120-536: Playguy was an American gay pornographic monthly magazine that was geared to gay men under 25. It was established by George W. Mavety in 1976. It was published by Modernismo Publications, Ltd., which also published Mandate , Honcho , Torso , Inches , Black Inches and Latin Inches . It was later published by Mavety Media Group Ltd. until it closed down in October 2009, nine years after Mavety's death in
240-402: A Prussian anti- sodomy law . In 1886, the psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing used the terms homosexual and heterosexual in his book Psychopathia Sexualis . Krafft-Ebing's book was so popular among both laymen and doctors that the terms heterosexual and homosexual became the most widely accepted terms for sexual orientation. As such, the current use of the term has its roots in
360-536: A community of others who share those attractions." Along with bisexuality and heterosexuality , homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation within the heterosexual–homosexual continuum . Although no single theory on the cause of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support, scientists favor biological theories . There is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial, biological causes of sexual orientation than social ones, especially for males. A major hypothesis implicates
480-640: A bar in New York City resisted a police raid. Immediately after Stonewall, such groups as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Gay Activists' Alliance (GAA) were formed. Their use of the word gay represented a new unapologetic defiance—as an antonym for straight ("respectable sexual behavior"), it encompassed a range of non-normative sexuality and sought ultimately to free the bisexual potential in everyone, rendering obsolete
600-414: A contemporary construction of sexuality that would have been foreign to their times. Other scholars see continuity instead. In social science, there has been a dispute between "essentialist" and "constructionist" views of homosexuality. The debate divides those who believe that terms such as "gay" and "straight" refer to objective, culturally invariant properties of persons from those who believe that
720-860: A contingent dressed as workmen obtained access to the basement and shut off the lights. In 1971, the gay liberation movement in Germany and Switzerland started with Rosa von Praunheims movie It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives . Easter 1972 saw the Gay Lib annual conference held in the Guild of Undergraduates Union (students union) building at the University of Birmingham . In May 1974
840-601: A crime. In 1833, an anonymous English-language writer wrote a poetic defense of Captain Nicholas Nicholls, who had been sentenced to death in London for sodomy: Whence spring these inclinations, rank and strong? And harming no one, wherefore call them wrong? Three years later in Switzerland, Heinrich Hoessli published the first volume of Eros: Die Männerliebe der Griechen (English: "Eros: The Male Love of
960-411: A criminal offence". All but James Adair were in favor of this and, contrary to some medical and psychiatric witnesses' evidence at that time, found that "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects." The report added, "The law's function is to preserve public order and decency, to protect
1080-747: A first commemoration of the Stonewall Riots. Liberation groups, including the Gay Liberation Front, Queens, the Gay Activists Alliance, Radicalesbians , and Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR) all took part in the first Gay Pride Week. Los Angeles held a big parade on the first Gay Pride Day. Smaller demonstrations were held in San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston. In the United Kingdom
1200-473: A four-year period, from 1889 to 1893, form one of the earliest known works of self-conscious homosexual autobiography in English. The recently decoded autobiographies of Anne Lister are an earlier example in English. Another friend of Ives was the English socialist poet Edward Carpenter . Carpenter thought that homosexuality was an innate and natural human characteristic and that it should not be regarded as
1320-525: A free adult male and a free adolescent, was valued for its pedagogic benefits and as a means of population control, though occasionally blamed for causing disorder. Plato praised its benefits in his early writings but in his late works proposed its prohibition. Aristotle , in the Politics , dismissed Plato's ideas about abolishing homosexuality (2.4); he explains that barbarians like the Celts accorded it
SECTION 10
#17327914817651440-578: A handful of accounts by Arab travelers to Europe during the mid-1800s. Two of these travelers, Rifa'ah al-Tahtawi and Muhammad as-Saffar, show their surprise that the French sometimes deliberately mistranslated love poetry about a young boy, instead referring to a young female, to maintain their social norms and morals. Israel is considered the most tolerant country in the Middle East and Asia to homosexuals, with Tel Aviv being named "the gay capital of
1560-402: A homosexual orientation (the other is sheep). Many gay and lesbian people are in committed same-sex relationships. These relationships are equivalent to heterosexual relationships in essential psychological respects. Homosexual relationships and acts have been admired as well as condemned throughout recorded history, depending on the form they took and the culture in which they occurred. Since
1680-536: A much more informal, unpublicized movement among British intellectuals and writers, led by such figures as Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds . Beginning in 1894 with Homogenic Love , Socialist activist and poet Edward Carpenter wrote a string of pro-homosexual articles and pamphlets, and "came out" in 1916 in his book My Days and Dreams . In 1900, Elisar von Kupffer published an anthology of homosexual literature from antiquity to his own time, Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur . There are
1800-462: A need to work together. Leaders of the lesbian and gay movement of the 1970s, '80s and '90s often attempted to hide masculine lesbians, feminine gay men , transgender people, and bisexuals from the public eye, creating internal divisions within LGBTQ communities. Roffee and Waling (2016) documented that LGBTQ people experience microaggressions, bullying and anti-social behaviors from other people within
1920-461: A negative connotation . Gay and lesbian are the most common alternatives. The first letters are frequently combined to create the initialism LGBT (sometimes written as GLBT), in which B and T refer to bisexual and transgender people. Gay especially refers to male homosexuality, but may be used in a broader sense to refer to all LGBTQ people. In the context of sexuality, lesbian refers only to female homosexuality. The word lesbian
2040-555: A novel titled The Well of Loneliness . Its plot centers on Stephen Gordon, a woman who identifies herself as an invert after reading Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis , and lives within the homosexual subculture of Paris. The novel included a foreword by Havelock Ellis and was intended to be a call for tolerance for inverts by publicizing their disadvantages and accidents of being born inverted. Hall subscribed to Ellis and Krafft-Ebing's theories and rejected (conservatively understood version of) Freud's theory that same-sex attraction
2160-696: A number of homosexual rights groups came into being or were revived across the Western world, in Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries and the United States. These groups usually preferred the term homophile to homosexual , emphasizing love over sex. The homophile movement began in the late 1940s with groups in the Netherlands and Denmark, and continued throughout
2280-421: A popular all-night restaurant, Gene Compton's Cafeteria. The Wolfenden Report was published in Britain on September 4, 1957, after publicized convictions for homosexuality of well-known men, including Edward Montagu-Scott, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu . Disregarding the conventional ideas of the day, the committee recommended that "homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be
2400-549: A prominent influence in political systems of social acceptability. Radicals of the 1970s would later disparage the homophile groups for being assimilationist . Any demonstrations were orderly and polite. By 1969, there were dozens of homophile organizations and publications in the U.S., and a national organization had been formed, but they were largely ignored by the media. A 1965 gay march held in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, according to some historians, marked
2520-532: A punishment but must be confessed to the monastery. These codes apply to monks only and not to the general population. The Kama Sutra written in India around 200 AD also described numerous homosexual sex acts positively. There were no legal restrictions on homosexuality or transsexuality for the general population prior to early modern period and colonialism, however certain dharmic moral codes forbade sexual misconduct (of both heterosexual and homosexual nature) among
SECTION 20
#17327914817652640-560: A rather cohesive group with a well-expressed philosophy. A secret British society called the Order of Chaeronea campaigned for the legalization of homosexuality. The society was founded in 1897 by George Cecil Ives , one of the earliest gay rights campaigners, who had been working for the end of oppression of homosexuals, what he called the "Cause". Members included Oscar Wilde , Charles Kains Jackson , Samuel Elsworth Cottam , Montague Summers , and John Gambril Nicholson . Ives met Wilde at
2760-578: A sin or a criminal offense. In the 1890s, Carpenter began a concerted effort to campaign against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation , possibly in response to the recent death of Symonds, whom he viewed as his campaigning inspiration. His 1908 book on the subject, The Intermediate Sex , would become a foundational text of the LGBT movements of the 20th century. Scottish anarchist John Henry Mackay also wrote in defense of same-sex love and androgyny . English sexologist Havelock Ellis wrote
2880-642: A special honor (2.6.6), while the Cretans used it to regulate the population (2.7.5). Some scholars argue that there are examples of homosexual love in ancient literature, such as Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad . Little is known of female homosexuality in antiquity. 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
3000-742: A state could criminalize sodomy , but, in 2003, overturned itself in Lawrence v. Texas and thereby legalized homosexual activity throughout the United States of America . It is only since the 2010s that census forms and political conditions have facilitated the visibility and enumeration of same-sex relationships. Same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state in 2004 to all 50 states in 2015, through various state court rulings, state legislation, direct popular votes ( referendums and initiatives ), and federal court rulings. In East Asia , same-sex love has been referred to since
3120-574: A time when the legal penalty for buggery was death by hanging. His advocacy stemmed from his utilitarian philosophy , in which the morality of an action is determined by the net consequence of that action on human well-being. He argued that homosexuality was a victimless crime , and therefore not deserving of social approbation or criminal charges. He regarded popular negative attitudes against homosexuality as an irrational prejudice, fanned and perpetuated by religious teachings. However, he did not publicize his views as he feared reprisal; his powerful essay
3240-628: A work of what would later be called " gay history ." Although the Oxford English Dictionary credits the medical writer C.G. Chaddock for introducing "homosexual" into the English language in 1892, Symonds had already used the word in A Problem in Greek Ethics . Symonds also translated classical poetry on homoerotic themes, and wrote poems drawing on ancient Greek imagery and language such as Eudiades , which has been called "the most famous of his homoerotic poems". While
3360-598: Is a Greek and Latin hybrid , with the first element derived from Greek ὁμός homos , "same" (not related to the Latin homo , "man", as in Homo sapiens ), thus connoting sexual acts and affections between members of the same sex, including lesbianism. The first known appearance of homosexual in print is found in an 1868 letter to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs by the Austrian-born novelist Karl-Maria Kertbeny . arguing against
3480-411: Is also a word referring to same-sex love, homophilia . Some synonyms for same-sex attraction or sexual activity include men who have sex with men or MSM (used in the medical community when specifically discussing sexual activity) and homoerotic (referring to works of art). Pejorative terms in English include queer , faggot , fairy , poof , poofter and homo . Beginning in
3600-531: Is derived from the name of the Greek island Lesbos , where the poet Sappho wrote largely about her emotional relationships with young women. Although early writers also used the adjective homosexual to refer to any single-sex context (such as an all-girls school), today the term is used exclusively in reference to sexual attraction, activity, and orientation. The term homosocial is now used to describe single-sex contexts that are not specifically sexual. There
3720-538: Is her only known contribution to the cause. Women only began to join the previously male-dominated sexual reform movement around 1910 when the German government tried to expand Paragraph 175 to outlaw sex between women. Heterosexual feminist leader Helene Stöcker became a prominent figure in the movement. Friedrich Radszuweit published LGBT literature and magazines in Berlin (e.g., Die Freundin ). Hirschfeld, whose life
Playguy - Misplaced Pages Continue
3840-406: Is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation . The most common terms for homosexual people are lesbian for females and gay for males , but the term gay also commonly refers to both homosexual females and males. Other common labels that include gay people are LGBTQ and queer . The percentage of people who are gay or lesbian and
3960-563: Is not a primary or an overarching central organization that represents all LGBTQ people and their interests, numerous LGBTQ rights organizations are active worldwide. The first organization to promote LGBTQ rights was the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee , founded in 1897 in Berlin. A commonly stated goal among these movements is equal rights for LGBTQ people, often focusing on specific goals such as ending
4080-796: The Civil Marriage Act , which legalised same-sex marriage across Canada. Canada has been referred to as the most gay-friendly country in the world, ranked first in the Gay Travel Index chart in 2018, and among the five safest in Forbes magazine in 2019. It was also ranked first in Asher & Lyric's LGBTQ+ Danger Index in a 2021 update. In 1986, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that
4200-693: The American Psychiatric Association , after years of pressure from activists , changed the wording concerning homosexuality in the Sixth printing of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from a "mental disorder" to that of a "sexual orientation disturbance". While still not a flattering description, it took gay people out of the category of being automatically considered mentally ill simply for their sexual orientation. By 1974, internal disagreements had led to
4320-552: The Authors' Club in London in 1892. Wilde was taken by his boyish looks and persuaded him to shave off his mustache, and once kissed him passionately in the Travellers' Club . In 1893, Lord Alfred Douglas , with whom he had a brief affair, introduced Ives to several Oxford poets whom Ives also tried to recruit. John Addington Symonds was a poet and an early advocate of male love. In 1873, he wrote A Problem in Greek Ethics ,
4440-672: The Aztecs , Mayas , Quechuas , Moches , Zapotecs , the Incas , and the Tupinambá of Brazil. The Spanish conquerors were horrified to discover sodomy openly practiced among native peoples, and attempted to crush it out by subjecting the berdaches (as the Spanish called them) under their rule to severe penalties, including public execution , burning and being torn to pieces by dogs. The Spanish conquerors talked extensively of sodomy among
4560-462: The Criminal Code in 1969 to provide that anal sex between consenting adults in private (defined as only two persons) was not a criminal offence. In advocating for the law, the then-Minister of Justice, Pierre Trudeau , said: "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation." In 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada held that sexual orientation is a protected personal characteristic under
4680-631: The Duke of Buckingham , served to highlight the issue, including in anonymously authored street pamphlets: "The world is chang'd I know not how, For men Kiss Men, not Women now;...Of J. the First and Buckingham: He, true it is, his Wives Embraces fled, To slabber his lov'd Ganimede" ( Mundus Foppensis, or The Fop Display'd , 1691). Love Letters Between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous Mr. Wilson
4800-599: The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee campaign publicly against the notorious law " Paragraph 175 ", which made sex between men illegal. Adolf Brand later broke away from the group, disagreeing with Hirschfeld's medical view of the " intermediate sex ", seeing male-male sex as merely an aspect of manly virility and male social bonding. Brand was the first to use " outing " as a political strategy, claiming that German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow engaged in homosexual activity. The 1901 book Sind es Frauen? Roman über das Dritte Geschlecht (English: Are These Women? Novel about
4920-460: The criminalization of homosexuality or enacting same-sex marriage . Others have focused on building LGBTQ communities or worked towards liberation for the broader society from biphobia , homophobia , and transphobia . LGBTQ movements organized today are made up of a wide range of political activism and cultural activity, including lobbying , street marches , social groups , media, art, and research . Sociologist Mary Bernstein writes: "For
Playguy - Misplaced Pages Continue
5040-540: The drag queen caucus of the GLF, including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera , formed the group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which focused on providing support for gay prisoners, housing for homeless gay youth and street people, especially other young "street queens". In 1969, Lee Brewster and Bunny Eisenhower formed the Queens Liberation Front (QLF), partially in protest to
5160-416: The law and the church established sodomy as a transgression against divine law or a crime against nature . The condemnation of anal sex between males, however, predates Christian belief. Throughout the majority of Christian history , most Christian theologians and denominations have considered homosexual behavior as immoral or sinful . Condemnation was frequent in ancient Greece; for instance,
5280-420: The prenatal environment , specifically the organizational effects of hormones on the fetal brain. There is no substantive evidence which suggests parenting or early childhood experiences play a role in developing a sexual orientation. Scientific research shows that homosexuality is a natural and normal variation in human sexuality and is not in and of itself a source of negative psychological effects. There
5400-736: The queer movement have argued that the categories of gay and lesbian are restrictive, and attempted to deconstruct those categories, which are seen to "reinforce rather than challenge a cultural system that will always mark the non heterosexual as inferior." After the French Revolution the anticlerical feeling in Catholic countries coupled with the liberalizing effect of the Napoleonic Code made it possible to sweep away sodomy laws. However, in Protestant countries, where
5520-546: The 17th-century cross-dressing was common in plays, as evident in the content of many of William Shakespeare 's plays and by the actors in actual performance (since female roles in Elizabethan theater were always performed by males, usually prepubescent boys). Thomas Cannon wrote what may be the earliest published defense of homosexuality in English, Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd (1749). Although only fragments of his work have survived, it
5640-595: The 1950s and 1960s with groups in Sweden, Norway, the United States, France , Britain and elsewhere. ONE, Inc. , the first public homosexual organization in the U.S., was bankrolled by the wealthy transsexual man Reed Erickson . A U.S. transgender rights journal, Transvestia: The Journal of the American Society for Equality in Dress , also published two issues in 1952. The homophile movement lobbied to establish
5760-545: The 1990s, some of these have been reclaimed as positive words by gay men and lesbians, as in the usage of queer studies , queer theory , and even the popular American television program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy . The word homo occurs in many other languages without the pejorative connotations it has in English. As with ethnic slurs and racial slurs , the use of these terms can still be highly offensive. The range of acceptable use for these terms depends on
5880-480: The 19th century. 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. 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
6000-542: The GLF had its first meeting in the basement of the London School of Economics on October 13, 1970. Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter had seen the effect of the GLF in the United States and created a parallel movement based on revolutionary politics and alternative lifestyle. By 1971, the UK GLF was recognized as a political movement in the national press, holding weekly meetings of 200 to 300 people. The GLF Manifesto
6120-488: The GLF were established across the U.S. and in other parts of the Western world. The Front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire was formed in 1971 by lesbians who split from the Mouvement Homophile de France . The Gay liberation movement overall, like the gay community generally and historically, has had varying degrees of gender nonconformity and assimilationist platforms among its members. Early marches by
SECTION 50
#17327914817656240-603: The Greeks"), another defense of same-sex love. In many ways, social attitudes to homosexuality became more hostile during the late Victorian era . In 1885, the Labouchere Amendment was included in the Criminal Law Amendment Act , which criminalized 'any act of gross indecency with another male person'; a charge that was successfully invoked to convict playwright Oscar Wilde in 1895 with
6360-521: The LGBTQ community. This is due to misconceptions and conflicting views as to what entails "LGBT". For example, transgender people found that other members of the community were not understanding toward their own, individual, specific needs and would instead make ignorant assumptions, and this could cause health risks. Additionally, bisexual people found that lesbian or gay people were not understanding or appreciative of bisexual sexuality. Evidently, even though most of these people would say that they stand for
6480-657: The Labour Home Secretary . When passed, the Sexual Offenses Act decriminalized homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age in private in England and Wales . The seemingly innocuous phrase 'in private' led to the prosecution of participants in sex acts involving three or more men, e.g. the Bolton 7 who were so convicted as recently as 1998. Bisexual activism became more visible toward
6600-643: The Mattachine society and Daughters of Bilitis stressed looking "respectable" and mainstream, and after the Stonewall Uprising the Mattachine Society posted a sign in the window of the club calling for peace. Gender nonconformity has always been a primary way of signaling homosexuality and bisexuality, and by the late 1960s and mainstream fashion was increasingly incorporating what by the 1970s would be considered "unisex" fashions. In 1970,
6720-754: The Middle East" and considered one of the most gay friendly cities in the world. The annual Pride Parade in support of homosexuality takes place in Tel Aviv. On the other hand, many governments in the Middle East often ignore, deny the existence of, or criminalize homosexuality. Homosexuality is illegal in almost all Muslim countries. Same-sex intercourse officially carries the death penalty in several Muslim nations: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania , northern Nigeria , and Yemen . Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , during his 2007 speech at Columbia University , asserted that there were no gay people in Iran. However,
6840-581: The Riddle of Man-Manly Love. In 1867, he became the first self-proclaimed homosexual person to speak out publicly in defense of homosexuality when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of anti-homosexual laws. Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis , published in 1896, challenged theories that homosexuality was abnormal, as well as stereotypes , and insisted on
6960-505: The Third Sex ) by Aimée Duc was as much a political treatise as a novel, criticizing pathological theories of homosexuality and gender inversion in women. Anna Rüling , delivering a public speech in 1904 at the request of Hirschfeld, became the first female Uranian activist. Rüling, who also saw "men, women, and homosexuals" as three distinct genders, called for an alliance between the women's and sexual reform movements, but this speech
7080-607: The age of consent for same-sex partners to be at age 15, making it equal to heterosexual couples. In Japan, LGBT groups were established in the 1970s. In 1971, Ken Togo ran for the Upper House election. Bisexuals became more visible in the LGBT rights movement in the 1970s. In 1972 a Quaker group, the Committee of Friends on Bisexuality, issued the "Ithaca Statement on Bisexuality" supporting bisexuals. The Statement, which may have been "the first public declaration of
7200-592: The ancient world. However, there were diverse sexual practices that varied in acceptance depending on time and place. In ancient Greece, the pattern of adolescent boys engaging in sexual practices with older males did not constitute a homosexual identity in the modern sense since such relations were seen as phases in life, not permanent orientations, since later on the younger partners would commonly marry females and reproduce. Other scholars argue that there are significant continuities between ancient and modern homosexuality. In cultures influenced by Abrahamic religions ,
7320-467: The article's talk page . Homosexuality Homosexuality is sexual attraction , romantic attraction , or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender . As a sexual orientation , homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exclusively to people of the same sex or gender. It "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in
SECTION 60
#17327914817657440-417: The beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the LGBT youth organization Vanguard was formed by Adrian Ravarour to demonstrate for equality, and Vanguard members protested for equal rights during the months of April–July 1966, followed by the August 1966 Compton's riot, where transgender street prostitutes in the poor neighborhood of Tenderloin rioted against police harassment at
7560-403: The broader 19th-century tradition of personality taxonomy. Many modern style guides in the U.S. recommend against using homosexual as a noun, instead using gay man or lesbian . Similarly, some recommend completely avoiding usage of homosexual as it has a negative, clinical history and because the word only refers to one's sexual behavior (as opposed to romantic feelings) and thus it has
7680-423: The categories of homosexual and heterosexual. According to Gay Lib writer Toby Marotta , "their Gay political outlooks were not homophile but liberationist". "Out, loud and proud," they engaged in colorful street theater . The GLF's "A Gay Manifesto" set out the aims for the fledgling gay liberation movement, and influential intellectual Paul Goodman published " The Politics of Being Queer " (1969). Chapters of
7800-420: The cause in a neutral/scientific manner. Numerous artworks and literary works from this period also describe homosexuality. The Pali Cannon, written in Sri Lanka between 600 BC and 100 BC, states that sexual relations, whether of homosexual or of heterosexual nature, is forbidden in the monastic code, and states that any acts of soft homosexual sex (such as masturbation and interfumeral sex) does not entail
7920-661: The church was less severe, there was no general reaction against statutes that were religious in origin. As a result, many of those countries retained their statutes on sodomy until late in the 20th century. However, some countries have still retained their statutes on sodomy. For example, in 2008 a case in India's High Court was judged using a 150-year-old reading that was punishing sodomy. In eighteenth - and nineteenth-century Europe , same-sex sexual behavior and cross-dressing were widely considered to be socially unacceptable, and were serious crimes under sodomy and sumptuary laws . There were, however, some exceptions. For example, in
8040-416: The citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others ... It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behavior." The report eventually led to the introduction of the Sexual Offences Bill 1967 supported by Labour MP Roy Jenkins , then
8160-429: The civil and political spheres. As with other social movements, there is also conflict within and between LGBTQ movements, especially about strategies for change and debates over exactly who represents the constituency of these movements, and this also applies to changing education. There is debate over the extent that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, as well as others, share common interests and
8280-462: The classical pattern of Greece and Rome. But even as many of the male population were engaging in same-sex relationships, the authorities, under the aegis of the Officers of the Night court, were prosecuting, fining, and imprisoning a good portion of that population. From the second half of the 13th century, death was the punishment for male homosexuality in most of Europe. The relationships of socially prominent figures, such as King James I and
8400-410: The context and speaker. Conversely, gay , a word originally embraced by homosexual men and women as a positive, affirmative term (as in gay liberation and gay rights ), came into widespread pejorative use among young people in the early 2000s. The American LGBT rights organization GLAAD advises the media to avoid using the term homosexual to describe gay people or same-sex relationships as
8520-426: The earliest organizations for bisexuals, the Sexual Freedom League in San Francisco, was facilitated by Margo Rila and Frank Esposito beginning in 1967. Two years later, during a staff meeting at a San Francisco mental health facility serving LGBT people, nurse Maggi Rubenstein came out as bisexual. Due to this, bisexuals began to be included in the facility's programs for the first time. The new social movements of
8640-515: The earliest recorded history. Homosexuality in China , known as the passions of the cut peach and various other euphemisms, has been recorded since approximately 600 BCE. Homosexuality was mentioned in many famous works of Chinese literature. The instances of same-sex affection and sexual interactions described in the classical novel Dream of the Red Chamber seem as familiar to observers in
8760-481: The end of his reign, expanded the proscription to the active partner as well (in 558), warning that such conduct can lead to the destruction of cities through the "wrath of God". 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
8880-597: The end of the 1960s in the United States. In 1966 bisexual activist Robert A. Martin (also known as Donny the Punk) founded the Student Homophile League at Columbia University and New York University. In 1967 Columbia University officially recognized this group, thus making them the first college in the United States to officially recognize a gay student group. Activism on behalf of bisexuals in particular also began to grow, especially in San Francisco. One of
9000-425: The end of the 20th century, there has been a global movement towards freedom and equality for gay people, including the introduction of anti-bullying legislation to protect gay children at school, legislation ensuring non-discrimination, equal ability to serve in the military , equal access to health care , equal ability to adopt and parent , and the establishment of marriage equality . The word homosexual
9120-512: The epic, change genders, such as Shikhandi , who is sometimes said to be born as a female but identifies as male and eventually marries a woman. Bahuchara Mata is the goddess of fertility, worshipped by hijras as their patroness. Historians have long argued that pre-colonial Indian society did not criminalise same-sex relationships, nor did it view such relations as immoral or sinful. Hinduism has traditionally portrayed homosexuality as natural and joyful. The earliest Western documents (in
9240-579: The equality clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms . The federal Parliament and provincial legislatures began to amend their laws to treat same-sex relations in the same way as opposite-sex relations. Beginning in 2003, the courts in Canada began to rule that excluding same-sex couples from marriage violated the equality clause of the Charter . In 2005, the federal Parliament enacted
9360-404: The experiences they name are artifacts of unique cultural and social processes. "Essentialists" typically believe that sexual preferences are determined by biological forces, while "constructionists" assume that sexual desires are learned. The philosopher of science Michael Ruse has stated that the social constructionist approach, which is influenced by Foucault, is based on a selective reading of
9480-503: The figure of the Two-Spirit individual (the term itself was coined only in 1990). Typically, this individual was recognized early in life, given a choice by the parents to follow the path and, if the child accepted the role, raised in the appropriate manner, learning the customs of the gender it had chosen. Two-Spirit individuals were commonly shamans and were revered as having powers beyond those of ordinary shamans. Their sexual life
9600-613: The first nation to decriminalize homosexuality, probably thanks in part to Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès , who was one of the authors of the Napoleonic Code . With the introduction of the Napoleonic Code in 1808, the Duchy of Warsaw also decriminalized homosexuality. In 1830, the new Penal Code of the Brazilian Empire did not repeat the title XIII of the fifth book of the "Ordenações Philipinas", which made sodomy
9720-574: The first objective scientific study of homosexuality in 1897, in which he treated it as a neutral sexual condition. Called Sexual Inversion it was first printed in German and then translated into English a year later. In the book, Ellis argued that same-sex relationships could not be characterized as a pathology or a crime and that its importance rose above the arbitrary restrictions imposed by society. He also studied what he called 'inter-generational relationships' and that these also broke societal taboos on age difference in sexual relationships. The book
9840-534: The form of literary works, art objects, and mythographic materials ) concerning same-sex relationships are derived from ancient Greece . In regard to male homosexuality, such documents depict an at times complex understanding in which relationships with women and relationships with adolescent boys could be a part of a normal man's love life. 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
9960-590: The gains made in Germany would soon be drastically reversed with the rise of Nazism , and the institute and its library were destroyed in 1933. The Swiss journal Der Kreis was the only part of the movement to continue through the Nazi era. USSR's Criminal Code of 1922 decriminalized homosexuality. This was a remarkable step in the USSR at the time – which was very backward economically and socially, and where many conservative attitudes towards sexuality prevailed. This step
10080-812: The historical record that confuses the existence of homosexual people with the way in which they are labelled or treated. The first record of a possible homosexual couple in history is commonly regarded as Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum , an ancient Egyptian male couple, who lived around 2400 BCE. The pair are portrayed in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in Egyptian art , surrounded by what appear to be their heirs. The anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships" called motsoalle . The anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male Azande warriors in
10200-432: The idea of male anal sex being "unnatural" is described by a character of Plato 's, though he had earlier written of the benefits of homosexual relationships. Many historical figures, including Socrates , Lord Byron , Edward II , and Hadrian , have had terms such as gay or bisexual applied to them. Some scholars have regarded uses of such modern terms on people from the past as an anachronistic introduction of
10320-548: The last Englishmen to be so hanged. 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. Between 1864 and 1880 Karl Heinrich Ulrichs published a series of 12 tracts, which he collectively titled Research on
10440-431: The lesbian and gay movement, then, cultural goals include (but are not limited to) challenging dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity , homophobia , and the primacy of the gendered heterosexual nuclear family ( heteronormativity ). Political goals include changing laws and policies to gain new rights, benefits, and protections from harm". Bernstein emphasizes that activists seek both types of goals in both
10560-556: The medieval Tang dynasty (618–907), attributed to the rising influence of Christian and Islamic values, but did not become fully established until the Westernization efforts of the late Qing dynasty and the Republic of China . South Asia has a recorded and verifiable history of homosexuality going back to at least 1200 BC. Hindu medical texts written in India from this period document homosexual acts and attempt to explain
10680-620: The most severe sentence possible under the Act. The first person known to describe himself as a drag queen was William Dorsey Swann , born enslaved in Hancock, Maryland . Swann was the first American on record who pursued legal and political action to defend the LGBTQ community 's right to assemble . During the 1880s and 1890s, Swann organized a series of drag balls in Washington, D.C. Swann
10800-511: The movement's splintering. Organizations that spun off from the movement included the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard , Gay News , and Icebreakers . The GLF Information Service continued for a few further years providing gay related resources. GLF branches had been set up in some provincial British towns (e.g., Bradford, Bristol, Leeds, and Leicester) and some survived for a few years longer. The Leicester group founded by Jeff Martin
10920-534: The natives to depict them as savages and hence justify their conquest and forceful conversion to Christianity. As a result of the growing influence and power of the conquerors, many native cultures started condemning homosexual acts themselves. Among some of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in North America prior to European colonization, a relatively common form of same-sex sexuality centered around
11040-576: The northern Congo routinely took on young male lovers between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in intercrural sex with their older husbands. As is true of many other non-Western cultures, it is difficult to determine the extent to which Western notions of sexual orientation and gender identity apply to Pre-Columbian cultures. Evidence of homoerotic sexual acts and transvestism has been found in many pre- conquest civilizations in Latin America , such as
11160-478: The opposite sex. During the colonial period, both the French and the British criminalised same-sex sexual relations. Anal sex between males was a capital offence. Post-Confederation, anal sex and acts of "gross indecency" continued to be criminal offences, but were no longer capital offences. Individuals were prosecuted for same-sex sexual activity as late as the 1960s, which led to the federal Parliament amending
11280-847: The political mainstream on the same level as other groups in society. In arguing that sexual orientation and gender identity are innate and cannot be consciously changed, attempts to change gay, lesbian, and bisexual people into heterosexuals (" conversion therapy ") are generally opposed by the LGBTQ community. Such attempts are often based on religious beliefs that perceive gay, lesbian, and bisexual activity as immoral. Religion has, however, never been univocal opposed to either homosexuality, bisexuality or being transgender, usually treating sex between men and sex between women differently. As of today, numerous religious communities and many believers in various religions are generally accepting of LGBTQ rights. However, others within LGBTQ movements have criticized identity politics as limited and flawed, elements of
11400-523: The present as do equivalent stories of romances between heterosexual people during the same period. Ming dynasty literature, such as Bian Er Chai (弁而釵/弁而钗), portray homosexual relationships between men as more enjoyable and more "harmonious" than heterosexual relationships. Writings from the Liu Song dynasty by Wang Shunu claimed that homosexuality was as common as heterosexuality in the late 3rd century. Opposition to homosexuality in China originates in
11520-467: The probable reason is that they keep their sexuality a secret for fear of government sanction or rejection by their families. In ancient Sumer , a set of priests known as gala worked in the temples of the goddess Inanna , where they performed elegies and lamentations. Gala took female names, spoke in the eme-sal dialect, which was traditionally reserved for women, and appear to have engaged in homosexual intercourse. The Sumerian sign for gala
11640-475: The proportion of people who are in same-sex romantic relationships or have had same-sex sexual experiences are difficult for researchers to estimate reliably for a variety of reasons, including many gay and lesbian people not openly identifying as such due to prejudice or discrimination such as homophobia and heterosexism . Homosexual behavior has also been documented in many non-human animal species , though humans are one of only two species known to exhibit
11760-487: The receptive role in sex. The Hellenophile emperor Hadrian is renowned for his relationship with Antinous , but the Christian emperor Theodosius I decreed a law on 6 August 390, condemning passive males to be burned at the stake. Notwithstanding these regulations taxes on brothels with boys available for homosexual sex continued to be collected until the end of the reign of Anastasius I in 518. Justinian , towards
11880-460: The same values as the majority of the community, there are still remaining inconsistencies even within the LGBTQ community. LGBTQ movements have often adopted a kind of identity politics that sees gay, bisexual, and transgender people as a fixed class of people; a minority group or groups, and this is very common among LGBTQ communities. Those using this approach aspire to liberal political goals of freedom and equal opportunity , and aim to join
12000-775: The sixties, such as the Black Power and anti-Vietnam war movements in the US, the May 1968 insurrection in France, and Women's Liberation throughout the Western world, inspired many LGBT activists to become more radical, and the Gay Liberation movement emerged towards the end of the decade. This new radicalism is often attributed to the Stonewall riots of 1969, when a group of gay men, lesbians, drag queens and transgender women at
12120-472: The taboos of Victorian England prevented Symonds from speaking openly about homosexuality, his works published for a general audience contained strong implications and some of the first direct references to male-male sexual love in English literature. By the end of his life, Symonds' homosexuality had become an open secret in Victorian literary and cultural circles. In particular, Symonds' memoirs, written over
12240-459: The term is "frequently used by anti-gay extremists to denigrate gay people, couples and relationships". Some scholars argue that the term "homosexuality" is problematic when applied to ancient cultures since, for example, neither Greeks or Romans possessed any one word covering the same semantic range as the modern concept of "homosexuality". Nor did there exist a distinction of lifestyle or differentiation of psychological or behavioral profiles in
12360-428: The traditional institutions of family and marriage that were seen to enslave women. Some advocates of free love in the early 20th century, including Russian anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman , also spoke in defense of same-sex love and challenged repressive legislation. An early LGBT movement also began in Germany at the turn of the 20th century, centering on the doctor and writer Magnus Hirschfeld . In 1897 he formed
12480-648: The treatment of the drag queens at the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March . One of the values of the movement was gay pride . Within weeks of the Stonewall Riots, Craig Rodwell , proprietor of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in lower Manhattan, persuaded the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) to replace the Fourth of July Annual Reminder at Independence Hall in Philadelphia with
12600-403: The ubiquity of homosexuality and its association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Although medical texts like these (written partly in Latin to obscure the sexual details) were not widely read by the general public, they did lead to the rise of Magnus Hirschfeld 's Scientific-Humanitarian Committee , which campaigned from 1897 to 1933 against anti-sodomy laws in Germany , as well as
12720-467: The upper class of persists and monks, and religious codes of foreign religions such as Christianity and Islam imposed homophobic rules on their populations. Hinduism describes a third gender that is equal to other genders and documentation of the third gender are found in ancient Hindu and Buddhist medical texts. There are certain characters in the Mahabharata who, according to some versions of
12840-444: The year 2000. Playguy should not be confused with Playboy , which is generally marketed to straight men nor with Playgirl , which was marketed mainly to women but also had a significant gay following. This article about a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender related magazine is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See tips for writing articles about magazines . Further suggestions might be found on
12960-760: Was a ligature of the signs for "penis" and "anus". One Sumerian proverb reads: "When the gala wiped off his ass [he said], 'I must not arouse that which belongs to my mistress [i.e., Inanna].'" In later Mesopotamian cultures, kurgarrū and assinnu were servants of the goddess Ishtar (Inanna's East Semitic equivalent), who dressed in female clothing and performed war dances in Ishtar's temples. Several Akkadian proverbs seem to suggest that they may have also engaged in homosexual intercourse. LGBT social movements Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer ( LGBTQ ) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBTQ people in society. Although there
13080-493: Was a humorous anthology of homosexual advocacy, written with an obvious enthusiasm for its subject. It contains the argument: "Unnatural Desire is a Contradiction in Terms; downright Nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human Parts: Are not they, however, constructed, and consequently impelling Nature?" Social reformer Jeremy Bentham wrote the first known argument for homosexual law reform in England around 1785, at
13200-466: Was arrested in police raids numerous times, including in the first documented case of arrests for female impersonation in the United States, on April 12, 1888. From the 1870s, social reformers began to defend homosexuality, but due to the controversial nature of their advocacy, kept their identities secret. The Uranian poets and prose writers, who sought to rehabilitate the love between men and boys and in doing so often appealed to Ancient Greece, formed
13320-470: Was caused by childhood trauma and was curable. In the United States, several secret or semi-secret groups were formed explicitly to advance the rights of homosexuals as early as the turn of the 20th century, but little is known about them. A better documented group is Henry Gerber 's Society for Human Rights formed in Chicago in 1924, which was quickly suppressed. Immediately following World War II ,
13440-469: Was dedicated to social progress for people who were transsexual, transvestite and homosexual, formed the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexology) in 1919. The institute conducted an enormous amount of research, saw thousands of transgender and homosexual clients at consultations, and championed a broad range of sexual reforms including sex education, contraception and women's rights. However,
13560-566: Was not published until 1978. The emerging currents of secular humanist thought that had inspired Bentham also informed the French Revolution , and when the newly formed National Constituent Assembly began drafting the policies and laws of the new republic in 1792, groups of militant "sodomite-citizens" in Paris petitioned the Assemblée nationale , the governing body of the French Revolution , for freedom and recognition. In 1791, France became
13680-652: Was noted for its involvement in the setting up of the local "Gayline", which is still active today and has received funding from the National Lottery . They also carried out a high-profile campaign against the local paper, the Leicester Mercury , which refused to advertise Gayline's services at the time. In 1972, Sweden became the first country in the world to allow people who were transsexual by legislation to surgically change their sex and provide free hormone replacement therapy . Sweden also permitted
13800-418: Was part of a larger project of freeing sexual relationships and expanding women's rights – including legalizing abortion, granting divorce on demand, equal rights for women, and attempts to socialize housework. During Stalin's era, however, USSR reverted all these progressive measures – re-criminalizing homosexuality and imprisoning gay men and banning abortion. In 1928, English writer Radclyffe Hall published
13920-401: Was published in 1723 in England, and is presumed by some modern scholars to be a novel. The 1749 edition of John Cleland 's popular novel Fanny Hill includes a homosexual scene, but this was removed in its 1750 edition. Also in 1749, the earliest extended and serious defense of homosexuality in English, Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified , written by Thomas Cannon ,
14040-430: Was published, and a series of high-profile direct actions, were carried out. The disruption of the opening of the 1971 Festival of Light was the best organized of GLF action . The Festival of Light, whose leading figures included Mary Whitehouse , met at Methodist Central Hall . Groups of GLF members in drag invaded and spontaneously kissed each other; others released mice , sounded horns, and unveiled banners, and
14160-537: Was published, but was suppressed almost immediately. It includes the passage, "Unnatural Desire is a Contradiction in Terms; downright Nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human Parts." Around 1785 Jeremy Bentham wrote another defense, but this was not published until 1978. Executions for sodomy continued in the Netherlands until 1803, and in England until 1835, James Pratt and John Smith being
14280-428: Was so controversial at the time that one bookseller was charged in court for holding copies of the work. It is claimed that Ellis coined the term 'homosexual', but in fact he disliked the word due to its conflation of Greek and Latin . These early proponents of LGBT rights, such as Carpenter, were often aligned with a broader socio-political movement known as ' free love '; a critique of Victorian sexual morality and
14400-570: Was with the ordinary tribe members of the same sex. During the colonial times following the European invasion, homosexuality was prosecuted by the Inquisition , sometimes leading to death sentences on the charges of sodomy, and the practices became clandestine. Many homosexual individuals went into heterosexual marriages to maintain appearances, and many joined the (unmarried) Catholic clergy to escape public scrutiny of their lack of interest in
#764235