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 2 December 2012 Deadlinks deleted 1 March 2022 but nothing new added.

| 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

  • LGBT Religious Archives Network documenting the history of LGBT religious movements
  • Critiques of the modern use of the word "queer"
  • People with a History (Once excellent, but not updated since 1998)
  • Gay Art and History: The World History of Male Love Gay history and mythology, homoerotic art, homosexual traditions, highly illustrated
  • Gay Culture and 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
  • Famous Same-Sex Couples Interesting survey of famous same-sex couples in history, and today, part of the Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples

    GLBT HISTORY BY CHRONOLOGICAL PERIODS

  • 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
  • The Historic Origins of Church Condemnation of Homosexuality
  • 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)

    REGIONAL GLBT HISTORY

    CANADA

  • 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
  • Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives

    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)
  • 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

  • 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
  • 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

    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

  • With Downcast Gays by Andrew Hodges and David Hutter, the 1974 British Gay Liberation pamphlet
  • Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans History Project for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire
  • Edward Carpenter's biography of George Merrill. Edward Carpenter's biography of his working-class lover George Merrill is now on the web, at the site devoted to the English social/sexual reformer Edward Carpenter. It's a transcription of the typscript/manuscript at the Sheffield Carpenter Archives (never before published). Carpenter and Merrill were virtually a "married couple" for 14 years, and were friends for more then 25 years. It's a rare and fascinating account of a nineteenth-century gay working-class life, up to the First World War.
  • Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month (Britain)
  • Brighton Ourstory Project.

    UNITED STATES

  • A brief history of the Gay Liberation Front, 1970-73
  • 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

  • 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
  • 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

  • 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

  • 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
  • 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

  • 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

  • Beyond Homophobia, a blog by Dr Gregory Herek, about policy, science and sexual orientation, with useful summaries of current social science research (but very USA-focused)
  • Elysium Press catalog of out-of-print and antiquarian books of interest to gay men

  • Return to Gay History and Literature