Two AI voices discuss my articles Laws that Punish Love: A History, 1600 Years of Christian Persecution of Queers and How Homophobia Infected the World Pip: Rainbow messenger, where the history is long, the laws are older, and the injustice has been hiding in plain sight for about sixteen centuries. Mara: Today we’re following shoktiContinue reading “Podcast Episode: History Of Anti-Queer Persecution”
Tag Archives: history
How Homophobia Infected the World
The French and the British — especially the British — in the age of European imperial expansion imposed laws against homosexuality and transgender expression that are still causing injustice and suffering around the world today. These laws were attempts to impose European morality on the cultures the imperialists were subduing, as well as attempts toContinue reading “How Homophobia Infected the World”
Sex in the Temples
Excerpt from ‘The female experience and the nature of the divine’ by Judith Ochshorn, 1981 What seems to have been the case in the ancient Near East, then, for most of the period from the third to the first millennium, is that both women and men performed sacred sexual rites in the service of femaleContinue reading “Sex in the Temples”
The Queer Story in the Venus Retrograde
For many centuries before the ‘morning/evening star’ became named after the Roman Goddess Venus, our closest planetary neighbour was called Inanna, the ancient Goddess of the lands of Mesopotamia. Known as the Queen of Heaven, Inanna’s priests were well known for their queerness and celebrated for rescuing the Goddess from her imprisonment in the Underworld.Continue reading “The Queer Story in the Venus Retrograde”
The Queer Spiritual Calling
IN THE ANCIENT TEMPLES OF ISHTAR, that stretched across the lands of Mesopotamia, which we nowadays call Iraq, Kuwait, Syria and the border lands of Turkey and Iran, from at least 10000 BC, the Goddess, often known as Ishtar, was served by gay and transgendered priest/priestesses. They were called ASSINNU, KURGARRU, KULU’U, legends told ofContinue reading “The Queer Spiritual Calling”
ANTI-LGBTQ+ CRACKDOWN IN TURKEY
Under the guise of ‘protecting the family’ the government of Turkey has initiated a nation-wide coordinated attack on the freedom of same sex attracted and gender-nonconforming people. Never mentioned is the fact that queer children are born in, raised in, and are part of family structure, and of course always have been. This kind ofContinue reading “ANTI-LGBTQ+ CRACKDOWN IN TURKEY”
300th anniversary of police raids on London’s Molly Houses
February 2026 is an important anniversary in Britain’s gay history – 300 years since the raid of Mother Clap’s Molly House in Holborn, which brought molly culture into public view. This anniversary reveals that a gay subculture existed in London 300 years ago, which drives home how long it took to finally gain acceptance andContinue reading “300th anniversary of police raids on London’s Molly Houses”
The Three Sons of Aphrodite
Aphrodite, Greek Goddess of Love – Venus to the Romans – is one of the most ancient manifestations of the divine feminine. She was associated with the much older Mesopotamian Goddess Ishtar, Inanna to the Sumerians, and like her considered to appear in the sky as the planet Venus, and the Phoenician Goddess Astarte. SheContinue reading “The Three Sons of Aphrodite”
On Britain Today
In the 1960s when the Labour government was in power the country had an air of modernizing newness going on, there was hope and excitement for the future… It was the same in the late 90s/early 2000s after eighteen dark, depressing Tory years. But this time round, after 14 even darker Tory years, there hasContinue reading “On Britain Today”
Trans Pride: 1000 years of British of Gender-Bending
On the occasion of the 7th London Trans Pride march I would like to present a guide to a millennium of gender-bending in the British Isles. Trans roots are deep! They go way back into ancient times – as demonstrated by the gender fluidity of certain deities and the existence of genderqueer priesthoods who hadContinue reading “Trans Pride: 1000 years of British of Gender-Bending”
Budapest Pride: We March for Freedom
I visited Budapest in 1990 very soon after the fall of the Iron Curtain, when the first glimmers of open gay life were just starting to show – nervous glimmers indeed compared to the astounding turnout of an estimated 200,000 people at the LGBTQ+ Pride march in the Hungarian capital on the 28th June 2025,Continue reading “Budapest Pride: We March for Freedom”
The Amazons of West Africa
When Western explorers visited the West African kingdom of Dahomey in the 19th century they discovered that the King’s military was made up of female as well as male troops – in the 1860s British explorer Richard Burton wrote an entire chapter about the ‘so-called Amazon’ troops of King Gelele. Alfred Ellis, a British armyContinue reading “The Amazons of West Africa”
Men Love Mutual Masturbation
When I came to London aged 21 in 1986 I discovered that men cruised for sex in public toilets across the city. From Wood Green, Highbury, Finsbury Park to Clapham, Brixton and Balham, via Hyde Park Corner, Green Park, Oxford Circus and Soho I discovered men were lining up against the porcelain and masturbating together.Continue reading “Men Love Mutual Masturbation”
THE QUEER SHAMANIC CALLING part 1: Know Our History
Judith Grahn,Another Mother Tongue, 1982: The tribal attitude said, and continues to say, that Gay people are especially empowered because we are able to identify with both sexes and can see into more than one world at once, having the capacity to see from more than one point of view at a time. David Greenberg,Continue reading “THE QUEER SHAMANIC CALLING part 1: Know Our History”
LGBTQ+ Activism
I attended Over the Rainbow, an LGBTQ+ History Month conversation between Simon Fanshawe and Mark Simpson hosted at Verdurin, a cultural project space in east London, by art curator and critic Pierre d’Alancaisez. Simon and Mark are veterans of the Gay Liberation movement – Mark was part of the grassroots Lesbians and Gays Support theContinue reading “LGBTQ+ Activism”
The Gay Spirituality Library
A reading list of inspired and informative, liberating and enlightening texts about the spirituality of love between men. C19 and more ancient roots: Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass (especially the sections Song of Myself and Calamus) 19th century poetic visions of love between men Edward Carpenter Iolaus (1902) “…draws on and quotes from a panoplyContinue reading “The Gay Spirituality Library”
The Pagan Days of Christmas
The pagan peoples of old Europe considered the days around the Winter Solstice to be sacred, powerful times to celebrate their relationship with the Gods, nature spirits and ancestors. In the Roman Empire this was the season of Saturnalia, a time of feasting in celebration of Saturn, the supreme God of the ancient, peaceful, farmingContinue reading “The Pagan Days of Christmas”
