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Until recently, the history of sex between men was a taboo topic. But by delving into the historical archive, historian Sir Noel Malcolm has uncovered a more complex story of same-sex relationships and encounters in early modern Europe and the Ottoman world.
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The American Library Association has released its top 10 most challenged books of 2023, and seven of them were challenged for containing LGBTQ+ content.
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In the 1970s, a gang of rowdy queer rebels infiltrated TV stations and wreaked havoc on broadcasts. But their targets weren’t random — they were chosen with laser precision. So what was their goal, and did they succeed? This is their story.
Few lives from history can have contained as many strange and exciting strands as that of Lord Byron’s, whose story reflects the great dramas of the Napoleonic era. A vampiric hero of devilish charisma; a martyr for liberty, a licentious lothario; Byron’s cultural and literary impact cannot be underestimated.
The remarkable course of his life, and his mercurial nature can in part be explained by the dark events of his childhood, and the outlandish history of his own family. Born with a club foot – his “satanic mark” – to “Mad Jack” Byron, a former gigolo dogged by incest and financial ruin, and an unpredictable mother, a strange curse seemed to lie over the family. Impoverished before the inheritance of his title and a romantic ruin in Nottinghamshire, the plump and provincial boy would finally find solace at school and university, where he transformed into the glamorous rake he would become. There too would he discover the dubious sexual passions that would haunt his life…
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A book that couldn’t be published for 60 years after it was written: Maurice, a novel by E. M. Forster, a tale of homosexual love in early 20th-century England.
In his 55 years of life, Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás was an adventurer, a geologist, a spy, a dinosaur scientist, one of the founders of paleobiology, the world’s first airplane hijacker, a founder of the field of Albanian studies, a cosplay artist, and a murderer.
Born in 1877 in Transylvania, the Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felsö-Szilvás may have been, except perhaps as a pub quiz answer, lost to history since his death, but in his lifetime he had an outsized impact on several scientific disciplines, central European politics and nationalisms, and, unfortunately, the man who he lived with until a murder-suicide ended both of their lives.
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The article below is from 2017 but I can imagine that, especially since the COVID pandemic, its content is even more relatable now to a lot of people.
“I used to get so excited when the meth was all gone.” This is my friend Jeremy. “When you have it,” he says, “you have to keep using it. When it’s gone, it’s like, ‘Oh good, I can go back to my life now.’ I would stay up all weekend and go to these sex parties and then feel like shit until Wednesday. About two years ago I switched to cocaine because I could work the next day.”
Jeremy is telling me this from a hospital bed, six stories above Seattle. He won’t tell me the exact circumstances of the overdose, only that a stranger called an ambulance and he woke up here.
Jeremy is not the friend I was expecting to have this conversation with. Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea he used anything heavier than martinis. He is trim, intelligent, gluten-free, the kind of guy who wears a work shirt no matter what day of the week it is. The first time we met, three years ago, he asked me if I knew a good place to do CrossFit. Today, when I ask him how the hospital’s been so far, the first thing he says is that there’s no Wi-Fi, he’s way behind on work emails.
“The drugs were a combination of boredom and loneliness,” he says. “I used to come home from work exhausted on a Friday night and it’s like, ‘Now what?’ So I would dial out to get some meth delivered and check the Internet to see if there were any parties happening. It was either that or watch a movie by myself.”
A mother and son team in the U.K. have launched an app designed to help LGBTQ+ people find safe harbour when they feel endangered.
The BOBU app (available via Apple and Google) is an extension of Luciana and Nicholas Cousin’s “Back Off, Back Up” initiative, launched in 2021. The initiative provides training for local businesses to become designated safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people trying to escape threats and harassment on the street. Participating businesses, like restaurants and other venues, can post “Back Off, Back Up” signage, letting queer and trans people know that if they are feeling unsafe, their staff can offer support.
Those businesses are also listed in the BOBU app, which provides a map showing venues that have been through “Back Off, Back Up’s” inclusive hospitality training.
According to a new report, anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in K-12 schools have quadrupled in U.S. states that have laws restricting the rights of queer students.
A Washington Post analysis of FBI data on anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes taking place in K-12 schools and on college campuses, published on March 12 found that anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes “serious enough to be reported to local police” more than doubled across the country in recent years. The Post found that while an average of 108 anti-LGBTQ+ school hate crimes were reported between 2015 and 2019, that average rose to 232 between 2021 and 2022. According to FBI data, the most common hate crimes reported at schools were intimidation, simple assault (assault where no weapon was used), and vandalism.
However, this rise in school hate crimes was more pronounced in the 28 states that have enacted policies restricting LGBTQ+ students’ self-expression and/or limiting how teachers can talk about gender and sexuality in school. In these states, reported anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes on K-12 and college campuses more than tripled from an average of 28 per year between 2015 and 2019 to an average of 90 between 2021 and 2022.
