Two men kissingGay History and Literature: Essays by Rictor Norton

Queer History Links

LINKS TO THE BEST SITES ON THE WEB FOR GAY AND LESBIAN HISTORY
Updated 7 July 2023

| General GLBT History | GLBT History by Periods | Regional GLBT History | Transgender History | Lesbian History | Black GLBT History | Language and Literary History | Cinema, Theatre, and Music History | Galleries with Historical GLBT Images |

GENERAL GLBT HISTORY

  • People with a History Outstanding survey of LGBTQ history by Paul Halsall, updated in 2023
  • Gay Science: Gay History and Culture Mammoth site by Giovanni Dall'Orto; in Italian, but you can easily set your browser to translate
  • Essays on queer history and culture by Will Roscoe
  • Hidden LGBT History in the British Museum
  • Visual Archives of Sexology
  • How queer People Found Freedom by Cruising Restrooms
  • LGBT Religious Archives Network documenting the history of LGBT religious movements
  • Critiques of the modern use of the word "queer"
  • Gay Culture and History
  • 17 Oconic Same-Sex Couples Throughout History
  • Gay Heroes Not very scholarly, but fun, e.g. Was Lincoln Gay?
  • Famous GLBT People Comprehensive illustrated and generally trustworthy list, with longer biographies of Horatio Alger, Antinous, Gianfrancesco Poggio Bracciolini, Lord Byron, Caravaggio, Cecil Rhodes, Benvenuto Cellini, Jean Cocteau, Correggio, Emily Dickinson, Lord Alfred Douglas, Edward II, Andre Gide, George Friedrich Handel, Johann Christian Friedrich Holderlin, Alexander von Humboldt, T. E. Lawrence, Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Antoinette, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, and others
  • A-Z of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual People Detailed information about almost 700 gays, with hundreds of portraits. Good European coverage, especially comprehensive on Dutch figures, and people from the world of popular entertainment

    GLBT HISTORY BY CHRONOLOGICAL PERIODS

  • LGBT: a Dissection A history of the LGBTQ+ acronym
  • The Tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep Ancient Egyptian manicurists who may have been the earliest recorded gay couple
  • Homosexuality and the Bible, comprehensive analysis of biblical texts and modern interpretation
  • A Problem in Greek Ethics, the complete text of John Addington Symonds's pioneering study of 1901
  • Was Alexander the Great Gay?
  • LGBT History in the Middle Ages
  • The Historic Origins of Church Condemnation of Homosexuality
  • Same-sex Relations in the Middle Ages
  • Homosexuality, Intolerance, and Christianity Extensive critique and commentary on the work of gay scholar John Boswell concerning the early Christian attitude to homosexuality
  • Offences Against One's Self Essays on Homosexuality by Jeremy Bentham, 18th cent.
  • Edward Carpenter Archives Important works by the pioneer British gay activist Edward Carpenter (1844-1929), edited by Simon Dawson
  • A Roman Youth, watercolour by Simeon Solomon Simeon Solomon Research Archive by Roberto C. Ferrari, about the Victorian painter convicted for homosexual acts. Biography; annotated bibliography of works by him and reviews of works about him; links to websites illustrating his art
  • Fanny and Stella: Newspaper reports about the notorious Victorian case of two cross-dressing men, Ernest Boulton and Frederick William Park
  • A Problem in Modern Ethics, the complete text of John Addington Symonds's study of 1896
  • Hall-Carpenter Archives of British LGBT history, with a comprehensive list of links to European LGBT archives
  • Stonewall and Beyond: Lesbian and Gay Culture (Book Exhibition)
  • The Couumnist movement and gay rights: The hidden history

    REGIONAL GLBT HISTORY

    AUSTRALIA

  • Prison Sex in the Mid-Victorian English Convict System
  • Australia's homophobia is deeply rooted in its colonial past
  • Western Australia's oldest gay bar believed to be Freo's Newport Hotel
  • Australian Queer Archives
  • Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939–45 Queer Identities in Ausralia in the Second World War
  • Finding the queer history of Victoria

    CANADA

  • Trudeau's apology to LGBT public servants is straightforward. Expunging criminalconvicctions is not
  • History Project A GLBT Encyclopedia of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
  • Alexander "Molly" Wood, 1722-1844 Involved in a sex scandal in 1810, became a historical icon for the modern Toronto gay community
  • Reflections on Early Canada, part 1: Changing Attitudes Towards Homosexuality in the Late 19th Century, followed by further parts in later blogs at The Drummer's Revenge

    FINLAND

  • Leaving a Glorious Future Behind? - Queer in the Finnish Academia by Tuula Juvonen and Pia Livia Hekanaho

    FRANCE

  • Hexagone Gay Comprehensive LGBT history of France, arranged by region and by chronology, plus extensive biographies and bibliography, very well designed site
  • Sodomy in Eighteenth-Century France Translations from criminal archives by Jim Chevallier (scan down the opening page to the section on Sodomy)
  • Prince Philippe of Lorraine and Same-Sex Love in the Court of King Louis XIV
  • Akademos (1909) and Inversions (1924-1925) were the first two homosexual magazines in the French language. (Article in French, but can be translated)
  • Catalogue bibliographique gay et lesbien Bibliographical guide to gay and lesbian history, culture and literature (mainly French), often with extensive annotations, together with illustrations of covers and portraits of authors

    GERMANY

  • Why Alexander von Humboldt's homosexuality is important (In German, but can turn on Googld Translate)
  • The Doubled Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • King Ludwig II's Love for Richard Wagner
  • Magnus Hirschfeld and the Queer Narratives of Modern Sex Research (podcast)
  • The German Invention of Sexuality John Lauritsen's review of Robert Deam Tobin's Peripheral Desires: The German Discovery of Sex
  • Thirty Years of Collecting Our History Ralf Dose reflects on 30 years of research into Magnus Hirschfeld, the German sexologist and founder of the Institute for Sexual Science
  • Das Centrum Schwule Geschichte in Köln lässt in der Ausstellung, "Wir sind wie wir sind", 100 Jahre Homosexualität auf Schallplatte erklingen. Information about gay music (German site)
  • Jan Magnusson's Bibliography of GLBTQ Literature since 1800. Especially good on German literature; links to mainly German sites.
  • Invertito: Yearbook for the Study of Homosexual History (in German, but with English summaries)
  • Karl Heinrich Ulrichs Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, 175 Years of Pride
  • Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945. Outstanding exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Site

    ITALY

  • Sito di Giovanni Dall'Orto Outstanding collection of writings (in Italian) on gay history, especially focusing on Renaissance Italy, with more than fifty detailed biographies, highly illustrated, plus documents and links
  • Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome Interview with Gary Ferguson
  • Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome Review of Fergusson's book
  • Leonardo da Vinci thrown in jail for homosexuality (in French)
  • Donatello's David, a free online gay historical novel about the origin on Donatello's David set in 15th-century Florence

    KOREA

  • Homosexuality in the Korean Historical Record

  • Sodomy Cases in the Southern Netherlands

    RUSSIA

  • Russian laws against homosexuality
  • Russian Gay Culture

    SCOTLAND

  • LGBT History Scotland

    SWEDEN

  • Swedish gay history and literature, bibliography of studies by Jan Magnusson

    SWITZERLAND

  • Es geht um Liebe: Schwule in der Schweiz und ihre Geschichte Gay History of Switzerland – Extensive, well-designed and well-illustrated history of homosexuals in Switzerland (in German)

    UNITED KINGDOM

  • Uncovering LGBTQ Londinium
  • Bristol Archives: Sources for LGBTQ History
  • The Cleveland Street Scandal
  • How the 18th-Century Gay Bar Survived and Thrived in a Deadly Environment
  • The Macaroni gender-role rebels of 1770s England
  • What regional studies bring to histories of sexuality
  • Sexuality and Locality in Brighton, Leeds, Manchester and Plymouth
  • The Case of Betty John Gender ambiguity in a late eighteenth-century small-claims court
  • Queer Oxford
  • Lord Ronald Gower (1847–1916): The life of a queer MP at the time of the Second Reform Act
  • Tiara and Scandals: The 'Dancing Marquess' of Anglesey
  • Downton Abbey's Thomas Barrow and the Future of the Gay Past The Downton movie explores Tom's sexuality, but what was life really like for queer men in 1920s Britain?
  • LGBT History from the Tyne & Wear Archives
  • Ernie and Geof: Love between men Gay love letters from the 1920s in the National Archives
  • Noel Coward's private lives
  • Parliament and same-sex marriage
  • UK LGBT Archive
  • With Downcast Gays by Andrew Hodges and David Hutter, the 1974 British Gay Liberation pamphlet
  • Gay News: the Inside Story with Michael Mason YouTube interview
  • Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans History Project for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire
  • Edward Carpenter, Utopian Uranian by Mark Simpson
  • A Queer History of Computing Beginning with Alan Turing

    UNITED STATES

  • LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History Includes The History of Queer History: One Hundred Years of the Search for a Shared Heritage by Gerard Koskovich
  • Florida and Florida State University in LGBTQ+ History YouTube video presentation by Chuck Upchurch
  • Queer Secrets tour of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • The Pilgrims were Queer
  • LGBTQ heritage districts strive to preserve vanishing culture (San Francisco)
  • William Dorsey Swann The "first self-proclaimed drag queen" was a formerly enslaved black man
  • Homosexuals in the Military
  • Queer Maps An interactive website that maps 150 years of gay history in the Los Angeles region
  • How the Vice Clique Scandal of 1912 Exposed Portland's Gay Underground
  • How Gay Culture Blossomed During the Roaring Twenties
  • The Lesbians that founded the Gay Village and the Mafia allliance they made for protection
  • Comrades and Lovers, A Documentary Play by Jonathan Ned Katz, first performed in 1989–92, a bout love between men in the life of Walt Whitman, adapted from the words of Whitman, John Addington Symonds, and others, condensed from their letters, diaries, essays, interviews, and poems
  • Baron von Steuben's Family (18th Century Pride)
  • The Man Behind the Man: Abraham Lincoln's gay Lovers
  • Henry Gerber and the Society for Human Rights, founded in 1924
  • A brief history of the Gay Liberation Front, 1970-73
  • Looking at San Antonio's queer past through the Lollie Johnson papers
  • Gay Liberation Front A collection of primary documents made available by John Lauritsen
  • Voices West: Sex in the West: Cowboy-related documents about male-male relations in the American Wild West, in the form of a bibliography, illustrated with suggestives covers from cowboy novels
  • The Richard Cornish Endowment Fund, established in 1993 as a source of funding for the acquisition of gay and lesbian resources for the Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Several historical articles, and lists of publications
  • LeavesOfGrass.Org Celebrating the life and work of Walt Whitman
  • Northwest Lesbian and Gay History Museum Project Sexual minority history in the Seattle area and the Pacific Northwest, with life stories, and guidelines for transcribing oral history interviews
  • One Institute Gay and Lesbian Archives USA

    TRANSGENDER HISTORY

  • Transgender visibility in the National Archiuves collection
  • A Gender Variance Who's Who
  • A Brief History of FTM Trans Civilization
  • Queer Spirit, History, Culture Will Roscoe's pages on the Native American Two-Spirit Tradition and other subjects of gay history
  • Gender Variant Biography blog
  • Born Eunuchs: Homosexual Identity in the Ancient World
  • Postcards of female and male impersonators and cross dressing, 1900-1931 Cornell University Library
  • Don't Call Me Madam The life of Ray Bourbon, early drag performer who worked with Mae West, with sound clips from the 1940s

    LESBIAN HISTORY

  • The Ladies of Llangollen Their representation on a 1820s Blue and White transferware plate
  • Vintage photos of drag kings
  • The women who fought as men, Rare American Civil War pictures show how females disguised themselves so they could go into battle
  • Brave pioneers of the alternative lifestyle Pictures of lesbian couples show the women who paved the way for modern day tolerance
  • The Myth of Lesbian Impunity: Capital Laws from 1270 to 1791 by Louis Crompton
  • Pride and Prejudice Files in the National Archives concerning ‘treatment of immorality’ in the Women’s Royal Air Force and the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force during and after the Second World War
  • Strange Sisters An archive of lesbian paperback artwork from the 1950s and 1960s
  • A Sojourn in Paris 1824-25: Sex and Sociability in the Manuscript Writings of Anne Lister (1791-1840), by Dannielle Orr, PhD Dissertation, Murdoch University, Australia, 2006. Complete text
  • Pseudonymity, Passing, and Queer Biography: The Case of Mary Diana Dods by Geraldine Friedman. Good article on an early 19th-century woman who passed as a man.
  • Lesbianism in the Eighteenth Century A Univeristy of Michigan students' project
  • The Life of Marie Louise Pool, biography published in 1899 about a woman who we can now see was almost certainly a lesbian
  • Historical Lesbian Couples A good resource for portraits

    LANGUAGE AND LITERARY HISTORY

  • The gay poem that broke the blasphemy laws James Kirkup and the Gay News blasphemy case
  • Gay on the Range An archive of gay paperback artwork from the 1950s and 1960s
  • Male Love Among the Romantics including essays by John Lauritsen on Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and others in their circle
  • Byron's Boyfriends Essay by John Lauritsen
  • Reviews of Gay Historical Fiction at Speaks Its Name
  • Polari Dictionary, dictionary of gay slang used in Britain in the 1960s and earlier
  • Bibliography of 16th-18th cent. homosexual literature, especially rich in German sources
  • Homosexual Literature since 1800, a selection of web links compiled by Jan Magnusson, mainly northern European, organized chronologically by author

    CINEMA, THEATRE, AND MUSIC HISTORY

  • History of Censorship in the British Theatre Exhibition at the British Library, 2008
  • Frameline, distributor of LGBT media to the educational market and beyond. Commercial site, but good reviews of films. Mainly American.

    GALLERIES WITH HISTORICAL IMAGES

  • How Bob Mizer's Physique Pictorial Pioneered Moderen Gay Erotica
  • Masculine/Masculine Exhibition of the male nude at the Musee d'Orsay c.2013
  • Sasche Schneider (1870-1927> Homoerotic work by the German painter
  • Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, with extensive list of links
  • Gay on the Range An archive of gay paperback artwork from the 1950s and 1960s
  • Strange Sisters An archive of lesbian paperback artwork from the 1950s and 1960s
  • An Interview with Steve Reeves
  • Beefcake Babylon: The Iconography of Sword and Sandal Epics
  • Beefcake Babylon part 2
  • Beefcake Babylon part 3
  • Beefcake Babylon video tour
  • Physique Photography and the Cult of Hercules
  • Antinous Portraits A virtual museum of hundreds of statues of Antinous, lover of the Emperor Hadrian, with detailed information about provenance.
  • Queer Arts Resource
  • BigKugels Photographic Vintage male nudes
  • Physique Magazines: A History of American Male Erotica
  • The Rise and Fall of the Physique Magazines

    GENERAL RESOURCES & SOME COMMERCIAL SITES

  • Masculline Beauties, Photographs 1848–1990 Portraits and nudes in Nicole Canet's gallery
  • Elysium Press catalog of out-of-print and antiquarian books of interest to gay men

  • Return to Gay History and Literature