LGBTQ+ history

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

RuPaul – who produces and presents the reality TV show bearing his name – performs during a Gay Rights March in Washington, DC, April 1993. Over 500,000 LGBTQ+ activists and allies participated in a gathering organised to end discrimination. (Photo by Porter Gifford/Liaison)

From Fanny and Stella to Ru Paul’s Drag Race: a short history of drag

'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' (2020): Viola Davis as Ma Rainey. (Photo by David Lee/Netflix)

Who was Ma Rainey, “mother of the blues”?

Berlin by night: Haus Vaterland on Potsdamer Platz during the 1930s. It contained the largest cafe in the world, a major cinema and numerous theme restaurants. (Photo by Getty Images)

The gay MPs who opposed appeasement

The police attempt to quell the crowd, and succeed only in inciting more violence. (Photo by NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

The Stonewall Riots: the flashpoint that launched the gay rights movement in the US

During his time in Oxford, Wilde fully embraced ‘aesthetic flair’: growing his hair long; dressing in flamboyant fashions and assuming exaggerated affectations. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

7 facts you (probably) didn’t know about Oscar Wilde

Young people celebrate outside the boarded-up Stonewall Inn after riots over the weekend of June 27, 1969. (Photo by Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images)

Stonewall and the fight for gay rights

People outside the Stonewall Inn attempt to block police arrests, 28 June 1969. The crowd did not disperse until 4am the following morning (New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images)

Out of the closets and into the streets: the legacy of the Stonewall Riots

Gentleman Jack, Suranne Jones as Anne Lister (Photo by BBC/Lookout Point/Jay Brooks)

Gentleman Jack