Gay historians

This category collects historians who study LGBTQ topics; for historians of any topic who self-identify as LGBTQ, see Category:LGBTQ historians. The following 57 pages are in this category, out of 57 total. This list may not reflect recent changes. Meet some famous faces from history, science, drama, sport, music, politics, and entertainment who identify as LGBT+.

We’ve curated a list of 20 gay people in history who made a difference: great military leaders, a groundbreaking feminist monarch, revered authors, revolutionary activists. Most historians agree that there is evidence of homosexual activity and same-sex love, whether such relationships were accepted or persecuted, in every documented culture. We know that homosexuality existed in ancient Israel simply because it is prohibited in the Bible, whereas it flourished between both men and women in Ancient Greece.

In , Henry Gerber founded the first gay rights organization in America: The Society for Human Rights. The Chicago-based organization produced Friendship and Freedom, the first American. The Columbia professor recently won the John W. Kluge Prize. Historian George Chauncey was first summoned to court in He was thirty-nine, a little-known assistant professor at the University of Chicago, and a year away from publishing his groundbreaking book Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, — As one of a small number of scholars in the US working on gay history, Chauncey had been asked to testify in a case challenging a Colorado state constitutional amendment that banned municipalities from protecting gay people from discrimination.

historians will say they were best friends meaning

The US Supreme Court ultimately struck down the amendment, and Chauncey became the go-to expert witness on the history of anti-gay discrimination. By high school, Chauncey was eager to see other parts of the country, and when it came time for college he went to Yale, where he came out as gay. Since the Colorado case, Chauncey has been involved as an expert witness in more than thirty gay-rights cases.

When in the Supreme Court heard Lawrence v. The justices agreed, ruling the laws unconstitutional. With that victory, Chauncey figured his courtroom days were over. But in , the commonwealth of Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage. Court cases exploded, sparking a legal and social battle that would again pull the polite, gentle-spoken historian into the rough currents of a sea change.

Chauncey became busier than ever, writing briefs and testifying widely about the history of anti-gay bias. In a affidavit for US v. The marriage issue came to a head in , when the Supreme Court heard Obergefell v. Hodges , which challenged state bans on same-sex marriage. Chauncey — who a year earlier had married Ronald Gregg, now director of the MA program in film and media studies at the School of the Arts they both came to Columbia from Yale in — wrote an amicus brief for the Organization of American Historians, again delineating the history of anti-gay repression.

On June 26, , the court declared the marriage prohibitions unconstitutional. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. General Data Protection Regulation. Columbia University Privacy Notice. Paul Hond. Fall Read more from Paul Hond. Stay Connected. Sign up for our newsletter. First Name. Last Name. I consent to receive email communications from Columbia Magazine.