Philosophy
Australian political scientist and self-described "international activist-academic" Dennis Altman has studied both the glbtq political movement and the globalization of sexual identities.
French writer and public intellectual Jean-Paul Aron is widely credited for giving a human face to AIDS and thereby changing the public perception of the disease and those who suffered from it.
Burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church, Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno has been seen as a martyr to religious intolerance; only recently has he also been recognized as a queer hero.
An important figure in the European occult movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Aleister Crowley was publicly reviled in his time, but he was recently cited by the BBC as one of England's most influential citizens.
Radical feminist philosopher, theologian, and linguist, Mary Daly is an outspoken lesbian-feminist separatist who has provoked outrage by challenging established ideas and institutions that she considers destructive to women's power and creativity.
The fifteenth-century Italian philosopher Marsilio Ficino introduced the phrase "platonic love," by which he meant a relationship that included both the physical and the spiritual.
One of the most learned men of his age, Pierre-Daniel Huet was a polymath--a philosopher, a scientist, a novelist, a cleric, and a member of the Académie française.
German-born philosopher Herbert Marcuse had an enormous influence on theories of sexual liberation, particularly in the early post-Stonewall gay movement and on the left.
One of the most influential and most misunderstood of modern philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche in his work searched for a primal joie de vivre that he felt had been distorted by religion and that he was unable to realize in his own life.
The frequently outrageous cultural commentary and caustic criticism of Camille Paglia have made her both famous and controversial.
One of France's leading lesbian theorists and political activists, Geneviève Pastre is a writer and publisher who has made lesbian feminism the root of her political and literary work.
One of the greatest scientists of his generation, computer pioneer Alan Turing was also a victim of cold war homophobia.
Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who is considered one of the most significant thinkers of the twentieth century, was uncomfortable with his homosexuality.