5 THINGS TO KNOW

History lesson for Sony and Amazon: Da Vinci was gay!

The fact that LGBTQ people have traditionally been erased from history is well known. People today generally don’t like it. We want to know about Alexander the Great’s passionate affairs with handsome Hephaestion and beautiful Bagoas the gender-bending eunuch twink. That Roman…

5 THINGS TO KNOW

The Dutch went first in 2001; who has same-sex marriage now?

Twenty years ago, just after the stroke of midnight on April 1, the mayor of Amsterdam married four couples in City Hall as the Netherlands became the first country in the world with legalized same-sex marriages. “There are two reasons to rejoice,″…

5 THINGS TO KNOW

History: International Transgender Day of Visibility

Rachel Crandall-Crocker, the creator of International Transgender Day of Visibility, wanted people to have a moment of happiness. So she made a Facebook post encouraging people to organize festivities in their hometowns and started messaging accounts from all over the world…

5 THINGS TO KNOW

These brides made LGBT history. Where are they now?

It was 1998 in Amsterdam, and Helene Faasen’s friend kept insisting she had the perfect match for a blind date. But Faasen, then 32, was hesitant about her friend’s confidence in the match. “It was basically on the criteria that we were…

5 THINGS TO KNOW

How mental illness was used as a tool against LGBT rights

Until 1973 the American Psychiatric Association defined being gay as having a mental illness. A new documentary recalls the struggle to change a definition which for years limited the rights of LGBT people in the US. But the film’s makers say…