Ten Weird And Cool Facts From LGBT History

There are some folks who think Gay is something new; something that just sprang up in the last half century or so. But I’m here to say that we’re here, we’re queer, and we’ve been here, and queer, all along.

So, here are ten weird and cool facts about The LGBT folks:

1 Some of the world’s oldest rock paintings — discovered in Sicily and about 10,000 years old — show two male phallic figures having sex. Gay porn; stone age style!

2 Ancient Roman historian Plutarch wrote about The Great Mother, an intersex deity depicted with both sets of genitals. Her sacred priestesses, as found in the earliest civilizations in Babylonia and Akkad, were eunuchs and trans women.

3 In ancient Assyrian society, if a man were to have sex with another man of equal status, it was thought that trouble would leave him and he would have good fortune. I guess those were the first Daddies?

4 A Hindu medical text dating back to at least 600 BC made several explicit references to gay people; the kumbhika are men who bottom during sex; asekya are men who swallow; and sandha are men who speak and act like women.

5 In Egypt 1503 BC, Hatshepsut became the second woman to rule and chose to take the title of king. She donned male clothing and wore a false beard; the very first, and very real, Drag King.

6 Julius Caesar and Claudius were considered ‘abnormal’ for refusing to take male lovers, though Julius had, at least, an affair with Nicomedes, the king of Bithymia, as a youth. Perhaps Juli was bi?

7 Ancient Celtic men openly preferred male lovers. According to Diodorus in the 1st century BC, “young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused.” Sex between men was very likely an important bonding ritual.

8 One of the first Roman emperors, Elagabalus, could have been transgender. Before dying at the age of 18, it was reported the emperor had married a male athlete and would go out disguised as a prostitute.

9 Wales had a gay king. King Maelgwn of Gwynedd of the sixth century was described as ‘addicted very much to the detestable vice of sodomy’. Detestable? Perhaps to some …

10 Pope Sixtus IV, of the 1400s, was reported to have legalized sodomy during the summer months … when it’s hot and the men are hotter?

Stay tuned … there’s more.

source