Religion
The Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church in the U. S. A. is a part, has dealt with issues of sexuality in complex ways, not all of them favorable to its glbtq membership.
Apostolic Pentecostals are a group of denominations within Pentecostalism; although most of these denominations condemn homosexuality, there recently have emerged affirming denominations that do not regard homosexuality as sinful.
John Atherton, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, was hanged in Ireland for sodomy under a law that he had helped to institute.
Carl Bean, founder of Unity Fellowship Church, gave up a promising entertainment career to pursue his vocation as a clergyman to minister to glbtq Christians of color.
John Boswell was one of the late twentieth century's most influential historians of homosexuality and author of one of the first book-length histories on the subject.
In 1977 Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopal priest and prolific author, became the first prominent openly gay clergyman in a mainstream Christian denomination in the United States.
Activist and author Keith Boykin has committed his life to advancing the rights of the African-American and glbtq communities and to enhancing communication between them.
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.
Buddhism is unusual among world religions in that it generally expresses neutrality on the issue of homosexuality.
Best known for his research on peanuts, agronomist and educator George Washington Carver become a cultural icon as the "Wizard of Tuskegee," but at the cost of hiding his homosexuality.
The socially and politically conservative Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long been antagonistic to the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people.
Similar to heterosexual weddings, commitment ceremonies of same-sex partnerships are legally recognized in some countries, but generally not in the United States.
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.
Michael Dillon, the first person known to have transitioned both hormonally and surgically from female to male, was a man of singular determination who articulated his life as an evolving struggle toward corporeal, intellectual, and spiritual integrity.
Evangelical Christians, who tend to be fundamentalists and socially conservative, have not been welcoming to glbtq people.
In ancient Rome, the galli were castrated priests of Cybele, the Asian Mother Goddess, and of the Syrian goddess Atagartis; they were widely riducled for their effeminacy, cross-dressing, and sexual passivity.
Spurred by the gay liberation movement of the late 1960s, a number of religious groups--including specifically gay-oriented churches and synagogues--have been formed to address the needs of gay and lesbian believers.
The first openly lesbian Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Mary Douglas Glasspool is committed to her calling and confident of "God's ever-unfolding reign of love and justice."
Goddess religions, especially those that feature a singular Great or Mother Goddess, honor female energy for its role in fertility and the creation of new life.
After coming out publicly in 1991, to protest a homophobic incident at Harvard University, the Reverend Peter Gomes lent his eloquent voice to the cause of equality for glbtq people.
Senior Pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, the Reverend Doctor Brent Hawkes has worked with fervor and dedication to secure equal rights for glbtq Canadians.
The dominant religion of modern India, Hinduism is no longer as tolerant of same-sex sexual relations as it seems to have been in the past.
In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Inquisitions of Aragon and Portugal prosecuted almost 1500 trials for sodomy of various kinds.
Despite religious prohibitions against same-sex sexual relationships, Islamic societies generally extend tolerance through a pattern of collective denial.
Cross-Dressing
Transsexuals of Brazil
Hijras
Frederick the Great
Butch-Femme
Milk, Harvey
Women's Liberation Movement