103-587: The Rainbow List (called the Pink List until 2014) is a list of the most influential openly LGBTQ individuals in the United Kingdom, published annually in the British national newspaper The Independent on Sunday . The list was started in 2000 to recognise individuals in public life who are openly gay, but has since grown to "[honour] those who have long and brave histories of standing up for equal rights". The list
206-402: 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
309-459: A slur , as well as those who wish to dissociate themselves from queer radicalism , and those who see it as amorphous and trendy. Some younger people feel queer is a more politically charged, more powerful term than LGBT . In a 2018 U.S. study, about 1 in 5 LGBTQ people identified as "queer". SGM , or GSM , an abbreviation for sexual and gender minorities , has gained particular currency in government, academia, and medicine. GSRM
412-462: A "P" for " polyamorous " or " pangender ", an "H" for " HIV-affected ", or an "O" for "other". The initialism LGBTIH has seen use in India to encompass the hijra third gender identity and the related subculture. Adding the term allies to the initialism has sparked controversy, with some seeing the inclusion of ally in place of asexual/aromantic/agender as a form of LGBT erasure . There
515-451: A "TS", "2S", or "2" for " two-spirit " persons; or an "SA" for " straight allies ". The inclusion of straight allies in the LGBT initialism has proven controversial, as many straight allies have been accused of using LGBT advocacy to gain popularity and status in recent years, and various LGBT activists have criticised the heteronormative worldview of certain straight allies. Some may also add
618-414: 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
721-417: A deficiency or a temporary state. Similarly, aromantic individuals lack romantic attraction to others, yet they can still forge profound emotional connections and strong bonds with people without the romantic component. Furthermore, agender individuals either have no gender identity or possess a neutral or genderless gender identity. Some people have mistakenly claimed the A stands for ally, but allies are not
824-493: A derogatory term originating in hate speech and reject it, especially among older members of the community. Many variants of the term LGBT exist, such as the more inclusive LGBT+ and variations that change the order of the letters or include additional letters. At least some of the components of sexuality (regarding hetero, bi, straight), and also gender are stated to be on different spectrums of sexuality . Other common variants also exist, such as LGBTQIA , with
927-516: 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
1030-568: 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
1133-402: 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
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#17328982945781236-500: A journalist "without the deliberators' knowledge or consent." The list has also been criticised as being unsystematic in its compilation. The Huffington Post columnist "The Guyliner" complained of the 2012 list that "[n]o complicated formulae accompany any piece about the list to tell you how this influence is calculated", and that "it is nothing more than an inventory of names". LGBTQ LGBTQ (also commonly seen as LGBT , LGBT+ , LGBTQ+ , and LGBTQIA+ )
1339-450: A marginalized group and mentions of A for ally have regularly sparked controversy as a form of LGBT erasure . The initialisms LGBT or GLBT are not agreed to by everyone that they encompass. For example, some argue that transgender and transsexual causes are not the same as that of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people. This argument centers on the idea that being transgender or transsexual has to do more with gender identity, or
1442-536: 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
1545-461: 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
1648-527: A person's understanding of being or not being a man or a woman irrespective of their sexual orientation. LGB issues can be seen as a matter of sexual orientation or attraction. These distinctions have been made in the context of political action in which LGB goals, such as same-sex marriage legislation and human rights work (which may not include transgender and intersex people), may be perceived to differ from transgender and transsexual goals. A belief in "lesbian and gay separatism" (not to be confused with
1751-528: 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
1854-633: 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
1957-786: 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
2060-448: A term used primarily in scientific contexts, has at times carried negative connotations in the United States. Gay became a popular term in the 1970s. As lesbians forged more public identities, the phrase gay and lesbian became more common. A dispute as to whether the primary focus of their political aims should be feminism or gay rights led to the dissolution of some lesbian organizations, including Daughters of Bilitis , which
2163-508: A way of distinguishing themselves from what they regard as white -dominated LGBT communities. In public health settings, MSM (" men who have sex with men ") is clinically used to describe men who have sex with other men without referring to their sexual orientation, with WSW (" women who have sex with women ") also used as an analogous term. MVPFAFF is an abbreviation for Māhū , Vakasalewa , Palopa , Fa'afafine , Akava'ine , Fakaleitī (Leiti), and Fakafifine . This term
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#17328982945782266-422: 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 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
2369-583: 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
2472-461: 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
2575-505: Is also the acronym QUILTBAG (queer and questioning, unsure, intersex, lesbian, transgender and two-spirit, bisexual, asexual and aromantic, and gay and genderqueer). Similarly LGBTIQA+ stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, asexual and many other terms (such as non-binary and pansexual)". In Canada , the community is sometimes identified as LGBTQ2 (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and two spirit). Depending on which organization
2678-703: Is also used to include romantic minorities such as aromanticism . In New Zealand, New Zealand Human Rights Commission uses "Rights of Sexual and Gender Minorities" to discuss LGBT rights. In India, the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court of India , when decriminalizing homosexuality in the case of Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (2018) , said: Individuals belonging to sexual and gender minorities experience discrimination, stigmatization, and, in some cases, denial of care on account of their sexual orientation and gender identity. However, it
2781-503: Is an initialism for lesbian , gay , bisexual , transgender and queer or questioning . It is an umbrella term , broadly referring to all sexualities , romantic orientations , and gender identities which are not heterosexual , heteroromantic , or cisgender . In the 1990s, gay, lesbian, and bisexual activists adopted the term LGB , supplanting narrower terms such as "gay or lesbian". Terminology eventually shifted to LGBT , as transgender people became more accepted within
2884-527: 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
2987-554: Is important to note that 'sexual and gender minorities' do not constitute a homogenous group, and experiences of social exclusion, marginalization, and discrimination, as well as specific health needs, vary considerably. Nevertheless, these individuals are united by one factor - that their exclusion, discrimination and marginalization is rooted in societal heteronormativity and society's pervasive bias towards gender binary and opposite-gender relationships, which marginalizes and excludes all non-heteronormative sexual and gender identities. In
3090-520: Is inclusive of "those who may not self-identify as LGBT ... or those who have a specific medical condition affecting reproductive development". A publication from the White House Office of Management and Budget states, "We believe that SGM is more inclusive, because it includes persons not specifically referenced by the identities listed in LGBT." A UK government paper favors SGM because initials like LGBTIQ+ stand for terms that, especially outside
3193-449: Is intended as a term encompassing all sexual- and gender-minorities. For some indigenous people , two-spirit invokes a combination of identities, including sexual, gender, cultural, and spiritual. Some people advocate the term "minority sexual and gender identities" (MSGI, coined in 2000) for the purpose of explicitly including all people who are not cisgender and heterosexual or "gender, sexual, and romantic minorities" (GSRM), which
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3296-416: Is more explicitly inclusive of minority romantic orientations , but those have not been widely adopted either. Other rare umbrella terms are Gender and Sexual Diversities (GSD), MOGII (Marginalized Orientations, Gender Identities, and Intersex) and MOGAI (Marginalized Orientations, Gender Alignments and Intersex). SGL ( same gender loving ) is sometimes favored among gay male African Americans as
3399-664: Is using the abbreviation, the choice of initialism changes. Businesses and the CBC often simply employ LGBT as a proxy for any longer abbreviation, private activist groups often employ LGBTQ+ , whereas public health providers favour the more inclusive LGBT2Q+ to accommodate twin spirited indigenous peoples . For a time, the Pride Toronto organization used the much lengthier initialism LGBTTIQQ2SA , but appears to have dropped this in favour of simpler wording. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
3502-706: 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
3605-654: 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
3708-455: 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
3811-611: 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
3914-654: The Global North , are "not necessarily inclusive of local understandings and terms used to describe sexual and gender minorities". An example of usage outside the Global North is the Constitution of Nepal , which identifies "gender and sexual minorities" as a protected class. In Canada especially, the term 2SLGBTQ+ is seen, with the first two characters standing for two-spirit ; the whole term stands for two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and questioning, and
4017-490: The I standing for intersex and the A standing for asexual , aromantic , or agender , and LGBTQIA+ , where "the '+' represents those who are part of the community, but for whom LGBTQ does not accurately capture or reflect their identity". Longer initialisms have been criticized as confusing or unwieldy, sometimes being referred to as " alphabet soup ", and mocked with labels such as LGBTQWERTY , LGBTQXYZ , and alphabet mafia . The implication that
4120-446: The essentialist view that they had been born homosexual and used the descriptor lesbian to define sexual attraction often considered the separatist opinions of lesbian-feminists to be detrimental to the cause of gay rights. Bisexual and transgender people also sought recognition as legitimate categories within the larger minority community. In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, after the elation of change following group action in
4223-434: 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 the prenatal environment , specifically the organizational effects of hormones on
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4326-416: 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,
4429-489: The 'girls' aisle in a toyshop". The first edition as the Rainbow List was topped by Labour Peer and former actor Michael, Baron Cashman . Stephen Fry criticised the list in 2010 for its portrayal of Louie Spence as a "gay stereotype", whose 15 minutes of fame was already running out. Fry later stated that he had been told that the section in which Spence appeared, the "Rogue's Gallery", had been written separately by
4532-674: The 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City , some gays and lesbians became less accepting of bisexual or transgender people. Critics said that transgender people were acting out stereotypes , and bisexuals were simply gay men or lesbian women who were afraid to come out and be honest about their identity. Each community has struggled to develop its own identity including whether, and how, to align with other gender and sexuality-based communities, at times excluding other subgroups; these conflicts continue to this day. LGBTQ activists and artists have created posters to raise consciousness about
4635-539: 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
4738-480: 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
4841-699: The LGBT category to create an LGBTI community. Some intersex people prefer the initialism LGBTI , while others would rather that they not be included as part of the term. Emi Koyama describes how inclusion of intersex in LGBTI can fail to address intersex-specific human rights issues, including creating false impressions "that intersex people's rights are protected" by laws protecting LGBT people, and failing to acknowledge that many intersex people are not LGBT. Organisation Intersex International Australia states that some intersex individuals are same-sex attracted, and some are heterosexual, but "LGBTI activism has fought for
4944-745: 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,
5047-568: 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
5150-401: The T. The campaign has been condemned by many LGBT groups as transphobic . Many have expressed desire for an umbrella term to replace existing initialisms. Queer gained popularity as an umbrella-term for sexual and gender minorities in the 21st century. The term remains controversial, particularly among older LGBT people, who perceive it as offensive due to its historical usage as
5253-681: The US, the term "Sexual and Gender Minority" has been adopted by the National Institutes of Health , the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the UCLA Williams Institute , which studies SGM law and policy. Duke University and the University of California San Francisco both have prominent sexual and gender minority health programs. An NIH paper recommends the term SGM because it
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#17328982945785356-877: The acronym. Many further variants exist which add additional identities, such as LGBTQIA+ (for intersex , asexual , aromantic , and agender ) and 2SLGBTQ+ (for two-spirit ), LGBTQQ (for queer and questioning), or which order the letters differently, as in GLBT and GLBTQ . The collective of all LGBTQ people is often called the LGBTQ community . These labels are not universally agreed upon by everyone that they are intended to include. For example, some intersex people prefer to be included in this grouping, while others do not. Various alternative umbrella terms exist across various cultures, including queer ; same gender loving (SGL); and Gender, Sexual and Romantic Minorities (GSRM). The first widely used term, homosexual , now
5459-592: 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 ,
5562-403: 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
5665-472: 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
5768-560: 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
5871-410: 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
5974-505: 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
6077-434: The early 2010s, asexuality and aromanticism started gaining wider recognition. Around 2015, they were included in the expanded initialism LGBTQIA , with the A standing for asexual , aromantic , commonly grouped together as a-spec along with agender . Asexual individuals experience minimal to no sexual attraction to others, and it is crucial to acknowledge that asexuality is a legitimate sexual orientation, not
6180-475: 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
6283-425: 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
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#17328982945786386-512: 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
6489-562: 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
6592-582: The existence or right to equality of bisexual orientations and of transsexuality, sometimes leading to public biphobia and transphobia . In contrasts to separatists, Peter Tatchell of the LGBT human rights group OutRage! argues that to separate the transgender movement from the LGB would be "political madness", stating that: Queers are, like transgender people, gender deviant. We don't conform to traditional heterosexist assumptions of male and female behaviour, in that we have sexual and emotional relationships with
6695-404: 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
6798-549: 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 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
6901-497: 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
7004-534: 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
7107-802: 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
7210-432: 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
7313-450: The initialism refers to a single community is also controversial. Although identical in meaning, LGBT may have a more feminist connotation than GLBT as it places the "L" (for "lesbian") first. LGBT may also include additional Qs for " queer " or " questioning " (sometimes abbreviated with a question mark and sometimes used to mean anybody not literally L, G, B or T) producing the variants LGBTQ and LGBTQQ . The order of
7416-603: The issue since the movement began. From about 1988, activists began to use the initialism LGBT in the United States. Not until the 1990s within the movement did gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people gain equal respect. This spurred some organizations to adopt new names, as the GLBT Historical Society did in 1999. Although the LGBT community has seen much controversy regarding universal acceptance of different member groups (bisexual and transgender individuals, in particular, have sometimes been marginalized by
7519-463: The larger LGBT community), the term LGBT has been a positive symbol of inclusion . Beginning in the 1990s, the term queer was beginning to be adopted by the community to support gay-pride and reclaim the term from its earlier pejorative use as scholars have shown. The field of study of the LGBTQ community is called queer studies , in recognition of this reclamation and used as an umbrella term for
7622-539: 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
7725-413: The letters has not been standardized; in addition to the variations between the positions of the initial "L" or "G", the mentioned, less common letters, if used, may appear in almost any order. In Hebrew and Peninsular Spanish , LGTB ( להט"ב ) is used, that is, reversing the letters "B" and "T". Variant terms do not typically represent political differences within the community, but arise simply from
7828-544: 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
7931-444: The movement. Around that time, some activists began to reclaim the term queer , seeing it as a more radical and inclusive umbrella term, though others reject it, due to its history as a pejorative . In recognition of this, the 2010s saw the adoption of LGBTQ , and other more inclusive variants. Some versions of the term, such as LGBT+ and LGBTQ+ add a plus sign , to represent additional identities not captured within
8034-412: The myth that being gay/lesbian/bi/asexual/pansexual/etc. makes a person deficiently different from other people. These people are often less visible compared to more mainstream gay or LGBT activists. Since this faction is difficult to distinguish from the heterosexual majority, it is common for people to assume all LGBT people support LGBT liberation and the visibility of LGBT people in society, including
8137-522: 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
8240-569: 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
8343-423: 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
8446-400: The preferences of individuals and groups. The terms pansexual , omnisexual , fluid and queer-identified are regarded as falling under the umbrella term bisexual (and therefore are considered a part of the bisexual community ). Some use LGBT+ to mean "LGBT and related communities". Other variants may have a "U" for "unsure"; a "C" for "curious"; another "T" for " transvestite ";
8549-518: 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
8652-467: 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
8755-482: 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
8858-410: The related " lesbian separatism ") holds that lesbians and gay men form (or should form) a community distinct and separate from other groups normally included in the LGBTQ sphere. While not always appearing in sufficient numbers or organization to be called a movement , separatists are a significant, vocal, and active element within many parts of the LGBT community. In some cases separatists will deny
8961-485: The right to live one's life differently from the majority. In the 1996 book Anti-Gay , a collection of essays edited by Mark Simpson , the concept of a 'one-size-fits-all' identity based on LGBT stereotypes is criticized for suppressing the individuality of LGBT people. Writing in the BBC News Magazine in 2014, Julie Bindel questions whether the various gender groupings now, "bracketed together[,] ... share
9064-772: The rights of people who fall outside of expected binary sex and gender norms". Julius Kaggwa of SIPD Uganda has written that, while the gay community "offers us a place of relative safety, it is also oblivious to our specific needs". Numerous studies have shown higher rates of same-sex attraction in intersex people, with a recent Australian study of people born with atypical sex characteristics finding that 52% of respondents were non-heterosexual; thus, research on intersex subjects has been used to explore means of preventing homosexuality. As an experience of being born with sex characteristics that do not fit social norms, intersex can be distinguished from transgender, while some intersex people are both intersex and transgender. In
9167-430: The same issues, values and goals?" Bindel refers to a number of possible new initialisms for differing combinations and concludes that it may be time for the alliances to either be reformed or go their "separate ways". In 2015, the slogan " Drop the T " was coined to encourage LGBT organizations to stop support of transgender people as they say that sexual orientation, LGB, does not share similarity with gender identity,
9270-523: The same sex. We should celebrate our discordance with mainstream straight norms. The portrayal of an all-encompassing "LGBT community" or "LGB community" is also disliked by some lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Some do not subscribe to or approve of the political and social solidarity, and visibility and human rights campaigning that normally goes with it, including LGBT pride marches and events. Some of them believe that grouping together people with non-heterosexual orientations perpetuates
9373-402: The term transsexual commonly falls under the umbrella term transgender , but some transsexual people object to this. Those who add intersex people to LGBT groups or organizations may use the extended initialism LGBTI , or LGBTIQ . The relationship of intersex to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans, and queer communities is complex, but intersex people are often added to
9476-670: 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 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
9579-459: 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
9682-453: 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
9785-461: 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
9888-461: The wider community as the academic response to the Stonewall riots. The acronym LGBT eventually evolved to LGBTQ in recognition of the community's reclamation of the term. In 2016, GLAAD 's Media Reference Guide states that LGBTQ is the preferred initialism, being more inclusive of younger members of the communities who embrace queer as a self-descriptor. Some people consider queer to be
9991-741: Was also criticized for using the 2SLGBTQQIA+ initialism. As of July 2023, the Government of Canada's official term is 2SLGBTQI+ . Trudeau's new acronym was criticized by some social media users. The term trans* has been adopted by some groups as a more inclusive alternative to "transgender", where trans (without the asterisk) has been used to describe trans men and trans women , while trans* covers all non-cisgender ( genderqueer ) identities, including transgender, transsexual, transvestite, genderqueer, genderfluid , non-binary , genderfuck , genderless, agender, non-gendered, third gender, two-spirit, bigender , and trans man and trans woman. Likewise,
10094-505: Was developed by Phylesha Brown-Acton in 2010 at the Asia Pacific Games Human Rights Conference. This refers to those in the rainbow Pacific Islander community, who may or may not identify with the LGBT initialism. Homosexual Homosexuality is sexual attraction , romantic attraction , or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender . As a sexual orientation , homosexuality
10197-414: Was first published in 2000 to recognise openly gay individuals in the public sphere, and initially listed 50 people. Janet Street-Porter , then editor of the paper, wrote in 2012 that she started the list at the time "to celebrate the huge contribution [that gay people] make to every aspect of modern life". The list was renamed for the 2014 edition to be "more inclusive, less old-fashioned and far less like
10300-500: Was founded by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon , but disbanded in 1970 following disputes over which goal should take precedence. As equality was a priority for lesbian feminists , disparity of roles between men and women or butch and femme were viewed as patriarchal . Lesbian feminists eschewed gender role play that had been pervasive in bars as well as the perceived chauvinism of gay men ; many lesbian feminists refused to work with gay men or take up their causes. Lesbians who held
10403-451: 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 ,
10506-574: 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
10609-559: 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
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