๐๏ธ From the Iliad to the Odyssey, Lesbos has had a central part in Ancient Greek history.
โ๏ธ One of its most famous inhabitants was the 6th century B.C. poet Sappho, whose lyrical poems explored her love of women and their beauty โ sometimes even venturing into the erotic.
๐ฉ Sappho was regarded as one of the greatest poets of her time.
๐ Today, not much is known about her life, and much of her work has been lost over the centuries.
๐ฉโโค๏ธโ๐โ๐ฉ But Sappho's homoerotic writing โ and possible personal life โ has been discussed since Hellenistic times.
๐ Sappho wrote about loving women, but it's debated if these descriptions were romantic โ and if she was attracted to women.
๐ฌ While homosexual behaviour between men was accepted and documented in Ancient Greece, accounts of lesbian relationships are much rarer to come across.
๐ญ Irrespective of Sappho's sexuality, her name has ever since been tied to love between women.
โ๏ธ It was in the 18th century her birthplace came into the equation, with William King defining "Lesbians" as women who "loved Women in the same Manner as Men love them".
๐ฅผ In 1890, the term lesbian appeared in a medical dictionary describing sex between women.
๐ While lesbian was used interchangeably with 'sapphist' and 'homosexual' at the turn of the 20th century, it was recorded as a noun in 1925, as the female equivalent of a sodomite.
๐คซ Gay โ a 12th-century word meaning carefree โ became an underground word for being homosexual in the early 20th century.
โ But with the rise of second-wave feminism in 1960s and โ70s, gay women wanted their own identification and the use of lesbian became mainstream.
โ๏ธ Today, thousands of lesbians travel to Sappho's birthplace yearly.
๐งโโ๏ธ Even if some of the locals unsuccessfully went to court to ban the word being used to describe gay women.
๐ธ Eros, the village of Sappho's birth, has three lesbian bars โ that's two more than London. ๐
๐ณ๏ธโ๐ As time has moved on, more young queer women are rejecting traditional labels and have stopped using the word lesbian to describe their sexual identity.
โ If you are a #WLW, how do you prefer calling yourself?
๐ Share with us below!
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โ๐ฟ Black, British and queer โ but often overlooked.
๐ฌ๐ง It's #BlackHistoryMonth in the UK and we're looking at those who shaped Black British queer history - and those still changing the world today.
๐ Here are some of the Black #LGBTQ+ pioneers you should know. ๐งต
Ken "Snakehips" Johnson (1914-1941)
๐ท A jazz bandleader and dancer, Johnson was a leading figure in Black British music in the '30s and '40s.
๐๏ธ Part of the first Black British band in residency at the infamous Cafรฉ de Paris, he died when the club got bombed during the Blitz.
Demi Stokes (b.1991)
โฝ๏ธ The @ManCity and England player was part of the Euro 2022 winning team, which has been credited with spiking interest in women's football.
๐ Stokes came out publicly last year by announcing she was expecting a child with her partner Katie.
๐In history, many Indigenous North American and First Nations people lived outside the Western binaries of gender and sexuality.
On #IndigenousPeoplesDay, here are 5โฃ things you should know about people who define themselves as two-spirit.๐งต
1โฃ What does two-spirit mean?
Two-spirit is an umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans and First Nations people.
It refers to a broad range of sexual and gender identities among Indigenous peoples, and is sometimes thought of as a 'third gender'.
2โฃ Where does the term come from?
Coined in 1990 at a Native American/First Nations gay and lesbian conference, it unifies the many different sexual and gender identities within the communities.
Its creation aimed to distance two-spirit lives from non-native terms.
๐ญ Do you know how to be gender-neutral in your native tongue?
๐ฃ๏ธ On #InternationalNonbinaryDay โ halfway between International Womenโs and International Menโs Day โ weโre taking a deep-dive into non-binary language.
๐ Join @enriqueanarte on a linguistic trip around the globe.
๐ฎ๐น Italian
Highly gendered languages like Italian can make being non-binary difficult.
But some have found a solution in ษ โ โschwaโ โ which can replace gender markers.
While even some officials use ษ, many remain critical, saying it endangers the Italian language.
๐ฌ๐ท Greek
Many non-binary and genderqueer Greeks use the plural pronoun 'ฮฑฯ ฯฮฟฮฏ' which encompasses all genders.
In Greek there are also articles before names. Many prefer the neutral 'ฯฮฟ' here instead of the traditional gendered options.
๐บ๐ธ Since the beginning of July, almost a dozen anti-LGBTQ+ bills have passed into law in several U.S. states.
โ๏ธ In total, more than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced across the U.S. this year, with 25 passed so far.
Here's what you need to know. ๐งต
๐ณ๏ธโ๐ The most notorious is Florida's "Parental Rights in Education" bill, widely known as "Don't Say Gay".
๐ซ The measure bars any classroom teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity for children from kindergarten age up to eight or nine. ๐ openlynews.com/i/?id=42ac474aโฆ
๐ 52% of Floridians oppose banning books on LGBTQ+ topics in school libraries
๐ฅ 47% are against blocking students from accessing resources on the internet at school
๐ซ 43% disagree with a ban on LGBTQ+ topics in classrooms