Or Wrongs: A Christian's Guide to Homosexual Issues and Ministry|first=Mike|last=Mazzalonga|date=February 25, 1996|publisher=College Press|isbn=9780899007731|via=Google Books}}

A particular Middle Assyrian Law Code from Assur, dating from 1,075 BC, condemns homosexual rape or forced sex. It speaks of a "seignior" (high social figure in the community) and his "neighbor" (someone of equal social status):Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, edited by James Pritchard, 3rd edition, Princeton University Press, 1971, page 181

If a seignior [an Assyrian man] lay with his neighbor [another citizen], when they have prosecuted him (and) convicted him [the first citizen], they shall lie with him (and) turn him into a eunuch.

The Šumma ālu, an Akkadian tablet, includes this code, where it regards male homosexuality in a positive light:{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-sHSNPG85tUC&pg=PA27|title=Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective|first=Martti|last=Nissinen|date=February 1, 2004|publisher=Fortress Press|isbn=9781451414332|via=Google Books}}

If a man copulates with his equal from the rear, he becomes the leader among his peers and brothers.

Furthermore, the article 'Homosexualität' in Reallexicon der Assyriologie states

Homosexuality in itself is thus nowhere condemned as licentiousness, as immorality, as social disorder, or as transgressing any human or divine law. Anyone could practice it freely, just as anyone could visit a prostitute, provided it was done without violence and without compulsion, and preferably as far as taking the passive role was concerned, with specialists. That there was nothing religiously amiss with homosexual love between men is seen by the fact that they prayed for divine blessing on it. It seems clear that the Mesopotamians saw nothing wrong in homosexual acts between consenting adults.G. R. Driver and J. C. Miles, The Assyrian Laws (Oxford, Clarendon Press [1935]), 71.Reallexicon der Assyriologie 4, 467.[https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_attitude_wenham.html "The Old Testament Attitude to Homosexuality"] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221203531/https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_attitude_wenham.html |date=December 21, 2019 }}) by Gordon J Wenham, Expository Times 102.9 (1991): 259–363.

{{Main|LGBT history in Israel}}

The ancient Law of Moses (the Torah) forbids men from lying with men (i.e., from having intercourse) in Leviticus 18 and gives a story of attempted homosexual rape in Genesis 19, in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, after which the cities were soon destroyed with "brimstone and fire, from the Lord"{{cite book |last1=Fields |first1=Weston W. |title=Sodom and Gomorrah: History and Motif in Biblical Narrative |date=1997 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=9780567062611 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i9lA3UVoHjAC&q=Sodom+gomorrah%E2%84%8520destruction&pg=PA159 |access-date=18 August 2019 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Loader |first1=J. A. |title=A Tale of Two Cities: Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, Early Jewish and Early Christian Traditions |date=1990 |publisher=Peeters Publishers |isbn=9789024253333 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qJMA_zTueTMC&q=Sodom+gomorrah |access-date=18 August 2019 |language=en}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021|reason=These two sources do not cite page numbers.}} and the death penalty was prescribed to its inhabitants and to Lot's wife who was tuned into a pillar of salt because she turned back to watch the cities' destruction.{{cite book |last1=STRAUSS |first1=Gerhard Friedrich Abraham |last2=SLEE |first2=Jane Mary |title=On Restitution; Lot and his Wife; The Rich Man; Christian Composure; [sermons] by ... F. S. ... translated from the German, by Miss Slee |date=1837 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=exFhAAAAcAAJ&q=wife+of+lot&pg=PA60 |access-date=18 August 2019 |language=en |archive-date=April 1, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210401102700/https://books.google.com/books?id=exFhAAAAcAAJ&q=wife+of+lot&pg=PA60 |url-status=live }}{{cite book |title=Lot's Wife. A sermon at Paule's Crosse [on Luke xvii. 32. By R. W., i.e. R. Wilkinson.] |date=1607 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vSpkAAAAcAAJ&q=wife+of+lot&pg=PA14 |access-date=18 August 2019 |language=en |author1=R. W |archive-date=April 1, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210401102709/https://books.google.com/books?id=vSpkAAAAcAAJ&q=wife+of+lot&pg=PA14 |url-status=live }}{{Better source needed|date=June 2021|reason=Both of these sources are over 100 years old and they don’t cite page numbers.}} In Deuteronomy 22:5, cross-dressing is condemned as "abominable".{{cite book |last1=Upson-Saia |first1=Kristi |last2=Daniel-Hughes |first2=Carly |last3=Batten |first3=Alicia J. |title=Dressing Judeans and Christians in Antiquity |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317147978 |page=39 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7fsoDAAAQBAJ&q=deuteronomy+cross-dressing&pg=PA39 |access-date=18 August 2019 |language=en |archive-date=April 1, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210401102714/https://books.google.com/books?id=7fsoDAAAQBAJ&q=deuteronomy+cross-dressing&pg=PA39 |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last1=Bullough |first1=Vern L. |last2=Faan |first2=Vern L. |last3=Bullough |first3=Bonnie |title=Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender |date=1993 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=9780812214314 |page=x |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KcD7nVelXJgC&q=deuteronomy+cross-dressing&pg=PR10 |access-date=18 August 2019 |language=en |archive-date=April 1, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210401102723/https://books.google.com/books?id=KcD7nVelXJgC&q=deuteronomy+cross-dressing&pg=PR10 |url-status=live }}

Main Article: LGBTQ rights in Lebanon

Under Article 53 of the 1943 Penal Code, "unnatural sexual acts" are explicitly forbidden in Lebanon.{{Citation |last=Chaer |first=Nisrine |title=19. Sensing Queer Activism in Beirut: Protest Soundscapes as Political Dissent |date=2020-06-09 |work=Women Rising |pages=173-89 |url=https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479846641.003.0020 |access-date=2025-05-23 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-1-4798-5696-1}}{{rp|173-4}} Recent case rulings however have questioned the applicability of this clause, and precedents have been set for more legal lenience towards homosexuality.{{Cite web |title=Is Lebanon on the path to decriminalizing homosexuality? - AL-Monitor: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012 |url=https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2017/02/lebanon-judge-ruling-favor-lgbt-tolerance.html |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=www.al-monitor.com |language=en}}Proud Lebanon. The LGBTIQ+ Community in Lebanon, Documenting Stories of Torture and Abuse. 2017.{{rp|3-4}} Despite these acquittals, multiple LGBTQ individuals have been tried and convicted based on their sexuality in recent years.{{Cite web |date=2012-08-02 |title=Lebanese authorities arrest 36 men at gay cinema |url=https://www.jpost.com/international/lebanese-authorities-arrest-36-men-at-gay-cinema |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=The Jerusalem Post {{!}} JPost.com |language=en}}{{cite web |title=Sodomy reporting on Lebanese media coverage on arrest of two lesbians |url=http://www.glapn.org/sodomylaws/world/lebanon/lbnews001.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009231333/http://www.glapn.org/sodomylaws/world/lebanon/lbnews001.htm |archive-date=9 October 2018 |access-date=20 January 2011 |publisher=Sodomylaws.org}}{{Cite web |date=2014-08-13 |title=Lebanon NGOs slam arrest of 27 over ‘homosexual acts’ |url=https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2014/08/13/Lebanon-NGOs-condemn-arrest-for-27-over-homosexual-acts- |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=Al Arabiya English |language=en}} LGBTQ rights organizations like Helem and Meem have emerged since 2000 as counterreactions to state repression and as voices of resistance. In 2017, Beirut Pride was established as the first (and currently only) Pride organization in the Middle East.{{Cite web |last=Houé |first=Mélanie |title=Le Liban organise la première Gay Pride du monde arabe |url=https://www.liberation.fr/planete/2017/05/20/le-liban-organise-la-premiere-gay-pride-du-monde-arabe_1570854/ |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=Libération |language=fr}} Lebanese state politics has also seen parties like Kataeb supporting the decriminalization of homosexuality.{{Cite web |last=Qiblawi |first=Tamara |date=2018-05-04 |title=Gay rights come to the fore as Lebanon prepares to vote |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/04/middleeast/lebanon-elections-lgbt-rights-intl/index.html |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=CNN |language=en}} In recent years however, the political climate has taken a conservative turn, as figures like Hassan Nasrallah have called to inflict violence upon LGBTQ individuals.{{Cite web |date=2023-07-26 |title=حسن نصر الله يشن هجوما على المثليين في لبنان |url=https://www.bbc.com/arabic/66319212 |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=BBC News عربي |language=ar}}{{Cite web |date=26 July 2023 |title=نصر الله يبيح قتل مجتمع الميم-عين... من يوقف هذا الإرهاب؟ |trans-title=Nasrallah permits the killing of the LGBT community... Who will stop this terrorism? |url=https://raseef22.net/article/1094233-%D9%86%D8%B5%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AD-%D9%82%D8%AA%D9%84-%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%B9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%8A%D9%86-%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%82%D9%81-%D9%87%D8%B0%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240924074434/https://raseef22.net/article/1094233-%D9%86%D8%B5%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AD-%D9%82%D8%AA%D9%84-%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%B9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%8A%D9%86-%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%82%D9%81-%D9%87%D8%B0%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8 |archive-date=24 September 2024 |access-date=23 May 2023 |website=Raseef22 |language=ar}}

{{Main|LGBT history in Iran}}

In pre-modern Islam there was a "widespread conviction that beardless youths possessed a temptation to adult men as a whole, and not merely to a small minority of deviants."El-Rouayheb, 2005. Op.cit. p. 115 {{ISBN missing|date=June 2021}}

Muslim—often Sufi—poets in medieval Arab lands and in Persia wrote odes to the beautiful wine boys who served them in the taverns. In many areas the practice survived into modern times, as documented by Richard Francis Burton, André Gide, and others. Homoerotic themes were present in poetry and other literature written by some Muslims from the medieval period onward and which celebrated love between men. These were more common than expressions of attraction to women.Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, MacMillan Reference US, 2004, p. 316

{{Main|LGBT in the Ottoman Empire}}

In a world before sexual preferences defined identity, men who desired other men were not thought of as members of a biologically determined, distinctive subculture with a constant nature. Because men and women were not thought of as opposites, same-sex relationships were not considered to go against nature. (In fact, women were thought of as biologically imperfect men.){{Cite book |author=Baer, Marc David |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1273556731 |title=The Ottomans : khans, caesars, and caliphs |date=October 5, 2021 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-1-5416-7377-9 |oclc=1273556731}}

File:Catlin - Dance to the berdache.jpg's painting/interpretation of Sac and Fox Nation people, which he titled Dance to the Berdache{{sic}}. George Catlin (1796–1872); Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC]]

Among Indigenous peoples of the Americas, prior to European colonization, a number of nations had respected roles for homosexual, bisexual, and gender-nonconforming individuals; in some Indigenous communities, these social and spiritual roles are still observed.Estrada, Gabriel S. 2011. "[http://nativeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Two-Spirits-Nadleeh-and-Navajo-LGBTQ2-Gaze.pdf Two Spirits, Nádleeh, and LGBTQ2 Navajo Gaze]." American Indian Culture and Research Journal 35(4):167–90. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150513044527/http://nativeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Two-Spirits-Nadleeh-and-Navajo-LGBTQ2-Gaze.pdf |date=May 13, 2015 }} While the Indigenous cultures that preserve (or have adopted) these roles have their own names, in their own languages, for these individuals,"[http://nativeout.com/twospirit-rc/two-spirit-101/two-spirit-terms-in-tribal-languages/ Two Spirit Terms in Tribal Languages] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150102172337/http://nativeout.com/twospirit-rc/two-spirit-101/two-spirit-terms-in-tribal-languages/|date=January 2, 2015}}" at NativeOut. Accessed 23 Sep 2015 a modern, pan-Indian term that some have adopted is "Two-Spirit"."[https://web.archive.org/web/20141210110520/http://nativeout.com/twospirit-rc/two-spirit-101/ Two Spirit 101]" at NativeOut: "The Two Spirit term was adopted in 1990 at an indigenous lesbian and gay international gathering to encourage the replacement of the term berdache, which means, 'passive partner in sodomy, boy prostitute.'" Accessed 6 April 2016 In a traditional culture that holds these roles as sacred, these individuals are recognized early in life, raised in the appropriate manner, learning from the Elders the customs, spiritual, and social duties fulfilled by these people in the community. While this new term has not been universally accepted—it has been criticized as a term of erasure by traditional communities who already have their own terms for the people being grouped under this new term, and by those who reject what they call the "western" binary implications, such as implying that Natives believe these individuals are "both male and female"{{cite book |last1=de Vries |first1=Kylan Mattias |title=Encyclopedia of gender and society |date=2009 |publisher=Sage |isbn=9781412909167 |editor1-last=O'Brien |editor1-first=Jodi |location=Los Angeles |page=64 |chapter=Berdache (Two-Spirit) |access-date=6 March 2015 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_nyHS4WyUKEC |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150501010210/http://books.google.com/books?id=_nyHS4WyUKEC |archive-date=May 1, 2015 |url-status=live}}—it has generally received more acceptance and use than the anthropological term it replaced.{{cite web |last=Pember |first=Mary Annette |date=Oct 13, 2016 |title='Two Spirit' Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes |url=https://rewire.news/article/2016/10/13/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019000635/https://rewire.news/article/2016/10/13/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes/ |archive-date=October 19, 2016 |access-date=Oct 17, 2016 |publisher=Rewire |quote=Non-Native anthropologist Will Roscoe gets much of the public credit for coining the term two spirit. However, according to Kristopher Kohl Miner of the Ho-Chunk Nation, Native people such as anthropologist Dr. Wesley Thomas of the Dine or Navajo tribe also contributed to its creation. (Thomas is a professor in the School of Dine and Law Studies.)}}{{cite journal |last=Medicine |first=Beatrice |date=August 2002 |title=Directions in Gender Research in American Indian Societies: Two Spirits and Other Categories |url=http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=orpc |journal=Online Readings in Psychology and Culture |publisher=International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology |volume=3 |issue=1 |page=7 |doi=10.9707/2307-0919.1024 |issn=2307-0919 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121208071034/http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=orpc |archive-date=2012-12-08 |access-date=2016-06-25 |quote=At the Wenner Gren conference on gender held in Chicago, May, 1994... the gay American Indian and Alaska Native males agreed to use the term 'Two Spirit' to replace the controversial 'berdache' term. The stated objective was to purge the older term from anthropological literature as it was seen as demeaning and not reflective of Native categories. Unfortunately, the term 'berdache' has also been incorporated in the psychology and women studies domains, so the task for the affected group to purge the term looms large and may be formidable. |doi-access=free}}

{{Further|History of homosexuality#Africa|LGBT rights in Africa#History of male homosexuality in Africa}}

Anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships", named motsoalle ({{Literal translation|Special Friend}}).{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/boywivesfemalehu00murr |title=Boy Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities |publisher=St. Martin's Press |year=1998 |isbn=0-312-23829-0 |editor-last=Murray |editor-first=Stephen |editor-link=Stephen O. Murray |location=New York |editor2=Roscoe, Will |url-access=registration}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021|reason=There are no page numbers}} Often, a motsoalle relationship was acknowledged publicly with a ritual feast and with the community fully aware of the women's commitment to one another.{{Sfn|Peplau|2001|p=7}} Motsoalle relationships commonly existed among school girls where it functioned like a type of "puppy love" or mentorship.{{Cite journal |last=Sullivan |first=Jason |date=17 June 2016 |title=Eras in Education "Mummy-Baby" Relationships in 1950s Lesotho: Learning About Loving |url=https://www.voicemagazine.org/articles/articledisplay.php?ART=6951 |journal=The Voice Magazine |volume=24 |access-date=22 June 2016}}

However, different from the western notion of lesbianism, motsoalle relationships are not seen as an "alternative to heterosexual marriage".{{Sfn|Kendall|1998b|p=221}} Women in motsoalle relationships are still expected to "marry men and conform, or appear to conform, to gender expectations."{{Sfn|Kendall|1998b|p=239}} Motsoalle relationships are usually not seen as proper sexual and romantic relationship due to the Sesotho notion of sex, where an act is not considered a sex act if one partner was not male.{{Sfn|Munro|2012|p=151}}

As Lesotho became more modernized, those communities were exposed to Western culture and thus homophobia.{{Sfn|Kendall|1998b|p=222}} Anthropologist K. Limakatsuo Kendall hypothesizes that as Western ideas spread, the idea that women could be sexual with one another, coupled with homophobia, began to erase the motsoalle relationships.{{Sfn|Kendall|1998b|p=222}} By the 1980s, the ritual feasts that were once celebrated by the community for motsoalles had vanished.{{Cite journal |last=Dickemann |first=Jeffrey M. |date=2001 |title=Female Desires: Same-Sex Relations and Transgender Practices Across Cultures (Review) |journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=122–126 |doi=10.1353/sex.2001.0008 |s2cid=142980092}} Today, motsoalle relationships have largely disappeared.{{Cite book |last=Wieringa |first=Saskia |title=Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men and Ancestral Wives: Female Same-Sex practices in Africa |publisher=Jacana Media |year=2005 |isbn=9781770090934 |editor-last=Morgan |editor-first=Ruth |pages=295–296 |chapter=Women Marriages and Other Same-Sex Practices: Historical Reflections on African Women's Same-Sex Relations |editor-last2=Wieringa |editor-first2=Saskia |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGvp0LnYN7cC&q=motsoalle&pg=PA8}}

Among the Zande people of Congo, there was a social institution similar to pederasty in Ancient Greece. E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male Azande warriors routinely took on boy-wives between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in intercrural sex with their older husbands. The practice had died out by the early 20th century, after Europeans had gained control of African countries, but was recounted to Evans-Pritchard by the elders with whom he spoke.Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (December 1970). "Sexual Inversion among the Azande". American Anthropologist, New Series, 72(6), 1428–34.

During the 1930s Evans-Pritchard recorded information about sexual relationships between women, based on reports from male Azande.{{Cite book |last=Rupp |first=Leila J. |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780814775929 |title=Sapphistries: A Global History of Love between Women |date=2009-12-01 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=9780814776445 |language=en |quote=Zande. |url-access=registration}}{{Rp|55}} According to male Azande, women would take female lovers in order to seek out pleasure and that partners would penetrate each other using bananas or a food item carved into the shape of a phallus.{{Rp|55}} They also reported that the daughter of a ruler may be given a female slave as a sexual partner.{{Rp|55}} Evans-Pritchard also recorded that the male Azande were fearful of women taking on female lovers, as they might view men as unnecessary.

According to Aristotle, although most "belligerent nations" were strongly influenced by their women, the Celts were unusual among them because their men openly preferred male lovers (Politics II 1269b).{{cite book|author= Percy, William A.|title= Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece|publisher= University of Illinois Press|year= 1996|url= https://archive.org/details/pederastypedagog00perc/page/18|page= [https://archive.org/details/pederastypedagog00perc/page/18 18]|isbn= 0-252-06740-1|access-date= 2009-09-18}}; Rankin, H.D. Celts and the Classical World, p. 55 H. D. Rankin in Celts and the Classical World notes that "Athenaeus echoes this comment (603a) and so does Ammianus (30.9). It seems to be the general opinion of antiquity."Rankin, p. 55{{ISBN missing|date=June 2021}} In book XIII of his Deipnosophists, the Roman Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus, repeating assertions made by Diodorus Siculus in the first century BCE (Bibliotheca historica 5:32), wrote that Celtic women were beautiful but that the men preferred to sleep together. Diodorus went further, stating that "the young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused". Rankin argues that the ultimate source of these assertions is likely to be Poseidonius and speculates that these authors may be recording male "bonding rituals".Rankin, p. 78

{{Main|Homosexuality in ancient Greece}}

File:Cup - Terracotta - 1.jpg

File:Coupe – MSR – Rituels Grecs – AGER inv G 467.jpg

File:Vase - Getty Museum (82.AE.53) - 3.jpg

File:Relief - earthenware - Rijksmuseum van Oudheden 1.jpg

Same-sex relationships did not replace marriage between man and woman, but occurred before and beside it.{{Cite book|last=Robson|first=James|title=Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|year=2013|isbn=978-0748634149|page=24}} A mature man would not usually have a mature male mate (with exceptions such as Alexander the Great and the same-aged Hephaestion) but the older man would usually be the erastes (lover) to a young eromenos (loved one). Kenneth J. Dover, followed by Michel Foucault and Halperin, assumed that it was considered improper for the eromenos to feel desire, as that would not be masculine. However, Dover's claim has been questioned in light of evidence of love poetry which suggests a more emotional connection than earlier researchers liked to acknowledge.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}} The ideal held that both partners would be inspired by love symbolized by Eros, the erastes unselfishly providing education, guidance, and appropriate gifts to his eromenos, who became his devoted pupil and assistant, while the sexuality theoretically remained short of penetrative acts and supposedly would consist primarily of the act of frottage or intercrural sex.{{Cite book |last=Roughgarden |first=Joan |title=Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People |publisher=University of California Press |year=2013 |isbn=9781282358287 |location=California |page=2}}

Men could also seek adolescent boys as partners as shown by some of the earliest documents concerning same-sex pederastic relationships, which come from ancient Greece. Often they were favored over women.{{Cite book|last=Robson|first=James|title=Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens|publisher=Edinburgh Press|year=2013|isbn=978-0748634149|page=2}} Though slave boys could be bought, free boys had to be courted, and ancient materials suggest that the father also had to consent to the relationship.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}}

Same-sex relationships were a social institution variously constructed over time and from one city to another. The formal practice, an erotic yet often restrained relationship between a free adult male and a free adolescent was valued for its pedagogic benefits and as a means of population control, though occasionally was blamed for causing disorder.{{citation needed|date=February 2016}}

Plato praised its benefits in his early writings [e.g., Phaedrus in the Symposium (385–370 BCE)] but in his late works proposed its prohibition [e.g., in Laws (636D & 835E)]).Plato, Laws, 636D & 835E{{ISBN missing|date=June 2021}} In the Symposium (182B-D), Plato equates acceptance of homosexuality with democracy and its suppression with despotism, and wrote that homosexuality "is shameful to barbarians because of their despotic governments, just as philosophy and athletics are, since it is apparently not in best interests of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or physical unions, all of which love is particularly apt to produce".{{harvnb|Boswell|1980}} Aristotle, in the Politics, dismissed Plato's ideas about abolishing homosexuality; he explains that barbarians like the Celts accorded it a special honor, while the Cretans used it to regulate the population.

File:NAMA Sappho lisant.jpg

File:Lafond Sappho and Homer.jpg "Sappho sings for Homer", 1824.]]

Sappho, born on the island of Lesbos, was included by later Greeks in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. The adjectives deriving from her name and place of birth (Sapphic and Lesbian) came to be applied to female homosexuality beginning in the 19th century.{{cite web|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=lesbian|title=Lesbian|access-date=2009-02-07|publisher=Online Etymology Dictionary|year=2001|last=Harper|first=Douglas|archive-date=April 30, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080430141341/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=lesbian|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Sapphic|title=Sapphic|access-date=2009-02-07|publisher=Online Etymology Dictionary|year=2001|last=Harper|first=Douglas|archive-date=July 2, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170702034948/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Sapphic|url-status=live}} Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and both genders. The narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various females, but descriptions of physical acts between women are few and subject to debate.Denys Page, Sappho and Alcaeus, Oxford UP, 1959, pp. 142–46.{{cite book|editor-last=Campbell|editor-first=D. A.|title=Greek Lyric 1: Sappho and Alcaeus (Loeb Classical Library No. 142)|publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Mass.|year=1982|isbn=0-674-99157-5|pages=xi–xii}}

{{Main|Homosexuality in ancient Rome}}

File:Relief - 3a.jpg

File:024MAD Antinous.jpg, polychrome Parian marble depicting Antinous, made during the reign of Hadrian (r. 117–138 CE), his lover]]

In Ancient Greece and Phrygia, and later in the Roman Republic, the Goddess Cybele was worshiped by a cult of people who castrated themselves, and thereafter took female dress and referred to themselves as female.{{cite book|author=Califia, Patrick|date=2003|title=Sex Changes The Politics of Transgenderism|publisher= Cleis Press, Inc.|location= California|author-link=Patrick Califia}} ISDN 1-57344-180-5{{cite journal|author=Benjamin, H. |date=1966|title= The Transsexual Phenomenon|journal=Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences|volume=29|issue=4|pages=428–30|publisher= Julian Press|location= New York|doi=10.1111/j.2164-0947.1967.tb02273.x|pmid=5233741|author-link=Harry Benjamin}} These early transgender figures have also been referred by several authors as early role models.{{cite book|author=Evans, Arthur |date=1978|title=Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture|location= Boston|publisher=Fag Rag Books|author-link=Arthur Evans}}{{cite book|author=Conner, R. |date=1993|title=Blossom of Bone: Reclaiming the Connections between Homoeroticism and the Sacred|url=https://archive.org/details/blossomofbonerec0000conn |url-access=registration |location= San Francisco|publisher= Harper|author-link=Randy Conner}}

In Ancient Rome the young male body remained a focus of male sexual attention, but relationships were between older free men and slaves or freed youths who took the receptive role in sex. The Hellenophile emperor Hadrian is renowned for his relationship with Antinous.

In Roman patriarchal society, it was socially acceptable for an adult male citizen to take the penetrative role in same-sex relations. Freeborn male minors were strictly protected from sexual predators (see Lex Scantinia), and men who willingly played the "passive" role in homosexual relations were disparaged. No law or moral censure was directed against homosexual behaviors as such, as long as the citizen took the dominant role with a partner of lower status such as a slave, prostitute, or someone considered infamis, of no social standing.

The Roman emperor Elagabalus is depicted as transgender by some modern writers. Elagabalus was said to be "delighted to be called the mistress, the wife, the queen of Hierocles." Supposedly, great wealth was offered to any surgeon who was able to give Elagabalus female genitalia.

During the Renaissance, wealthy cities in northern Italy—Florence and Venice in particular—were renowned for their widespread practice of same-sex love, engaged in by a considerable part of the male population and constructed along the classical pattern of Greece and Rome.{{cite book|author=Rocke, Michael|date=1996|title=Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-512292-5|url=https://archive.org/details/forbiddenfriends00rock}}{{cite book|author=Ruggiero, Guido|date=1985|title=The Boundaries of Eros|url=https://archive.org/details/boundariesoferos00guid|url-access=registration|isbn= 0-19-503465-1}} Attitudes toward homosexual behavior changed when the Empire fell under Christian rule; see for instance legislation of Justinian I.

{{main|Homosexuality in medieval Europe}}

According to John Boswell, author of Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality,New Haven: Yale University Press (1980) there were same-sex Christian monastic communities and other religious orders in which homosexuality thrived. According to Chauncey et al. (1989), the book "offered a revolutionary interpretation of the Western tradition, arguing that the Roman Catholic Church had not condemned gay people throughout its history, but rather, at least until the twelfth century, had alternately evinced no special concern about homosexuality or actually celebrated love between men." Boswell was also the author of Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (New York: Villard, 1994) in which he argues that the adelphopoiia liturgy was evidence that attitude of the Christian church towards homosexuality has changed over time, and that early Christians did on occasion accept same-sex relationships.[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/index-bos.html John Boswell page; "People with a History: An Online Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans* History "] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130531022549/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/index-bos.html |date=May 31, 2013 }} Fordham University; 1997. Retrieved January 16, 2010. His work attracted great controversy, as it was seen by many as merely an attempt for Boswell to justify his homosexuality and Roman Catholic faith. For instance, R. W. Southern points out that homosexuality had been condemned extensively by religious leaders and medieval scholars well before the 12th century; he also points to the penitentials which were common in early medieval society, and many of which include homosexuality as among the serious sins.{{cite book|title=The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality|last=Kuefler|first=Mathew|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2006|isbn=978-0-226-45741-3}}

Bennett and Froide, in Singlewomen in the European Past, note: "Other single women found emotional comfort and sexual pleasure with women. The history of same-sex relations between women in medieval and early modern Europe is exceedingly difficult to study, but there can be no doubt of its existence. Church leaders worried about lesbian sex; women expressed, practiced, and were sometimes imprisoned or even executed for same-sex love; and some women cross-dressed in order to live with other women as married couples." They go on to note that even the seemingly modern word "lesbian" has been traced back as far as 1732, and discuss lesbian subcultures, but add, "Nevertheless, we certainly should not equate the single state with lesbian practices." While same-sex relationships among men were highly documented and condemned, "Moral theologians did not pay much attention to the question of what we would today call lesbian sex, perhaps because anything that did not involve a phallus did not fall within the bounds of their understanding of the sexual. Some legislation against lesbian relations can be adduced for the period, mainly involving the use of 'instruments,' in other words, dildoes."{{cite book|title=Singlewomen in the European Past |year=1999|publisher=University Pennsylvania Press|pages=10–11, 128}}

Throughout the majority of Christian history, most Christian theologians and denominations have considered homosexual behavior as immoral or sinful.{{cite journal |last=Gnuse |first=Robert K. |date=May 2015 |title=Seven Gay Texts: Biblical Passages Used to Condemn Homosexuality |journal=Biblical Theology Bulletin |publisher=SAGE Publications on behalf of Biblical Theology Bulletin Inc. |volume=45 |issue=2 |pages=68–87 |doi=10.1177/0146107915577097 |issn=1945-7596 |s2cid=170127256}}{{cite book|last1=Koenig|first1=Harold G.|last2=Dykman|first2=Jackson|title=Religion and Spirituality in Psychiatry|year=2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=9780521889520|pages=43|quote=the overwhelming majority of Christian churches have maintained their positions that homosexual behavior is sinful}} Persecutions against homosexuality rose during the High Middle Ages, reaching their height during the Medieval Inquisitions, when the sects of Cathars and Waldensians were accused of fornication and sodomy, alongside accusations of satanism. In 1307, accusations of sodomy and homosexuality were major charges leveled during the Trial of the Knights Templar.G. Legman "The Guilt of the Templars" (New York: Basic Books, 1966): 11. The theologian Thomas Aquinas was influential in linking condemnations of homosexuality with the idea of natural law, arguing that "special sins are against nature, as, for instance, those that run counter to the intercourse of male and female natural to animals, and so are peculiarly qualified as unnatural vices."Crompton, Louis, Homosexuality and Civilization, Harvard University, 2003. p. 187

The Renaissance saw intense oppression of homosexual relationships by the Roman Catholic Church. Homosexual activity radically passes from being completely legal in most of Europe to incurring the death penalty in most European states.John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980) p. 293. {{ISBN?}} In France, first-offending sodomites lost their testicles, second offenders lost their penis, and third offenders were burned. Women caught in same-sex acts would be mutilated and executed as well.Fone, Byrne R. S. (2000). Homophobia: A History. New York: Metropolitan Books. {{ISBN|0-8050-4559-7}}. Thomas Aquinas argued that sodomy was second only to murder in the ranking of sins. The church used every means at its disposal to fight what it considered to be the "corruption of sodomy". Men were fined or jailed; boys were flogged. The harshest punishments, such as burning at the stake, were usually reserved for crimes committed against the very young, or by violence. The Spanish Inquisition begins in 1480, sodomites were stoned, castrated, and burned. Between 1540 and 1700, more than 1,600 people were prosecuted for sodomy. In 1532 the Holy Roman Empire made sodomy punishable by death. The following year King Henry VIII passed the Buggery Act 1533 making all male-male sexual activity punishable by death.R v Jacobs (1817) Russ & Ry 331 confirmed that buggery related only to intercourse per anum by a man with a man or woman or intercourse per anum or per vaginum by either a man or a woman with an animal. Other forms of "unnatural intercourse" may amount to indecent assault or gross indecency, but do not constitute buggery. See generally, Smith & Hogan, Criminal Law (10th ed), {{ISBN|0-406-94801-1}}

Florence had a homosexual subculture, which included age-structured relationships.Stephen J. Milner, At the Margins: Minority Groups in Premodern Italy, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2005, {{ISBN|0-8166-3820-9}}, p. 62. In 1432 the city established Gli Ufficiali di Notte (The Officers of the Night) to root out the practice of sodomy. From that year until 1502, the number of men charged with sodomy numbered more than 17,000, of whom 3,000 were convicted. This number also included heterosexual sodomy.

The reputation of Florence is reflected in the fact that the Germans adopted the word {{Lang|de|Florenzer}} to refer to a "sodomite".Rocke, Michael, (1996), Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and male Culture in Renaissance Florence, {{ISBN|978-0-19-512292-3}}Ruggiero, Guido, (1985), The Boundaries of Eros, {{ISBN|978-0-19-505696-9}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021|reason=Both sources don’t add page numbers.}} The association of foreignness with homosexuality gradually became a cornerstone of homophobic rhetoric throughout Europe, and it was used in a calumnious perspective. For example, the French would call "homosexuality" the "Italian vice" in the 16th and 17th centuries, the "English vice" in the 18th century, the {{Lang|fr|mœurs orientales}} (oriental mores) in the 19th century, and the "German vice" starting from 1870 and into the 20th century.Revenin, Homosexualité et prostitution masculines à Paris : 1870–1918, 102–03.

Image:Vitahomosexualis.JPG and against §175—a copy from the library of the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, confiscated on 6 May 1933, annotated on the endpaper: "Destined for destruction in accordance with the Reichspresident's decree of 28 February 1933!" and hidden from the public (label "Secr.") as Nazi plunder at the Prussian State Library.]]

The developing field of psychology was the first way homosexuality could be directly addressed aside from Biblical condemnation. In Europe, homosexuality had been part of case studies since the 1790s with Johann Valentin Müller's work.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127–52}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} The studies of this era tended to be rigorous examination of "criminals", looking to confirm guilt and establish patterns for future prosecutions. Ambroise Tardieu in France believed he could identify "pederasts" affirming that the sex organs are altered by homosexuality in his 1857 publishing.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127–52}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} François Charles's exposé, {{Lang|fr|Les Deux Prostitutions: études de pathologie sociale}} ("The Two Prostitutions: Study of the Social Pathology"), developed methods for police to persecute through meticulous documentation of homosexuality.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127–52}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} Others include Johann Caspar and Otto Westphal, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Richard von Krafft-Ebing's 1886 publication, Psychopathia Sexualis, was the most widely translated work of this kind.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127–52}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} He and Ulrichs believed that homosexuality was congenitally based, but Krafft-Ebing differed; in that, he asserted that homosexuality was a symptom of other psychopathic behavior that he viewed to be an inherited disposition to degeneracy.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127–52}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}}

Degeneracy became a widely acknowledged theory for homosexuality during the 1870s and 1880s.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127–52}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} It spoke to the eugenic and Social Darwinist theories of the late 19th century. Benedict Augustin Morel is considered the father of degeneracy theory.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127–52}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} His theories posit that physical, intellectual, and moral abnormalities come from disease, urban over-population, malnutrition, alcohol, and other failures of his contemporary society.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127–52}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}}

An important shift in the terminology of homosexuality was brought about by the development of psychology's inquisition into homosexuality. "Contrary sexual feeling",{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127–52}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} as Westphal's phrased it, and the word "homosexual" itself made their way into the Western lexicons. Homosexuality had a name aside from the ambiguous term "sodomy" and the elusive "abomination". As Michel Foucault phrases it, "the sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species."{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127–52}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}}

To this day, historians are still arguing about the question of the Sexuality of Frederick the Great (1712–1786), which essentially revolves around the taboo of whether the myth of one of the greatest war heroes in world history is allowed to be psychologically deconstructed.{{cite news|first=Oliver|last=Das Gupta|date=23 January 2012|language=de|title=Der Schwule Fritz|trans-title=The Gay Fritz|url=https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/friedrich-preussen-schwul-1.1264396|periodical=Süddeutsche Zeitung|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210217152513/https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/friedrich-preussen-schwul-1.1264396|archive-date=17 February 2021}}

{{Main|Timeline of LGBT history in Britain}}

Following the codification of anti-sodomy laws with the Buggery Act 1533, homosexual sex and relationships were greatly looked down upon and civilly prosecuted.{{Cite journal|last=Johnson|first=Paul|date=October 2019|title=Buggery and Parliament, 1533–2017|journal=Parliamentary History|language=en|volume=38|issue=3|pages=325–41|doi=10.1111/1750-0206.12463|issn=0264-2824|doi-access=free}} Although section 61 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 removed the death penalty for homosexuality, male homosexual acts remained illegal and were punishable by imprisonment.

In contrast, lesbian relationships were frequently overlooked and legal codes that targeted homosexuality often did not cover sapphic love.{{Cite book|last=Marcus, Sharon|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/608173197|title=Between women : friendship, desire, and marriage in Victorian England|date=2007|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-3085-5|location=Princeton|oclc=608173197|access-date=December 8, 2020|archive-date=April 1, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210401102726/https://www.worldcat.org/title/between-women-friendship-desire-and-marriage-in-victorian-england/oclc/608173197|url-status=live}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021|reason=No page numbers.}} In one Scottish court case, a judge deemed sexual relationships between two women imaginary.{{Cite journal|last=Moore|first=Lisa|date=Autumn 1992|title="Something More Tender Still than Friendship": Romantic Friendship in Early-Nineteenth-Century England|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3178079|journal=Feminist Studies|volume=18|issue=3|pages=499–520|doi=10.2307/3178079|jstor=3178079|access-date=December 8, 2020|hdl=2027/spo.0499697.0018.304|hdl-access=free}} Only in cases where women broke gender roles and crossed into masculinity were they punished with public whippings and banishment, much less severe than their gay male counterparts.{{Cite journal|last=Vicinus|first=Martha|date=1992|title="They Wonder to Which Sex I Belong": The Historical Roots of the Modern Lesbian Identity|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3178078|journal=Feminist Studies|volume=18|issue=3|pages=467–97|doi=10.2307/3178078|jstor=3178078|issn=0046-3663|access-date=December 8, 2020|hdl=2027/spo.0499697.0018.303|hdl-access=free}} However, Ballads celebrating cross-dressing female soldiers circulated during the Napoleonic Wars, frequently depicting women donning male garb flirting with men and occasionally even "female husbands" would appear.{{Cite journal|date=January 2015|title=Book Reviews|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7560/jhs24107|journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality|volume=24|issue=1|pages=154–76|doi=10.7560/jhs24107|issn=1043-4070|access-date=December 8, 2020|archive-date=April 1, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210401102715/https://www.utexaspressjournals.org/doi/10.7560/JHS24107|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}

Various authors wrote on the topic of homosexuality. In 1735, Conyers Place wrote "Reason Insufficient Guide to Conduct Mankind in Religion".{{cite web|url=http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/philoso.htm|title=Homosexuality in 18th-cent. England: Immorality of the Ancient Philosophers, 1735|website=rictornorton.co.uk|access-date=July 13, 2017|archive-date=November 5, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171105213007/http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/philoso.htm|url-status=live}} In 1749, Thomas Cannon wrote "Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified".Cannon, Thomas. "The Indictment of John Purser, Containing Thomas Cannon's Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd." Edited by Hal Gladfelder and Dudley Ryder Knight. Eighteenth-Century Life (Duke University Press) 31, no. 1 (2007): 39–61. In August, 1772, The Morning Chronicle publishes a series of letters to the editor about the trial of Captain Robert Jones.{{cite web|url=http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/jones2.htm|title=Homosexuality in 18th-cent. England: The Trial of Robert Jones, 1772|website=rictornorton.co.uk|access-date=July 13, 2017|archive-date=July 31, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170731071237/http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/jones2.htm|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/jones5.htm|title=The First Public Debate about Homosexuality in England: Letters and Editorials in the Morning Chronicle concerning the Case of Captain Jones, 1772|website=rictornorton.co.uk|access-date=July 13, 2017|archive-date=November 5, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171105212001/http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/jones5.htm|url-status=live}} In 1773, Charles Crawford wrote "A Dissertation on the Phaedon of Plato".{{cite web|url=http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1773plat.htm|title=Homosexualitiy in Eighteenth-Century England: Plato the Pederast|website=rictornorton.co.uk|access-date=July 13, 2017|archive-date=December 6, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171206111403/http://www.rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1773plat.htm|url-status=live}}

File:Anne Lister Restoration.jpg

Molly houses appeared in 18th century London and other large cities. A Molly house is an archaic 18th century English term for a tavern or private room where homosexual and cross-dressing men could meet each other and possible sexual partners. Patrons of the Molly house would sometimes enact mock weddings, sometimes with the bride giving birth. Margaret Clap (?–{{circa|1726}}), better known as Mother Clap, ran such a Molly house from 1724 to 1726 in Holborn, London. She was also heavily involved in the ensuing legal battles after her premises were raided by the police and shut down. Molly houses were perhaps the first precursors to the modern gay bar.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, male commentary on lesbian relationships became more common and increasingly eroticized.{{Cite journal|last=Vicinus|first=Martha|date=Autumn 1992|title="They Wonder to Which Sex I Belong": The Historical Roots of the Modern Lesbian Identity|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3178078|journal=Feminist Studies|volume=18|issue=3|pages=467–97|doi=10.2307/3178078|jstor=3178078|access-date=December 8, 2020|hdl=2027/spo.0499697.0018.303|hdl-access=free}} The publication of Anne Lister's diaries revealed that as early as 1820, educated women had covert sexual and romantic relationships with other women, often while married to men and presenting as close female friendships.{{Cite journal|last=Clark|first=Anna|date=1996|title=Anne Lister's Construction of Lesbian Identity|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3840441|journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality|volume=7|issue=1|pages=23–50|jstor=3840441|pmid=11613422|issn=1043-4070|access-date=December 8, 2020}} Intensely emotional friendships between women were normal in England, making it difficult for scholars to definitively identify same-sex relationships.{{Citation|title=The Morbidification of Love between Women by 19th-century Sexologists|date=1993-12-31|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110976342.306|work=Sexuality and Sexual Behavior|pages=306–23|publisher=K. G. Saur|doi=10.1515/9783110976342.306|isbn=978-3-11-097634-2|access-date=2020-12-11|archive-date=April 1, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210401102716/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110976342.306/html|url-status=live|last1=Faderman|first1=Lillian|url-access=subscription}} However, modern scholars suspect that lesbian subscripts exist within much of the literature published by women, as female characters yearn romantically after other female characters, but that passion is silenced.{{Cite journal|last=Woodward|first=Carolyn|date=1993-07-01|title="My Heart so Wrapt": Lesbian Disruptions in Eighteenth-Century British Fiction|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/494845|journal=Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society|volume=18|issue=4|pages=838–65|doi=10.1086/494845|s2cid=145199784|issn=0097-9740|access-date=December 11, 2020|archive-date=April 1, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210401102716/https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/494845|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}} This is reflected by a large body of same-sex love poetry was written by women.{{Cite journal|last=White|first=Christine|date=June 1990|title='Poets and lovers evermore': Interpreting female love in the poetry and journals of Michael Field|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09502369008582086|journal=Textual Practice|language=en|volume=4|issue=2|pages=197–212|doi=10.1080/09502369008582086|issn=0950-236X|access-date=December 8, 2020|archive-date=April 1, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210401102710/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09502369008582086|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}

Oscar Wilde, the Irish author and playwright, played an important role in bringing homosexuality into the public eye. The scandal in British society and subsequent court case from 1895 to 1896 was highly discussed not only in Europe, but also in America, although newspapers like The New York Times concentrated on the question of blackmail, only alluding to the homosexual aspects as having "a curious meaning", in the first publication on April 4, 1895.Oscar Wilde Plaintiff: Cynicisms on Literature and Manners in an English Court. Marquis of Queensbury's Libel The Writer Rarely Writes What He Believes Is True and Thinks that Self-Realization Is the End of Life.. (1895 April 4). New York Times (1857–1922), p. 5. Retrieved February 1, 2010, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851–2006). After Wilde's arrest, the April 6 New York Times discussed Wilde's case as a question of "immorality" and did not specifically address homosexuality, discussing the men "some as young as 18" that were brought up as witnesses.Oscar Wilde Imprisoned: Worse Than Failure Comes of His Suit for Vindication. Queensbury's Action Justified Jurors Decide in a Subsidiary Verdict that the Marquis's Accusation Was Made for the Public Good. (1895 April 6). New York Times (1857–1922), p. 5. Retrieved February 1, 2010, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851–2006). (Document ID: 102453111). Inspired by Wilde's renown and homosexuality, gay activist Craig Rodwell founded the first United States LGBTQ bookstore on November 24, 1967, and called it the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop.

In Britain, the view of homosexuality as the mark of a deviant mind was not limited to the psychiatric wards of hospitals but also the courts. An extremely famous case was that of Alan Turing, a British mathematician and theoretician. During WWII, Turing worked at Bletchley Park and was one of the major architects of the Colossus computer, designed to break the Enigma codes of the Nazi war machine. For the success of this, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1945.{{cite news|date=June 23, 2012|title=I remember Alan Turing...|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18541715|access-date=July 20, 2018|archive-date=August 7, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180807090557/https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18541715|url-status=live}} In spite of all his brilliance and the services rendered to his country, Turing was also openly homosexual and in the early 1950s this fact came to the attention of the British government when he was arrested under section 11 of an 1885 statute on "gross indecency".Leavitt, David (2007). The man who knew too much: Alan Turing and the invention of the computer. Phoenix. {{ISBN|978-0-7538-2200-5}}. At the time there was great fear that Turing's sexuality could be exploited by Soviet spies, and so he was sentenced to choosing between jail and injections of synthetic estrogen. The choice of the latter led him to massive depression and dying at the age of 41 after biting into an allegedly poisoned apple.{{cite magazine|last=Sorkin|first=Amy Davidson|date=August 10, 2011|title=Alan Turing's Apple|magazine=The New Yorker |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/alan-turings-apple |access-date=March 23, 2018|archive-date=October 23, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181023123022/https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/alan-turings-apple|url-status=live}} Although it is popularly believed that Turing committed suicide, his death was also consistent with accidental poisoning.{{Cite news|date=2012-06-26|title=Alan Turing: Inquest's suicide verdict 'not supportable'|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18561092|access-date=2021-10-13}} It is estimated that an additional 50–75,000 men were persecuted under this law, with only partial repeal taking place in 1967 and the final measure of it in 2003.{{cite web|last=Tabo|first=Tamara|title=The Mistake Behind The Posthumous Pardon Of Alan Turing| date=December 26, 2013 |url=http://abovethelaw.com/2013/12/the-mistake-behind-the-posthumous-pardon-of-alan-turing/|access-date=July 16, 2014|archive-date=July 25, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140725121030/http://abovethelaw.com/2013/12/the-mistake-behind-the-posthumous-pardon-of-alan-turing/|url-status=live}}

{{See also|LGBT history in France|LGBT rights in France|LGBT culture in Paris}}

Written on July 21, 1776, the Letter LXIII became infamous for its frank talk of human sexuality. Mathieu-François Pidansat de Mairobert published the letter in his 1779 book, L'Espion Anglois, Ou {{Typo|Correspondance}} Secrete Entre Milord All'eye et Milord Alle'ar (aka L'Observateur Anglais or L'Espion Anglais) (The English Spy, or Secret Correspondence Between My Lord All'eye and My Lord Alle'ar [aka The English Observer or The English Spy]).{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8DjVhpznqtEC&q=L%27espion+anglois+Mairobert+pederastie&pg=PA26|title=L'espion anglois, ou correspondance secrète entre Milord All'eye et Milord Alle'ar|first=Mathieu-François Pidansat de|last=Mairobert|date=March 23, 1779|publisher=John Adamson|via=Google Books|access-date=October 2, 2020|archive-date=April 1, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210401102734/https://books.google.com/books?id=8DjVhpznqtEC&q=L%27espion+anglois+Mairobert+pederastie&pg=PA26|url-status=live}}

In 1791, Revolutionary France (and Andorra) adopted the French Penal Code of 1791 which no longer criminalized sodomy. France thus became the first West European country to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults.Gunther, Scott (2009). [http://academics.wellesley.edu/French/facultyhomepages/gunther/Scott%20Gunther%20-%20The%20Elastic%20Closet.html "The Elastic Closet: A History of Homosexuality in France, 1942–present"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130603062805/http://academics.wellesley.edu/French/facultyhomepages/gunther/Scott%20Gunther%20-%20The%20Elastic%20Closet.html |date=June 3, 2013 }} Book about the history of homosexual movements in France (sample chapter available online). Palgrave-Macmillan, 2009. {{ISBN|0-230-22105-X}}. Globally, various countries such as Madagascar have never criminalized homosexual activity.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MQvGCQAAQBAJ&dq=madagascar+never+criminalized+homosexual+guide+madagascar&pg=PT46 | isbn=9780241015445 | title=The Rough Guide to Madagascar | date=July 2015 | publisher=Rough Guides UK }}

The Soviet government of the Russian Soviet Republic (RSFSR) decriminalised homosexuality in December 1917, following the October Revolution and the discarding of the Legal Code of Tsarist Russia.Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. E. H. Carr. 1994.

The legalisation of homosexuality was confirmed in the RSFSR Penal Code of 1922, and following its redrafting in 1926. According to Dan Healey, archival material that became widely available following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 "demonstrates a principled intent to decriminalize the act between consenting adults, expressed from the earliest efforts to write a socialist criminal code in 1918 to the eventual adoption of legislation in 1922."Dan Healey, Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia, 2001

The Bolsheviks also rescinded Tsarist legal bans on homosexual civil and political rights, especially in the area of state employment. In 1918, Georgy Chicherin, a homosexual man who kept his homosexuality hidden, was appointed as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR. In 1923, Chicherin was also appointed People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, a position he held until 1930.{{Cite web|title=Vol. 30, No. 2, Apr., 1971 of The Russian Review on JSTOR|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/i207401|access-date=2021-04-28|website=www.jstor.org|language=en}}

In the early 1920s, the Soviet government and scientific community took a great deal of interest in sexual research, sexual emancipation and homosexual emancipation. In January 1923, the Soviet Union sent delegates from the Commissariat of Health led by Commissar of Health SemashkoHomosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia. Healey. pp. 132–133, 309. to the German Institute for Sexual Research as well as to some international conferences on human sexuality between 1921 and 1930, where they expressed support for the legalisation of adult, private and consensual homosexual relations and the improvement of homosexual rights in all nations. In both 1923 and 1925, Dr. {{ill|Grigorii Batkis|ru|Баткис, Григорий Абрамович}}, director of the Institute for Social Hygiene in Moscow, published a report, The Sexual Revolution in Russia, which stated that homosexuality was "perfectly natural" and should be legally and socially respected.Die Sexualrevolution in Russland, Berlin: 1925 Grigorri Batkis In the Soviet Union itself, the 1920s saw developments in serious Soviet research on sexuality in general, sometimes in support of the progressive idea of homosexuality as a natural part of human sexuality, such as the work of Dr. Batkis prior to 1928."Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle", Alexandra Kollontai, Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai, trans. Alix Holt (London: Allison & Busby, 1977), 241.] Such delegations and research were sent and authorised and supported by the People's Commissariat for Health under Commissar Semashko.Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia. Healey. pp. 132–133

{{see also|Friedrich Radszuweit|Adolf Brand|Selli Engler|Lotte Hahm|Anna Rüling|Mädchen in Uniform (1931 film)|Die Freundin|Die Freundschaft|Institut für Sexualwissenschaft}}

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1983-0121-500, Berlin, Bar "Eldorado".jpg (1932) in Berlin ]]

File:Lesbiche - 1928 - D- Die freundin 1928.jpg, 1928]]

Prior to the Third Reich, Berlin was a liberal city, with many gay bars, nightclubs and cabarets. There were even many drag bars where tourists straight and gay would enjoy female impersonation acts. Hitler decried cultural degeneration, prostitution and syphilis in his book Mein Kampf, blaming at least some of the phenomena on Jews.

Berlin also had the most active LGBTQ rights movements in the world at the time. Jewish doctor Magnus Hirschfeld had co-founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK) in Berlin in 1897 to campaign against the notorious "Paragraph 175" of the Penal Code that made sex between men illegal. It also sought social recognition of homosexual and transgender men and women. It was the first public gay rights organization. The Committee had branches in several other countries, thereby being the first international LGBTQ organization, although on a small scale.

In 1919, Hirschfeld had also co-founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Research), a private sexology research institute. It had a research library and a large archive, and included a marriage and sex counseling office. In addition, the institute was a pioneer worldwide in the call for civil rights and social acceptance for homosexual and transgender people. As a leading city for homosexuals during the 1920s, Berlin had clubs and even newspapers for both lesbians and gay men. The lesbian magazine Die Freundin was started by Friedrich Radszuweit and the gay men's magazine Der Eigene had already started in 1896 as the world's first gay magazine. The first gay demonstration ever took place in Nollendorfplatz in 1922 in Berlin,{{cite web|url=https://www.exberliner.com/politics/lgbt-berlin-a-short-history/|title=LGBT Berlin: A short history|date=2015-06-23|website=EXBERLINER.com|language=en-us|access-date=2023-12-01}} gathering 400 homosexuals.{{citation needed|date=March 2013}}

{{Main|Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany}}

Under the rule of Nazi Germany, about 50,000 men were sentenced because of their homosexuality and thousands of them died in concentration camps.{{Cite journal |last=Schwartz |first=Michael |date=2021 |title=Homosexuelle im modernen Deutschland: Eine Langzeitperspektive auf historische Transformationen |trans-title=Homosexuals in Modern Germany: A Long-Term Perspective on Historical Transformations |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/vfzg-2021-0028/pdf |journal=Institut für Zeitgeschichte |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=377–414 |doi=10.1515/vfzg-2021-0028 |s2cid=235689714 |language=German|url-access=subscription }} Gay men were viewed as "inferior" and "animalistic".{{Cite journal |last1=Cuerda-Galindo |first1=Esther |last2=López-Muñoz |first2=Francisco |last3=Krischel |first3=Matthis |last4=Ley |first4=Astrid |date=2017-04-20 |title=Study of deaths by suicide of homosexual prisoners in Nazi Sachsenhausen concentration camp |journal=PLOS ONE |volume=12 |issue=4 |pages=e0176007 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0176007 |issn=1932-6203 |pmc=5398659 |pmid=28426734|bibcode=2017PLoSO..1276007C |doi-access=free }} Conditions for gay men in the camps were especially rough; they faced not only persecution from German soldiers, but also other prisoners, and many gay men were reported to die of beatings.{{Cite book |last=Whisnant |first=Clayton |title=Queer Identities and Politics in Germany: A History, 1880–1945 |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-939594-10-5 |language=en}} Female homosexuality was not, technically, a crime and thus gay women were generally not treated as harshly as gay men.{{Cite web |title=Lesbians and the Third Reich |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lesbians-under-the-nazi-regime |access-date=2022-11-01 |website=encyclopedia.ushmm.org |language=en}} Although there are some scattered reports that gay women were sometimes imprisoned for their sexuality, most would have been imprisoned for other reasons, i.e. "anti-social".

West Germany inherited Paragraph 175 after World War II, which remained on the books until 1969. The first kiss between two men on German television was shown in Rosa von Praunheim's film It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives (1971). This film marks the beginning of the German modern gay liberation movement. In 1993, the last parts of Paragraph 175 were deleted and Germany enacted an equal age of consent.

{{Main|LGBT history in the United States}}

{{See also|History of bisexuals in the United States|History of gay men in the United States|History of lesbianism in the United States|History of transgender people in the United States}}

{{Undue weight|date=December 2021}}

Before the American Civil War and the massive population growth of the Post-Civil War America, the majority of the American population was rural. Homosexuality remained an unseen and taboo concept in society, and the word "homosexuality" was not coined until 1868 In a letter to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs{{cite web |last1=Endres |first1=Nikolai |title=Kertbeny, Károly Mária (1824–1882) |url=http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/kertbeny_km_S.pdf |website=glbtqarchive.com |access-date=17 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221016190150/http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/kertbeny_km_S.pdf |archive-date=16 October 2022 |language=en-US |date=2004 |url-status=live}} by German-Hungarian Karoly Maria Kertbeny (who advocated decriminalization).{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} During this era, homosexuality fell under the umbrella term "sodomy", which comprised all forms of nonproductive sexuality (masturbation and oral sex were sometimes excluded). Without urban sub-cultures or a name for self-definition, group identification and self-consciousness was unlikely.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}}

Mainstream interpretation of {{bibleverse||Leviticus|20:13|KJV}}, {{Bibleverse||Romans|1:26-7|KJV}} and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah were the justification for the severe penalties facing those accused of "sodomy".{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} Most of the laws around homosexuality in the colonies were derived from the English laws of "buggery", and the punishment in all American colonies was death. The penalty for attempted sodomy (both homosexuality and bestiality) was prison, whipping, banishment, or fines. Thomas Jefferson suggested castration as the punishment for sodomy, rape, and polygamy in a proposed revision of the Virginia criminal code near the end of the 18th century.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}}

Pennsylvania was the first state to repeal the death penalty for "sodomy" in 1786 and within a generation all the other colonies followed suit (except North and South Carolina that repealed after the Civil War).{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} Along with the removal of the death penalty during this generation, legal language shifted away from that of damnation to more dispassionate terms like "unmentionable" or "abominable" acts.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} Aside from sodomy and "attempted sodomy" court cases and a few public scandals, homosexuality was seen as peripheral in mainstream society. Lesbianism had no legal definition largely given Victorian notions of female sexuality.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}}

A survey of sodomy law enforcement during the nineteenth century suggests that a significant minority of cases did not specify the gender of the "victim" or accused. Most cases were argued as non-consensual or rape.Mucciaroni, Gary. Same Sex, Different Politics. Chicago UP. pp. 117–28. 2008 The first prosecution for consensual sex between people of the same gender was not until 1880. In response to increasing visibility of alternative genders, gender bending, and homosexuality, a host of laws against vagrancy, public indecency, disorderly conduct, and indecent exposure was introduced across the United States. "Sodomy" laws also shifted in many states over the beginning of the twentieth century to address homosexuality specifically (many states during the twentieth century made heterosexual anal intercourse legal). In some states, these laws would last until they were repealed by the Supreme Court in 2003 with the Lawrence decision.

{{One source section| date = June 2021}}

Male homosexuality found its first social foothold in the 19th century not in sexuality or homoerotica, but in idealized conception of the wholesome and loving male friendship during the 19th century. Or as contemporary author Theodore Winthrop in Cecil Dreeme writes, "a friendship I deemed more precious than the love of women."{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} This ideal came from and was enforced by the male-centric institutions of boy's boarding schools, all-male colleges, the military, the frontier, etc.—fictional and non-fiction accounts of passionate male friendships became a theme present in American Literature and social conceptions of masculinity.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}}

New York, as America's largest city exponentially growing during the 19th century (doubling from 1800 to 1820 and again by 1840 to a population of 300,000), saw the beginnings of a homosexual subculture concomitantly growing with the population.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} Continuing the theme of loving male friendship, the American poet, Walt Whitman arrived in New York in 1841.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} He was immediately drawn to young working-class men found in certain parks, public baths, the docks, and some bars and dance halls.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} He kept records of the men and boys, usually noting their ages, physical characteristics, jobs, and origins.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} Dispersed in his praise of the city are moments of male admiration, such as in Calamus—"frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me robust, athletic love" or in poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", where he writes:

{{Poem quote|text=Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me

approaching or passing,

Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as

I sat,

Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a

word,

Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,

Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,

The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,

Or as small as we like, or both great and small.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}}}}

Sometimes Whitman's writing verged on explicit, such as in his poem, Native Moments—"I share the midnight orgies of young men / I pick out some low person for my dearest friend. He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate."{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} Poems like these and Calamus (inspired by Whitman's treasured friend and possible lover, Fred Vaughan, who lived with the Whitman family in the 1850s) and the general theme of manly love, functioned as a pseudonym for homosexuality.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} The developing sub-community had a coded voice to draw more homosexuals to New York and other growing American urban centers. Whitman did, however, in 1890 denounce any sexuality in the comradeship of his works, and historians debate whether he was homosexual, bisexual, etc.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69-84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} But this denouncement shows that homosexuality had become a public question by the end of the 19th century.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}}

Twenty years after Whitman came to New York, Horatio Alger continued the theme of manly love in his stories of the young Victorian self-made man.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} He came to New York fleeing from a public scandal with a young man in Cape Cod that forced him to leave the ministry, in 1866.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=69–84}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}}

We'wha (1849–1896) was a notable Zuni weaver, potter and lhamana. Raised as a boy, they would later spend part of their life dressing and living in the roles usually filled by women in Zuni culture, later living and working in roles filled by men, changing depending on the situation. Anthropologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson, a friend of We'wha's who wrote extensively about the Zuni, hosted We'wha and the Zuni delegation when We'wha was chosen as an official emissary to Washington, D.C., in 1886. During this time they met President Grover Cleveland. We'wha had at least one husband, was trained in the customs and rites for the ceremonies for both men and women, and was a respected member of their community. Friends who documented their life used both pronouns for We'wha.Suzanne Bost, Mulattas and Mestizas: Representing Mixed Identities in the Americas, 1850–2000, (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2003), p. 139Matilda Coxe Stevenson, The Zuni Indians: Their Mythology, Esoteric Fraternities, and Ceremonies, BiblioBazaar, 2010. p. 37. Quote: "the most intelligent person in the pueblo. Strong character made his word law among both men and women with whom he associated. Though his wrath was dreaded by men as well as women, he was loved by all children, to whom he was ever kind"

In 1908, the first American defense of homosexuality was published.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127-152}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life, was written by Edward Stevenson under the pseudonym Xavier Mayne.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127-152}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} This 600-page defense detailed Classical examples, but also modern literature and the homosexual subcultures of urban life.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127-152}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} He dedicated the novel to Krafft-Ebing because he argued homosexuality was inherited and, in Stevenson's view and not necessarily Krafft-Ebing's, should not face prejudice. He also wrote one of the first homosexual novels—Imre: A Memorandum.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127-152}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} Also in this era, the earliest known open homosexual in the United States, Claude Hartland, wrote an account of his sexual history.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=90-91}} He affirmed that he wrote it to affront the naivety surrounding sexuality. It was in response to the ignorance he saw while being treated by doctors and psychologists that failed to "cure" him.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=90-91}} Hartland wished his attraction to men could be solely "spiritual", but could not escape the "animal".{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=90-91}}

By this time, society was slowly becoming aware of the homosexual subculture. In an 1898 lecture in Massachusetts, a doctor gave a lecture on this development in modern cities.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127-152}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} With a population around three million at the turn of the 20th century, New York's queer subculture had a strong sense of self-definition and began redefining itself on its own terms. "Middle class queer", "fairies", were among the terminology of the underground world of the Lower East Side.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127-152}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} But with this growing public presence, backlash occurred. The YMCA, who ironically promoted a similar image to that of the Whitman's praise of male brotherhood and athletic prowess, took a chief place in the purity campaigns of the epoch. Anthony Comstock, a salesman and leader of YMCA in Connecticut and later head of his own New York Society for the Suppression of Vice successfully pressed Congress and many state legislatures to pass strict censorship laws.{{Harvnb|Edsall|2003|pp=127-152}}{{Page needed|date=June 2021}} Ironically, the YMCA became a site of homosexual conduct. In 1912, a scandal hit Oregon where more than 50 men, many prominent in the community, were arrested for homosexual activity. In reaction to this scandal conflicting with public campaigns, YMCA leadership began to look the other way on this conduct.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

File:WeMustGrowAMustache.jpg

The 1920s ushered in a new era of social acceptance of minorities and homosexuals, at least in heavily urbanized areas. This was reflected in many of the films (see Pre-Code) of the decade that openly made references to homosexuality. Even popular songs poked fun at the new social acceptance of homosexuality. One of these songs had the title "Masculine Women, Feminine Men".The song was written by Edgar Leslie (words) and James V. Monaco (music) and featured in Hugh J. Ward's production of the musical Lady Be Good. It was released in 1926 and recorded by numerous artists of the day and included the following lyrics:Artists who recorded this song include: 1. Frank Harris (Irving Kaufman), (Columbia 569D,1/29/26) 2. Bill Meyerl & Gwen Farrar (UK, 1926) 3. Joy Boys (UK, 1926) 4. Harry Reser's Six Jumping Jacks (UK, 2/13/26) 5. Hotel Savoy Opheans (HMV 5027, UK, 1927, aka Savoy Havana Band) 6. Merrit Brunies & His Friar's Inn Orchestra on Okeh 40593, 3/2/26. An exhibit of early-twentieth-century postcards depicting "Masculine Women and Feminine Men" is available at: {{cite web|url=http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Main_Page |title=Main Page—OutHistory |access-date=2008-10-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006032632/http://outhistory.org/wiki/Main_Page |archive-date=October 6, 2008 }}

{{Poem quote |

Masculine women, Feminine men

Which is the rooster, which is the hen?

It's hard to tell 'em apart today! And, say!

Sister is busy learning to shave,

Brother just loves his permanent wave,

It's hard to tell 'em apart today! Hey, hey!

Girls were girls and boys were boys when I was a tot,

Now we don't know who is who, or even what's what!

Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide,

Nobody knows who's walking inside,

Those masculine women and feminine men!{{cite web|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.mus-an6301650|title=Masculine women! Feminine men! [music]|website=nla.gov.au|access-date=July 17, 2007|archive-date=October 13, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013212916/http://nla.gov.au/nla.mus-an6301650|url-status=live}}}}

Homosexuals received a level of acceptance that was not seen again until the 1970s. Until the early 1930s, gay clubs were openly operated, commonly known as "pansy clubs". The relative liberalism of the decade is demonstrated by the fact that the actor William Haines, regularly named in newspapers and magazines as the number-one male box-office draw, openly lived in a gay relationship with his lover, Jimmie Shields.Mann, William J., Wisecracker : the life and times of William Haines, Hollywood's first openly gay star. New York: Viking, 1998: 2–6. Other popular gay actors/actresses of the decade included Alla Nazimova and Ramon Novarro.Mann, William J., Wisecracker : the life and times of William Haines, Hollywood's first openly gay star. New York: Viking, 1998: 12–13, 80–83. In 1927, Mae West wrote a play about homosexuality called The Drag, and alluded to the work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. It was a box-office success. West regarded talking about sex as a basic human rights issue, and was also an early advocate of gay rights. With the return of conservatism in the 1930s, the public grew intolerant of homosexuality, and gay actors were forced to choose between retiring or agreeing to hide their sexuality.

By 1935, the United States had become conservative once again. Victorian values and morals, which had been widely ridiculed during the 1920s, became fashionable once again. During this period, life was harsh for homosexuals as they were forced to hide their behavior and identity in order to escape ridicule and even imprisonment. Many laws were passed against homosexuals during this period, and it was declared to be a mental illness. Many police forces conducted operations to arrest homosexuals by using young undercover cops to get them to make propositions to them.{{Cite journal|last=Eskridge|first=William N. Jr. .|title="Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet: Establishing Conditions for Lesbian and Gay Intimacy, Nomos, and Citizenship, 1961–1981|url=http://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1972&context=hlr|journal=Hofstra Law Review|volume=25: Iss. 3, Article 7.|access-date=October 11, 2016|archive-date=October 11, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161011223639/http://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1972&context=hlr|url-status=live}}

By the 1930s both fruit and fruitcake as well as numerous other words were seen as not only negative but also to mean male homosexual,{{cite book |last=Dunkling |first=Leslie |author-link=Leslie Dunkling|title=A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address |publisher=Routledge |date=1990 |url = https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofepit0000dunk |url-access=registration |access-date=2007-11-15 |isbn=978-0-415-00761-0}} although probably not universally. LGBTQ people were widely diagnosed as diseased with the potential for being cured, thus were regularly "treated" with castration,{{cite journal |last=Talbot |first=E.S. |author2=Ellis, Havelock |year=1896 |title=A Case of Developmental Degenerative Insanity, with Sexual Inversion, Melancholia, Following Removal of Testicles, Attempted Murder and Suicide |journal=Journal of Mental Science |volume=42 |issue=177 |pages=341–44 |doi=10.1192/bjp.42.177.340 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/2133297 |access-date=July 3, 2019 |archive-date=February 16, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200216162115/https://zenodo.org/record/2133297 |url-status=live }}{{cite journal |year=1929 |title=Results of Castration in Sexual Abnormalities |journal=Urologic & Cutaneous Review |volume=33 |page=351 }}{{cite book |last=Kronemeyer |first=Robert |title=Overcoming Homosexuality |year=1980 |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=0-02-566850-1 |pages=81, 87 |quote=In the 1950s and 1960s, lobotomies ... were administered promiscuously in the treatment of homosexuals.}} lobotomies,{{cite journal |last=Friedlander |first=Joseph |author2=Banay, Ralph S. |year=1948 |title=Psychosis Following Lobotomy in a Case of Sexual Psychopathology; Report of a Case |journal=Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry |volume=59 |issue=3 |pages=303–11, 315, 321 |doi=10.1001/archneurpsyc.1948.02300380031003|pmid=18874263 }} pudic nerve surgery,{{cite journal |year=1904 |title=The Gentleman Degenerate. A Homosexualist's Self-Description and Self-Applied Title. Pudic Nerve Section Fails Therapeutically |journal=Alienist & Neurologist |volume=25 |pages=68–70 }} and electroshock treatment.{{cite journal |last=Max |first=Louis William |year=1935 |title=Breaking Up a Homosexual Fixation by the Condition Reaction Technique: A Case Study |journal=Psychological Bulletin |volume=32 |page=734 | doi = 10.1037/h0052493}}{{cite journal |last=Liebman |first=Samuel |year=1944 |title=Homosexuality, Transvestism, and Psychosis: Study of a Case Treated with Electroshock |journal=Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease |volume=99 |pages=945–57 |doi=10.1097/00005053-194406000-00008|s2cid=147139681 }} So transferring the meaning of fruitcake, nutty, to someone who is deemed insane, or crazy, may have seemed rational at the time and many apparently believed that LGBTQ people were mentally unsound. In the United States, psychiatric institutions ("mental hospitals") where many of these procedures were carried out were called "fruitcake factories" while in 1960s Australia they were called "fruit factories".Green, Jonathon (2006). Cassell's Dictionary of Slang. Sterling Publishing. p. 549. {{ISBN|978-0-304-36636-1}}. Retrieved 2007-11-16.

File:WAC Air Controller by Dan V. Smith.jpg WAC Air Controller artist: Dan V. Smith]]

As the US entered World War II in 1941, women were provided opportunities to volunteer for their country and almost 250,000 women served in the armed forces, mostly in the Women's Army Corps (WAC), two-thirds of whom were single and under the age of twenty-five. Women were recruited with posters showing muscular, short-haired women wearing tight-fitting tailored uniforms. Many lesbians joined the WAC to meet other women and to do "men's work".{{cite web |last=Bérubé |first=Allan |title=Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two |publisher=New York: Plume |year=1991 |page=30 |url=http://www.isreview.org/issues/37/gay_oppression.shtml |access-date=2007-08-22 |archive-date=November 7, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071107113116/http://www.isreview.org/issues/37/gay_oppression.shtml |url-status=live }} Few were rejected for lesbianism, and found that being strong or having masculine appearance—characteristics associated with homosexual women—aided in the work as mechanics and motor vehicle operators. A popular Fleischmann's Yeast advertisement showed a WAC riding a motorcycle with the heading "This is no time to be frail".{{cite web |last=Bérubé |first=Allan |title=Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two, photo inserts. |publisher=New York: Plume |date=1991 |page=photo inserts, 4 |url=http://www.isreview.org/issues/37/gay_oppression.shtml |access-date=2007-08-22 |archive-date=November 7, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071107113116/http://www.isreview.org/issues/37/gay_oppression.shtml |url-status=live }} Some recruits appeared at their inductions wearing men's clothing and their hair slicked back in the classic butch style of out lesbians of the time.{{cite journal |last=Wolf |first=Sherry |title=The Roots of Gay Oppression: The Second World War |journal=International Socialist Review (1997) |year=2004 |issue=37 |url=http://www.isreview.org/issues/37/gay_oppression.shtml |access-date=2007-08-22 |archive-date=November 7, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071107113116/http://www.isreview.org/issues/37/gay_oppression.shtml |url-status=live }} Post-war many women including lesbians declined opportunities to return to traditional gender roles and helped redefine societal expectations that fed the women's movement, Civil Rights Movement and gay liberation movement. The war effort greatly shifted American culture and by extension representations in entertainment of both the nuclear family and LGBTQ people. In mostly same sex quarters service members were more easily able to express their interests and find willing partners of all sexualities.

From 1942 to 1947, WWII conscientious objectors in the US assigned to psychiatric hospitals under Civilian Public Service exposed abuses throughout the psychiatric care system and were instrumental in reforms of the 1940s and 1950s.{{Cite web |last=Shapiro |first=Joseph |date=December 30, 2009 |title=WWII Pacifists Exposed Mental Ward Horrors |url=https://www.npr.org/2009/12/30/122017757/wwii-pacifists-exposed-mental-ward-horrors |access-date=November 9, 2023 |website=NPR}}

{{Main|Lavender Scare}}

The Lavender Scare was an early example of institutionalized homophobia, resulting from a moral panic over the employment of homosexuals in the government, particularly the State Department. A key aspect of the moral panic was the idea that homosexuals were particularly vulnerable to communist blackmail and so constituted a security risk.{{Cite book|title=The Lavender Scare|last=Johnson|first=David K.|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|year=2004|location=Chicago}} However, issues of morality were also present, with homosexuals being accused of lacking moral fiber and emotional stability.{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2016/summer/lavender.html|title="These People Are Frightened to Death": Congressional Investigations and the Lavender Scare|date=2016-08-15|website=National Archives|language=en|access-date=2019-10-31}}

{{Main|Stonewall riots|Stonewall Inn}}

{{Further|Stonewall National Monument|National LGBTQ Wall of Honor|LGBT culture in New York City}}

Although the June 28, 1969, Stonewall riots are generally considered the starting point of the modern gay liberation movement, a number of demonstrations and actions took place before that date. These actions, often organized by local homophile organizations but sometimes spontaneous, addressed concerns ranging from anti-gay discrimination in employment and public accommodations to the exclusion of homosexuals from the United States military to police harassment to the treatment of homosexuals in revolutionary Cuba. The early actions have been credited with preparing the LGBTQ community for Stonewall and contributing to the riots' symbolic power. See: List of LGBT actions in the United States prior to the Stonewall riots

In the autumn of 1959, the police force of New York City's Wagner administration began closing down the city's gay bars, which had numbered almost two dozen in Manhattan at the beginning of the year. This crackdown was largely the result of a sustained campaign by the right-wing NY Mirror newspaper columnist Lee Mortimer. Existing gay bars were quickly closed and new ones lasted only a short time. The election of John Lindsay in 1965 signaled a major shift in city politics, and a new attitude toward sexual mores began changing the social atmosphere of New York. On April 21, 1966, Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell president and vice president respectively of the New York Mattachine Society and Mattachine activist John Timmons staged the Sip-In at Julius' Bar on West 10th Street in Greenwich Village. This resulted in the anti-gay accommodation rules of the NY State Liquor Authority being overturned in subsequent court actions. These SLA provisions declared that it was illegal for homosexuals to congregate and be served alcoholic beverages in bars. An example of when these laws had been upheld is in 1940 when Gloria's, a bar that had been closed for such violations, fought the case in court and lost. Prior to this change in the law, the business of running a gay bar had to involve paying bribes to the police and Mafia. As soon as the law was altered, the SLA ceased closing legally licensed gay bars and such bars could no longer be prosecuted for serving gays and lesbians. Mattachine pressed this advantage very quickly and Mayor Lindsay was confronted with the issue of police entrapment in gay bars, resulting in this practice being stopped. On the heels of this victory, the mayor cooperated in getting questions about homosexuality removed from NYC hiring practices. The police and fire departments resisted the new policy, however, and refused to cooperate.

The result of these changes in the law, combined with the open social- and sexual-attitudes of the late Sixties, led to the increased visibility of gay life in New York. Several licensed gay bars were in operation in Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side, as well as illegal, unlicensed places serving alcohol, such as the Stonewall Inn and the Snakepit, both in Greenwich Village. The Stonewall riots were a series of violent conflicts between gay men, drag queens, transsexuals, and lesbians against a police officer raid in New York City. The first night of rioting began on Friday, June 27, 1969, at about 1:20 am, when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar operating without a state license in Greenwich Village. Stonewall is considered a turning point for the modern gay rights movement worldwide. Newspaper coverage of the events was minor in the city, since, in the Sixties, huge marches and mass rioting had become commonplace and the Stonewall disturbances were relatively small. It was the commemorative march one year later, organized by the impetus of Craig Rodwell, owner of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, which drew 5,000 marchers up New York City's Sixth Avenue, that drew nationwide publicity and put the Stonewall events on the historical map and led to the modern-day pride marches. A new period of liberalism in the late 1960s began a new era of more social acceptance for homosexuality which lasted until the late 1970s. In the 1970s, the popularity of disco music and its culture in many ways made society more accepting of gays and lesbians. On June 27, 2019, the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor was inaugurated at the Stonewall Inn, as part of the Stonewall National Monument.{{cite web |title=National LGBTQ Wall Of Honor Unveiled At Historic Stonewall Inn |url=https://www.thetaskforce.org/nationallgbtqwallofhonortobeunveiled/ |website=thetaskforce.org |publisher=National LGBTQ Task Force |access-date=April 17, 2023 |date=June 27, 2019}}

{{Disputed section|date=May 2014}}

The 1980s in LGBTQ history are marked with the emergence of HIV. During the early period of the outbreak of HIV, the epidemic of HIV was commonly linked to gay men.

In the 1980s a renewed conservative movement spawned a new anti-gay movement in the United States, particularly with the help of the Religious Right (Evangelicals in particular), however, by the later part of the decade the general public started to show more sympathy and even tolerance for gays as the toll for AIDS related deaths continued to rise to include heterosexuals as well as cultural icons such as Rock Hudson and Liberace, who also died from the condition. Also, despite the more conservative period, life in general for gays and lesbians was considerably better in contrast to the pre-Stonewall era.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

Testifying to improved conditions, a 1991 Wall Street Journal survey found that homosexuals, in comparison with average Americans, were three times more likely to be college graduates, three times more likely to hold professional or managerial positions, with average salaries $30,000 higher than the norm.[https://books.google.com/books?id=Nayo9QVuJs8C&pg=PA139 The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200112100059/https://books.google.com/books?id=Nayo9QVuJs8C&pg=PA139 |date=January 12, 2020 }}), Michael Bronski. Macmillan, 2000.{{ISBN|978-0-312-25287-8}}. p. 139.

The first US state to decriminalize sodomy was Illinois in 1961.Mucciaroni, Gary. Same Sex, Different Politics. Chicago UP. Pg. 123. 2008 It was not until 1969 that another state would follow (Connecticut), but the 1970s and 80s saw the decriminalization throughout the majority of the United States. The 14 states that did not repeal these laws until 2003 were forced to by the landmark United States Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas.

{{See also|Transgender rights in the United States}}

Brooklyn Liberation March, the largest transgender-rights demonstration in LGBTQ history, took place on June 14, 2020, stretching from Grand Army Plaza to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, focused on supporting Black transgender lives, drawing an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 participants.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/nyregion/brooklyn-black-trans-parade.html|title=How a March for Black Trans Lives Became a Huge Event|author=Anushka Patil|newspaper=The New York Times|date=June 15, 2020|access-date=June 28, 2020|archive-date=June 27, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200627222413/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/nyregion/brooklyn-black-trans-parade.html|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/shannonkeating/pride-protest-black-trans-rally-brooklyn-liberation-lgbtq|title=Corporate Pride Events Can't Happen This Year. Let's Keep It That Way|author=Shannon Keating| website=BuzzFeed News |date=June 6, 2020|access-date=June 28, 2020|archive-date=June 26, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200626054856/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/shannonkeating/pride-protest-black-trans-rally-brooklyn-liberation-lgbtq|url-status=live}}

Several public schools have opened with a specific mission to create a "safe" place for LGBTQ students and allies, including Harvey Milk High School in New York City, and The Alliance School of Milwaukee. The Social Justice High School-Pride Campus is proposed for Chicago,{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95565768 |title=Chicago Proposes Gay-Friendly High School |publisher=NPR |access-date=2013-11-02 |archive-date=April 29, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170429094508/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95565768 |url-status=live }} and a number of private schools have also identified as "gay friendly", such as the Elisabeth Irwin High School in New York City.

In 2012, for the first time, two American school districts celebrated LGBT History Month; the Broward County school district in Florida signed a resolution in September in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, and later that year the Los Angeles school district, America's second-largest, also signed on.{{cite news |url=http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/08/two-school-districts-recognize-lgbt-month/?hpt=us_bn1 |title=Two school districts recognize LGBTQ Month |department=In America (blog) |publisher=CNN |access-date=2013-11-02 |archive-date=January 2, 2013 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130102074209/http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/08/two-school-districts-recognize-lgbt-month/?hpt=us_bn1 |url-status=dead }}

{{Main|Same-sex marriage}}

{{World homosexuality laws map|align=right|size=350px}}

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, there has been a growing movement in a number of countries to regard marriage as a right which should be extended to same-sex couples. Legal recognition of a marital union opens up a wide range of entitlements, including social security, taxation, inheritance and other benefits unavailable to couples not married, in the eyes of the law. Restricting legal recognition to opposite-sex couples prevents same-sex couples from gaining access to the legal benefits of marriage. Though certain rights can be replicated by legal means other than marriage (for example, by drawing-up contracts), many cannot, such as inheritance, hospital visitation and immigration. Lack of legal recognition also makes it more difficult for same-sex couples to adopt children.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

The first country to legalize same-sex marriages was the Netherlands (2001) under Queen Beatrix,{{cite web|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-04/gay-marriage-same-sex-partners-can-wed-in-many-countries |title=In 14 Years, Same-Sex Marriage Has Spread Around the World |first=Caroline |last=Winter |date=4 December 2014 |publisher=Bloomberg |access-date=2022-04-05}} while the first marriages were performed in the Amsterdam city hall on April 1, 2001. {{as of|2022|July}}, same-sex marriages are legal nationally in thirty-one countries: the Netherlands (2001), Belgium (2003), Spain and Canada (2005), South Africa (2006), Norway and Sweden (2009), Portugal, Iceland and Argentina (2010), Denmark (2012), Brazil, France, Uruguay, New Zealand (2013), United Kingdom (without Northern Ireland 2015) and Luxembourg (2014), Ireland (2015), Colombia (2016), Finland, Germany (2017), Malta (2017), Australia (2018), Taiwan, Ecuador, Austria (2019), Costa Rica (2020), Chile, Switzerland and Slovenia (2022). In Mexico, same-sex marriage is recognized in all states, but performed only in Mexico City, where it became effective on March 4, 2010.{{cite web | author=Carlos Áviles Allende | publisher=El Universal | title=Ratifica corte, bodas gay, válidas en todo el país | date=August 10, 2010 | url=http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/700789.html | access-date=September 23, 2010 | language=es | archive-date=June 21, 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130621011837/http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/700789.html | url-status=live }}{{cite web | last=Archundia | first=Mónica | publisher=El Universal | title=La primera unión gay, para marzo | date=January 5, 2010 | url=http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/ciudad/99607.html | access-date=January 5, 2010 | language=es | archive-date=June 21, 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130621014613/http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/ciudad/99607.html | url-status=live }}

Same-sex marriage was effectively legalized in the United States on June 26, 2015, following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.{{cite news|last1=Liptak|first1=Adam|title=Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules, 5–4|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html|website=New York Times|date=June 26, 2015|access-date=26 June 2015|archive-date=May 16, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190516211629/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html|url-status=live}}{{cite web|title=Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, Director, Ohio, Department of Health, et al.|url=https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf|website=supremecourt.gov|access-date=26 June 2015|archive-date=October 2, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191002050103/https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf|url-status=live}} Prior to Obergefell, lower court decisions, state legislation, and popular referendums had already legalized same-sex marriage to some degree in 38 out of 50 U.S. states, comprising about 70% of the U.S. population. Federal benefits were previously extended to lawfully married same-sex couples following the Supreme Court's June 2013 decision in United States v. Windsor.

{{Main|Gay–straight alliance}}

Since the mid-1970s, students at high schools and universities have organized LGBTQ groups, often called Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) at their respective schools.{{cite web|url=http://www.amsa.org/news/release2.cfx?id=279|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090213233143/http://www.amsa.org/news/release2.cfx?id=279|url-status=dead|publisher=American Medical Student Association |date=September 13, 2006 |title=Nation's Medical Students Applaud California Osteopathic Medical School's Affirmation of Gay-Straight Alliance |archive-date=February 13, 2009}} The groups form to provide support for LGBTQ students and to promote awareness of LGBTQ issues in the local community. In 1990, a student group named The Other Ten Percentile ({{Langx|he|העשירון האחר}}) was founded by a group of teachers and students in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, becoming the first LGBTQ organization in Jerusalem. Frequently, such groups have been banned or prohibited from meeting or receiving the same recognition as other student groups. For example, in September 2006, Touro University California briefly attempted to ban the school's GSA, the Touro University Gay-Straight Alliance. After student demonstrations and an outcry of support from the American Medical Student Association, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association and the Vallejo City Council, Touro University retracted its revocation of the school's GSA. The university went on to reaffirm its commitment to non-discrimination based on sexual orientation.

In April 2016, the GSA Network changed their name from Gay-Straight Alliance Network to Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network in order to be more inclusive and reflective of youth who make up the organization.

When Heinrich Hössli and K. H. Ulrichs began their pioneering homosexual scholarship in the late 19th century, they found little in the way of comprehensive historical data, except for material from ancient Greece and Islam.Gay histories and cultures: an encyclopedia: Volume 2 of Encyclopedia of lesbian and gay histories and cultures, George E. Haggerty, Bonnie Zimmerman, {{ISBN|0-8153-3354-4}}, {{ISBN|978-0-8153-3354-8}}, Taylor & Francis, 2000, page 388. Some other information was added by the English scholars Richard Burton and Havelock Ellis. In Germany, Albert Moll published a volume containing lists of famous homosexuals. By the end of the century, however, when the Berlin Scientific-Humanitarian Committee was formed it was realised that a comprehensive bibliographical search must be undertaken. The results of this inquiry were incorporated into the volumes of the {{Lang|de|Jahrbuch fur sexualle Zwischenstufen}} and Magnus Hirschfeld's {{Lang|de|Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes}} (1914). The Great Depression and the rise of Nazism put a stop to most serious homosexual research.

As part of the growth of the contemporary gay movement in Southern California, a number of historical articles made their way into such movement periodicals as The Ladder, Mattachine Review, and One Quarterly. In France, Arcadie under the editorship of André Baudry published a considerable amount of historical material. Almost without exception, university scholars were afraid to touch the subject. As a result, much of the work was done by autodidacts toiling under less than ideal conditions. Since most of this scholarship was done under movement auspices, it tended to reflect relevant concerns; compiling a brief of injustices and biographical sketches of exemplary gay men and women of the past for example.

The atmosphere of the 1960s changed things. The sexual revolution made human sexuality an appropriate object of research. A new emphasis on social and intellectual history appeared, stemming in large measure from the group around the French periodical Annales. Although several useful syntheses of the world history of homosexuality have appeared, much material, especially from Islam, China and other non-Western cultures has not yet been properly studied and published, so that undoubtedly these will be superseded.Ed. Wayne Dynes, Encyclopaedia of Homosexuality, New York, 1990, pp539-542

In 2011, California became the first U.S. state to pass a law requiring LGBTQ history to be taught in public schools.{{Cite web |last=Bittker |first=Bobbi M. |date=July 5, 2022 |title=LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum as a Path to Better Public Health |url=https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/intersection-of-lgbtq-rights-and-religious-freedom/lgbtq-inclusive-curriculum-as-a-path-to-better-public-health/ |access-date=March 6, 2024 |website=American Bar Association}} However, the first textbook complying with the law was only published in 2017 due to opposition from conservative groups and communities. Colorado and New Jersey passed similar laws in 2019, and an LGBT history law in Illinois took effect in July 2020. Six southern states including Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas have laws banning LGBT history from being taught in schools.{{cite journal |last=Leins |first=Casey |date=14 August 2019 |title=These States Require Schools to Teach LGBT History: Illinois is the latest state to expand its definition of American history. |url=https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2019-08-14/states-that-require-schools-to-teach-lgbt-history |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200622182506/https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2019-08-14/states-that-require-schools-to-teach-lgbt-history |url-status=live |journal=U.S. News & World Report |access-date=2 July 2020 |archive-date=June 22, 2020}}

{{Portal|LGBTQ}}

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}

• Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Melbourne, Australia
• Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Toronto, Canada
• Centrum Schwule Geschichte, Cologne, Germany
• History of Drag
• GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco
• History of lesbians
• IHLIA LGBT Heritage, Amsterdam
• Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, West Hollywood, California
• Leather Archives and Museum, Chicago
• Legal Precedent (2009), Right to change legal names female to male and vice versa for people transgender and intersex by the approval of the 2008 Constitution of Ecuador.
• Lesbian Herstory Archives, Brooklyn, New York
• List of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender firsts by year
• List of LGBT monuments and memorials
• List of LGBT political parties
• ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries, Los Angeles
• Schwules Museum, Berlin, Germany
• Timeline of LGBT history in the United Kingdom
• Timeline of LGBT history
• Yogyakarta Principles

{{div col end}}

{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• {{Cite book |last=Boswell |first=John |title=Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century |url=https://archive.org/details/christianitysoci00bosw |url-access=registration |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0226067117 |date=1980 |location=Chicago}}
• Bullough, Vern L., et al., (ed.) [https://web.archive.org/web/20060221073022/http://williamapercy.com/pub-Stonewall.htm Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context]. New York, London, Oxford: Harrington Park Press, 2002. {{ISBN|978-1-56023-192-9}}.
• Denina, Chris (September 9, 2006). [https://web.archive.org/web/20130513003152/http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_4312436 "Gay Club Loses Touro OK"]. Vallejo Times Herald (Vallejo, California). p. A1.
• {{Cite book |last=Edsall |first=Nicholas C. |year=2003 |title=Towards Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World |url=https://archive.org/details/towardstonewallh0000edsa |url-access= |archive-url= |archive-date= |url-status= |edition= |location=Charlottesville, VA |publisher=Virginia University Press |isbn=978-0813922119 |oclc=811406152 |access-date=}}
• {{cite encyclopedia|last=Healey|first=Daniel|title=Russia|encyclopedia=glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture|publisher=glbtq, Inc|year=2004|url=http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/russia.html|access-date=21 May 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051027155656/http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/russia.html|archive-date=27 October 2005}}
• {{Cite book|chapter-url=http://www.arcados.ch/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/MURRAY-ROSCOE-BOY-WIVES-FEMALE-HUSBANDS-98.pdf|title=Boy-wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities|last=Kendall|first=K. Limakatso|publisher=Palgrave|year=1998b|isbn=0312238290|editor-last=Murray|editor-first=Stephen O.|pages=223–242|chapter='When a Woman Loves a Woman' in Lesotho: Love, Sex, and the (Western) Construction of Homophobia|editor-last2=Roscoe|editor-first2=Will}}
• {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VWes4feQ7B4C&q=%22motsoalle%22&pg=PR4|title=South Africa and the Dream of Love to Come: Queer Sexuality and the Struggle for Freedom|last=Munro|first=Brenna M.|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|year=2012|isbn=9780816677689}}
• {{Cite journal|last=Peplau|first=Letitia Anne|date=2001|title=Rethinking Women's Sexual Orientation: An Interdisciplinary, Relationship-Focused Approach|url=https://public.psych.iastate.edu/ccutrona/psych592a/articles/Peplau_2001.pdf|journal=Personal Relationships|volume=8|pages=1–19|doi=10.1111/j.1475-6811.2001.tb00025.x|access-date=19 June 2016|doi-access=free}}

{{Library resources box}}

• {{Cite book |last=Bronski |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Bronski |title=A Queer History of the United States |location=Boston |publisher=Beacon Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-8070-4465-0|title-link=A Queer History of the United States }}
• {{Cite book |last=Cante |first=Richard C. |title=Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture |publisher=Ashgate Publishing |isbn=978-0-7546-7230-2 |date=March 2008 |location=London}}
• {{Cite book |last=Chauncey |first=George |author-link=George Chauncey |title=Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 |location=New York |publisher=Basic Books |year=1994 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Downs |first=Jim |year=2016 |title=Stand by Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-0465032709}}
• Dynes, Wayne R., ed. [https://web.archive.org/web/20060222150409/http://williamapercy.com/pub-EncyHom.htm Encyclopedia of Homosexuality]. New York and London, Garland Publishing, 1990. {{ISBN|978-0-8240-6544-7}}
• {{Cite book |last=Hinsch |first=Bret |title=Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520078697 |date=1992 |location=Oakland}}
• Johansson, Warren and Percy, William A. [https://web.archive.org/web/20060221073017/http://williamapercy.com/pub-Outing.htm Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence]. New York and London: Haworth Press, 1994. {{ISBN|978-1-56024-419-6}}
• Meeker, Martin. [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/167324.ctl Contacts Desired: Gay and Lesbian Communications and Community, 1940s–1970s]; {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061211073557/http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/167324.ctl |date=December 11, 2006 }}. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
• Parkinson, R. B. [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Gay-History-Desire-Diversity/dp/0714151009/ A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World. ] London: British Museum Press and New York: University of Columbia Press 2013.
• {{Cite book |editor-last=Spence |editor-first=Alex |year=2019 |title=Documenting Queer Canadian History: A Bibliography of Gay and Lesbian (LGBTQ) Diversity from Earliest Times to 2010 |url=https://www.archive.org/details/02-dqch-2019-june-8-webversion |url-access=registration |edition=Revised |location=Hong Kong? |publisher=Self-published |isbn= |oclc=1104227670}}
• Stein, Marc, ed. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684312611/ Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered History in America]. 3 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003.

{{Commons category}}

• [https://outhistory.org OutHistory]
• [http://isj.org.uk/lgbt-politics-and-sexual-liberation/ "LGBT politics and sexual liberation"]—A left-wing analysis of the history of LGBT politics and the state of the movement from International Socialism magazine
• [http://www.studiesinanti-capitalism.net/StudiesInAnti-Capitalism/Homosexuality.html The Politics of Homosexuality resources]
• [https://www.pbs.org/outofthepast/ Out of the Past]—PBS American Experience documentary on gay American history
• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4194247.stm United Kingdom Celebrates Gay History Month]—BBC News
• [https://www.glbthistory.org/ GLBT Historical Society]
• [https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/libraries/archives-and-local-studies/research-guides/lesbian-and-gay-sources.html Sources for the study of lesbian, gay, bi and trans history in Sheffield, UK] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170317053311/https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/libraries/archives-and-local-studies/research-guides/lesbian-and-gay-sources.html |date=March 17, 2017 }})—Produced by Sheffield City Council's Libraries and Archives
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120216070438/http://www.nycnotkansas.com/ NYC Not Kansas: A personal history of gay life in Manhattan 1959–2000]
• [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quist-today-in-lgbtq-history/id665684647 Quist]—"Today in LGBTQ History"—Mobile app
• [https://stonewallforever.org/monument/ Stonewall Forever a Monument to 50 Years of Pride]—Stonewall National Monument

{{LGBT history}}

{{LGBTQ|history=expanded}}