GLBT+History

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) LGBT refers to peoples and their cultures whom are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. The history of LGBT includes records which dates back to our ancient civilization when the instances of same-sex love and sexuality was first recorded. The limited finidng of these ancient records were receently pursue and sought after as a unique part of our history. In the past, these records would be done in secrecy beucase if they have been discivered, the person who’s recognized as a LGBT would be comdemed in shame, supression and resulted in persecution.
 * History of GLBT **

The US was the first one to start with the GLBT History Month in 1994, an annual month long observance of the GLBT history, many other countries had followed since that time. The month is to study history of the LGBT people, GLBT rights and related civil rights movements. The GLBT history month in the US is in October, so they could include the National Coming Out Day, which is October 11. Around the world, the GLBT month is not all practiced at the same time period. For instance, in he United Kingson, the GLBT history month is on Febuary, reason is so they could to coincide with a major celebration of the 2005 abolition of Section 28, which had prohibited schools from discussing LGBT issues or counseling LGBT or questioning youth.

**Ancient history **

Throughout the recordings from almost all ancient civilizations, there were citations found regarding same sex love and sexuality relationship. Also, transgender and third sex people were recorded. When comparing these recordings, our current finding presents that the earliest mentioning to same sex relationship is from the Ancient Greece. People still had a man and woman relationship, while having same sex affairs on top of their individual marriage relationship.

**Europe **

The earliest documents concerning same-sex relationships come from Ancient Greece. Such relationships did not replace marriage between man and woman, but occurred before and beside it. A mature man would not usually have a mature male mate. Instead, an older man would usually be the lover to a young loved one. If a person was open about one's homosexuality then they were exiled or in some cases executed because it was regarded as a duty to one's ethnic group to reproduce.

Some research has shown that ancient Greeks believed that sperm was the source of knowledge. And that these relationships served to pass wisdomon from the erastes to the eromenos within society.

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

Attitudes toward homosexual behavior changed when the Empire fell under Christian rule; see for instance legislation of Justinian I.

**Ancient China and Japan **

Homosexuality has been acknowledged in China since ancient times. Scholar Pan Guangdan ( 潘光旦 ) came to the conclusion that nearly every emperor in the Han Dynasty had one or more male sex partners. There are also descriptions of lesbians in some history books. It is believed homosexuality was popular in the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties. Chinese homosexuals did not experience high-profile persecution as compared with that which was received by homosexuals in Europe during the Middle Ages. Same-sex love was celebrated in Chinese art, many examples of which have survived the book burnings of the Cultural Revolution. Though no large statues are known to still exist, many hand scrolls and paintings on silk can be found in private collections.

In Japan, several Heian diaries which contain references to homosexual acts exist as well. Some of these also contain references to emperors involved in homosexual relationships and to "handsome boys retained for sexual purposes" by emperors. In other literary works can be found references to what Leupp has called "problems of gender identity", such as the story of a youth's falling in love with a girl who is actually a cross-dressing male. Japanese shunga are erotic pictures which include same-sex and opposite-sex love.

**South Asia **

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">In South Asia the //Hijra// are a caste of third-gender, or transgender group who live a feminine role. Hijra may be born male or intersex, and some may have been born female.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Middle East, South and Central Asia **

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Among many Middle Eastern Muslim cultures egalitarian or age-structured homosexual practices were, and remain, widespread and thinly veiled. The prevailing pattern of same-sex relationships in the temperate and sub-tropical zone stretching from Northern India to the Western Sahara is one in which the relationships were—and are—either gender-structured or age-structured or both. The practice of bacha bazi is one among many forms of pederasty ubiquitous in the Muslim world. In pre-modern Islam there was a "widespread conviction that beardless youths possessed a temptation to adult men as a whole, and not merely to a small minority of deviants." Eminent scholars of Islam, such as Sheikh ul-Islam Imam Malik, and Iman Shafi amongst others, ruled that Islam disallowed homosexuality and ordained capital punishment for a person guilty of it. Homosexual activity is a crime and forbidden in most Muslim-majority countries. In the Islamic regimes of Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, homosexual activity is punished with the death penalty. In Nigeria and Somalia the death penalty is issued in some regions. The legal punishment for sodomy has varied among juristic schools: some prescribe capital punishment; while other prescribe a milder discretionary punishment such as imprisonment. In some relatively secular Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia, Jordan and Turkey this is not the case. A tradition of art and literature sprang up constructing Middle Eastern homosexuality.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Africa **

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Though often ignored or suppressed by European explorers and colonialists, homosexual expression in native Africa was also present and took a variety of forms. Anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships," named motsoalle. E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male Azande warriors (in the northern Congo) routinely took on boy-wives between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in intercrural sex with their older husbands. The practice had died out by the early 20th century, after Europeans had gained control of African countries, but was recounted to Evans-Pritchard by the elders he spoke to.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Same-sex marriage **

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, there has been a growing movement in a number of countries to regard marriage as a right which should be extended to same-sex-couples. Legal recognition of a marital union opens up a wide range of entitlements, including social security, taxation, inheritance and other benefits unavailable to couples unmarried in the eyes of the law.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Restricting legal recognition to opposite-sex couples prevents same-sex couples from gaining access to the legal benefits of marriage. Though certain rights can be replicated by legal means other than marriage (for example, by drawing-up contracts), many cannot, such as inheritance, hospital visitation and immigration. Lack of legal recognition also makes it more difficult for same-sex couples to adopt children.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">The first country to legalize same-sex marriages was the Netherlands (2001), while the first marriages were performed in the Amsterdam city hall on April 1, 2001. At present, same-sex marriages are legal nationally in ten countries: the Netherlands (2001), Belgium (2003), Spain and Canada (2005), South Africa (2006), Norway and Sweden (2009), and Portugal, Iceland and Argentina (2010).