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Societal attitudes towards same-sex relationships have varied over time and place. Attitudes to male homosexuality have varied from requiring males to engage in same-sex relationships to casual integration, through acceptance, to seeing the practice as a minor sin, repressing it through law enforcement and judicial mechanisms, and to proscribing it under penalty of death. In addition, it has varied as to whether any negative attitudes towards men who have sex with men have extended to all participants, as has been common in Abrahamic religions, or only to passive (penetrated) participants, as was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Female homosexuality has historically been given less acknowledgment, explicit acceptance, and opposition. The widespread concept of homosexuality as a sexual orientation and sexual identity is a relatively recent development, with the word itself being coined in the 19th century.
The following is the timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history.
LGBT history dates back to the first recorded instances of same-sex love and sexuality of ancient civilizations, involving the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) peoples and cultures around the world. What survives after many centuries of persecution—resulting in shame, suppression, and secrecy—has only in more recent decades been pursued and interwoven into more mainstream historical narratives.
Christian leaders have written about male homosexual activities since the first decades of Christianity; female homosexual behavior was almost entirely ignored. Throughout the majority of Christian history, most Christian theologians and denominations have considered homosexual behavior as immoral or sinful.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Iran face severe challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Sexual activity between members of the same sex is illegal and can be punishable by death, and people can legally change their assigned sex only through a sex reassignment surgery. Currently, Iran is the only country confirmed to execute gay people federally, though death penalty for homosexuality might be enacted in Afghanistan.
Lesbianism is the sexual and romantic desire between women. There are historically fewer mentions of lesbianism than male homosexuality, due to many historical writings and records focusing primarily on men.
Sodomy, also called buggery in British English, generally refers to either anal sex between people, or any sexual activity between a human and another animal (bestiality). It may also mean any non-procreative sexual activity. Originally, the term sodomy, which is derived from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Book of Genesis, was commonly restricted to homosexual anal sex. Sodomy laws in many countries criminalized the behavior. In the Western world, many of these laws have been overturned or are routinely not enforced. A person who practices sodomy is sometimes referred to as a sodomite, a pejorative term.
Satan's Harvest Home is a pamphlet published anonymously in 1749 in London, Great Britain. It describes and denounces what it deems the moral laxity and perversion of contemporary society, especially with reference to effeminacy, sodomy, and prostitution. The pamphlet incorporates some older material; this attempts to diagnose the cause of a perceived increase in the prevalence of sodomy among gentlemen. It specifies a continental European origin for both male effeminacy and same-sex relations between females. The pamphlet also features a poem, "Petit Maître", denouncing male habits of feminine dress.
Switzerland, a country which has long held a stance of neutrality in its relations with other nations, has not been immune to the movement of equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens. Prior to the 20th century, sodomy and other types of sexual intercourse between people of the same sex was held in various levels of legal contempt. Today, the modern LGBT rights movement in Switzerland is related to the larger international movement which developed largely after 1969.
In medieval Europe, attitudes toward homosexuality varied from region to region, determined by religious culture; the Catholic Church, which dominated the religious landscape, considered, and still considers, sodomy as a mortal sin and a "crime against nature". By the 11th century, "sodomy" was increasingly viewed as a serious moral crime and punishable by mutilation or death. Medieval records reflect this growing concern. The emergence of heretical groups, such as the Cathars and Waldensians, witnesses a rise in allegations of unnatural sexual conduct against such heretics as part of the war against heresy in Christendom. Accusations of sodomy and "unnatural acts" were levelled against the Order of the Knights Templar in 1307 as part of Philip IV of France's attempt to suppress the order. These allegations have been dismissed by some scholars.
The history of LGBT people in Iran spans thousands of years. Homosexuality has been viewed as a sin in Islam, and is outlawed in almost all Muslim-majority countries, including Iran. In pre-Islamic Iran, a tradition of homosexuality existed, however most were intolerant of pederasty and sexual activity between two men, especially the Zoroastrians. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, Iranians were “far from immoral relations with boys”.
Medieval female sexuality is the collection of sexual and sensual characteristics identified in a woman from the Middle Ages. Like a modern woman, a medieval woman's sexuality included many different aspects. Sexuality does not only refer to a woman's sexual activity, as sexual lives were as social, cultural, legal, and religious as they were personal.
Joan Cadden is Professor Emerita of medieval history and literature in the History Department of the University of California, Davis. She served as president of the History of Science Society (HSS) from 2006 to 2007. She has written extensively on gender and sexuality in medieval science and medicine. Her book Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Age: Medicine, Science, and Culture (1993) received the Pfizer Prize in 1994, from the History of Science Society, as the outstanding book on the history of science.
This is a list of important events relating to the LGBT community from 1701 to 1800.
Capital punishment as a criminal punishment for homosexuality has been implemented by a number of countries in their history. It currently remains a legal punishment in several countries and regions, most of which have sharia–based criminal laws, except for Uganda.
Agatha Dietschi, also known as Hans Kaiser and Schnitter Hensli, was a German charged for having lived her life as a man and married a woman. Her case is regarded as an important one in the history of prosecution of homosexuals.
Richard Puller von Hohenburg was a 15th-century Alsatian and Swiss nobleman and knight. He is notable for his homosexual liaisons, his strategic avoidance of prosecution, and later execution for his homosexuality.
Katherine "Katie" B. Crawford is an American historian. She is the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Women's and Gender Studies and History at Vanderbilt University.
Female sodomy is a general category of sexual or erotic activities enacted between women. It was codified as a legal category in medieval and early modern Europe, although it differed greatly between regions. Female sodomy is distinct from the social and legal category of (male) sodomy due to the significant differences in the way women accused of sodomy were seen in society and treated within the court system. A person who commits sodomy is sometimes referred to as a sodomite. Notable historical female sodomites include Katherina Hetzeldorfer and Benedetta Carlini.
References
- Helmut Puff: Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400-1600 (2003), p. 32.
- Katherine Crawford: European Sexualities, 1400-1800 (2007), p. 162.
- Puff, H. (1 January 2000). "Female Sodomy: The Trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (1477)". Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. 30 (1): 41–62. doi:10.1215/10829636-30-1-41. S2CID 170570964.