c. 9,600 BCE – c, 5,000 BCE –
Mesolithicrock art in
Sicily depicts male figures in hives that have been interpreted variously, including as hunters, acrobats, religious initiates, and gay sex.[2][3]
70th century BCE – 17th century BCE
c. 7,000 BCE –1700 BCE – Among the sexual depictions in
Neolithic and
Bronze Age drawings and figurines from the Mediterranean area, as one author describes it, a "
third sex" human figure having female breasts and male genitals or without distinguishing sex characteristics. In Neolithic
Italy, female images are found in a domestic context, while images that combine sexual characteristics appear in burials or religious settings. In Neolithic
Greece and
Cyprus, figures are often dual-sexed or without identifying sexual characteristics.[4]
3rd millennium BCE
29th century BCE – 25th century BCE
c. 2900 BCE – c. 2500 BCE – A burial of a suburb of
Prague, Czech Republic, a male is buried in the outfit usually reserved for women. Archaeologists speculate that the burial corresponds to a
transgender person or someone of the third sex.[5]
23rd century BCE or 23rd century BCE – 22nd century BCE
2284 BCE – 2246 BCE or 2184 BCE –
Pepi II Neferkare, who ruled the
Kingdom of Egypt as an absolute monarch under the title of
Pharaoh of Egypt, is believed to have had a homosexual interpretation around nocturnal visits to his
General Sasenet, though critics argue that it was more likely that the story was intended to tarnish the reputation of the Pharaoh by associating him with homosexuality.[6][7][8][9][10]
2nd millennium BCE
18th century BCE
c. 1775 BCE – c. 1761 BCE – During the reign of King
Zimri-Lim of the
Kingdom of Mari, he is recorded to have male lovers.[11]
"If a man tells another man, either privately or in a brawl, "Your wife is promiscuous; I will bring charges against her myself," but he is unable to substantiate the charge, and cannot prove it, he is to be caned, be sentenced to a month's hard labor for the king, be cut off, and pay one talent of lead."
"If a man has secretly started a rumour about his neighbor saying, "He has allowed men to have sex with him," or in a quarrel has told him in the presence of others, "Men have sex with you," and then, "I will bring charges against you myself," but is then unable to substantiate the charge, and cannot prove it, that man is to be caned, be sentenced to a month's hard labour for the king, be cut off, and pay one talent of lead."
"If a man violates his own mother, it is a capital crime. If a man violates his daughter, it is a capital crime. If a man violates his son, it is capital crime."
c. 1000 BCE – c. 500 BCE – The
Vendidad dates from this period[18][19] and within the text it states the following:
"
Ahura Mazda answered: 'The man that lies with mankind as man lies with womankind, or as woman lies with mankind, is the man that is a
Daeva; this one is the man that is a worshipper of the Daevas, that is a male
paramour of the Daevas, that is a female paramour of the Daevas, that is a wife to the Daeva; this is the man that is as bad as a Daeva, that is in his whole being a Daeva; this is the man that is a Daeva before he dies, and becomes one of the unseen Daevas after death: so is he, whether he has lain with mankind as mankind, or as womankind."[20]
— Avesta, Vendidad, Fargard 8. Funerals and purification, unlawful sex, Section V (32) Unlawful lusts.
The guilty may be killed by any one, without an order from the
Dastur, and by this execution an ordinary capital crime may be redeemed.[20]
c. 630 BCE –
Dorian aristocrats in
Crete adopt formal relations between adult aristocrats and adolescent boys; an inscription from Crete is the oldest record of the social institution of
paiderastia among the Greeks[22] (see
Cretan pederasty). Marriage between men in Greece was not legally recognized, but men might form lifelong relationships originating in paiderastia ("pederasty," without the pejorative connotations of the English word). These partnerships were not dissimilar to heterosexual marriages except that the older person served as educator or mentor.[23]
Sappho, a Greek lyric poet born on the island of
Lesbos, was born between 630 and 612 BCE, and died around 570 BCE. The
Alexandrians included her in the list of nine lyric poets. She was famous for her lesbian themes, giving her name and that of her homeland to the very definition of
lesbianism (and the lesser used term of "sapphism"). She was exiled c. 600 BCE unrelated to lesbianism. She was later permitted to return.
6th century BCE
534 – 492 BCE –
Duke Ling of Wey and
Mizi Xia had a loving same-sex relationship, where various plays and stories have commemorated their love story in the phrase, "the bitten peach".[24]
c. 540 – 530 BCE – Wall paintings from the
EtruscanTomb of the Bulls (Italian: Tomba dei Tori), found in 1892 in the Monterozzi
necropolis,
Tarquinia, depict homosexual intercourse. The tomb is named for the pair of bulls who watch human sex scenes, one between a man and a woman, and the other between two men; these may be
apotropaic, or embody aspects of the cycle of regeneration and the afterlife. The three-chamber tomb was inscribed with the name of the deceased for whom it was originally built, Aranth Spurianas or Arath Spuriana, and also depicts
Achilles killing the
Trojan prince
Troilus, along with indications of
Apollo cult.[25]
385 BCE – Plato publishes Symposium in which
Phaedrus,
Eryximachus,
Aristophanes and other Greek intellectuals argue that love between males is the highest form, while sex with women is lustful and utilitarian.[30]Socrates, however, differs.[31] He demonstrates extreme self-control when seduced by the beautiful
Alcibiades.[32]
350 BCE – Plato publishes Laws in which the Athenian stranger and his companions criticize homosexuality as being lustful and wrong for society because it does not further the species and may lead to irresponsible citizenry.[33]
346 BCE -
Aeschines' speech
Against Timarchus, who was on trial for male prostitution, reveals Athenian attitudes to homosexuality.[34]
338 BCE – The
Sacred Band of Thebes, a previously undefeated elite battalion made up of one hundred and fifty pederastic couples, is destroyed by the forces of
Philip II of Macedon who bemoans their loss and praises their honour.[35]
227 BCE, 226 BCE, 216 BCE, or 149 BCE – During the
Roman Republic, the Lex Scantinia imposed penalties on those who committed a sex crime (
stuprum) against a
freeborn youth; infrequently mentioned or enforced, it may also have been used to prosecute
male citizens who willingly took the passive role in
homosexual relations.[37] It is unclear whether the penalty was death or a fine. For an
adult male citizen to desire and engage in same-sex relations was considered natural and socially acceptable, as long as his partner was a male
prostitute,
slave or infamis, a person excluded from the legal protections accorded a citizen. In the
Imperial period, the Lex Scantinia was revived by
Domitian as part of his program of judicial and moral reform.[38]
1st century BCE
c. 90s – 80s BCE –
Quintus Lutatius Catulus was among a circle of poets who made short, light
Hellenistic poems fashionable in the
late Republic. Both his surviving
epigrams address a male as an object of desire, signaling a new homoerotic aesthetic in Roman culture.[39]
57 – 54 BCE –
Catullus writes the Carmina, including love poems to Juventius, boasting of sexual prowess with youth and violent invectives against "passive" homosexuals.
c. 50 BCE – The Lex Julia de vi publica, a
Roman Republic law, was passed to define rape as forced sex against "boy, woman, or anyone" and the rapist was subject to execution. Men who had been raped were exempt from the loss of legal or social standing suffered by those who submitted their bodies to use for the pleasure of others; a male prostitute or entertainer was infamis and excluded from the legal protections extended to citizens in good standing. As a matter of law, a
slave could not be raped; he was considered property and not
legally a person. The slave's owner, however, could prosecute the rapist for property damage.[39][40][41][42]
44 BCE – After the
assassination of
Dictator and
ConsulGaius Julius Caesar, Gaius Octavius is publicly named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir. According to
Mark Antony, he charged that Octavius had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favors.[43]
42 – 39 BCE –
Virgil writes the Eclogues, with Eclogue 2 a notable example of homoerotic Latin literature.
27 BCE – The
Roman Empire is established under the rule of
Augustus. The first recorded same-sex marriage occurs during his reign, homosexual prostitution is taxed, and if someone is caught being sexually passive with another male, a Roman citizen could lose his citizenship.[44]
26, 25 and 18 BCE –
Tibullus writes his elegies, with references to homosexuality.
7 – 1 BCE –
Emperor Ai of Han had a loving same-sex relationship with
Dong Xian. In one historical record, Emperor Ai cut his own sleeves to not wake up his beloved Dong Xian.[45]
Common Era
1st millennium
1st century
Philo of Alexandria and
Marcus Manilius provided descriptions of transgender people during the early
Roman Empire. Philo stated: "Expending every possible care on their outward adornment, they are not ashamed even to employ every device to change artificially their nature as men into women".[46][47] He also attested that some members of this group, to that end, had their penises removed.[47]
5 –15 CE – The
Warren Cup is made – a Roman silver drinking cup decorated in relief with two images of male same-sex acts.
98 –
Trajan, one of the most beloved of Roman emperors, begins his reign. Trajan was well known for his homosexuality and fondness for young males. This was used to advantage by the king of
Edessa,
Abgar VII, who, after incurring the anger of Trajan for some misdeed, sent his handsome young son to make his apologies, thereby obtaining pardon.[50]
Publius Cornelius Tacitus writes Germania. In Germania, Tacitus writes that the punishment for those who engage in "bodily infamy" among the
Germanic peoples is to "smother in mud and bogs under an heap of hurdles." Tacitus also writes in Germania that the Germanic warrior-chieftains and their retinues were "in times of peace, beauty, and in times of war, a defense". Tacitus later wrote in Germania that priests of the
Swabian sub-tribe, the Naharvali[51] or
Nahanarvali, who "dress as women" to perform their priestly duties.[52]
2nd century
c. 200 – The Outlines of Pyrrhonism is published. In the book,
Sextus Empiricus states that "amongst the
Persians it is the habit to indulge in intercourse with males, but amongst the
Romans it is forbidden by law to do so". He also stated in the book that "amongst us
sodomy is regarded as shameful or rather illegal, but by the
Germanic they say, it is not looked on as shameful but as a customary thing. It is said, too, that in
Thebes long ago this practice was not held to be shameful, and they say that
Meriones the
Cretan was so called by way of indicating the Cretans' customed and some refer to this the burning love of
Achilles for
Patroclus. And what wonder, when both the adherents of the
Cynic philosophy and the followers of
Zeno of Citium,
Cleanthes and
Chrysippus, declare that this practice is indifferent?".[53][54]
218 – 222 – Roman emperor
Elagabalus's reign begins. At different times, Elagabalus marries five women and a man named
Zoticus, an athlete from
Smyrna, in a lavish public ceremony at Rome;[56] but the Syrian's most stable relationship is with the chariot driver
Hierocles, and
Cassius Dio says Elagabalus delighted in being called Hierocles' mistress, wife, and queen.[57] The emperor wears makeup and wigs, prefers to be called a lady and not a lord, and offers vast sums to any physician who can provide them with a vagina;[58][57] for this reason, the emperor is seen by some writers as an early transgender figure and one of the first on record as seeking
sex reassignment surgery.[58][57][59][60]
222 – 235 – Roman emperor
Severus Alexander deported homosexuals who were active in public life. According to Christius, Alexander increased the penalties for homosexuality throughout the
Roman Empire. According to
Augustan History, Alexander decreed that the taxes on pimps, prostitutes, and exoleti should not be deposited in the public purse; instead, he ordered that these taxes should be used for restoring the
theatre of Marcellus, the
Circus Maximus, the
amphitheatre, and the stadium build by
Domitian in the
Campus Martius. According to
Ælius Lampridus, Alexander even contemplated making male prostitution illegal.[39][61][62]
305 – 306 –
Council of Elvira (now
Granada, Spain). This council was representative of the Western European Church and among other things, it barred pederasts the right to Communion.
314 –
Council of Ancyra (now
Ankara, Turkey). This council was representative of the Eastern European Church and it excluded the
Sacraments for 15 years to unmarried men under the age of 20 who were caught in homosexual acts, and excluded the man for life if he was married and over the age of 50.[63]
306 – 337 – The Life of Constantine mentions a temple at
Aphaca in
Phoenicia, on a remote summit of Mount Libanus, being used by effeminate homosexual pagan priests, and says that this temple was destroyed by the command of
Roman emperorConstantine I. It also states that Constantine passed a law ordering the extermination of effeminate homosexual pagan priests in
Egypt.[39][64]
342 – The Roman emperors Constantius II and Constans I issue the following imperial decree for the Roman Empire:[68][69]
"When a man marries in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce men, what does he wish, when sex has lost all its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed to another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment."
c. 380s –
Ammianus Marcellinus publishes Res Gestae. In Res Gestae, Marcellinus writes that the
Persians "are extravagantly given to venery, and are hardly contented with a multitude of concubines; they are far from immoral relations with boys." Also in Res Gestae, Marcellinus writes that "We have learned that these
Taifali were a shameful folk, so sunken in a life of shame and obscenity, that in their country the boys are coupled with the men in a union of unmentionable lust, to consume the flower of their youth in the polluted intercourse of those paramours."[70][71]
"We cannot tolerate the city of
Rome, mother of all virtues, being stained any longer by the contamination of male effeminacy, nor can we allow that agrarian strength, which comes down from the founders, to be softly broken by the people, thus heaping shame on the centuries of our founders and the princes, Orientius, dearly and beloved and favoured. Your laudable experience will therefore punish among revenging flames, in the presence of the people, as required by the grossness of the crime, all those who have given themselves up to the infamy of condemning their manly body, transformed into a feminine one, to bear practices reserved for the other sex, which have nothing different from women, carried forth – we are ashamed to say – from male brothels, so that all may know that the house of the manly soul must be sacrosanct to all, and that he who basely abandons his own sex cannot aspire to that of another without undergoing the supreme punishment."
"All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people."
"In criminal cases public prosecutions take place under various statutes, including the
Lex Julia de adulteris, "...which punishes with death, not only those who violate the marriages of others, but also those who dare to commit acts of vile lust with men."
576 – Death of
Anastasia the Patrician who left life as a lady-in-waiting in the court of
Justinian I in Constantinople to spend twenty-eight years (until death) dressed as a male monk in seclusion in
Egypt,[75] and has been adopted by today's
LGBT community as an example of a "
transgender" saint.[76][77]
589 – The
Visigothic kingdom in
Spain, is converted from
Arianism to
Catholicism. This conversion leads to a revision of the law to conform to those of
Catholic countries. These revisions include provisions for the persecution of homosexuals and
Jewish people.[78]
693 – In
Iberia, Visigothic ruler
Egica of Hispania and Septimania, demanded that a Church council confront the occurrence of homosexuality in the Kingdom. The
Sixteenth Council of Toledo issued a statement in response, which was adopted by Egica, stating that homosexual acts be punished by
castration, exclusion from
Communion, hair shearing, one hundred lashes, and banishment into
exile.[33]
997 – King Mokjong of Goryeo, known for having male lovers, ascended to the throne in
Korea.[82]
2nd millennium
11th century
1007 – The Decretum of
Burchard of Worms equates homosexual acts with sexual transgressions such as
adultery and argues, therefore, that it should have the same
penance (generally
fasting).[33]
1051 –
Peter Damian writes the treatise Liber Gomorrhianus, in which he argues for stricter punishments for clerics failing their duty against "vices of nature."[83]
1061 – Pedro Dias and Muño Vandilas are married by a priest at a chapel in the
Kingdom of León.[84]
1100 –
Ivo of Chartres tries to convince
Pope Urban II about homosexuality risks. Ivo accused Rodolfo, archbishop of
Tours, of convincing the King of France to appoint a certain Giovanni as bishop of
Orléans. Giovanni was well known as Rodolfo's lover and had relations with the king himself, a fact of which the king openly boasted. Pope Urban, however, didn't consider this as a decisive fact: Giovanni ruled as bishop for almost forty years, and Rodolfo continued to be well known and respected.[85]
1140 – The Italian monk Gratian compiles his work Concordia discordantium canonum in which he argues that sodomy is the worst of all the sexual sins because it involves using the member in an unnatural way.[33]
1164 – The English monk
Aelred of Rievaulx writes his De spiritali amicitia, giving love between persons of the same gender a profound expression.
1232 –
Pope Gregory IX starts the
Inquisition in the Italian City-States. Some cities called for banishment and/or
amputation as punishments for 1st- and 2nd-offending sodomites and burning for the 3rd or habitual offenders.[citation needed]
1260 – In the
Kingdom of France, first-offending sodomites lost their testicles, second offenders lost their member, and third offenders were burned. Women caught in same-sex acts could be mutilated and executed as well.[33]
1265 –
Thomas Aquinas argues that sodomy is second only to
bestiality in the ranking of sins of lust.
1283 – The Coutumes de Beauvaisis dictats that convicted sodomites should not only be burned but also that their property would be forfeited.
14th century
1308–14 –
Philip IV of France orders the arrest of all
Templars on charges of heresy, idolatry and sodomy, but these charges are only a pretext to seize the riches of the order. Order leaders are sentenced to death and burned at the stake on 18 March 1314 by
Notre Dame.
1321 – Dante's Inferno places sodomites in the Seventh Circle.
1327 – The deposed King
Edward II of England is killed, allegedly by forcing a red-hot poker through his rectum. Edward II had a history of conflict with the nobility, who repeatedly banished his former lover
Piers Gaveston, the
Earl of Cornwall.[citation needed]
1347 – Rolandino Roncaglia is tried for sodomy, an event that caused a sensation in Italy. He confessed he "had never had sexual intercourse, neither with his wife nor with any other woman, because he had never felt any carnal appetite, nor could he ever have an erection of his virile member". After his wife died of plague, Rolandino started to prostitute himself, wearing female dresses because "since he has female look, voice and movements – although he does not have a female orifice, but has a male member and testicles – many persons considered him to be a woman because of his appearance".[86]
1351 – Buddhist temple murals depicting same-sex relationships were commissioned and painted in
Thailand.[87]
1357 – King Gongmin of Goryeo, known for having male lovers, ascended to the throne in
Korea.[82]
1370s – Jan van Aersdone and Willem Case were two men executed in
Antwerp in the 1370s. The charge against them was same sex intercourse which was illegal and strenuously vilified in
medieval Europe.[citation needed] Aersdone and Case stand out because records of their names have survived. One other couple still known by name from the 14th century were Giovanni Braganza and Nicoleto Marmagna of
Venice.[88]
1424 –
Bernardino of Siena preached for three days in
Florence, Italy, against homosexuality and other forms of lust, culminating in a pyre in which burned cosmetics, wigs and all sorts of articles for the beautification. He calls for
sodomites to be ostracized from society, and these sermons alongside measures by other clergy of the time strengthens opinion against homosexuals and encourages the authorities to increase the measures of persecution.[88][89]
1432 – In Florence the first organization specifically intended to prosecute sodomy is established, the "Night Officials", which over the next 70 years arrest about 10,000 men and boys, succeeding in getting about 2,000 convicted, with most then paying fines.
1436 –
Royal Noble Consort Sun is banished from the
Joseon court after it is discovered that she has been sleeping with her maid. The official decree blames her demotion on receiving visitors without her husband's permission and instructing her maids to sing men's songs.[92]
1451 –
Pope Nicholas V enables the papal Inquisition to persecute men who practice sodomy.
1471 – 1493 – According to
Garcilaso de la Vega's Real Reviews of the Incas, during the reign of
Sapa IncaTopa Inca Yupanqui or Túpac Inca Yupanqui, he persecuted homosexuals. Yupanqui's general, Auqui Tatu, burned alive in public square all those for whom there was even circumstantial evidence of sodomy in [H]acari valley, threatening to burn down whole towns if anyone engaged in sodomy. In
Chincha, Yupanqui burned alive large numbers, pulling down their houses and any trees they had planted.[93]
1475 – In
Peru, a chronicle written under the Capac Yupanqui government describes the persecution of homosexuals with public burnings and destruction of homes (a practice usually reserved for conquered tribes).
1476 – Florentine court records of 1476 show that
Leonardo da Vinci and three other young men were charged with
sodomy twice, and acquitted.[94]
1483 – The
Spanish Inquisition begins. Sodomites were stoned, castrated, and burned. Between 1540 and 1700, more than 1,600 people were prosecuted for sodomy.[33]
1492 –
Desiderius Erasmus writes a series of love letters to a fellow monk while at a monastery in Steyn in the Netherlands.[95]
1494 –
Girolamo Savonarola criticizes the population of Florence for its "horrible sins" (mainly homosexuality and gambling) and exhorts them to give up their young and beardless lovers.
1497 – In Spain, the
King of AragonFerdinand and
Queen of Castile and
LeónIsabella strengthen the sodomy laws hitherto applied only in the cities. An increase is made in the severity of the crime equating to treason or heresy, and the amount of evidence required for conviction is lowered, with torture permitted to extract confession. The property of the defendant is also confiscated.
15th century – 16th century
1493 – 1525 – According to Garcilaso de la Vega's Real Reviews of the Incas, during his reign, Sapa Inca
Huayna Capac merely "bade" the people of
Tumbez to give up sodomy and did not take any measures against the Matna, who "practiced sodomy more openly and shamelessly than all the other tribes."[96]
16th century
1502 – A charge is brought against the Italian artist
Sandro Botticelli on the grounds of sodomy.[97]
1505 – 1521 – The
Zhengde Emperor of the
Ming dynasty had a same-sex relationship with the Muslim leader Sayyid Husain, although no evidence supporting this claim exists in Chinese sources[98][99]
1512 – Revolt of the Compagnacci in Florence [100]
1513 –
Vasco Núñez de Balboa, a conquistador in modern-day Panama is described as throwing forty homosexual Indians to his dogs.[101]
1519 –
Ferdinand Magellan sentences the death penalty against his own crew when they arrived it Rio de Janeiro, after he deemed them as having a homosexual relationship[102]
1523 – First of several charges of sodomy brought against the Florentine artist
Benvenuto Cellini.[103]
1526 – The founder and first emperor of the
Mughal Empire, Emperor
Babur, had a long-term loving relationship with his male lover
Baburi Andijani, who was already an adult when Emperor Babur founded his dynasty.[104]
1542 – Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca documents same sex marriages and men "who dress like women and perform the office of women, but use the bow and carry big loads" among a Native American tribe in his publication, The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and His Companions from Florida to the Pacific 1528–1536.
1553 –
Mary Tudor ascends the English throne and removes all of the laws that had been passed by Henry VIII during the
English Reformation of the 1530s.
1561 – process of Wojciech z Poznania, who married Sebastian Słodownik, and lived with him for 2 years in
Poznań. Both had female partners. On his return to
Kraków, he married Wawrzyniec Włoszek. Wojciech, considered in public opinion as a woman, was burned for 'crimes against nature'.[107]
17th century – Hu Tianbao of Fujian was executed by the Chinese government. The people of Fujian later deified him as the god of homosexual love, building a temple in his honor and calling him
Tu'er Shen.[109]
1610 – The
Colony of Virginia enacts a military order that criminalizes male sodomy, making it punishable by death.[110] This order ends later the same year, when martial law is terminated upon the change in control of the Virginia Colony.[110]
1648 – In Canada's first-ever criminal trial for the crime of homosexuality, a gay military drummer stationed at the French garrison in
Ville-Marie,
New France is sentenced to death by the local
Sulpician priests.[113] After an intervention by the
Jesuits in
Quebec City, the drummer's life is spared on the condition that he accept the position of New France's first permanent
executioner.[113]
1655 – The
Connecticut Colony passes a law against sodomy, which includes a punishment for lesbian intercourse as well.[114]
1672 – The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672) is the first reference of homosexuality between nuns in
Ethiopian literature.[115][116]
1683 – The
Kingdom of Denmark criminalizes "relations against nature", making it punishable by death.[117]
1688 – 1704 – Kagemachaya(
ja), a Japanese gay bar, first opens in Japan.[118]
1740 –
Kiangxi Emperor of
Qing Dynasty passed the first legislation criminalizing consensual nonprofit homosexual sex in Chinese history.[120]: 144
1781 – Jens Andersson of Norway, assigned female at birth but identifying as male, was imprisoned and put on trial after marrying Anne Kristine Mortensdotter in a Lutheran church. When asked about his gender, the response was "Hand troer at kunde henhøre til begge Deele" ("He believes he belongs to both").[121]
1785 – Prince Kraison of
Thailand became the first openly queer member of the
Chakri dynasty since the dynasty's royal enthronment under its first ruler
Rama I, who was Prince Kraison's father. He had a loving relationship with theatre actors Khun Thong and Yaem.[122]
1785 –
Jeremy Bentham is one of the first people to argue for the decriminalization of sodomy in England.[33]
1791 – The
Kingdom of France (
Andorra, and
Haiti) adopts the
French Penal Code of 1791, which no longer criminalizes sodomy. France thus becomes the first West European country to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults.[124]
1791 – The novel Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin is published in China. It includes an openly bisexual character as well as an account of a
gay bashing.[125]
^Talalay, Lauren E. (2005). "The Gendered Sea: Iconography, Gender, and Mediterranean Prehistory". The Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory. Blackwell. pp. 130–148, especially p. 136.
ISBN978-0-631-23267-4.
^When writing about homosexuality, Meskell calls it "Another well documented example" Meskell, Lynn (1999). Archaeologies of Social Life: Age, Sex, Class Etcetra in Ancient Egypt. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 95.
ISBN978-0-631-21298-0.
^Kenneth Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Harvard University Press, 1978, 1898), pp. 205–7
^Boswell, John (1994). Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. New York: Vintage Books
^Hinsch, Bret. (1990). Passions of the Cut Sleeve. Published by the University of California Press. Pages 20-21.
^Stephan Steingräber, Abundance of Life: Etruscan Wall Painting (Getty Publications, 2006), pp. 67, 70, 91–92; Otto Brendel, Etruscan Art, translated by R. Serra Ridgway (Yale University Press, 1978, 1995), pp. 165–170; Fred S. Kleiner, A History of Roman Art (Wadsworth, 2007, 2010), p. xxxii.
^...with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander would later be intimate... "
Quintus Curtius Rufus"(BOOK VI. 5.23)
^Thomas A.J. McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome (Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 140–141. • Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (Oxford University Press, 1983, 1992), pp. 86, 224. • John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 63, 67–68. • Craig Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 116.
^Ben Nusbaum, "Some Myths and Anomalies in the Study of Roman Sexuality," in Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition (Haworth Press, 2005), p. 231.
^Richlin, "Not before Homosexuality," pp. 562–563.[full citation needed] • See also Digest 48.5.35 [34] on legal definitions of rape that included boys.
^Ornamentis
Augustarum:Suetonius, Life of Nero28–29, discussed by Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. pp. 284, 400, 424.
^Dio Cassius, Epitome of Book 68.6.4; 68.21.2–6.21.3
^For the spelling, see Hans-Werner Goetz, Jörg Jarnut, Walter Pohl (eds.), Regna and Gentes: The Relationship Between Late Antique and Early ... (2003,
ISBN9004125248), page 62.
^
abcVarner, Eric (2008). "Transcending Gender: Assimilation, Identity, and Roman Imperial Portraits". Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Supplementary Volume. 7. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press: 200–201.
ISSN1940-0977.
JSTOR40379354.
OCLC263448435. Elagabalus is also alleged to have appeared as Venus and to have depilated his entire body. ... Dio recounts an exchange between Elagabalus and the well-endowed Aurelius Zoticus: when Zoticus addressed the emperor as 'my lord,' Elagabalus responded, 'Don't call me lord, I am a lady.' Dio concludes his anecdote by having Elagabalus asking his physicians to give him the equivalent of a woman's vagina by means of a surgical incision.
^Godbout, Louis (2004).
"Elagabalus"(PDF). GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. Chicago: glbtq, Inc. Retrieved 6 August 2007.
^Theodosian Code 9.7.3: "When a man marries and is about to offer himself to men in womanly fashion (quum vir nubit in feminam viris porrecturam), what does he wish, when sex has lost all its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed to another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment."
^Theodosian Code 9.7.6: "All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people."
^Laura Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers (2001,
ISBN0809140160), pages 72–73
^Dale Albert Johnson, Corpus Syriacum Johnsoni I (2015,
ISBN1312855347), page 344-8
^Conner, Randy P.; Sparks, David Hatfield; Sparks, Mariya; Anzaldúa, Gloria (1997), Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Lore, Cassell, p. 57,
ISBN0-304-33760-9
^Visigothic Code 3.5.5, 3.5.6; "The doctrine of the orthodox faith requires us to place our censure upon vicious practices, and to restrain those who are addicted to carnal offences. For we counsel well for the benefit of our people and our country, when we take measures to utterly extirpate the crimes of wicked men, and put an end to the evil deeds of vice. For this reason we shall attempt to abolish the horrible crime of sodomy, which is as contrary to Divine precept as it is to chastity. And although the authority of the
Holy Scriptures, and the censure of earthly laws, alike, prohibit offences of this kind, it is nevertheless necessary to condemn them by a new decree; lest if timely correction be deferred, still greater vices may arise. Therefore, we establish by this law, that if any man whosoever, of any age, or race, whether he belongs to the clergy, or to the laity, should be convicted, by competent evidence, of the commission of the crime of
sodomy, he shall, by order of the king, or of any judge, not only suffer
emasculation, but also the penalty prescribed by
ecclesiastical decree for such offences, and promulgated in the third year of our reign."
^PETRI DAMIANI Liber gomorrhianus, ad Leonem IX Rom. Pon. in Patrologiae Cursus completus...accurante J.P., MIGNE, series secunda, tomus CXLV, col. 161; CANOSA, Romano, Storia di una grande paura La sodomia a Firenze e a Venezia nel quattrocento, Feltrinelli, Milano 1991, pp.13–14
^
abCrompton, Louis (2003). Homosexuality and Civilization. Cambridge & London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
^For more documented detail about Bernardino's lengthy campaign against homosexuality, see Franco Mormando (1999). "Chapter 3: Even The Devil Flees in Horror at the Sight of This Sin: Sodomy and Sodomites". The Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
^della Chiesa, Angela Ottino (1967). The Complete Paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. p. 83.
^Diarmaid MacCulloch (2003). Reformation: A History. pg. 95. MacCulloch says "he fell in love" and further adds in a footnote "There has been much modern embarrassment and obfuscation on Erasmus and Rogerus, but see the sensible comment in J. Huizinga, Erasmus of Rotterdam (London, 1952), pp. 11–12, and from Geoffrey Nutuall, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 26 (1975), 403"
^Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male culture in Renaissance Florence, Oxford University Press, 1996, 228-229.
^Alfonso G. Jiménez de Sandi Valle, Luis Alberto de la Garza Becerra and Napoleón Glockner Corte. LGBT Pride Parade in Mexico City. National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), 2009. 25 p.
^Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (2022). Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan. Bloomsbury Publishing.
^I. Arnaldi, La vita violenta di Benvenuto Cellini, Bari, 1986
^R v Jacobs (1817) Russ & Ry 331 confirmed that buggery related only to intercourse per anum by a man with a man or woman or intercourse per anum or per vaginum by either
a man or a woman with an animal. Other forms of "unnatural intercourse" may amount to
indecent assault or
gross indecency, but do not constitute buggery. See generally, Smith & Hogan, Criminal Law (10th ed),
ISBN0-406-94801-1
^Lewandowski, Piotr (2014). Grzech sodomii w przestrzeni politycznej, prawnej i społecznej Polski nowożytnej. e-bookowo.
ISBN9788378594239.
^Donoso, et al. (2021). Boxer Codex: A Modern Spanish Transcription and English Translation of 16th-Century Exploration Accounts of East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Academica Filipina+.
^Szonyi, Michael (June 1998). "The Cult of Hu Tianbao and the Eighteenth-Century Discourse of Homosexuality". Late Imperial China. 19 (1): 1–25.
^Das Gupta, Oliver (23 January 2012).
"Der Schwule Fritz" [The Gay Fritz]. Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). Archived from
the original on 17 February 2021.
Archer, Bert (2004). The End of Gay: And the Death of Heterosexuality. Thunder's Mouth Press.
ISBN1-56025-611-7.
Bullough, Vern L. (2002). Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York, Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press.
ISBN1-56023-193-9.
Burleson, William E. (2005). Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community. United Kingdom, Routledge.
ISBN978-1560234791
Gallo, Marcia M. (2007) Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement. California: Seal Press.
ISBN1580052525
Hogan, Steve and Lee Hudson (1998). Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia. New York, Henry Holt and Company.
ISBN0-8050-3629-6.
Lattas, Judy, "Queer Sovereignty: the Gay & Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands", Cosmopolitan Civil Societies journal, UTS September 2009
Miller, Neil (1995). Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present. New York, Vintage Books.
ISBN0-09-957691-0.
c. 9,600 BCE – c, 5,000 BCE –
Mesolithicrock art in
Sicily depicts male figures in hives that have been interpreted variously, including as hunters, acrobats, religious initiates, and gay sex.[2][3]
70th century BCE – 17th century BCE
c. 7,000 BCE –1700 BCE – Among the sexual depictions in
Neolithic and
Bronze Age drawings and figurines from the Mediterranean area, as one author describes it, a "
third sex" human figure having female breasts and male genitals or without distinguishing sex characteristics. In Neolithic
Italy, female images are found in a domestic context, while images that combine sexual characteristics appear in burials or religious settings. In Neolithic
Greece and
Cyprus, figures are often dual-sexed or without identifying sexual characteristics.[4]
3rd millennium BCE
29th century BCE – 25th century BCE
c. 2900 BCE – c. 2500 BCE – A burial of a suburb of
Prague, Czech Republic, a male is buried in the outfit usually reserved for women. Archaeologists speculate that the burial corresponds to a
transgender person or someone of the third sex.[5]
23rd century BCE or 23rd century BCE – 22nd century BCE
2284 BCE – 2246 BCE or 2184 BCE –
Pepi II Neferkare, who ruled the
Kingdom of Egypt as an absolute monarch under the title of
Pharaoh of Egypt, is believed to have had a homosexual interpretation around nocturnal visits to his
General Sasenet, though critics argue that it was more likely that the story was intended to tarnish the reputation of the Pharaoh by associating him with homosexuality.[6][7][8][9][10]
2nd millennium BCE
18th century BCE
c. 1775 BCE – c. 1761 BCE – During the reign of King
Zimri-Lim of the
Kingdom of Mari, he is recorded to have male lovers.[11]
"If a man tells another man, either privately or in a brawl, "Your wife is promiscuous; I will bring charges against her myself," but he is unable to substantiate the charge, and cannot prove it, he is to be caned, be sentenced to a month's hard labor for the king, be cut off, and pay one talent of lead."
"If a man has secretly started a rumour about his neighbor saying, "He has allowed men to have sex with him," or in a quarrel has told him in the presence of others, "Men have sex with you," and then, "I will bring charges against you myself," but is then unable to substantiate the charge, and cannot prove it, that man is to be caned, be sentenced to a month's hard labour for the king, be cut off, and pay one talent of lead."
"If a man violates his own mother, it is a capital crime. If a man violates his daughter, it is a capital crime. If a man violates his son, it is capital crime."
c. 1000 BCE – c. 500 BCE – The
Vendidad dates from this period[18][19] and within the text it states the following:
"
Ahura Mazda answered: 'The man that lies with mankind as man lies with womankind, or as woman lies with mankind, is the man that is a
Daeva; this one is the man that is a worshipper of the Daevas, that is a male
paramour of the Daevas, that is a female paramour of the Daevas, that is a wife to the Daeva; this is the man that is as bad as a Daeva, that is in his whole being a Daeva; this is the man that is a Daeva before he dies, and becomes one of the unseen Daevas after death: so is he, whether he has lain with mankind as mankind, or as womankind."[20]
— Avesta, Vendidad, Fargard 8. Funerals and purification, unlawful sex, Section V (32) Unlawful lusts.
The guilty may be killed by any one, without an order from the
Dastur, and by this execution an ordinary capital crime may be redeemed.[20]
c. 630 BCE –
Dorian aristocrats in
Crete adopt formal relations between adult aristocrats and adolescent boys; an inscription from Crete is the oldest record of the social institution of
paiderastia among the Greeks[22] (see
Cretan pederasty). Marriage between men in Greece was not legally recognized, but men might form lifelong relationships originating in paiderastia ("pederasty," without the pejorative connotations of the English word). These partnerships were not dissimilar to heterosexual marriages except that the older person served as educator or mentor.[23]
Sappho, a Greek lyric poet born on the island of
Lesbos, was born between 630 and 612 BCE, and died around 570 BCE. The
Alexandrians included her in the list of nine lyric poets. She was famous for her lesbian themes, giving her name and that of her homeland to the very definition of
lesbianism (and the lesser used term of "sapphism"). She was exiled c. 600 BCE unrelated to lesbianism. She was later permitted to return.
6th century BCE
534 – 492 BCE –
Duke Ling of Wey and
Mizi Xia had a loving same-sex relationship, where various plays and stories have commemorated their love story in the phrase, "the bitten peach".[24]
c. 540 – 530 BCE – Wall paintings from the
EtruscanTomb of the Bulls (Italian: Tomba dei Tori), found in 1892 in the Monterozzi
necropolis,
Tarquinia, depict homosexual intercourse. The tomb is named for the pair of bulls who watch human sex scenes, one between a man and a woman, and the other between two men; these may be
apotropaic, or embody aspects of the cycle of regeneration and the afterlife. The three-chamber tomb was inscribed with the name of the deceased for whom it was originally built, Aranth Spurianas or Arath Spuriana, and also depicts
Achilles killing the
Trojan prince
Troilus, along with indications of
Apollo cult.[25]
385 BCE – Plato publishes Symposium in which
Phaedrus,
Eryximachus,
Aristophanes and other Greek intellectuals argue that love between males is the highest form, while sex with women is lustful and utilitarian.[30]Socrates, however, differs.[31] He demonstrates extreme self-control when seduced by the beautiful
Alcibiades.[32]
350 BCE – Plato publishes Laws in which the Athenian stranger and his companions criticize homosexuality as being lustful and wrong for society because it does not further the species and may lead to irresponsible citizenry.[33]
346 BCE -
Aeschines' speech
Against Timarchus, who was on trial for male prostitution, reveals Athenian attitudes to homosexuality.[34]
338 BCE – The
Sacred Band of Thebes, a previously undefeated elite battalion made up of one hundred and fifty pederastic couples, is destroyed by the forces of
Philip II of Macedon who bemoans their loss and praises their honour.[35]
227 BCE, 226 BCE, 216 BCE, or 149 BCE – During the
Roman Republic, the Lex Scantinia imposed penalties on those who committed a sex crime (
stuprum) against a
freeborn youth; infrequently mentioned or enforced, it may also have been used to prosecute
male citizens who willingly took the passive role in
homosexual relations.[37] It is unclear whether the penalty was death or a fine. For an
adult male citizen to desire and engage in same-sex relations was considered natural and socially acceptable, as long as his partner was a male
prostitute,
slave or infamis, a person excluded from the legal protections accorded a citizen. In the
Imperial period, the Lex Scantinia was revived by
Domitian as part of his program of judicial and moral reform.[38]
1st century BCE
c. 90s – 80s BCE –
Quintus Lutatius Catulus was among a circle of poets who made short, light
Hellenistic poems fashionable in the
late Republic. Both his surviving
epigrams address a male as an object of desire, signaling a new homoerotic aesthetic in Roman culture.[39]
57 – 54 BCE –
Catullus writes the Carmina, including love poems to Juventius, boasting of sexual prowess with youth and violent invectives against "passive" homosexuals.
c. 50 BCE – The Lex Julia de vi publica, a
Roman Republic law, was passed to define rape as forced sex against "boy, woman, or anyone" and the rapist was subject to execution. Men who had been raped were exempt from the loss of legal or social standing suffered by those who submitted their bodies to use for the pleasure of others; a male prostitute or entertainer was infamis and excluded from the legal protections extended to citizens in good standing. As a matter of law, a
slave could not be raped; he was considered property and not
legally a person. The slave's owner, however, could prosecute the rapist for property damage.[39][40][41][42]
44 BCE – After the
assassination of
Dictator and
ConsulGaius Julius Caesar, Gaius Octavius is publicly named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir. According to
Mark Antony, he charged that Octavius had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favors.[43]
42 – 39 BCE –
Virgil writes the Eclogues, with Eclogue 2 a notable example of homoerotic Latin literature.
27 BCE – The
Roman Empire is established under the rule of
Augustus. The first recorded same-sex marriage occurs during his reign, homosexual prostitution is taxed, and if someone is caught being sexually passive with another male, a Roman citizen could lose his citizenship.[44]
26, 25 and 18 BCE –
Tibullus writes his elegies, with references to homosexuality.
7 – 1 BCE –
Emperor Ai of Han had a loving same-sex relationship with
Dong Xian. In one historical record, Emperor Ai cut his own sleeves to not wake up his beloved Dong Xian.[45]
Common Era
1st millennium
1st century
Philo of Alexandria and
Marcus Manilius provided descriptions of transgender people during the early
Roman Empire. Philo stated: "Expending every possible care on their outward adornment, they are not ashamed even to employ every device to change artificially their nature as men into women".[46][47] He also attested that some members of this group, to that end, had their penises removed.[47]
5 –15 CE – The
Warren Cup is made – a Roman silver drinking cup decorated in relief with two images of male same-sex acts.
98 –
Trajan, one of the most beloved of Roman emperors, begins his reign. Trajan was well known for his homosexuality and fondness for young males. This was used to advantage by the king of
Edessa,
Abgar VII, who, after incurring the anger of Trajan for some misdeed, sent his handsome young son to make his apologies, thereby obtaining pardon.[50]
Publius Cornelius Tacitus writes Germania. In Germania, Tacitus writes that the punishment for those who engage in "bodily infamy" among the
Germanic peoples is to "smother in mud and bogs under an heap of hurdles." Tacitus also writes in Germania that the Germanic warrior-chieftains and their retinues were "in times of peace, beauty, and in times of war, a defense". Tacitus later wrote in Germania that priests of the
Swabian sub-tribe, the Naharvali[51] or
Nahanarvali, who "dress as women" to perform their priestly duties.[52]
2nd century
c. 200 – The Outlines of Pyrrhonism is published. In the book,
Sextus Empiricus states that "amongst the
Persians it is the habit to indulge in intercourse with males, but amongst the
Romans it is forbidden by law to do so". He also stated in the book that "amongst us
sodomy is regarded as shameful or rather illegal, but by the
Germanic they say, it is not looked on as shameful but as a customary thing. It is said, too, that in
Thebes long ago this practice was not held to be shameful, and they say that
Meriones the
Cretan was so called by way of indicating the Cretans' customed and some refer to this the burning love of
Achilles for
Patroclus. And what wonder, when both the adherents of the
Cynic philosophy and the followers of
Zeno of Citium,
Cleanthes and
Chrysippus, declare that this practice is indifferent?".[53][54]
218 – 222 – Roman emperor
Elagabalus's reign begins. At different times, Elagabalus marries five women and a man named
Zoticus, an athlete from
Smyrna, in a lavish public ceremony at Rome;[56] but the Syrian's most stable relationship is with the chariot driver
Hierocles, and
Cassius Dio says Elagabalus delighted in being called Hierocles' mistress, wife, and queen.[57] The emperor wears makeup and wigs, prefers to be called a lady and not a lord, and offers vast sums to any physician who can provide them with a vagina;[58][57] for this reason, the emperor is seen by some writers as an early transgender figure and one of the first on record as seeking
sex reassignment surgery.[58][57][59][60]
222 – 235 – Roman emperor
Severus Alexander deported homosexuals who were active in public life. According to Christius, Alexander increased the penalties for homosexuality throughout the
Roman Empire. According to
Augustan History, Alexander decreed that the taxes on pimps, prostitutes, and exoleti should not be deposited in the public purse; instead, he ordered that these taxes should be used for restoring the
theatre of Marcellus, the
Circus Maximus, the
amphitheatre, and the stadium build by
Domitian in the
Campus Martius. According to
Ælius Lampridus, Alexander even contemplated making male prostitution illegal.[39][61][62]
305 – 306 –
Council of Elvira (now
Granada, Spain). This council was representative of the Western European Church and among other things, it barred pederasts the right to Communion.
314 –
Council of Ancyra (now
Ankara, Turkey). This council was representative of the Eastern European Church and it excluded the
Sacraments for 15 years to unmarried men under the age of 20 who were caught in homosexual acts, and excluded the man for life if he was married and over the age of 50.[63]
306 – 337 – The Life of Constantine mentions a temple at
Aphaca in
Phoenicia, on a remote summit of Mount Libanus, being used by effeminate homosexual pagan priests, and says that this temple was destroyed by the command of
Roman emperorConstantine I. It also states that Constantine passed a law ordering the extermination of effeminate homosexual pagan priests in
Egypt.[39][64]
342 – The Roman emperors Constantius II and Constans I issue the following imperial decree for the Roman Empire:[68][69]
"When a man marries in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce men, what does he wish, when sex has lost all its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed to another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment."
c. 380s –
Ammianus Marcellinus publishes Res Gestae. In Res Gestae, Marcellinus writes that the
Persians "are extravagantly given to venery, and are hardly contented with a multitude of concubines; they are far from immoral relations with boys." Also in Res Gestae, Marcellinus writes that "We have learned that these
Taifali were a shameful folk, so sunken in a life of shame and obscenity, that in their country the boys are coupled with the men in a union of unmentionable lust, to consume the flower of their youth in the polluted intercourse of those paramours."[70][71]
"We cannot tolerate the city of
Rome, mother of all virtues, being stained any longer by the contamination of male effeminacy, nor can we allow that agrarian strength, which comes down from the founders, to be softly broken by the people, thus heaping shame on the centuries of our founders and the princes, Orientius, dearly and beloved and favoured. Your laudable experience will therefore punish among revenging flames, in the presence of the people, as required by the grossness of the crime, all those who have given themselves up to the infamy of condemning their manly body, transformed into a feminine one, to bear practices reserved for the other sex, which have nothing different from women, carried forth – we are ashamed to say – from male brothels, so that all may know that the house of the manly soul must be sacrosanct to all, and that he who basely abandons his own sex cannot aspire to that of another without undergoing the supreme punishment."
"All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people."
"In criminal cases public prosecutions take place under various statutes, including the
Lex Julia de adulteris, "...which punishes with death, not only those who violate the marriages of others, but also those who dare to commit acts of vile lust with men."
576 – Death of
Anastasia the Patrician who left life as a lady-in-waiting in the court of
Justinian I in Constantinople to spend twenty-eight years (until death) dressed as a male monk in seclusion in
Egypt,[75] and has been adopted by today's
LGBT community as an example of a "
transgender" saint.[76][77]
589 – The
Visigothic kingdom in
Spain, is converted from
Arianism to
Catholicism. This conversion leads to a revision of the law to conform to those of
Catholic countries. These revisions include provisions for the persecution of homosexuals and
Jewish people.[78]
693 – In
Iberia, Visigothic ruler
Egica of Hispania and Septimania, demanded that a Church council confront the occurrence of homosexuality in the Kingdom. The
Sixteenth Council of Toledo issued a statement in response, which was adopted by Egica, stating that homosexual acts be punished by
castration, exclusion from
Communion, hair shearing, one hundred lashes, and banishment into
exile.[33]
997 – King Mokjong of Goryeo, known for having male lovers, ascended to the throne in
Korea.[82]
2nd millennium
11th century
1007 – The Decretum of
Burchard of Worms equates homosexual acts with sexual transgressions such as
adultery and argues, therefore, that it should have the same
penance (generally
fasting).[33]
1051 –
Peter Damian writes the treatise Liber Gomorrhianus, in which he argues for stricter punishments for clerics failing their duty against "vices of nature."[83]
1061 – Pedro Dias and Muño Vandilas are married by a priest at a chapel in the
Kingdom of León.[84]
1100 –
Ivo of Chartres tries to convince
Pope Urban II about homosexuality risks. Ivo accused Rodolfo, archbishop of
Tours, of convincing the King of France to appoint a certain Giovanni as bishop of
Orléans. Giovanni was well known as Rodolfo's lover and had relations with the king himself, a fact of which the king openly boasted. Pope Urban, however, didn't consider this as a decisive fact: Giovanni ruled as bishop for almost forty years, and Rodolfo continued to be well known and respected.[85]
1140 – The Italian monk Gratian compiles his work Concordia discordantium canonum in which he argues that sodomy is the worst of all the sexual sins because it involves using the member in an unnatural way.[33]
1164 – The English monk
Aelred of Rievaulx writes his De spiritali amicitia, giving love between persons of the same gender a profound expression.
1232 –
Pope Gregory IX starts the
Inquisition in the Italian City-States. Some cities called for banishment and/or
amputation as punishments for 1st- and 2nd-offending sodomites and burning for the 3rd or habitual offenders.[citation needed]
1260 – In the
Kingdom of France, first-offending sodomites lost their testicles, second offenders lost their member, and third offenders were burned. Women caught in same-sex acts could be mutilated and executed as well.[33]
1265 –
Thomas Aquinas argues that sodomy is second only to
bestiality in the ranking of sins of lust.
1283 – The Coutumes de Beauvaisis dictats that convicted sodomites should not only be burned but also that their property would be forfeited.
14th century
1308–14 –
Philip IV of France orders the arrest of all
Templars on charges of heresy, idolatry and sodomy, but these charges are only a pretext to seize the riches of the order. Order leaders are sentenced to death and burned at the stake on 18 March 1314 by
Notre Dame.
1321 – Dante's Inferno places sodomites in the Seventh Circle.
1327 – The deposed King
Edward II of England is killed, allegedly by forcing a red-hot poker through his rectum. Edward II had a history of conflict with the nobility, who repeatedly banished his former lover
Piers Gaveston, the
Earl of Cornwall.[citation needed]
1347 – Rolandino Roncaglia is tried for sodomy, an event that caused a sensation in Italy. He confessed he "had never had sexual intercourse, neither with his wife nor with any other woman, because he had never felt any carnal appetite, nor could he ever have an erection of his virile member". After his wife died of plague, Rolandino started to prostitute himself, wearing female dresses because "since he has female look, voice and movements – although he does not have a female orifice, but has a male member and testicles – many persons considered him to be a woman because of his appearance".[86]
1351 – Buddhist temple murals depicting same-sex relationships were commissioned and painted in
Thailand.[87]
1357 – King Gongmin of Goryeo, known for having male lovers, ascended to the throne in
Korea.[82]
1370s – Jan van Aersdone and Willem Case were two men executed in
Antwerp in the 1370s. The charge against them was same sex intercourse which was illegal and strenuously vilified in
medieval Europe.[citation needed] Aersdone and Case stand out because records of their names have survived. One other couple still known by name from the 14th century were Giovanni Braganza and Nicoleto Marmagna of
Venice.[88]
1424 –
Bernardino of Siena preached for three days in
Florence, Italy, against homosexuality and other forms of lust, culminating in a pyre in which burned cosmetics, wigs and all sorts of articles for the beautification. He calls for
sodomites to be ostracized from society, and these sermons alongside measures by other clergy of the time strengthens opinion against homosexuals and encourages the authorities to increase the measures of persecution.[88][89]
1432 – In Florence the first organization specifically intended to prosecute sodomy is established, the "Night Officials", which over the next 70 years arrest about 10,000 men and boys, succeeding in getting about 2,000 convicted, with most then paying fines.
1436 –
Royal Noble Consort Sun is banished from the
Joseon court after it is discovered that she has been sleeping with her maid. The official decree blames her demotion on receiving visitors without her husband's permission and instructing her maids to sing men's songs.[92]
1451 –
Pope Nicholas V enables the papal Inquisition to persecute men who practice sodomy.
1471 – 1493 – According to
Garcilaso de la Vega's Real Reviews of the Incas, during the reign of
Sapa IncaTopa Inca Yupanqui or Túpac Inca Yupanqui, he persecuted homosexuals. Yupanqui's general, Auqui Tatu, burned alive in public square all those for whom there was even circumstantial evidence of sodomy in [H]acari valley, threatening to burn down whole towns if anyone engaged in sodomy. In
Chincha, Yupanqui burned alive large numbers, pulling down their houses and any trees they had planted.[93]
1475 – In
Peru, a chronicle written under the Capac Yupanqui government describes the persecution of homosexuals with public burnings and destruction of homes (a practice usually reserved for conquered tribes).
1476 – Florentine court records of 1476 show that
Leonardo da Vinci and three other young men were charged with
sodomy twice, and acquitted.[94]
1483 – The
Spanish Inquisition begins. Sodomites were stoned, castrated, and burned. Between 1540 and 1700, more than 1,600 people were prosecuted for sodomy.[33]
1492 –
Desiderius Erasmus writes a series of love letters to a fellow monk while at a monastery in Steyn in the Netherlands.[95]
1494 –
Girolamo Savonarola criticizes the population of Florence for its "horrible sins" (mainly homosexuality and gambling) and exhorts them to give up their young and beardless lovers.
1497 – In Spain, the
King of AragonFerdinand and
Queen of Castile and
LeónIsabella strengthen the sodomy laws hitherto applied only in the cities. An increase is made in the severity of the crime equating to treason or heresy, and the amount of evidence required for conviction is lowered, with torture permitted to extract confession. The property of the defendant is also confiscated.
15th century – 16th century
1493 – 1525 – According to Garcilaso de la Vega's Real Reviews of the Incas, during his reign, Sapa Inca
Huayna Capac merely "bade" the people of
Tumbez to give up sodomy and did not take any measures against the Matna, who "practiced sodomy more openly and shamelessly than all the other tribes."[96]
16th century
1502 – A charge is brought against the Italian artist
Sandro Botticelli on the grounds of sodomy.[97]
1505 – 1521 – The
Zhengde Emperor of the
Ming dynasty had a same-sex relationship with the Muslim leader Sayyid Husain, although no evidence supporting this claim exists in Chinese sources[98][99]
1512 – Revolt of the Compagnacci in Florence [100]
1513 –
Vasco Núñez de Balboa, a conquistador in modern-day Panama is described as throwing forty homosexual Indians to his dogs.[101]
1519 –
Ferdinand Magellan sentences the death penalty against his own crew when they arrived it Rio de Janeiro, after he deemed them as having a homosexual relationship[102]
1523 – First of several charges of sodomy brought against the Florentine artist
Benvenuto Cellini.[103]
1526 – The founder and first emperor of the
Mughal Empire, Emperor
Babur, had a long-term loving relationship with his male lover
Baburi Andijani, who was already an adult when Emperor Babur founded his dynasty.[104]
1542 – Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca documents same sex marriages and men "who dress like women and perform the office of women, but use the bow and carry big loads" among a Native American tribe in his publication, The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and His Companions from Florida to the Pacific 1528–1536.
1553 –
Mary Tudor ascends the English throne and removes all of the laws that had been passed by Henry VIII during the
English Reformation of the 1530s.
1561 – process of Wojciech z Poznania, who married Sebastian Słodownik, and lived with him for 2 years in
Poznań. Both had female partners. On his return to
Kraków, he married Wawrzyniec Włoszek. Wojciech, considered in public opinion as a woman, was burned for 'crimes against nature'.[107]
17th century – Hu Tianbao of Fujian was executed by the Chinese government. The people of Fujian later deified him as the god of homosexual love, building a temple in his honor and calling him
Tu'er Shen.[109]
1610 – The
Colony of Virginia enacts a military order that criminalizes male sodomy, making it punishable by death.[110] This order ends later the same year, when martial law is terminated upon the change in control of the Virginia Colony.[110]
1648 – In Canada's first-ever criminal trial for the crime of homosexuality, a gay military drummer stationed at the French garrison in
Ville-Marie,
New France is sentenced to death by the local
Sulpician priests.[113] After an intervention by the
Jesuits in
Quebec City, the drummer's life is spared on the condition that he accept the position of New France's first permanent
executioner.[113]
1655 – The
Connecticut Colony passes a law against sodomy, which includes a punishment for lesbian intercourse as well.[114]
1672 – The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672) is the first reference of homosexuality between nuns in
Ethiopian literature.[115][116]
1683 – The
Kingdom of Denmark criminalizes "relations against nature", making it punishable by death.[117]
1688 – 1704 – Kagemachaya(
ja), a Japanese gay bar, first opens in Japan.[118]
1740 –
Kiangxi Emperor of
Qing Dynasty passed the first legislation criminalizing consensual nonprofit homosexual sex in Chinese history.[120]: 144
1781 – Jens Andersson of Norway, assigned female at birth but identifying as male, was imprisoned and put on trial after marrying Anne Kristine Mortensdotter in a Lutheran church. When asked about his gender, the response was "Hand troer at kunde henhøre til begge Deele" ("He believes he belongs to both").[121]
1785 – Prince Kraison of
Thailand became the first openly queer member of the
Chakri dynasty since the dynasty's royal enthronment under its first ruler
Rama I, who was Prince Kraison's father. He had a loving relationship with theatre actors Khun Thong and Yaem.[122]
1785 –
Jeremy Bentham is one of the first people to argue for the decriminalization of sodomy in England.[33]
1791 – The
Kingdom of France (
Andorra, and
Haiti) adopts the
French Penal Code of 1791, which no longer criminalizes sodomy. France thus becomes the first West European country to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults.[124]
1791 – The novel Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin is published in China. It includes an openly bisexual character as well as an account of a
gay bashing.[125]
^Talalay, Lauren E. (2005). "The Gendered Sea: Iconography, Gender, and Mediterranean Prehistory". The Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory. Blackwell. pp. 130–148, especially p. 136.
ISBN978-0-631-23267-4.
^When writing about homosexuality, Meskell calls it "Another well documented example" Meskell, Lynn (1999). Archaeologies of Social Life: Age, Sex, Class Etcetra in Ancient Egypt. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 95.
ISBN978-0-631-21298-0.
^Kenneth Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Harvard University Press, 1978, 1898), pp. 205–7
^Boswell, John (1994). Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. New York: Vintage Books
^Hinsch, Bret. (1990). Passions of the Cut Sleeve. Published by the University of California Press. Pages 20-21.
^Stephan Steingräber, Abundance of Life: Etruscan Wall Painting (Getty Publications, 2006), pp. 67, 70, 91–92; Otto Brendel, Etruscan Art, translated by R. Serra Ridgway (Yale University Press, 1978, 1995), pp. 165–170; Fred S. Kleiner, A History of Roman Art (Wadsworth, 2007, 2010), p. xxxii.
^...with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander would later be intimate... "
Quintus Curtius Rufus"(BOOK VI. 5.23)
^Thomas A.J. McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome (Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 140–141. • Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (Oxford University Press, 1983, 1992), pp. 86, 224. • John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 63, 67–68. • Craig Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 116.
^Ben Nusbaum, "Some Myths and Anomalies in the Study of Roman Sexuality," in Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition (Haworth Press, 2005), p. 231.
^Richlin, "Not before Homosexuality," pp. 562–563.[full citation needed] • See also Digest 48.5.35 [34] on legal definitions of rape that included boys.
^Ornamentis
Augustarum:Suetonius, Life of Nero28–29, discussed by Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. pp. 284, 400, 424.
^Dio Cassius, Epitome of Book 68.6.4; 68.21.2–6.21.3
^For the spelling, see Hans-Werner Goetz, Jörg Jarnut, Walter Pohl (eds.), Regna and Gentes: The Relationship Between Late Antique and Early ... (2003,
ISBN9004125248), page 62.
^
abcVarner, Eric (2008). "Transcending Gender: Assimilation, Identity, and Roman Imperial Portraits". Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Supplementary Volume. 7. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press: 200–201.
ISSN1940-0977.
JSTOR40379354.
OCLC263448435. Elagabalus is also alleged to have appeared as Venus and to have depilated his entire body. ... Dio recounts an exchange between Elagabalus and the well-endowed Aurelius Zoticus: when Zoticus addressed the emperor as 'my lord,' Elagabalus responded, 'Don't call me lord, I am a lady.' Dio concludes his anecdote by having Elagabalus asking his physicians to give him the equivalent of a woman's vagina by means of a surgical incision.
^Godbout, Louis (2004).
"Elagabalus"(PDF). GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. Chicago: glbtq, Inc. Retrieved 6 August 2007.
^Theodosian Code 9.7.3: "When a man marries and is about to offer himself to men in womanly fashion (quum vir nubit in feminam viris porrecturam), what does he wish, when sex has lost all its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed to another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment."
^Theodosian Code 9.7.6: "All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people."
^Laura Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers (2001,
ISBN0809140160), pages 72–73
^Dale Albert Johnson, Corpus Syriacum Johnsoni I (2015,
ISBN1312855347), page 344-8
^Conner, Randy P.; Sparks, David Hatfield; Sparks, Mariya; Anzaldúa, Gloria (1997), Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Lore, Cassell, p. 57,
ISBN0-304-33760-9
^Visigothic Code 3.5.5, 3.5.6; "The doctrine of the orthodox faith requires us to place our censure upon vicious practices, and to restrain those who are addicted to carnal offences. For we counsel well for the benefit of our people and our country, when we take measures to utterly extirpate the crimes of wicked men, and put an end to the evil deeds of vice. For this reason we shall attempt to abolish the horrible crime of sodomy, which is as contrary to Divine precept as it is to chastity. And although the authority of the
Holy Scriptures, and the censure of earthly laws, alike, prohibit offences of this kind, it is nevertheless necessary to condemn them by a new decree; lest if timely correction be deferred, still greater vices may arise. Therefore, we establish by this law, that if any man whosoever, of any age, or race, whether he belongs to the clergy, or to the laity, should be convicted, by competent evidence, of the commission of the crime of
sodomy, he shall, by order of the king, or of any judge, not only suffer
emasculation, but also the penalty prescribed by
ecclesiastical decree for such offences, and promulgated in the third year of our reign."
^PETRI DAMIANI Liber gomorrhianus, ad Leonem IX Rom. Pon. in Patrologiae Cursus completus...accurante J.P., MIGNE, series secunda, tomus CXLV, col. 161; CANOSA, Romano, Storia di una grande paura La sodomia a Firenze e a Venezia nel quattrocento, Feltrinelli, Milano 1991, pp.13–14
^
abCrompton, Louis (2003). Homosexuality and Civilization. Cambridge & London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
^For more documented detail about Bernardino's lengthy campaign against homosexuality, see Franco Mormando (1999). "Chapter 3: Even The Devil Flees in Horror at the Sight of This Sin: Sodomy and Sodomites". The Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
^della Chiesa, Angela Ottino (1967). The Complete Paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. p. 83.
^Diarmaid MacCulloch (2003). Reformation: A History. pg. 95. MacCulloch says "he fell in love" and further adds in a footnote "There has been much modern embarrassment and obfuscation on Erasmus and Rogerus, but see the sensible comment in J. Huizinga, Erasmus of Rotterdam (London, 1952), pp. 11–12, and from Geoffrey Nutuall, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 26 (1975), 403"
^Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male culture in Renaissance Florence, Oxford University Press, 1996, 228-229.
^Alfonso G. Jiménez de Sandi Valle, Luis Alberto de la Garza Becerra and Napoleón Glockner Corte. LGBT Pride Parade in Mexico City. National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), 2009. 25 p.
^Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (2022). Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan. Bloomsbury Publishing.
^I. Arnaldi, La vita violenta di Benvenuto Cellini, Bari, 1986
^R v Jacobs (1817) Russ & Ry 331 confirmed that buggery related only to intercourse per anum by a man with a man or woman or intercourse per anum or per vaginum by either
a man or a woman with an animal. Other forms of "unnatural intercourse" may amount to
indecent assault or
gross indecency, but do not constitute buggery. See generally, Smith & Hogan, Criminal Law (10th ed),
ISBN0-406-94801-1
^Lewandowski, Piotr (2014). Grzech sodomii w przestrzeni politycznej, prawnej i społecznej Polski nowożytnej. e-bookowo.
ISBN9788378594239.
^Donoso, et al. (2021). Boxer Codex: A Modern Spanish Transcription and English Translation of 16th-Century Exploration Accounts of East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Academica Filipina+.
^Szonyi, Michael (June 1998). "The Cult of Hu Tianbao and the Eighteenth-Century Discourse of Homosexuality". Late Imperial China. 19 (1): 1–25.
^Das Gupta, Oliver (23 January 2012).
"Der Schwule Fritz" [The Gay Fritz]. Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). Archived from
the original on 17 February 2021.
Archer, Bert (2004). The End of Gay: And the Death of Heterosexuality. Thunder's Mouth Press.
ISBN1-56025-611-7.
Bullough, Vern L. (2002). Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York, Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press.
ISBN1-56023-193-9.
Burleson, William E. (2005). Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community. United Kingdom, Routledge.
ISBN978-1560234791
Gallo, Marcia M. (2007) Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement. California: Seal Press.
ISBN1580052525
Hogan, Steve and Lee Hudson (1998). Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia. New York, Henry Holt and Company.
ISBN0-8050-3629-6.
Lattas, Judy, "Queer Sovereignty: the Gay & Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands", Cosmopolitan Civil Societies journal, UTS September 2009
Miller, Neil (1995). Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present. New York, Vintage Books.
ISBN0-09-957691-0.