LGBTQ history
LGBTQ history dates back to the first recorded instances of same-sex love, diverse gender identities, and sexualities in ancient civilizations, involving the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer peoples and cultures around the world. What survives after many centuries of persecution—resulting in shame, suppression, and secrecy—has only in more recent decades been pursued and interwoven into more mainstream historical narratives.
In 1994, the annual observance of LGBTQ History Month began in the United States, and it has since been picked up in other countries. This observance involves highlighting the history of LGBTQ people, LGBTQ rights and related civil rights movements. It is observed during October in the United States, to include National Coming Out Day on October 11. In the United Kingdom it has been observed during February since 2005: Section 28, which had prohibited local authorities from "promoting" homosexuality was repealed in England and Wales in 2003, while the same legislation was repealed by the Scottish parliament in 2000. A celebrated achievement in LGBTQ history occurred when Queen Beatrix signed a law making Netherlands the first country to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001.
East Asia
China and Taiwan
has been acknowledged in China since ancient times and was mentioned in many famous works of Chinese literature. Confucianism, being primarily a social and political philosophy, focused little on sexuality, whether homosexual or heterosexual. In contrast, the role of women is given little positive emphasis in Chinese history, with records of lesbianism being especially rare. Still, there are also descriptions of lesbians in some history books.Chinese literature recorded multiple anecdotes of men engaging in homosexual relationships. In the story of the leftover peach, set during the Spring and Autumn Era, the historian Han Fei recorded an anecdote in the relationship of Mizi Xia and Duke Ling of Wei in which Mizi Xia shared an especially delicious peach with his lover.
The story of the cut sleeve recorded the Emperor Ai of Han sharing a bed with his lover, Dong Xian ; when Emperor Ai woke up later, he carefully cut off his sleeve, so as not to awake Dong, who had fallen asleep on top of it. Scholar Pan Guangdan came to the conclusion that many emperors in the Han dynasty had one or more male sex partners. However, except in unusual cases, such as Emperor Ai, the men named for their homosexual relationships in the official histories appear to have had active heterosexual lives as well.
With the rise of the Tang dynasty, China became increasingly influenced by the sexual morals of foreigners from Western and Central Asia, and female companions began to replace male companions in terms of power and familial standings. The following Song dynasty was the last dynasty to include a chapter on male companions of the emperors in official documents. During these dynasties, the general attitude toward homosexuality was still tolerant, but male lovers were increasingly seen as less legitimate compared to wives and men were usually expected to get married and continue the family line.
During the Ming dynasty, it is said that the Zhengde Emperor had a homosexual relationship with a Muslim leader named Sayyid Husain. In later Ming dynasty, homosexuality began to be referred to as the "southern custom" due to the fact that Fujian was the site of a unique system of male marriages, attested to by the scholar-bureaucrat Shen Defu and the writer Li Yu, and mythologized by in the folk tale, The Leveret Spirit.
The Qing dynasty instituted the first law against consensual, non-monetized homosexuality in China. However, the punishment designated, which included a month in prison and 100 heavy blows, was actually the lightest punishment which existed in the Qing legal system. In Dream of the Red Chamber, written during the Qing dynasty, instances of same-sex affection and sexual interactions described seem as familiar to observers in the present as do equivalent stories of romances between heterosexual people during the same period.
Significant efforts to suppress homosexuality in China began with the Self-Strengthening Movement, when homophobia was imported to China along with Western science and philosophy.
In 2006, a shrine for the god of homosexual love, Tu'er Shen, was established in Taiwan centuries after the original temple was destroyed in Fujian by the Chinese government in the 17th century. Thousands of queer pilgrims have flocked the site to pray for good fortune in love. In 2019, Taiwan became the first country in the region to legalize marriage equality.
Japan and Korea
Pre-Meiji Japan
Records of men who have sex with men in Japan date back to ancient times. However, they became most apparent to scholars during the Edo period. Historical practises of homosexuality is usually referred to in Japan as wakashudō and nanshoku. The institution of wakashudō in Japan is in many ways similar to pederasty in ancient Greece. Older men usually engaged in romantic and sexual relationships with younger men, usually in their teens.In the classic Japanese literature The Tale of Genji, written in the Heian Era, men are frequently moved by the beauty of young boys. In one scene, the hero is rejected by a lady and instead sleeps with her young brother: "Genji pulled the boy down beside him... Genji, for his part, or so one is informed, found the boy more attractive than his chilly sister". Some references also contain references to emperors involved in homosexual relationships and to "handsome boys retained for sexual purposes" by emperors. In other literary works can be found references to what Leupp has called "problems of gender identity", such as the story of a youth's falling in love with a girl who is actually a cross-dressing male. Japanese shunga are erotic pictures which include same-sex and opposite-sex love.
Post-Meiji Japan
As Japan started its process of westernizing during the Meiji era, homophobia was imported from western sources into Japan and animosity towards same-sex practices started growing. In 1873, Ministry of Justice passed the keikan code, a sodomy law criminalizing homosexual practices.Korea
Several members of Korea's nobility class and Buddhist monks have been known to declare their attraction to members of the same sex. Some Korean emperors from a thousand years ago were also known for having male lovers.North Asia
Early Russian ethnographers observed that Chukchi shamans in Siberia were sometimes said to called by mystical forces to engage in a form of ritualized homosexual relations with men. This ritual typically involved a gender change -- a religious ceremony that, it was believed, transformed their genitalia into that of a female. After the change, they might dress in women's clothing and behave in feminine ways. He was then believed to "lose" masculine traits like hunting skill, and instead take on "feminine" traits, like healing and nurturing. Homosexual relations outside of this specialized role were reportedly not tolerated. Some of these shamans would take male lovers, and could even marry other men, and the shaman would take on a "wifely" role. Shamans would sometimes publicly complain about the spirits "forcing" them to engage in these relations, though it is of course unknown how they privately felt.Southeast Asia and the Pacific
In Thailand, homosexuality has been documented as early as the Ayutthaya period. Temple murals have been found which depict same-sex relations between men and between women. Concubines from the royal Thai family were known in the 'Samutthakhot Kham Chan', Thai literature from Ayuttaya times, to have lesbian relationships. Records of homosexuality are present since at least the 14th century in Vietnam. In the Philippines, same-sex marriage was documented as normalized as early as the 1500s through the Boxer Codex, while various texts have elaborated on the powerful roles gender non-conforming peoples had prior to Spanish colonization. Many of these gender non-conforming people became shamans known as babaylan, whose social status were on par with the ruling nobility. Many queer Filipinos during the Japanese occupation in World War II were forcefully and brutally enslaved as "comfort women" by the Japanese imperial army. In Indonesia, the Serat Centhini records the prevalence of bisexuality and homosexuality in Javanese culture. Homosexuality has also been recorded as part of numerous indigenous cultures throughout Indonesia, where each culture has specific terminologies for gender non-conforming peoples, many of whom had high roles in society.Under British colonial rule, the British imposed Section 377 or its equivalent over territories it colonized in Asia, including Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. The law has left an anti-LGBTQ legacy in the countries that Britain colonized. In Cambodia, homosexuality and same-sex marriages are openly supported by the monarchy, which has called on its government to legalize marriage equality. In East Timor, Asia's youngest independent country since 2002, prime ministers and presidents have openly supported the LGBTQ community since 2017 when the nation celebrated its first pride march with religious and political leaders backing the movement.
In some societies of Melanesia, especially in Papua New Guinea, same-sex relationships were, until the middle of the last century, an integral part of the culture. Third gender concepts are prevalent in Polynesia, such as Samoa, where traditional same-sex marriage have been documented and trans people are widely accepted prior to colonization. In Australia, non-binary concepts have been recorded in the culture of the indigenous Aboriginal peoples since pre-colonial times, while homosexual terminologies are indigenous to Tiwi Islanders. In New Zealand, Māori culture has records of homosexuality through their indigenous epics, where close friends of the same sex are referred to as takatāpui. In the modern day, takatāpui is used as an umbrella term for LGBTQ people, particularly Māori. In Hawaii, queer people, referred to as māhū, are widely accepted since pre-colonial times. Intimate same-sex relationships, referred as moe aikāne, are supported by indigenous rulers or chieftains without any form of stigma. British colonialism and Christian churches have left an anti-LGBTQ legacy in parts of the Pacific due to the aggressive discriminatory impositions of Western conservatism on the region.