In the 1990s, gay, lesbian, and bisexual activists adopted the initialism LGB. Terminology eventually shifted to LGBT, as transgender people gained recognition. Around that time, some activists began to reclaim the term queer, seeing it as a more radical and inclusive umbrella term, though others reject it, due to its history as a pejorative. In recognition of this, the 2010s saw the adoption of LGBTQ, and other more inclusive variants. (Full article...)
The gay panic defense or homosexual advance defense is a victim blaming strategy of legal defense, which refers to a situation in which an heterosexual individual charged with a violent crime against a homosexual (or bisexual) individual claims they lost control and reacted violently because of an unwanted sexual advance that was made upon them. A defendant will use available legal defenses against assault and murder, with the aim of seeking an acquittal, a mitigated sentence, or a conviction of a lesser offense. A defendant may allege to have found the same-sex sexual advances so offensive or frightening that they were provoked into reacting, were acting in self-defense, were of diminished capacity, or were temporarily insane, and that this circumstance is exculpatory or mitigating.
The trans panic defense is a closely related legal strategy applied in cases of assault or murder of a transgender individual whom the assailant(s) had engaged with, or were close to engaging with, in sexual relations, and claim(s) to have been unaware that the victim was transgender, producing in the attacker an alleged trans panic reaction. In most cases, the violence or murder is perpetrated by a heterosexual man against a heterosexual trans woman. (Full article...)
This 1908 painting by German artist Paul Höcker depicts Nino Cesarini, the Italian lover of Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen. Fersen had fled from France after a sex scandal and built a mansion on Capri, Villa Lysis, where he lived together with Cesarini. The two edited a short-lived literary magazine together, Akademos, which was partly a discreet defense of homosexual love. A romanticized account of their relationship is given by Roger Peyrefitte in his 1959 novel L'Exilé de Capri ("The Exile of Capri").
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