LGBTQ+ history

Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, better known to history as the Ladies of Llangollen

Q&A Who were the Ladies of Llangollen?

A portrait of Anne Lister

The real Gentleman Jack: the secret life of Anne Lister, Britain’s ‘first modern lesbian’

Amelia Earhart, Princess Diana, Emmeline Pankhurst, Rosa Parks and Marie Curie. (Photo by Getty Images)

20 inspirational quotes from women through history

Actress Vesta Tilley poses with a bicycle while dressed in male uniform

General History

Drag kings: a brief history of male impersonators

Dancers in a nightclub

Aids: the epidemic that changed Britain

A drag queen applies lipstick in this 1959 photograph

Q&A Who was the first person to call themselves a ‘drag queen’?

The road to equality Protesters march in New York City, 1976. The gay rights movement in the US is one of LGBTQ history’s most famous stories. (Photo by Granger/Shutterstock)

What are the challenges of telling LGBTQ history?

Catherine Fletcher discusses what is known about the private life and relationships of the Renaissance polymath, and considers the historical inspirations for the new TV drama Leonardo. (Image by Getty Images)

Leonardo da Vinci’s private life

Drawing of an old and young man, possibly Salai, by Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci’s private relationships: what’s known?

Terracotta plaque which is believed to show the poet Sappho rejecting an amorous advance by her contemporary who is also from the island of Lesbos. (Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)

General History

From Sappho to It’s a Sin: 9 LGBT+ histories, chosen by experts

We mark LGBT+ History Month with a panel discussion tackling some of the biggest themes in LGBTQ history. (Image by Getty Images)

The big questions of LGBTQ history

An Athenian red-figure kylix (cup) dating from around 510–500 BC depicts a young pentathlete pulling his older lover towards him for a kiss. In many of the city-states of ancient Greece, sex between a man and a youth was an accepted – even idealised – form of love, its virtues extolled in works by writers including Plato. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

General ancient history

Pride and prejudice: same-sex relations through history

View of a gay pride parade in Boston, Massachusetts, c1977. (Photo by Spencer Grant/Getty Images)

From the ancient world to the 1969 Stonewall Riots: a brief guide to LGBT+ history

A women drives oxen pulling a loaded wagon train through the Black Hills (in South Dakota or Wyoming) in 1887

From the real Calamity Jane to ‘Madam Moustache’: pioneer women of the Wild West

An account of the story of James Allen, whose sex at birth was revealed only by an autopsy conducted after their death

‘Female husbands’: the secret lives of 18th-century transgender pioneers