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The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when gays and lesbians fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted homosexuals, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the modern gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

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Strawberry Panic! (ストロベリー・パニック!, Sutoroberī Panikku!) is the title of illustrated Japanese fictional short stories and related media works written by Japanese author Sakurako Kimino, which focus on a group of teenage girls attending three affiliated all-girl schools on Astraea Hill. A common theme throughout the stories is the intimate lesbian relationships between the characters.

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Same-sex marriage in Spain was legalized in 2005. In 2004, the nation's newly elected Socialist government, led by President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, began a campaign for its legalization, including the right of adoption by same-sex couples. After much debate, a law permitting same-sex marriage was passed by the Cortes Generales ( Spain's bicameral parliament, composed of the Senate and the Congress of Deputies) on 30 June 2005 and published on 2 July 2005. Same-sex marriage became legal in Spain on Sunday, 3 July 2005, making it the third country in the world to do so, after the Netherlands and Belgium and 17 days ahead of Canada.

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The Well of Loneliness is a 1928 lesbian novel by the English author Radclyffe Hall. It follows the life of Stephen Gordon, an Englishwoman from an upper-class family whose " sexual inversion" (that is, homosexuality) is apparent from an early age. She finds love with Mary Llewellyn, whom she meets while serving as an ambulance driver in World War I, but their happiness together is marred by social isolation and rejection, which Hall depicts as having a debilitating effect on inverts. The novel portrays inversion as a natural, God-given state and makes an explicit plea: "Give us also the right to our existence".

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Queer Eye is an Emmy award-winning American reality television series that premiered on the Bravo cable television network on July 15, 2003. The program's name was changed from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy after the third season to broaden the scope of its content. The series was created by openly gay executive producer David Collins and his straight producing partner David Metzler and produced by their production company, Scout Productions.

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Reel Affirmations (RA) is a non-profit, all-volunteer LGBT film festival in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1991 and held every year in mid-October, Reel Affirmations is the third largest LGBT film festival (in terms of attendance) in the United States and the largest all-volunteer film festival in the world.

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" Homer's Phobia" is the fifteenth episode of The Simpsons' eighth season, which originally aired on the Fox Network on February 16, 1997. It was the first episode written by Ron Hauge and was directed by Mike B. Anderson. John Waters guest-starred, providing the voice of the new character, John.

In the episode, Homer dissociates himself from new family friend John after discovering that John is gay. Homer fears that John will have a negative influence on Bart. "Homer's Phobia" was the first episode to revolve entirely around lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) themes, with the title being a pun on the word homophobia.

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Trembling Before G-d ( 2001) is a documentary film about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews trying to reconcile their sexuality with their faith. It was directed by Sandi Simcha DuBowski, an American who wanted to compare orthodox attitudes to homosexuality with his own upbringing as a gay Conservative Jew. The film won several awards, including the Teddy Award for best documentary film at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival, as well as best documentary at the 2001 Chicago International Film Festival and the 2003 GLAAD Media Awards.

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Latter Days is a 2003 American romantic drama about a gay relationship between a closeted Mormon missionary and his openly gay neighbor. The film was written and directed by C. Jay Cox. It stars Steve Sandvoss as the missionary, Aaron, and Wes Ramsey as the neighbor, Christian. Joseph Gordon-Levitt appears as Elder Ryder, and Rebekah Johnson as Julie Taylor. Mary Kay Place, Amber Benson and Jacqueline Bisset have supporting roles.

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Same-sex marriage has been legal in Ireland since 16 November 2015. A referendum on 22 May 2015 amended the Constitution of Ireland to provide that marriage is recognised irrespective of the sex of the partners. The measure was signed into law by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, as the Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland on 29 August 2015. The Marriage Act 2015, passed by the Oireachtas on 22 October 2015 and signed into law by the Presidential Commission on 29 October 2015, gave legislative effect to the amendment. Same-sex marriages in Ireland began being recognised from 16 November 2015, and the first marriage ceremonies of same-sex couples in Ireland occurred the following day. Ireland was the eighteenth country in the world and the eleventh in Europe to allow same-sex couples to marry nationwide. ( Full article...)

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" Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other" (1981) is, "the famous gay cowboy song" by Latin country musician Ned Sublette, whose music features a, " lilting West Texas waltz (3/4 time at about 60–90 beats per minute) feel". The lyrics satirize the stereotypes associated with cowboys and gay men, such as in the lyrics relating western wear to the leather subculture with the line, "What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?"

Country musician Willie Nelson's cover (iTunes single February 14, 2006) is the first LGBT-themed mainstream country song by a major artist.

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Save Our Children, Inc. was a political coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida to overturn a recently legislated county ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexual orientation. The coalition was publicly headed by celebrity singer Anita Bryant, who claimed the ordinance discriminated against her right to teach her children biblical morality.

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Janet Jackson (born May 16, 1966) is an American singer-songwriter and actress, who is considered to be a gay icon. Jackson garnered a substantial gay following during the 1990s as she gained prominence in popular music. Recognized as a long-term ally of the LGBT community, Jackson received the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Music Album for her Grammy Award-winning sixth studio album The Velvet Rope (1997), which spoke out against homophobia and embraced same-sex love.

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The Washington Blade is a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ( LGBT) newspaper in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The Blade is the oldest LGBT newspaper in the United States and second largest by circulation, behind Gay City News of New York City. The Blade has been referred to as America's gay newspaper of record because it chronicles LGBT news locally, nationally, and internationally. The paper was originally launched by a group of volunteers as an independent publication in October 1969 with a focus on bringing the community together.

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" CBS Reports: Gay Power, Gay Politics" is a 1980 episode of the American documentary television series CBS Reports. It was anchored by Harry Reasoner with reportage by George Crile. Crile also produced the episode with co-producer Grace Diekhaus. He conceived the show after becoming aware of the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights and took as his focus the 1979 San Francisco mayoral election.

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LGBT themes in speculative fiction include lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender ( LGBT) themes in science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction and related genres. ^[a] Such elements may include an LGBT character as the protagonist or a major character, or explorations of sexuality or gender that deviate from the heteronormative. ( Full article...)

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" The Puppy Episode" is a two-part episode of the situation comedy television series Ellen. The episode details lead character Ellen Morgan's realization that she is a lesbian and her coming out. It was the 22nd and 23rd episode of the series' 4th season. The episode was written by series star Ellen DeGeneres with Mark Driscoll, Tracy Newman, Dava Savel and Jonathan Stark and directed by Gil Junger. It originally aired on ABC on April 30, 1997.

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The Boy Scouts of America (BSA), one of the largest private youth organizations in the United States, has policies which prohibit those who are not willing to subscribe to the BSA's Declaration of Religious Principle, which has been interpreted by some as banning atheists, and, until January 2014, prohibited all "known or avowed homosexuals", from membership in its Scouting program. The ban on adults who are "open or avowed homosexuals" from leadership positions was lifted in July 2015. ( Full article...)

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But I'm a Cheerleader is a 1999 satirical romantic comedy film directed by Jamie Babbit and written by Brian Wayne Peterson. Natasha Lyonne stars as Megan Bloomfield, an apparently happily heterosexual high school cheerleader. However, her friends and family are convinced that she is a homosexual and arrange an intervention, sending her to a residential inpatient reparative therapy camp to cure her lesbianism. At camp, Megan soon realizes that she is indeed a lesbian and, despite the therapy, gradually comes to embrace this fact.

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Fun Home (subtitled A Family Tragicomic) is a graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel, author of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. It chronicles the author's childhood and youth in rural Pennsylvania, USA, focusing on her complex relationship with her father. The book addresses themes of sexual orientation, gender roles, suicide, dysfunctional family life, and the role of literature in understanding oneself and one's family.

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And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic is a best-selling work of nonfiction written by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts published in 1987. It chronicles the discovery and spread of HIV and AIDS with a special emphasis on government indifference and political infighting to what was initially perceived as a gay disease, that has impacted the United States and the world for decades after.

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The White Night Riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of the lenient sentencing of Dan White, for the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, an openly gay San Francisco supervisor. The events took place on the night of May 21, 1979 in San Francisco.

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The Black Cat Bar or Black Cat Café was a bar in San Francisco, California. It opened in 1906 and closed in 1921. The Black Cat re-opened in 1933 and operated for another 30 years. During its second run of operation, it was a hangout for Beats and bohemians but over time began attracting more and more of a gay clientele. Because it catered to gays, the bar became a flashpoint for the nascent homophile movement. The Black Cat was at the center of a legal fight that was one of the earliest court cases to establish legal protections for gay people in the United States. Despite this victory, continued pressure from law enforcement agencies eventually forced the bar's closure in 1964.

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A blue discharge (also known as a "blue ticket") was a form of administrative military discharge formerly issued by the United States beginning in 1916. It was neither honorable nor dishonorable. The blue ticket became the discharge of choice for commanders seeking to remove homosexual servicemembers from the ranks and they were also issued disproportionately to African Americans.

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Lesbian (lɛzbiːən) is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an adjective, to describe characteristics of an object or activity related to female same-sex desire.

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LGBT themes in comics is a relatively new concept, as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ( LGBT) themes and characters were historically omitted intentionally from the content of comic books and their comic strip predecessors, due to either censorship or the perception that comics were for children. With any mention of homosexuality in mainstream United States comics forbidden by the Comics Code Authority (CCA) until 1989, earlier attempts at exploring these issues in the US took the form of subtle hints or subtext regarding a character's sexual orientation. LGBT themes were tackled earlier in underground comics from the early 1970s onward. Independently published one-off comic books and series, often produced by gay creators and featuring autobiographical storylines, tackled political issues of interest to LGBT readers.

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Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur (roughly: "The Admiration of Beautiful Youths and the Love of Friends in World Literature") is a seminal anthology of gay poetry published by German artist Elisar von Kupffer in 1900. It was the first such compilation in modern times, quoting works from Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Bible, the Arab world, Japan, Renaissance Italy, Elizabethan England, and 19th-century Germany. Von Kupffer translated many of the texts to German himself and also included some of his own poems. A similar modern anthology is The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse.

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Will & Grace is an American television sitcom that was originally broadcast on NBC from 1998 to 2006. The show takes place in New York City and focuses on Will Truman, a gay lawyer, and his best friend Grace Adler, a straight Jewish woman who runs her own interior design firm. Also featured are their friends Karen Walker, a rich socialite, and Jack McFarland, a struggling gay actor/singer/dancer who also has had brief careers as a choreographer, cater-waiter, talk-show host and nurse.

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A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively (or predominantly) gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) clientele; the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBT and queer communities. Gay bars once served as the epicentre of gay culture and were one of the few places people with same-sex orientations and gender-variant identities could openly socialize. Other names used to describe these establishments include boy bar, girl bar, gay club, gay pub, queer bar, lesbian bar, and dyke bar, depending on the niche communities that they served.

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Homosexuality has been documented in China since ancient times. None of the major Chinese religions consider homosexual acts as sin as many Abrahamic religions do. Therefore, as long as a man did his duty and sired children, it was his private affair to have male lovers. Scholar Pan Guangdan (潘光旦) came to the conclusion that many emperors in the Han Dynasty had one or more male sex partners. Emperor Ai was particularly noted for his strong devotion to his companion Dong Xian. Lesbian relationships on the other hand were rare or at least were not mentioned much in Chinese literature of the time.

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