LGBT Appreciation Thread!

[myapple]

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]10 Greatest gay men in history you did not know about

1. Alexander the Great[/COLOR]

Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 BC), popularly known as Alexander the Great.
Alexander the Great commanded his first battles while only sixteen years old and went on to conquer the entire known world.

The concept of homosexuality did not exist in Ancient Greece. Men in Ancient Greece had lovers of either gender and Alexander wasn’t an exception.

2. Socrates

Socrates (469–399 BC) was a Classical Greekphilosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students.
Homosexuality was an important part of a boy’s education. It naturally makes his famous students Plato and Aristotle gay. Homosexuality was also used in the military to boost morale and a fighting spirit.

3. Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum (2400 B.C) were ancient Egyptian royal servants and are believed to be the first recorded same-sex couple in history.
They were found buried together embracing and holding hands in a tomb of the pyramid of King Unas.
They were close to the king, shared the title of Overseer of the Manicurists. These male “royal confidants” were depicted in artwork embracing and touching noses, the most intimate pose allowable in Egyptian funeral art.

4. King David of Israel

David (1040–970 BC) was the second king of the unitedKingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible.

After David defeated Goliath, according to the Bible, Jonathan already “loved him as his own soul.” He even made covenant with David and stripped himself and gave his robe, armor, sword, bow and bely to David. After Jonathan learned of his father’s plan to kill David, he went to David and they kissed each other. When Jonathan died, David even stated at his funeral that the love he and Jonathan shared was greater than what he had with women.

5. Nero

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (37 – 68 AD) was the fifth and last Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
Nero was the first Roman emperor to have married a man. He has married two other men on different occasions. Nero “married a man named Sporus in a very public ceremony… with all the solemnities of matrimony, and lived with him as his spouse” A friend gave the “bride” away “as required by law.” . The marriage was celebrated separately in both Greece and Rome in extravagant public ceremonies.

6. Hadrian

Publius Aelius Hadrianus (76 –138 AD) was the fourteenth emperor of Rome from AD 117 to 138, as well as aStoic and Epicurean philosopher.

The story of Roman Emperor Hadrian and his young lover Antinous is like great epic film with power, romance, glory, beauty, tragedy, and love.

Hadrian unofficially took the throne in 117 AD, having been unceremoniously married to a 13-year-old girl decades earlier for political purposes. The much younger Antinous entered the emperor’s circle around 123 and by 128 was accompanying Hadrian as his closest confidant.

7. Richard the Lion Hearted of England

Richard I (1157 – 1199 AD) was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death in 1199. He was known as Cœur de Lion, or Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior. In striking contrast with his father and King John his brother, he was a homosexual.
Richard’s unconventional sexual habits did not negate his primary duty as king: to marry and sire a male heir.

8. Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452 – 1519 AD), was an Italian polymath: painter, sculptor,architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer.

When Leonardo da Vinci was 24 years old, he was arrested on the charge of sodomy. He was constantly surrounded by beautiful men and raised several young protégés.
His sketches and writings indicate that he was indeed attracted to males.

9. Oda Nobunaga

Oda Nobunaga (1534 –1582 AD) was the initiator of the unification of Japan under the rule of the Shogun in the late Sixteenth Century.

Oda Nobunaga’s relationship with Mori Ranmaru is probably the most famous history of male-male relationships.

Mori Ranmaru had served him faithfully for many years and died with Nobunaga when he was still in his teens at the time.

Ranmaru’s loyalty and devotion to his lord were widely known and praised during the Edo period.

10. Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (1809 –1865 AD) served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865.

Lincoln’s problematic and distant relationship with women stood in contrast to his more warm relations with a number of men in his life and that two of those relationships had arguable homosexual overtones.

Lincoln’s letters to Joshua Speed before and after Speed’s wedding in 1842 are as fretful as those of a general before a dubious engagement. Several of them are signed ”Yours forever.”

Source: 10 Greatest gay men in history you did not know about

Also here's a longer list (over 2,000 famous people through history) : http://www.ranker.com/list/famous-gay-me...nd-lesbian

[Pix]

I thought I'd add Jen Foster as I think she deserves to be a lot more famous than she is...first, one of my favorite songs about gay love (the song is by her, the vid is made by a fan of her and the lesbian-theme movies she featured):

She - Jen Foster

I've heard it said so many times
Love is blind
So, why are you staring?
You say that love is all we need, well
Does that apply to me?
'cause I have found someone
That I think is beautiful
And I have fallen in love
And I'm telling you,
She means everything to me
She makes me feel nothing else matters,
Not even what the world thinks of me.

They told me when I was a little girl
"love's a pearl,
You're lucky if you find it"
So, share that precious beauty with the world.
Now, suddenly they say I've got to hide it,
But I have found true love
And there is nothing you can do.
Just try and stop me, just try and stop us,
Good luck to you!
'cause she
Means everything to me, she
Makes me feel nothing else matters,
Not even what the world thinks of me.

It's simple as can be
I love her, she loves me!
This is what everybody dreams of,
There's nothing to be afraid of
There's nothing to be afraid of
After all, it's only love

'Cause she
Means everything to me
She makes me feel nothing else matters,
not even what the world thinks of me.

This (again, her song, but the vid is fan made) made me laugh, it's her response to Katy Perry's I Kissed a Girl (pretending to be the girl she kissed) in I Didn't Just Kiss Her:






(The vids seem a bit jumpy, I'm not sure if that's YT or because the "snow" makes it harder to play here.)

Her website:

http://www.jenfoster.com/

[myapple]

5 Gender Stereotypes That Used To Be the Exact Opposite - I'll only post the ones relevant to this content.

The hardest stereotypes to break are the ones that are so old as to go all the way back to hunter-gatherer days. After all, how can you argue with biology? Women carry the babies, men have the upper body strength to tackle gazelles. Nobody made that up out of thin air.
But if society has taught us one thing, it's that it becomes way too easy to attach amendments to that bill, claiming that all sexual and gender stereotypes date back to the early days of human evolution. Of course, in reality.

#5. "Pink Is for Girls" Is a Recent Idea

For most families, finding out the gender of their baby early on is crucial, since everyone needs to know what color of clothes and toys to get them -- pink or blue? Almost immediately after being born, an infant is outfitted with his or her uniform (a blue T-shirt or pink headband, respectively) so there can be no confusion. You don't want your baby to turn out gay, do you?

"Margaret, you get little Steve out of that outfit this instant."

If it's a girl, don't forget to paint the room pink and get pink curtains. Pink is an inherently girly color that makes us think of flowers and sweet smells and being delicate, while blue is, uh, football, Chevy trucks ... Smurfs ... that topless lizard chick from Avatar ...


But at One Time ...
If it's starting to seem pretty arbitrary, that's because it totally is. Up until the start of World War I, people didn't care what color their kids' diapers were, because it was the freaking 19th century. What color the fabric is under the baby poop is the last thing on your mind when you have to deal with insanely high infant mortality rates, the Civil War, cholera and roving packs of baby-eating wolves (look, the old days were hard, OK?).

Luckily, all our gender issues were heartily resolved by the 1910s, when it was decided that we'd assign colors to each "team": blue was for girls and pink was for boys. No, that's not a typo: A 1918 editorial from Earnshaw's Infants' Department stated that pink was "a more decided and stronger color ... more suitable for the boy; while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." It makes sense: Pink is the color of a nice, raw, manly steak, or the blood of your enemies splattered on a white uniform.

But things had started to switch by 1927, and there was disagreement as to which gender should get which color -- Time magazine even printed a chart showing which stores were advocating each. It wasn't until 1940 that the colors switched and advertisers decided to just go with pink for girls.

This goes beyond colors, too, by the way. For example, take a look at this baby:

Back in the day, thigh-high leather boots were for toddlers, not dominatrixes.

Cute, right? Let's see what she looks like all grown up:

She's the one in the wheelchair.

Yeah, that's FDR in the dress. In those days, it was common to throw every kid in a dress, because who cares? So it turns out the real danger of dressing androgynously is the possibility of your kid growing up to get elected president of the U.S. four times in a row.

[Pix]

Cheerleading used to be done by men as well, but that changed about the same time that blue & pink did because so many men were away fighting in WW2 and so women had to take over...but unlike other industries and positions women didn't give cheerleading back and now it's a girl thing.

Speaking of which, for my fellow Kim Possible fans (a subplot will very quickly become apparent that will reveal why I'm sharing here):




ETA: for those who wish to see it without the snow slowing it down:

[myapple]

Love her.

[Rainbowmum]

My favorite tidbit was regarding James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson.



Noreen Nash, one of Dean's co-stars on Giant, recalled that the stars had a bet over who bed him first. According to Nash, Hudson won the bet just a few days
into the shoot.:biggrin:

[AquarianDragon]

I saw a documentary ages ago about Georgina Beyer and was filled with admiration! She spoke with such candour about her life, and going from being a transsexual sex worker to a Member of Parliament in N.Z.
Her maiden speech in parliament was wonderful.




^ This clip shows a part of it, but misses the hilarious line she used,
“I was the stallion that became a gelding then a mayor, and now, found myself to be a member.”