title: LGBT history

text: During the 1930s Evans-Pritchard recorded information about sexual relationships between women, based on reports from male Azande. According to male Azande, women would take female lovers in order to seek out pleasure and that partners would penetrate each other using bananas or a food item carved into the shape of a phallus. They also reported that the daughter of a ruler may be given a female slave as a sexual partner. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that the male Azande were fearful of women taking on female lovers, as they might view men as unnecessary.


title: LGBT history

text: According to Aristotle, although most "belligerent nations" were strongly influenced by their women, the Celts were unusual among them because their men openly preferred male lovers ("Politics" II 1269b). H. D. Rankin in "Celts and the Classical World" notes that "Athenaeus echoes this comment (603a) and so does Ammianus (30.9). It seems to be the general opinion of antiquity." In book XIII of his "Deipnosophists", the Roman Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus, repeating assertions made by Diodorus Siculus in the first century BCE (Bibliotheca historica 5:32), wrote that Celtic women were beautiful but that the men preferred to sleep together. Diodorus went further, stating that "the young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused". Rankin argues that the ultimate source of these assertions is likely to be Poseidonius and speculates that these authors may be recording male "bonding rituals".


title: LGBT history

text: Same-sex relationships did not replace marriage between man and woman, but occurred before and beside it. A mature man would not usually have a mature male mate (with exceptions such as Alexander the Great and the same-aged Hephaestion) but the older man would usually be the "erastes" (lover) to a young "eromenos" (loved one). Men could also seek adolescent boys as partners as shown by some of the earliest documents concerning same-sex pederastic relationships, which come from ancient Greece. Often they were favored over women. Though slave boys could be bought, free boys had to be courted, and ancient materials suggest that the father also had to consent to the relationship.


title: LGBT history

text: Same-sex relationships were a social institution variously constructed over time and from one city to another. The formal practice, an erotic yet often restrained relationship between a free adult male and a free adolescent was valued for its pedagogic benefits and as a means of population control, though occasionally was blamed for causing disorder.


title: LGBT history

text: Plato praised its benefits in his early writings [e.g., Phaedrus in the "Symposium" (385–370 BCE)] but in his late works proposed its prohibition [e.g., in Laws (636D & 835E)]). In the "Symposium" (182B-D), Plato equates acceptance of homosexuality with democracy and its suppression with despotism, and wrote that homosexuality "is shameful to barbarians because of their despotic governments, just as philosophy and athletics are, since it is apparently not in best interests of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or physical unions, all of which love is particularly apt to produce". Aristotle, in the "Politics", dismissed Plato's ideas about abolishing homosexuality; he explains that barbarians like the Celts accorded it a special honor, while the Cretans used it to regulate the population.


title: LGBT history

text: The ideal held that both partners would be inspired by love symbolized by Eros, the erastes unselfishly providing education, guidance, and appropriate gifts to his eromenos, who became his devoted pupil and assistant, while the sexuality theoretically remained short of penetrative acts and supposedly would consist primarily of the act of frottage or intercrural sex. Although this was the ideal, realistically speaking, it is probable that in many such relationships fellatio and penetrative anal intercourse did occur. The hoped-for result was the mutual improvement of both erastes and eromenos, each doing his best to excel in order to be worthy of the other.


title: LGBT history

text: Kenneth J. Dover, followed by Michel Foucault and Halperin, assumed that it was considered improper for the eromenos to feel desire, as that would not be masculine. However, Dover's claim has been questioned in light of evidence of love poetry which suggests a more emotional connection than earlier researchers liked to acknowledge.


title: LGBT history

text: Sappho, born on the island of Lesbos, was included by later Greeks in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. The adjectives deriving from her name and place of birth (Sapphic and Lesbian) came to be applied to female homosexuality beginning in the 19th century. Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and both genders. The narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various females, but descriptions of physical acts between women are few and subject to debate.


title: LGBT history

text: In Ancient Greece and Phrygia, and later in the Roman Republic, the Goddess Cybele was worshiped by a cult of people who castrated themselves, and thereafter took female dress and referred to themselves as female. These early transgender figures have also been referred by several authors as early role models.


title: LGBT history

text: In Ancient Rome the young male body remained a focus of male sexual attention, but relationships were between older free men and slaves or freed youths who took the receptive role in sex. The Hellenophile emperor Hadrian is renowned for his relationship with Antinous.


title: LGBT history

text: In Roman patriarchal society, it was socially acceptable for an adult male citizen to take the penetrative role in same-sex relations. Freeborn male minors were strictly protected from sexual predators (see "Lex Scantinia"), and men who willingly played the "passive" role in homosexual relations were disparaged. No law or moral censure was directed against homosexual behaviors as such, as long as the citizen took the dominant role with a partner of lower status such as a slave, prostitute, or someone considered "infamis", of no social standing.


title: LGBT history

text: The Roman emperor Elagabalus is depicted as transgender by some modern writers. Elagabalus was said to be "delighted to be called the mistress, the wife, the queen of Hierocles." Supposedly, great wealth was offered to any surgeon who was able to give Elagabalus female genitalia.


title: LGBT history

text: During the Renaissance, wealthy cities in northern Italy—Florence and Venice in particular—were renowned for their widespread practice of same-sex love, engaged in by a considerable part of the male population and constructed along the classical pattern of Greece and Rome. Attitudes toward homosexual behavior changed when the Empire fell under Christian rule; see for instance legislation of Justinian I.


title: LGBT history

text: Same-sex scholarly 'empires of the mind' were common in medieval Middle Eastern cultures, as seen in their poetry on same-sex love.


title: LGBT history

text: According to John Boswell, author of "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality", there were same-sex Christian monastic communities and other religious orders in which homosexuality thrived. According to Chauncey et al. (1989), the book "offered a revolutionary interpretation of the Western tradition, arguing that the Roman Catholic Church had not condemned gay people throughout its history, but rather, at least until the twelfth century, had alternately evinced no special concern about homosexuality or actually celebrated love between men."


title: LGBT history

text: Boswell was also the author of "Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe" (New York: Villard, 1994) in which he argues that the "adelphopoiia" liturgy was evidence that attitude of the Christian church towards homosexuality has changed over time, and that early Christians did on occasion accept same-sex relationships. His work attracted great controversy, as it was seen by many as merely an attempt for Boswell to justify his homosexuality and Roman Catholic faith. For instance, R. W. Southern points out that homosexuality had been condemned extensively by religious leaders and medieval scholars well before the 12th century; he also points to the penitentials which were common in early medieval society, and many of which include homosexuality as among the serious sins.


title: LGBT history

text: Throughout the majority of Christian history, most Christian theologians and denominations have considered homosexual behavior as immoral or sinful. Persecutions against homosexuality rose during the High Middle Ages, reaching their height during the Medieval Inquisitions, when the sects of Cathars and Waldensians were accused of fornication and sodomy, alongside accusations of satanism. In 1307, accusations of sodomy and homosexuality were major charges leveled during the Trial of the Knights Templar. The theologian Thomas Aquinas was influential in linking condemnations of homosexuality with the idea of natural law, arguing that "special sins are against nature, as, for instance, those that run counter to the intercourse of male and female natural to animals, and so are peculiarly qualified as unnatural vices."


title: LGBT history

text: The Renaissance saw intense oppression of homosexual relationships by the Roman Catholic Church. Homosexual activity radically passes from being completely legal in most of Europe to incurring the death penalty in most European states. In France, first-offending sodomites lost their testicles, second offenders lost their penis, and third offenders were burned. Women caught in same-sex acts would be mutilated and executed as well. Thomas Aquinas argued that sodomy was second only to murder in the ranking of sins. The church used every means at its disposal to fight what it considered to be the "corruption of sodomy". Men were fined or jailed; boys were flogged. The harshest punishments, such as burning at the stake, were usually reserved for crimes committed against the very young, or by violence. The Spanish Inquisition begins in 1480, sodomites were stoned, castrated, and burned. Between 1540 and 1700, more than 1,600 people were prosecuted for sodomy. In 1532 the Holy Roman Empire made sodomy punishable by death. The following year King Henry VIII passed the Buggery Act 1533 making all male-male sexual activity punishable by death.


title: LGBT history

text: Florence had a homosexual subculture, which included age-structured relationships. In 1432 the city established "Gli Ufficiali di Notte" (The Officers of the Night) to root out the practice of sodomy. From that year until 1502, the number of men charged with sodomy numbered more than 17,000, of whom 3,000 were convicted. This number also included heterosexual sodomy.


title: LGBT history

text: The reputation of Florence is reflected in the fact that the Germans adopted the word "Florenzer" to refer to a "sodomite".The association of foreignness with homosexuality gradually became a cornerstone of homophobic rhetoric throughout Europe, and it was used in a calumnious perspective. For example, the French would call "homosexuality" the "Italian vice" in the 16th and 17th centuries, the "English vice" in the 18th century, the "mœurs orientales" (oriental mores) in the 19th century, and the "German vice" starting from 1870 and into the 20th century.


title: LGBT history

text: The developing field of psychology was the first way homosexuality could be directly addressed aside from Biblical condemnation. In Europe, homosexuality had been part of case studies since the 1790s with Johann Valentin Müller's work. The studies of this era tended to be rigorous examination of "criminals," looking to confirm guilt and establish patterns for future prosecutions. Ambroise Tardieu in France believed he could identify "pederasts" affirming that the sex organs are altered by homosexuality in his 1857 publishing. François Charles's exposé, "Les Deux Prostitutions: études de pathologie sociale", ("The Two Prostitutions: Study of the Social Pathology") developed methods for police to persecute through meticulous documentation of homosexuality. Others include Johann Caspar and Otto Westphal, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Richard von Krafft-Ebing's 1886 publication, "Psychopathia Sexualis", was the most widely translated work of this kind. He and Ulrichs believed that homosexuality was congenitally based, but Krafft-Ebing differed; in that, he asserted that homosexuality was a symptom of other psychopathic behavior that he viewed to be an inherited disposition to degeneracy.


title: LGBT history

text: Degeneracy became a widely acknowledged theory for homosexuality during the 1870s and 80s. It spoke to the eugenic and Social Darwinist theories of the late 19th century. Benedict Augustin Morel is considered the father of degeneracy theory. His theories posit that physical, intellectual, and moral abnormalities come from disease, urban over-population, malnutrition, alcohol, and other failures of his contemporary society.


title: LGBT history

text: An important shift in the terminology of homosexuality was brought about by the development of psychology's inquisition into homosexuality. "Contrary sexual feeling," as Westphal's phrased it, and the word "homosexual" itself made their way into the Western lexicons. Homosexuality had a name aside from the ambiguous term "sodomy" and the elusive "abomination." As Michel Foucault phrases it, "the sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species."


title: LGBT history

text: Following the codification of anti-sodomy laws with the Buggery Act of 1533, homosexual sex and relationships were greatly looked down upon civilly prosecuted. Although section 61 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 removed the death penalty for homosexuality, male homosexual acts remained illegal and were punishable by imprisonment.


title: LGBT history

text: In contrast, lesbian relationships were frequently overlooked and legal codes that targeted homosexuality often didn’t include sapphic love.In one Scottish court case, a judge deemed sexual relationships between two women imaginary. Only in cases where women broke gender roles and crossed into masculine realms were punished with public whippings and banishment, much less severe than their gay male counterparts. However, Ballads celebrating cross-dressing female soldiers circulated during the Napoleonic Wars, frequently depicting women donning male garb flirting with men and occasionally even “female husbands” would appear.


title: LGBT history

text: Various authors wrote on the topic of homosexuality. In 1735, Conyers Place wrote "Reason Insufficient Guide to Conduct Mankind in Religion." In 1749, Thomas Cannon wrote "Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified." In August, 1772, "Morning Chronicle" publishes a series of letters to the editor about the trial of Captain Robert Jones. In 1773, Charles Crawford wrote "A Dissertation on the Phaedon of Plato."


title: LGBT history

text: Molly houses appeared in 18th century London and other large cities. A "Molly house" is an archaic 18th century English term for a tavern or private room where homosexual and cross-dressing men could meet each other and possible sexual partners. Patrons of the Molly house would sometimes enact mock weddings, sometimes with the bride giving birth. Margaret Clap (?–c. 1726), better known as "Mother Clap", ran such a Molly house from 1724 to 1726 in Holborn, London. She was also heavily involved in the ensuing legal battles after her premises were raided by the police and shut down. Molly houses were perhaps the first precursors to the modern gay bar.


title: LGBT history

text: In the 19th and 20th centuries, male commentary, on lesbian relationships became more common and increasingly eroticized. The publication of Anne Lister’s diaries revealed that as early as 1820, educated women had covert sexual and romantic relationships with other women, often while married to men and presenting as close female friendships. Intensely emotional friendships between women were normal in England, making it difficult for scholars to definitively identify same-sex relationships. However, modern scholars suspect that lesbian subscripts exist within much of the literature published by women, as female character yearn romantically after other female characters, but that passion is silenced. This is reflected by a large body of same-sex love poetry was written by women.


title: LGBT history

text: Oscar Wilde, the Irish author and playwright, played an important role in bringing homosexuality into the public eye. The scandal in British society and subsequent court case from 1895–96 was highly discussed not only in Europe, but also in America, although newspapers like the "New York Times" concentrated on the question of blackmail, only alluding to the homosexual aspects as having "a curious meaning," in the first publication on April 4, 1895. After Wilde's arrest, the April 6 "New York Times" discussed Wilde's case as a question of "immorality" and did not specifically address homosexuality, discussing the men "some as young as 18" that were brought up as witnesses. Inspired by Wilde's renown and homosexuality, gay activist Craig Rodwell founded the first United States LGBTQ bookstore on November 24, 1967 and called it the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop.


title: LGBT history

text: In Britain, the view of homosexuality as the mark of a deviant mind was not limited to the psychiatric wards of hospitals but also the courts. An extremely famous case was that of Alan Turing, a British mathematician and theoretician. During WWII, Turing worked at Bletchley Park and was one of the major architects of the Colossus computer, designed to break the Enigma codes of the Nazi war machine. For the success of this, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1945. In spite of all his brilliance and the services rendered to his country, Turing was also openly homosexual and in the early 1950s this fact came to the attention of the British government when he was arrested under section 11 of an 1885 statute of "gross indecency". At the time there was great fear that Turing's sexuality could be exploited by Soviet spies, and so he was sentenced to choosing between jail and injections of synthetic estrogen. The choice of the latter led him to massive depression and dying at the age of 41 after biting into an allegedly poisoned apple. Although it is popularly believed that Turing committed suicide, his death was also consistent with accidental poisoning. It is estimated that an additional 50–75,000 men were persecuted under this law, with only partial repeal taking place in 1967 and the final measure of it in 2003.


title: LGBT history

text: Written on July 21, 1776, the Letter LXIII became infamous for its frank talk of human sexuality. Mathieu-François Pidansat de Mairobert published the letter in his 1779 book, "L'Espion Anglois, Ou Correspondance Secrete Entre Milord All'eye et Milord Alle'ar" (aka "L'Observateur Anglais or L'Espion Anglais") ("The English Spy, or Secret Correspondence Between my Lord and my Lord All'eye Alle'ar [aka The English Observer or The English Spy]").


title: LGBT history

text: In 1791, Revolutionary France (and Andorra) adopted the French Penal Code of 1791 which no longer criminalized sodomy. France thus became the first West European country to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults. Globally, various countries such as Madagascar have never criminalized homosexual activity.


title: LGBT history

text: Prior to the Third Reich, Berlin was a liberal city, with many gay bars, nightclubs and cabarets. There were even many drag bars where tourists straight and gay would enjoy female impersonation acts. Hitler decried cultural degeneration, prostitution and syphilis in his book "Mein Kampf", blaming at least some of the phenomena on Jews.


title: LGBT history

text: Berlin also had the most active LGBT rights movements in the world at the time. Jewish doctor Magnus Hirschfeld had co-founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK) in Berlin in 1897 to campaign against the notorious "Paragraph 175" of the Penal Code that made sex between men illegal. It also sought social recognition of homosexual and transgender men and women. It was the first public gay rights organization. The Committee had branches in several other countries, thereby being the first international LGBT organization, although on a small scale.


title: LGBT history

text: In 1919, Hirschfeld had also co-founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Research), a private sexology research institute. It had a research library and a large archive, and included a marriage and sex counseling office. In addition, the institute was a pioneer worldwide in the call for civil rights and social acceptance for homosexual and transgender people.


title: LGBT history

text: As a leading city for homosexuals during the 1920, Berlin had clubs and even newspapers for both lesbians and gay men. The lesbian magazine Die Freundin was started by Friedrich Radszuweit and the gay men's magazine "Der Eigene" had already started in 1896 as the world's first gay magazine. The first gay demonstration ever took place in Nollendorfplatz in 1922 in Berlin, gathering 400 homosexuals.


title: LGBT history

text: Under the rule of Nazi Germany, about 50,000 men were sentenced because of their homosexuality and thousands of them died in concentration camps. Gay men were viewed as "inferior" and "animalistic". Conditions for gay men in the camps were especially rough; they faced not only persecution from German soldiers, but also other prisoners, and many gay men were reported to die of beatings. Female homosexuality was not, technically, a crime and thus gay women were generally not treated as harshly as gay men. Although there are some scattered reports that gay women were sometimes imprisoned for their sexuality, most would have been imprisoned for other reasons, i.e. "anti-social".


title: LGBT history

text: The first kiss between two men on German television was shown in Rosa von Praunheim's film "It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives" (1971). This film marks the beginning of the German modern gay liberation movement. In 1993, the last parts of Paragraph 175 were deleted and Germany became the same age of consent.


title: LGBT history

text: Before the American Civil War and the massive population growth of the Post-Civil War America, the majority of the American population was rural. Homosexuality remained an unseen and taboo concept in society, and the word "homosexuality" was not coined until 1868 In a letter to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs by German-Hungarian Karoly Maria Kertbeny (who advocated decriminalization). During this era, homosexuality fell under the umbrella term "sodomy" that comprised all forms of nonproductive sexuality (masturbation and oral sex were sometimes excluded). Without urban sub-cultures or a name for self-definition, group identification and self-consciousness was unlikely.


title: LGBT history

text: Mainstream interpretation of , and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah were the justification for the severe penalties facing those accused of "sodomy." Most of the laws around homosexuality in the colonies were derived from the English laws of "buggery," and the punishment in all American colonies was death. The penalty for attempted sodomy (both homosexuality and bestiality) was prison, whipping, banishment, or fines. Thomas Jefferson suggested castration as the punishment for sodomy, rape, and polygamy in a proposed revision of the Virginia criminal code near the end of the 18th century.


title: LGBT history

text: Pennsylvania was the first state to repeal the death penalty for "sodomy" in 1786 and within a generation all the other colonies followed suit (except North and South Carolina that repealed after the Civil War). Along with the removal of the death penalty during this generation, legal language shifted away from that of damnation to more dispassionate terms like "unmentionable" or "abominable" acts. Aside from sodomy and "attempted sodomy" court cases and a few public scandals, homosexuality was seen as peripheral in mainstream society. Lesbianism had no legal definition largely given Victorian notions of female sexuality.


title: LGBT history

text: A survey of sodomy law enforcement during the nineteenth century suggests that a significant minority of cases did not specify the gender of the "victim" or accused. Most cases were argued as non-consensual or rape. The first prosecution for consensual sex between people of the same gender was not until 1880. In response to increasing visibility of alternative genders, gender bending, and homosexuality, a host of laws against vagrancy, public indecency, disorderly conduct, and indecent exposure was introduced across the United States. "Sodomy" laws also shifted in many states over the beginning of the twentieth century to address homosexuality specifically (many states during the twentieth century made heterosexual anal intercourse legal). In some states, these laws would last until they were repealed by the Supreme Court in 2003 with the Lawrence decision.


title: LGBT history

text: Male homosexuality found its first social foothold in the 19th Century not in sexuality or homoerotica, but in idealized conception of the wholesome and loving male friendship during the 19th century. Or as contemporary author Theodore Winthrop in Cecil Dreeme writes, "a friendship I deemed more precious than the love of women." This ideal came from and was enforced by the male-centric institutions of boy's boarding schools, all-male colleges, the military, the frontier, etc.—fictional and non-fiction accounts of passionate male friendships became a theme present in American Literature and social conceptions of masculinity.


title: LGBT history

text: New York, as America's largest city exponentially growing during the 19th Century (doubling from 1800–20 and again by 1840 to a population of 300,000), saw the beginnings of a homosexual subculture concomitantly growing with the population. Continuing the theme of loving male friendship, the American poet, Walt Whitman arrived in New York in 1841. He was immediately drawn to young working-class men found in certain parks, public baths, the docks, and some bars and dance halls. He kept records of the men and boys, usually noting their ages, physical characteristics, jobs, and origins. Dispersed in his praise of the city are moments of male admiration, such as in "Calamus"—"frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me robust, athletic love" or in poem Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, where he writes:


title: LGBT history

text: "Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me / approaching or passing, / Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as / I sat, / Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a / word, / Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping, / Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress, / The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like, / Or as small as we like, or both great and small."


title: LGBT history

text: Sometimes Whitman's writing verged on explicit, such as in his poem, Native Moments—"I share the midnight orgies of young men / I pick out some low person for my dearest friend. He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate." Poems like these and Calamus (inspired by Whitman's treasured friends and possible lover, Fred Vaughan who lived with the Whitman family in the 1850s) and the general theme of manly love, functioned as a pseudonym for homosexuality. The developing sub-community had a coded voice to draw more homosexuals to New York and other growing American urban centers. Whitman did, however, in 1890 denounce any sexuality in the comradeship of his works, and historians debate whether he was a practicing homosexual, bisexual, etc. But this denouncement shows that homosexuality had become a public question by the end of the 19th century.


title: LGBT history

text: Twenty years after Whitman came to New York, Horatio Alger continued the theme of manly love in his stories of the young Victorian self-made man. He came to New York fleeing from a public scandal with a young man in Cape Cod that forced him to leave the ministry, in 1866.


title: LGBT history

text: We'wha (1849–1896) was a notable Zuni weaver, potter and "lhamana". Raised as a boy, they would later spend part of their life dressing and living in the roles usually filled by women in Zuni culture, later living and working in roles filled by men, changing depending on the situation. Anthropologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson, a friend of We'wha's who wrote extensively about the Zuni, hosted We'wha and the Zuni delegation when We'wha was chosen as an official emissary to Washington D.C. in 1886. During this time they met President Grover Cleveland. We'wha had at least one husband, was trained in the customs and rites for the ceremonies for both men and women, and was a respected member of their community. Friends who documented their life used both pronouns for We'wha.


title: LGBT history

text: In 1908, the first American defense of homosexuality was published. "The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life", was written by Edward Stevenson under the pseudonym Xavier Mayne. This 600-page defense detailed Classical examples, but also modern literature and the homosexual subcultures of urban life. He dedicated the novel to Krafft-Ebing because he argued homosexuality was inherited and, in Stevenson's view and not necessarily Krafft-Ebing's, should not face prejudice. He also wrote one of the first homosexual novels—"Imre: A Memorandum". Also in this era, the earliest known open homosexual in the United States, Claude Hartland, wrote an account of his sexual history. He affirmed that he wrote it to affront the naivety surrounding sexuality. It was in response to the ignorance he saw while being treated by doctors and psychologists that failed to "cure" him. Hartland wished his attraction to men could be solely "spiritual," but could not escape the "animal."


title: LGBT history

text: By this time, society was slowly becoming aware of the homosexual subculture. In an 1898 lecture in Massachusetts, a doctor gave a lecture on this development in modern cities. With a population around three million at the turn of the 20th century, New York's queer subculture had a strong sense of self-definition and began redefining itself on its own terms. "Middle class queer," "fairies," were among the terminology of the underground world of the Lower East Side. But with this growing public presence, backlash occurred. The YMCA, who ironically promoted a similar image to that of the Whitman's praise of male brotherhood and athletic prowess, took a chief place in the purity campaigns of the epoch. Anthony Comstock, a salesman and leader of YMCA in Connecticut and later head of his own New York Society for the Suppression of Vice successfully pressed Congress and many state legislatures to pass strict censorship laws. Ironically, the YMCA became a site of homosexual conduct. In 1912, a scandal hit Oregon where more than 50 men, many prominent in the community, were arrested for homosexual activity. In reaction to this scandal conflicting with public campaigns, YMCA leadership began to look the other way on this conduct.


title: LGBT history

text: The 1920s ushered in a new era of social acceptance of minorities and homosexuals, at least in heavily urbanized areas. This was reflected in many of the films (see Pre-Code) of the decade that openly made references to homosexuality. Even popular songs poked fun at the new social acceptance of homosexuality. One of these songs had the title "Masculine Women, Feminine Men." It was released in 1926 and recorded by numerous artists of the day and included the following lyrics:


title: LGBT history

text: Homosexuals received a level of acceptance that was not seen again until the 1970s. Until the early 1930s, gay clubs were openly operated, commonly known as "pansy clubs". The relative liberalism of the decade is demonstrated by the fact that the actor William Haines, regularly named in newspapers and magazines as the number-one male box-office draw, openly lived in a gay relationship with his lover, Jimmie Shields. Other popular gay actors/actresses of the decade included Alla Nazimova and Ramon Novarro. In 1927, Mae West wrote a play about homosexuality called "The Drag", and alluded to the work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. It was a box-office success. West regarded talking about sex as a basic human rights issue, and was also an early advocate of gay rights. With the return of conservatism in the 1930s, the public grew intolerant of homosexuality, and gay actors were forced to choose between retiring or agreeing to hide their sexuality.


title: LGBT history

text: By 1935, the United States had become conservative once again. Victorian values and morals, which had been widely ridiculed during the 1920s became fashionable once again. During this period, life was harsh for homosexuals as they were forced to hide their behavior and identity in order to escape ridicule and even imprisonment. Many laws were passed against homosexuals during this period and it was declared to be a mental illness. Many police forces conducted operations to arrest homosexuals by using young undercover cops to get them to make propositions to them.


title: LGBT history

text: By the 1930s both "fruit" and "fruitcake" terms as well as numerous other words are seen as not only negative but also to mean male homosexual, although probably not universally. LGBT people were widely diagnosed as diseased with the potential for being cured, thus were regularly "treated" with castration, lobotomies, pudic nerve surgery, and electroshock treatment. so transferring the meaning of "fruitcake", nutty, to someone who is deemed insane, or crazy, may have seemed rational at the time and many apparently believed that LGBT people were mentally unsound. In the United States, psychiatric institutions ("mental hospitals") where many of these procedures were carried out were called "fruitcake factories" while in 1960s Australia they were called "fruit factories".


title: LGBT history

text: As the US entered World War II in 1941, women were provided opportunities to volunteer for their country and almost 250,000 women served in the armed forces, mostly in the Women's Army Corps (WAC), two-thirds of whom were single and under the age of twenty-five. Women were recruited with posters showing muscular, short-haired women wearing tight-fitting tailored uniforms. Many lesbians joined the WAC to meet other women and to do "men's work." Few were rejected for lesbianism, and found that being strong or having masculine appearance – characteristics associated with homosexual women – aided in the work as mechanics and motor vehicle operators. A popular Fleischmann's Yeast advertisement showed a WAC riding a motorcycle with the heading "This is no time to be frail." Some recruits appeared at their inductions wearing men's clothing and their hair slicked back in the classic butch style of out lesbians of the time. Post-war many women including lesbians declined opportunities to return to traditional gender roles and helped redefine societal expectations that fed the women's movement, Civil Rights Movement and gay liberation movement. The war effort greatly shifted American culture and by extension representations in entertainment of both the nuclear family and LGBT people. In mostly same sex quarters service members were more easily able to express their interests and find willing partners of all sexualities.


title: LGBT history

text: From 1942 to 1947, WWII conscientious objectors in the US assigned to psychiatric hospitals under Civilian Public Service exposed abuses throughout the psychiatric care system and were instrumental in reforms of the 1940s and 1950s.


title: LGBT history

text: The Lavender Scare was an early example of institutionalized homophobia, resulting from a moral panic over the employment of homosexuals in the government, particularly the State Department. A key aspect of the moral panic was the idea that homosexuals were particularly vulnerable to communist blackmail and so constituted a security risk. However, issues of morality were also present, with homosexuals being accused of lacking moral fiber and emotional stability.


title: LGBT history

text: Although the June 28, 1969, Stonewall riots are generally considered the starting point of the modern gay liberation movement, a number of demonstrations and actions took place before that date. These actions, often organized by local homophile organizations but sometimes spontaneous, addressed concerns ranging from anti-gay discrimination in employment and public accommodations to the exclusion of homosexuals from the United States military to police harassment to the treatment of homosexuals in revolutionary Cuba. The early actions have been credited with preparing the LGBT community for Stonewall and contributing to the riots' symbolic power. "See: List of LGBT actions in the United States prior to the Stonewall riots"


title: LGBT history

text: In the autumn of 1959, the police force of New York City's Wagner administration began closing down the city's gay bars, which had numbered almost two dozen in Manhattan at the beginning of the year. This crackdown was largely the result of a sustained campaign by the right-wing "NY Mirror" newspaper columnist Lee Mortimer. Existing gay bars were quickly closed and new ones lasted only a short time. The election of John Lindsay in 1965 signaled a major shift in city politics, and a new attitude toward sexual mores began changing the social atmosphere of New York. On April 21, 1966, Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell president and vice president respectively of the New York Mattachine Society and Mattachine activist John Timmons staged the Sip-In at Julius' Bar on West 10th Street in Greenwich Village. This resulted in the anti-gay accommodation rules of the NY State Liquor Authority being overturned in subsequent court actions. These SLA provisions declared that it was illegal for homosexuals to congregate and be served alcoholic beverages in bars. An example of when these laws had been upheld is in 1940 when Gloria's, a bar that had been closed for such violations, fought the case in court and lost. Prior to this change in the law, the business of running a gay bar had to involve paying bribes to the police and Mafia. As soon as the law was altered, the SLA ceased closing legally licensed gay bars and such bars could no longer be prosecuted for serving gays and lesbians. Mattachine pressed this advantage very quickly and Mayor Lindsay was confronted with the issue of police entrapment in gay bars, resulting in this practice being stopped. On the heels of this victory, the mayor cooperated in getting questions about homosexuality removed from NYC hiring practices. The police and fire departments resisted the new policy, however, and refused to cooperate. The result of these changes in the law, combined with the open social- and sexual-attitudes of the late Sixties, led to the increased visibility of gay life in New York. Several licensed gay bars were in operation in Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side, as well as illegal, unlicensed places serving alcohol, such as the Stonewall Inn and the Snakepit, both in Greenwich Village. The Stonewall riots were a series of violent conflicts between gay men, drag queens, transsexuals, and lesbians against a police officer raid in New York City. The first night of rioting began on Friday, June 27, 1969 at about 1:20 am, when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar operating without a state license in Greenwich Village. "Stonewall" is considered a turning point for the modern gay rights movement worldwide. Newspaper coverage of the events was minor in the city, since, in the Sixties, huge marches and mass rioting had become commonplace and the Stonewall disturbances were relatively small. It was the commemorative march one year later, organized by the impetus of Craig Rodwell, owner of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, which drew 5,000 marchers up New York City's Sixth Avenue, that drew nationwide publicity and put the Stonewall events on the historical map and led to the modern-day pride marches. A new period of liberalism in the late 1960s began a new era of more social acceptance for homosexuality which lasted until the late 1970s. In the 1970s, the popularity of disco music and its culture in many ways made society more accepting of gays and lesbians. Late in 1979, a new religious revival ushered in the conservatism that would reign in the United States during the 1980s and made life hard once again for LGBT people.


title: LGBT history

text: The 1980s in LGBT history are marked with the emergence of HIV. During the early period of the outbreak of HIV, the epidemic of HIV was commonly linked to gay men.


title: LGBT history

text: In the 1980s a renewed conservative movement spawned a new anti-gay movement in the United States, particularly with the help of the Religious Right (Evangelicals in particular), however, by the later part of the decade the general public started to show more sympathy and even tolerance for gays as the toll for AIDS related deaths continued to rise to include heterosexuals as well as cultural icons such as Rock Hudson and Liberace, who also died from the condition. Also, despite the more conservative period, life in general for gays and lesbians was considerably better in contrast to the pre-Stonewall era.


title: LGBT history

text: Testifying to improved conditions, a 1991 Wall Street Journal survey found that homosexuals, in comparison with average Americans, were three times more likely to be college graduates, three times more likely to hold professional or managerial positions, with average salaries $30,000 higher than the norm.


title: LGBT history

text: The first US state to decriminalize sodomy was Illinois in 1961. It was not until 1969 that another state would follow (Connecticut), but the 1970s and 80s saw the decriminalization throughout the majority of the United States. The 14 states that did not repeal these laws until 2003 were forced to by the landmark United States Supreme Court case "Lawrence v. Texas".


title: LGBT history

text: Brooklyn Liberation March, the largest transgender-rights demonstration in LGBTQ history, took place on June 14, 2020 stretching from Grand Army Plaza to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, focused on supporting Black transgender lives, drawing an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 participants.


title: LGBT history

text: Several public schools have opened with a specific mission to create a "safe" place for LGBT students and allies, including Harvey Milk High School in New York City, and The Alliance School of Milwaukee. The Social Justice High School-Pride Campus is proposed for Chicago, and a number of private schools have also identified as "gay friendly", such as the Elisabeth Irwin High School in New York City.


title: LGBT history

text: In 2012, for the first time, two American school districts celebrated LGBT History Month; the Broward County school district in Florida signed a resolution in September in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, and later that year the Los Angeles school district, America's second-largest, also signed on.


title: LGBT history

text: In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, there has been a growing movement in a number of countries to regard marriage as a right which should be extended to same-sex couples. Legal recognition of a marital union opens up a wide range of entitlements, including social security, taxation, inheritance and other benefits unavailable to couples not married, in the eyes of the law. Restricting legal recognition to opposite-sex couples prevents same-sex couples from gaining access to the legal benefits of marriage. Though certain rights can be replicated by legal means other than marriage (for example, by drawing-up contracts), many cannot, such as inheritance, hospital visitation and immigration. Lack of legal recognition also makes it more difficult for same-sex couples to adopt children.


title: LGBT history

text: The first country to legalize same-sex marriages was the Netherlands (2001) under Queen Beatrix, while the first marriages were performed in the Amsterdam city hall on April 1, 2001. , same-sex marriages are legal nationally in thirty-one countries: the Netherlands (2001), Belgium (2003), Spain and Canada (2005), South Africa (2006), Norway and Sweden (2009), Portugal, Iceland and Argentina (2010), Denmark (2012), Brazil, France, Uruguay, New Zealand (2013), United Kingdom (without Northern Ireland 2015), Luxembourg (2014), Ireland (2015), Colombia (2016), Finland, Germany (2017), Malta (2017), Australia (2018), Taiwan, Ecuador, Austria (2019), Costa Rica (2020), Chile, Switzerland (2022), (2022) and in Slovenia (2022). In Mexico, same-sex marriage is recognized in all states, but performed only in Mexico City, where it became effective on March 4, 2010.


title: LGBT history

text: Same-sex marriage was effectively legalized in the United States on June 26, 2015 following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in "Obergefell v. Hodges". Prior to "Obergefell", lower court decisions, state legislation, and popular referendums had already legalized same-sex marriage to some degree in 38 out of 50 U.S. states, comprising about 70% of the U.S. population. Federal benefits were previously extended to lawfully married same-sex couples following the Supreme Court's June 2013 decision in "United States v. Windsor".


title: LGBT history

text: Since the mid-1970s students at high schools and universities have organized LGBT groups, often called Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) at their respective schools. The groups form to provide support for LGBT students and to promote awareness of LGBT issues in the local community. In 1990, a student group named The Other Ten Percentile (Hebrew: העשירון האחר) was founded by a group of teachers and students in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, becoming the first LGBT organization in Jerusalem. Frequently, such groups have been banned or prohibited from meeting or receiving the same recognition as other student groups. For example, in September 2006, Touro University California briefly attempted to ban the school's GSA, the Touro University Gay-Straight Alliance. After student demonstrations and an outcry of support from the American Medical Student Association, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association and the Vallejo City Council, Touro University retracted its revocation of the school's GSA. The university went on to reaffirm its commitment to non-discrimination based on sexual orientation.


title: LGBT history

text: In April 2016, the GSA Network changed their name from Gay-Straight Alliance Network to Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network in order to be more inclusive and reflective of youth who make up the organization.


title: LGBT history

text: When Heinrich Hössli and K. H. Ulrichs began their pioneering homosexual scholarship in the late 19th century, they found little in the way of comprehensive historical data, except for material from ancient Greece and Islam. Some other information was added by the English scholars Richard Burton and Havelock Ellis. In Germany, Albert Moll published a volume containing lists of famous homosexuals. By the end of the century, however, when the Berlin Scientific-Humanitarian Committee was formed it was realised that a comprehensive bibliographical search must be undertaken. The results of this inquiry were incorporated into the volumes of the "Jahrbuch fur sexualle Zwischenstufen" and Magnus Hirschfeld's "Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes" (1914). The Great Depression and the rise of Nazism put a stop to most serious homosexual research.


title: LGBT history

text: As part of the growth of the contemporary gay movement in Southern California, a number of historical articles made their way into such movement periodicals as "The Ladder", "Mattachine Review", and "One Quarterly". In France, "Arcadie" under the editorship of André Baudry published a considerable amount of historical material. Almost without exception, university scholars were afraid to touch the subject. As a result, much of the work was done by autodidacts toiling under less than ideal conditions. Since most of this scholarship was done under movement auspices, it tended to reflect relevant concerns; compiling a brief of injustices and biographical sketches of exemplary gay men and women of the past for example.


title: LGBT history

text: The atmosphere of the 1960s changed things. The sexual revolution made human sexuality an appropriate object of research. A new emphasis on social and intellectual history appeared, stemming in large measure from the group around the French periodical "Annales". Although several useful syntheses of the world history of homosexuality have appeared, much material, especially from Islam, China and other non-Western cultures has not yet been properly studied and published, so that undoubtedly these will be superseded.


title: LGBT history

text: In 2011, California became the first U.S. state to pass a law requiring LGBT history to be taught in public schools. However, the first textbook complying with the law was only published in 2017 due to opposition from conservative groups and communities. Colorado and New Jersey passed similar laws in 2019, and an LGBT history law in Illinois took effect in July 2020. Six southern states have laws banning LGBT history from being taught in schools.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Mary Therese Winifred Robinson (; ; born 21 May 1944) is an Irish politician who was the 7th president of Ireland, serving from December 1990 to September 1997, the first woman to hold this office. Prior to her election, Robinson was a senator in between 1969 and 1989, and a councilor on Dublin Corporation from 1979 to 1983. Though briefly affiliated with the Labour Party while a senator, she became the first independent candidate to win the presidency and the first not to have had the support of Fianna Fáil. Following her time as president, Robinson became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson is widely regarded as having had a transformative effect on Ireland, having successfully campaigned on several liberalising issues as a senator and as a lawyer. Robinson was involved in the decriminalisation of homosexuality, the legalisation of contraception, the legalisation of divorce, enabling women to sit on juries, and securing the right to legal aid in civil legal cases in Ireland. She was Ireland's most popular president, at one point having a 93% approval rating among the electorate.


title: Mary Robinson

text: During her tenure as High Commissioner, she visited Tibet (1998), the first High Commissioner to have done so; she criticised Ireland's immigration policy; and criticised the use of capital punishment in the United States. She extended her intended single four-year term as High Commissioner by one year to preside over the World Conference against Racism 2001 in Durban, South Africa: the conference proved controversial due to a draft document which equated Zionism with racism. Amid rising pressure from the United States, Robinson resigned her post in September 2002. After leaving the United Nations in 2002, Robinson formed Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative, which came to a planned end at the end of 2010.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson served as Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1998 until 2019, and as Oxfam's honorary president from 2002 until she stepped down in 2012.


title: Mary Robinson

text: She returned to live in Ireland at the end of 2010 and has since founded "The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice." Robinson remains active in campaigning globally on issues of civil rights. She has been the honorary president of the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation EIUC since 2005. She is a former Chair of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and is also a founding member and chair of the Council of Women World Leaders. She was a member of the European members of the Trilateral Commission.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Born in Ballina, County Mayo, in 1944, she is the daughter of two medical doctors. Her father was Aubrey Bourke, of Ballina, while her mother was Tessa Bourke ("née" O'Donnell) from Carndonagh in Inishowen, County Donegal. Mary was raised, along with her brothers, at Victoria House (Numbers 1 and 2 Victoria Terrace), her parents' residence in the centre of Ballina. Her family had links with many diverse political strands in Ireland. One ancestor was a leading activist in the Irish National Land League of Mayo and the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB); an uncle, Sir Paget John Bourke, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II after a career as a judge in the Colonial Service; while another relative was a Catholic nun. Some branches of the family were members of the Anglican Church of Ireland while others were Catholics. More distant relatives included William Liath de Burgh, Tibbot MacWalter Kittagh Bourke, and Charles Bourke.


title: Mary Robinson

text: She attended Mount Anville Secondary School in Dublin and studied law at Trinity College Dublin (where she was elected a scholar in 1965). As the Catholic Church's ban on Catholics attending Trinity was still in place at the time of Bourke's application, her parents had to first request permission from Archbishop McQuaid to allow her to attend. She was one of three women in her class in Trinity, and graduated in 1967 with first class honors. An outspoken critic of some Catholic church teachings, during her inaugural address as auditor of the Dublin University Law Society in 1967 she advocated removing the prohibition of divorce from the Irish Constitution, eliminating the ban on the use of contraceptives, and decriminalizing homosexuality and suicide. She furthered her studies at the King's Inns and was called to the Irish Bar in 1967. She was awarded a fellowship to attend Harvard Law School, receiving an LL.M in 1968.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In 1969, aged 25, Bourke was appointed Reid Professor of Law at Trinity College. That same year, Bourke was first elected to as an independent senator. Her goals as a senator were "to open up Ireland and separate Catholic teaching from aspects of the criminal law and therefore reform the law on contraceptives, legalise homosexuality and change the constitutional ban on divorce." Her time in office is most closely associated with these issues, as well as securing the right for women to serve on juries and her involvement with the Wood Quay protests.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In 1970, she married Nicholas Robinson, with whom she had a relationship since they were law students and who was then practising as a solicitor. Together they have three children.


title: Mary Robinson

text: A result of Ireland joining the European Economic Community was that two of Robinson's key goals were met: Ireland was required to offer women in the public service equal pay to men, which came into effect in June 1973; and in July the marriage bar for women in the civil service was lifted.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In late July 1976, Robinson joined the Labour Party, though she later left the party in 1985. Whilst a member of the party, she twice ran for Dáil Éireann, but lost both races.During her time in office, Robinson won several landmark court cases. She first fought a gender-based case in the Labour Court on behalf of her husband. Under the pension scheme in place for politicians at the time, the widows of politicians were often entitled to pensions, but widowers were not. On 12 May 1979, the court ruled in her favour. In July 1979, she appeared in court on behalf of a couple who alleged that the Irish tax system was discriminatory as the tax allowances available to couples were less than double those available to single people. A court decision in their favour was made in October, but was appealed by the Irish government. The Supreme Court eventually ruled in favour of the couple in April 1980. Robinson also lost a groundbreaking case in the European Court of Justice, the first case in which the court granted legal aid to a plaintiff.


title: Mary Robinson

text: On 23 May 1989, Robinson announced that she would not be seeking re-election, and on 5 July 1989, Robinson served as a senator her last day in her career.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson won the Labour Party nomination over former Minister for Health Noel Browne by a 4:1 majority. She had the advantage of being the first candidate nominated for the election (and the first female), in that she could cover more meetings, public addresses and interviews. However, she refused to be drawn on specifics in case she would alienate possible support. She also received the backing of "The Irish Times" newspaper, and this proved hugely advantageous.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson ran against two other candidates: Austin Currie, for Fine Gael, and Brian Lenihan for Fianna Fáil. Currie was widely seen as the Fine Gael's last choice as a candidate, nominated only when no one else was available. Fianna Fáil's candidate, then Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Brian Lenihan had become popular during his three decades in politics. Like Robinson, he had delivered liberal policy reform.


title: Mary Robinson

text: At the beginning of the campaign, Lenihan was seen as the favourite to win the presidency. As the campaign proceeded, however, it became apparent that Robinson was a serious contender. Crucial to her appeal was the deep unpopularity of the Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, and the rising popularity of Dick Spring.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson obtained the backing of the Workers' Party of Ireland which was strong in Dublin and Cork and was considered crucial to getting working class votes.


title: Mary Robinson

text: A transfer pact was agreed upon between Fine Gael and Labour, as both parties were normally preferred partners for each other in general elections.


title: Mary Robinson

text: During the campaign it emerged that what Lenihan had told friends and insiders in private flatly contradicted his public statements on a controversial effort in 1982 by the opposition Fianna Fáil to pressure President Hillery into refusing a parliamentary dissolution to Garret FitzGerald, the Taoiseach at the time; Hillery had resolutely rejected the pressure.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Lenihan denied he had pressured the President but then a tape was produced of an interview he had given to a postgraduate student the previous May, in which he frankly discussed attempting to apply pressure. Lenihan claimed that "on mature recollection" he hadn't pressured the President and had been confused in his interview with the student. The issue, however, nearly led to the collapse of the government.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Under pressure from the junior coalition partner, the Progressive Democrats, Haughey sacked Lenihan as Tánaiste and Minister for Defence. Lenihan's integrity was seriously questioned. Lenihan's role in the event in 1982 seemed to imply that he could be instructed by Haughey in his duties, and that electing Lenihan was in effect empowering the controversial Haughey. In an effort to weaken Robinson, a government minister and Haughey ally, Pádraig Flynn, launched a controversial personal attack on Mary Robinson "as a wife and mother" and "having a new-found interest in her family". Flynn, even more controversially, also joked privately that Robinson would "turn the Áras "[President's residence]" into the Red Cow Inn "[a pub in Dublin]"". Flynn's tirade was itself attacked in response as "disgraceful" on radio by Michael McDowell, a senior member of the Progressive Democrat party which up to that point supported Lenihan's campaign. When Robinson met McDowell later in a restaurant, she quipped, "with enemies like McDowell, who needs friends?" Flynn's attack was a fatal blow to Lenihan's campaign, causing many female supporters of Lenihan to vote for Robinson in a gesture of support.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Lenihan's support evaporated, and Haughey concluded that the election was as good as lost. Haughey distanced himself from Lenihan and sacked him from the Cabinet. This had unintended consequences, as disquiet within Fianna Fáil organisation concerning Haughey's leadership increased dramatically. Many canvassers now restarted the campaign to get Lenihan elected. However, Lenihan's personal confidence was shattered and although he recovered somewhat in the polls towards the end of the campaign, it was insufficient. He won the first count with 44% of the first-preference votes — Robinson attaining 39%. However, transfers from Currie proved critical and the majority of these went — as expected — against Fianna Fáil. Lenihan became the first Fianna Fáil presidential candidate to lose a presidential election. Robinson became president, the first woman to hold the office, and the first candidate to be second on first preference votes to win the presidency.


title: Mary Robinson

text: She became the first Labour Party candidate, the first woman, and the first non-Fianna-Fáil candidate in the history of contested presidential elections to win the presidency. RTÉ broadcast her victory speech live rather than The Angelus. Her first television interview as President-elect was on the RTÉ children's television show The Den with Ray D'Arcy, puppets Zig and Zag and Dustin the Turkey, another puppet.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson was inaugurated as the seventh President of Ireland on 3 December 1990. She proved a remarkably popular President, earning the praise of Brian Lenihan himself who, before his death five years later, said that she was a better President than he ever could have been.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In 1991, Robinson was prevented from leaving the country by Charles Haughey's government. The power of the government to prevent the president leaving the country is enshrined in Article 12.9 of the Irish constitution, which states that "the President shall not leave the State [...] save with the consent of the Government". Robinson had been invited to deliver the prestigious BBC Dimbleby Lecture, and was to be speaking on the position of women and the family in Ireland. Wary of Robinson's position as a feminist and human rights layer, the government prevented her leaving as they wished to avoid the negative publicity that they believed would arise from a speech they believed would be highly critical of the Irish state.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In 1992, Robinson traveled to Somalia, which at the time was struck by famine. She then traveled to the UN to make a report of her findings. The UN ultimately failed in their effort to relieve the famine, and the US eventually intervened, ending the famine by March 1993.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In the summer of 1993, Robinson met and shook hands with both Queen Elizabeth II and Gerry Adams (the president of Sinn Féin), meetings which occurred on two separate occasions. On May 27, Robinson became the first serving Irish president to visit the United Kingdom and meet Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. She later welcomed visits by senior members of the British royal family, most notably Charles, Prince of Wales, to her official residence, Áras an Uachtaráin. In June, a few weeks after her trip to London, Robinson controversially met and shook hands with Gerry Adams in Belfast. Dick Spring, now the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, had advised her not to meet Adams, whose party was linked with the Provisional IRA. His disapproval was well-circulated by Irish media. However, the Government refused to formally advise her not to meet with him. During her various visits to Northern Ireland, she in fact regularly met politicians of all hues, including David Trimble of the Ulster Unionist Party and John Hume of the Social Democratic and Labour Party.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In the previous 52 years, only one address to the Oireachtas (parliament) had taken place, by President Éamon de Valera in 1966, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising. Robinson delivered two such addresses. She was also invited to chair a committee to review the workings of the United Nations, but declined when asked to by the Government of Ireland, who feared that her involvement might make it difficult for it to oppose the proposals that would result.


title: Mary Robinson

text: To the surprise of her critics, who had seen her as embodying liberalism that the Catholic Church disapproved of, she had a close working relationship with the Church. She visited Irish nuns and priests abroad regularly, and became the first President to host an Áras reception for the Christian Brothers. When on a working trip to Rome, she requested, and was granted, an audience with Pope John Paul II. Her outfit was condemned by a young priest, Fr David O'Hanlon, for supposedly breaking Vatican dress codes. The Vatican contradicted O'Hanlon, pointing out that the dress codes had been changed early in John Paul's pontificate – an analysis echoed by Ireland's Catholic Bishops, who distanced themselves from Fr O' Hanlon's comments.


title: Mary Robinson

text: As President, she signed two significant bills that she had fought for throughout her political career: a bill to fully liberalise the law on the availability of contraceptives; and a bill fully decriminalising homosexuality, and which unlike legislation in much of the world at the time, provided for a fully equal age of consent. In 1996, she also signed the legalisation of divorce into law.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson was an exceptionally popular president, and halfway through her term of office her popularity rating had reached an unprecedented 93%.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson issued her resignation as president in a message to the of the , taking effect on 12 September 1997. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said in a statement that her resignation "was not unexpected" and wished her "every success". Robinson resigned to take up appointment as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Upon her resignation as president, the role of President of Ireland was transferred to the Presidential Commission (which comprised the Chief Justice of Ireland, the of and the of ) from 12 September to 11 November 1997, when the new president Mary McAleese was sworn in.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on 12 September 1997, resigning the presidency a few weeks early to take up the post. Media reports suggested that she had been head-hunted for the post by Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, to assume an advocacy as opposed to an administrative role, in other words to become a public campaigner outlining principles rather than the previous implementational and consensus-building model. The belief was that the post had ceased to be seen as the voice of general principles and had become largely bureaucratic. Robinson's role was to set the human rights agenda within the organisation and internationally, refocusing its appeal.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In November 1997 she delivered the Romanes Lecture in Oxford on the topic of "Realizing Human Rights"; she spoke of the "daunting challenge" ahead of her, and how she intended to set about her task. She concluded the lecture with words from "The Golden Bough": "If fate has called you, the bough will come easily, and of its own accord. Otherwise, no matter how much strength you muster, you never will manage to quell it or cut it down with the toughest of blades."


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson was the first High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Tibet, making her trip in 1998. During her tenure, she criticised the Irish system of permits for non-EU immigrants as similar to "bonded labour" and criticised the United States' use of capital punishment.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In 2001, she chaired the Asia Regional Preparatory Meeting for the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related intolerances, which was held in Tehran, Iran. At this meeting, neither the representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish group, nor the Baha'i International Community were permitted to attend. She wore a headscarf at the meeting, because the Iranians enforced an edict that all women attending the conference must wear one. Women who did not wear it were criticised, and Robinson said that it "played into the hands of religious conservatives."


title: Mary Robinson

text: Though she had initially announced her intention to serve a single four-year period, she extended the term by a year following an appeal from Annan, allowing her to preside over the 2001 World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, as secretary-general. The conference drew widespread criticism, as did Robinson. Former US Congressman Tom Lantos said, "To many of us present at the events at Durban, it is clear that much of the responsibility for the debacle rests on the shoulders of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who, in her role as secretary-general of the conference, failed to provide the leadership needed to keep the conference on track."


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson's period as High Commissioner ended in 2002, after sustained pressure from the United States led her to declare she was no longer able to continue her work. She had criticised the US for violating human rights in its war on terrorism and the World Conference against Racism was widely condemned in the US for its perceived anti-semitism. Michael Rubin even went so far as to suggest in a tongue-in-cheek article that she be tried for war crimes for presiding over "an intellectual pogrom against Jews and Israel." On 9 November 2006, in Yogyakarta, she attended the International Conference, then she became one of 29 signators of the Yogyakarta Principles, adopted for protection of rights by International Human Rights Law.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Robinson served as the twenty-fourth, and first female, chancellor of the University of Dublin. She represented the university in the for over twenty years and held the Reid Chair in Law. She was succeeded as chancellor by Mary McAleese, who had also succeeded her as president of Ireland.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Along with Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond Tutu, and others, Robinson was a founding member of "The Elders", a group of world leaders to with goal of contributing their wisdom to tackle some of the world's toughest problems. She has travelled with Elders delegations to the Ivory Coast, the Korean Peninsula, Ethiopia, India, South Sudan and the Middle East.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In August 2014, she was joined by fellow Elder Jimmy Carter during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, to pen an article in "Foreign Policy" magazine, pressing for the inclusion of recognition of Hamas as a legitimate political actor, noting the recent unity deal between Hamas and Fatah when the former agreed with the Palestinian Authority to denounce violence, recognise Israel and adhere to past agreements. Robinson and Carter called on the UN Security Council to act on what they described as the inhumane conditions in Gaza, and mandate an end to the siege. On 16 October 2014, she attended the One Young World Summit in Dublin. During a session with fellow Elder, Kofi Annan, she encouraged 1,300 young leaders from 191 countries to lead on inter-generational issues such as climate change and the need for action to take place now, not tomorrow. She was also the keynote speaker at the One Young World Opening Ceremony where she highlighted the need to empower young people to participate in decision-making processes that shape their future.


title: Mary Robinson

text: On 1 November 2018, Robinson was appointed as the Chair of The Elders, succeeding Kofi Annan who had died earlier in the year.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In 2016 at the One Young World summit Robinson began to become vocal about her efforts to eat less meat and encouraged others to either do the same or adopt some type of entirely vegetarian diet in order to help fight climate change. Robinson was applauded for her suggestions but did receive condemnation from critics in her own country expressing concern that following her lead would inadvertently harm workers in the agricultural industry and meat industry; she was asked to withdraw her comments by her local council. At the 2018 summit she stood by her call for people to consume less meat despite the backlash. In 2019 Mary Robinson announced that she believes in making tackling climate change a personal issue in our lives and for this reason she has stopped eating meat in favor of a more eco-friendly pescetarian diet.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In October 2016, it was revealed in the media that Robinson was planning to donate her archive to Mayo County Council, as part of the development of The Mary Robinson Centre, and had applied to have the archive designated under the Taxes Consolidation Act, 1997, potentially resulting in a personal tax credit to her worth over €2m, arising from the donation of her personal papers. The house proposed to be used for the centre was to be purchased from the brother of Mary Robinson for €665,000.


title: Mary Robinson

text: The website of the Mary Robinson Centre lists the contents of the proposed archive (valued at €2.5m) as including:


title: Mary Robinson

text: "2,000 books on law and Human Rights 3,800 periodicals; A Master File of the President's engagements from December 1990 to September 1997; The symbolic light in the window of Áras an Uachtaráin from her Presidency; Robinson's personal diaries from 1967 to 1990 and from 1998 to 2001; 325 Archive Cartons..Scrap Books, Cassette Tapes." These papers relate to Robinson's almost 50-year career, spanning her time as a senator and barrister in the 1970s and '80s, her personal papers relating to the presidency and significant papers from the post-presidential period of her career, most notably her time with the United Nations as High Commissioner for Human Rights.


title: Mary Robinson

text: The project as a whole was condemned as an "expensive vanity project" by historian Diarmuid Ferriter. A member of the fund raising committee for the Centre argued that "Ballina is the same distance to Dublin as Dublin is to Ballina." Chief Executive of Mayo County Council, Peter Hynes (who is also on the board of the Mary Robinson Centre) stated that Robinson had a "legacy as a politician" and that the centre is designed to bring significant academic, tourism, education and economic opportunities to Ballina and the West. Hynes also commented that "The west coast town (of Ballina) has considerable pride in her outstanding career and on-going global leadership and sees the proposed centre as a living institution which will focus global attention and, working in collaboration with the National University of Ireland, Galway, will continue the conversation on topics of fundamental importance."


title: Mary Robinson

text: Following the reporting of the potential €2m windfall, Robinson announced she would abandon the plan to "gift" the archive to Ballina and instead she said the papers would be "gifted to NUIG, with Mayo County Council having full access to any part of the collection which is required to support the mission of the centre in Ballina". In addition she stated that she would now not avail of the tax credit for the donation.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In March 2013, Robinson was chosen to oversee the implementation of a peace deal to stabilise the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Appointed as special envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, she played a key role in supporting implementation of the U.N.-drafted peace deal signed by 11 African countries in late February 2013. During her tenure as special envoy, the March 23 Movement and other armed rebel groups surrendered to the Congolese government.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In July 2014, Ban Ki-moon appointed her special envoy for climate change to interact with global leaders ahead of the 2014 Climate Summit, in New York, at which the secretary-general said he hoped to forge political commitment to finalising an agreement in 2015. A month following her appointment, in August 2014, she stepped down as special envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region. In March 2015, she voiced support for fossil fuel divestment commenting "it is almost a due diligence requirement to consider ending investment in dirty energy companies".


title: Mary Robinson

text: In early 2016, she was appointed by Erik Solheim, the chairman of the Development Assistance Committee, to head a high-level panel on the future of the Development Assistance Committee.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In May 2016, Ban Ki-moon appointed Robinson and Macharia Kamau, as special envoys of the Secretary-General on El Niño and Climate, tasking them with calling attention to the people around the world affected by severe El Niño-linked drought and climate impacts, and mobilising an integrated response that takes preparedness for future climatic events into account.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In September 2016, she was appointed by Ban Ki-moon to serve as member of the lead group of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In December 2018, she was criticised by human rights organisations, Detained International and Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers, for her statements regarding Dubai's Sheikha Latifa's disappearance and escape attempt. After meeting Latifa at a family lunch on invitation of Dubai's royal family, Robinson described Latifa to the BBC as a "troubled young woman" who regretted an earlier video in which she alleged being confined and tortured in Dubai. Detained International head David Haigh expressed astonishment at the former UN commissioner for repeatedly reciting a single statement from Dubai's official version of the events, "loving care of her family", and for dismissing Latifa's alleged attempt to escape from Dubai in February 2018. In February 2021, Robinson retracted her 2018 statement claiming on the BBC's "Panorama" programme that she and Latifa's stepmother, Princess Haya, were both misled over the health and stability of Latifa during that period, when she was held in enforced detention in a Dubai villa and Robinson was embroiled into the proof of life controversy to allay international concern over Latifa's disappearance from the public eye. Robinson gave an account of the incident on "The Late Late Show" on 26 February 2021, referring to it as the biggest mistake of her career.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In 2020, she led an independent probe of a report that cleared Akinwumi Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank, of wrongdoing.


title: Mary Robinson

text: Over the course of her career, Robinson has been awarded with numerous honours, including the following:


title: Mary Robinson

text: On 29 September 2010, at a ceremony in Dublin, she received a damehood from the Military and Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem. As a former Head of State and in recognition of her significant contribution towards human rights she was awarded the honour of Dame Grand Cross of Merit.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In 1991 and in 2001, Robinson was awarded honorary doctorates by Brown University, University of Cambridge, University of Liverpool and Lisbon Nova University. On 22 January 2000, she received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Law at Uppsala University, Sweden. In 2004, she was awarded an honorary degree by McGill University.


title: Mary Robinson

text: In 2009, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Bath, at the 1100th anniversary celebration of the Diocese of Bath and Wells, where she gave a lecture entitled "Realising rights: the role of religion in human rights in the future".


title: Mary Robinson

text: In July 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour awarded by the United States. In presenting the award, U.S. President Barack Obama said "As a crusader for women and those without a voice in Ireland, Mary Robinson was the first woman elected President of Ireland, before being appointed U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. [...] Today, as an advocate for the hungry and the hunted, the forgotten and the ignored, Mary Robinson has not only shone a light on human suffering, but illuminated a better future for our world."


title: Mary Robinson

text: Amnesty International congratulated Robinson on being named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal.


title: Mary Robinson

text: The award was criticised by some American and European Jewish groups, while other groups offered support for the award. Parties opposed to the award included the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League, the European Jewish Congress, and John Bolton, the former US Ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton stated that those in the administration who recommended her either ignored her anti-Israel history, or missed it entirely. On the other hand, a group of Israeli human rights organisations including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Bimkom, B'Tselem, Gisha, Hamoked, Physicians for Human Rights and Yesh Din, stated "as leaders of a sector within Israeli civil society that monitors and often criticizes government and military policy for violating human rights, we do not see such actions as plausible reason for denying Mrs. Robinson the award." In response to the protests by some Jewish groups and commentators, Robinson said she was "surprised and dismayed" and that "this is old, recycled, untrue stuff," "I have been very critical of the Palestinian side. My conduct continues to be on the side of tackling anti-Semitism and discrimination," Robinson said. "There's a lot of bullying by certain elements of the Jewish community. They bully people who try to address the severe situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Archbishop Desmond Tutu gets the same criticism," Robinson also said. In an open letter to Robinson, Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, rejected Robinson's claim at being misunderstood or bullied by those who criticise her role in Durban. He said that she failed to confront purveyors of anti-Israel rhetoric. "You may not have been the chief culprit of the Durban debacle, but you will always be its preeminent symbol", he added. When asked about the opposition to the award by AIPAC and other Jewish groups, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs replied "Mary Robinson was the first female President of Ireland, and she is somebody whom we are honoring as a prominent crusader of women's rights in Ireland and throughout the world."


title: Mary Robinson

text: United States Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, United States Senate Assistant Majority Leader, Dick Durbin, and some other legislators welcomed the presenting of the award to Robinson." Forty-five Republican Congressmen sent a letter to President Obama raised issue with the presentation citing "her failed, biased record as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights".


title: Mary Robinson

text: In a letter to President Obama, Nancy Rubin, a former American ambassador to the UN Human Rights Commission, welcomed the award and praised Robinson as a "dedicated crusader for human rights for all people". Oxfam confederation also expressed its strong support for Robinson. The Council of Women World Leaders, the Champalimaud Foundation, and the ImagineNations Group welcomed the presentation of the Medal of Freedom to Robinson.


title: Mary Robinson

text: The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission congratulated Robinson, saying she "helped advance recognition of the human rights of LGBT people in her capacity as President of Ireland and as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She has been unwavering in her passionate call to end torture, persecution, and discrimination against LGBT people globally."


title: Terrence Clarke

text: Terrence Adrian Clarke (September 6, 2001 – April 22, 2021) was an American college basketball player for the Kentucky Wildcats of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Clarke was a standout Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball player for Todd Quarles at Expressions Elite in Braintree, Massachusetts. He began his high school career at Rivers School before transferring to Brewster Academy, where his team won the 2019 National Prep Championships. Named a McDonald's All-American, Clarke was a consensus five-star recruit and one of the best shooting guards in the 2020 class. He played one season in college for Kentucky before declaring for the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft.


title: Terrence Clarke

text: Clarke died in a car crash at the age of 19 in Los Angeles, California, on April 22, 2021, three months before the draft. In the 2021 NBA draft, he was named an honorary selection by the league.


title: Terrence Clarke

text: Terrence Clarke was born on September 6, 2001, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, to Osmine Clarke and Adrian Briggs. He originally attended Rivers School in Weston, Massachusetts, before he transferred to Brewster Academy after his freshman season. At Rivers, he was named to the all-New England Preparatory School Athletic Council class B team. At Brewster, he won the 2019 National Prep Championships. As a senior, Clarke averaged 18.3 points per game with 5.8 rebounds per game and three assists per game as Brewster finished with a 34–3 record before COVID-19 pandemic ended the National Prep finals. Clarke was selected for the McDonald's All-American Game, an all-star boys' basketball game which comprises many of the top-ranked American and Canadian high school basketball graduates played the same day as a counterpart girls' game, and was selected as a "Sports Illustrated" third-team All American, a team composed of the third-best boys high school senior players in the United States.


title: Terrence Clarke

text: Rivals, ESPN, and 247Sports all evaluated Clarke as a five-star recruit, with Rivals and 247Sports ranking him as the eighth-best player, and ESPN as the tenth-best player in the 2020 class. On September 14, 2019, Clarke announced his commitment to Kentucky over offers from Boston College, Duke, Memphis, Texas Tech, and UCLA. He also announced that he was reclassifying to the class of 2020. Clarke was ranked as the number two player in the 2021 class before reclassifying according to ESPN.


title: Terrence Clarke

text: In his college debut on November 25, 2020, Clarke posted 12 points, four rebounds, four assists, and three steals in an 81–45 win over Morehead State. Due to a right leg injury, he was limited to eight games during the season, seven in non-conference play and one in the SEC tournament, making six starts and averaging 9.6 points, 2.6 rebounds and two assists per game. Clarke scored a career-high 22 points against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on December 6, 2020. He finished his collegiate career with seventy-seven points over 229 minutes played. On March 19, 2021, Clarke announced that he would forgo his remaining college eligibility and declare for the 2021 NBA draft. One day prior to his death, Clarke signed with Klutch Sports Group.


title: Terrence Clarke

text: Following a workout with teammate Brandon Boston Jr., Clarke died on April 22, 2021, in Los Angeles, California, after being involved in a traffic collision. The Los Angeles Police Department stated that Clarke was driving at a high speed when he ran a red light, hitting a car that was turning left and then hit a pole and block wall. He was driving a 2021 Genesis GV80 without wearing his seat belt properly. He was 19 years old. Clarke's agent Rich Paul said Clarke was motivated, was in the best shape of his life, had grown to 6'8" and was putting in work to be a lottery pick in the 2021 NBA draft.


title: Terrence Clarke

text: On July 29, 2021, between the 14th and 15th picks of the 2021 NBA draft, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made Clarke a ceremonial pick, fulfilling his dream of being drafted to the NBA. Clarke's mother Osmine, brother Gavin, and sister Tatyana accepted on his behalf. For the NBA's Rising Stars Challenge during the NBA's 2021–22 All-Star weekend, his mother received an honorary jersey of Clarke's for the game.


title: Muharram

text: Muḥarram () (fully known as Muharram ul Haram) is the first month of the Islamic calendar. It is one of the four sacred months of the year when warfare is forbidden. It is held to be the second holiest month after Ramadan.


title: Muharram

text: The tenth day of Muharram is known as Ashura. Better known as part of the Mourning of Muharram, Shi'a Muslims mourn the tragedy of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī's family.


title: Muharram

text: Shiites mourn the martyrdom of Ḥusayn by abstaining from joyous events. Instead, Shia Muslims hold many events to offer condolences to Imam Husayn and to honor the martyrs by prayer, reading supplications, and holding charity events. Shiʿi Muslims eat as little as possible on the Ashura; however, this is not seen as fasting. Alevis fast ten or twelve days, each day for one of the Twelve Imams of Shiʿa Islam, to commemorate and mourn the Imams, as if a very close relative has died. Some (excluding children, elderly or sick) do not eat or drink, avoid entertainment until "zawal" (afternoon) as a part of their mourning for Husayn. In addition, there is an important ziyarat book, the "Ziyarat Ashura" about Ḥusayn. In Shiʿism, it is popular to read this ziyarat on this date.


title: Muharram

text: The word "Muharram" means forbidden or prohibited. Before Islam, it is said that this month was called as "Safer ul Awwal".


title: Muharram

text: The sighting of the new moon ushers in the Islamic New Year. The first month, Muharram, is one of the four sacred months mentioned in the Quran (although not mentioned by name), along with the seventh month of Rajab, and the eleventh and twelfth months of Dhu al-Qi'dah and Dhu al-Hijjah, respectively, immediately preceding Muharram. During these sacred months, warfare is forbidden. Before the advent of Islam, the Quraish and Arabs also forbade warfare during those months. Before Islam, the Arabs also fasted on the tenth day of Muharram. This day also had importance in other Semitic religions like Judaism and Christianity. Muhammad also fasted many times on this day before his prophethood and after his migration to Medina and also ordered the Muslims to fast on this day and ninth and eleventh day as well. But the fasting was optional after Ramadan fasting was made obiligatory. It is narrated by Abu Hurairah that the Prophet Muhammad said, "The most virtuous fasting after the month of Ramadan is (in) Allah's month Al-Muharram."


title: Muharram

text: According to Sunni Muslims, fasting on Ashura, the tenth day of the Islamic month of Muharram was a practice established by Muhammad in the early days of Islam that commemorates the parting of the Red Sea by Moses.


title: Muharram

text: While in Shia Islam, Muharram is a month of remembrance. Ashura is well known in Shia tradition because of its historical significance and mourning for the "Shahadat" (martyrdom) of Ḥusayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad. Shia Muslims begin mourning from the first night of Muharram and continue for ten nights, climaxing on the 10th of Muharram, known as the Day of Ashura. The last few days up until and including the Day of Ashura are the most important because these were the days in which Hussain and his family and followers (including women, children and elderly people) were deprived of water from the 7th onward and on the 10th, Husayn and 72 of his followers were killed by the army of Yazid I at the Battle of Karbala on Yazid's orders. The surviving members of Husayn's family and those of his followers were taken captive, marched to Damascus, and imprisoned there.


title: Muharram

text: The Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, and months begin when the first crescent of a new moon is sighted. Since the Islamic lunar calendar year is 11 to 12 days shorter than the solar year, Muharram migrates throughout the solar years. The estimated start and end dates for Muharram are as follows (based on the Umm al-Qura calendar of Saudi Arabia):


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: In the United States, a white Hispanic or Latino is an individual who is of full or partial Hispanic or Latino descent, the largest group being white Mexican Americans. Although not differentiated in the U.S. Census definition, White Latino Americans may also be defined to include only those who identify as white and either originate from or have descent from countries in Latin America that speak Romance languages such as Brazil, Haiti, and French Guiana.


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: Based on the definitions created by the Office of Management and Budget and the US Census Bureau, the concepts of race and ethnicity are mutually independent. For the Census Bureau, "ethnicity" distinguishes between those who report ancestral origins in Spain or Latin America (Hispanic and Latino Americans), and those who do not (non-Hispanic Americans). From 1850 to 1920, Mexicans in the United States were generally classified as white by the U.S. Census. In 1930, "Mexican" was officially added as a racial category on the United States Census but was soon after removed due to political pressure from the Mexican consul general in New York, the Mexican ambassador in Washington, the Mexican government itself, Mexican Americans, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) who protested the exclusion from whiteness. In 1970, a 5 percent sample of the Census was asked if their “origin or descent” was Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or Other Spanish. In 1980, the full population was asked about "Spanish/Hispanic origin or descent" identifying three nationalities (“Mexican, Mexican-American, Chicano”). Thereafter "Latino" was classified solely as an ethnicity separate from race. In 2000, the US Census Bureau allowed persons to check multiple race identifiers.


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: As of 2020, 62 million or 18.7% of residents of the United States of America identified as Hispanic or Latino of which 12.5 million or 20.3% self-identified as white alone down from the 2019 American Community Survey when 38.3 million, or 65.5% of Latinos self-identified as white.


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: Some white Latinos in the United States of America today are descended from original Spanish colonists who settled the so-called "internal provinces" and Louisiana of New Spain. As the United States expanded westward, it annexed lands with a long-established population of Spanish-speaking settlers, who were overwhelmingly or exclusively of white Spanish ancestry (cf. White Mexican). This group became known as "Hispanos". Prior to incorporation into the United States of America (and briefly, into Independent Texas), "Hispanos" had enjoyed a privileged status in the society of New Spain and later in post-colonial Mexico.


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: Concepts of multiracial identity have existed in Latin America since the colonial era, originating in a Spanish caste system that apportioned different rights to people based on their degree of European, African, and Indigenous American ancestry. During the 20th century, the concept of "mestizaje", or 'blending', was adopted as a national identity by a number of Latin American countries in order to reduce racial conflict.


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that one-third of US Latinos identify as "mestizo", "mulatto", or another multiracial identity. Such identities often conflict with standard racial classifications in the United States: among Latino American adults surveyed by Pew Research who identified as multiracial, about 40% reported their race as "white" on standard race question as used on the US Census; 13% reported belonging to more than one race or "mixed race"; while about 20% chose "Latino" as their race.


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: As of 2019, 58.5 million or 18% of Americans identified themselves ethnically as Hispanic or Latino. Of those, 38.3 million, or 65.5% (11.8% of the total US population), also self-identified as white.


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: In the 2000 census, the responses that contained a race specified by the Office of Management and Budget and a race not specified by OMB, were reclassified to match the races that OMB had considered. In this way, 44.24% of the hispanic population that had marked as white and another race not specified by the OMB was recategorized as only white.


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: Hispanics and Latinos who are native-born and those who are immigrant identify as white in nearly identical percentages: 53.9 and 53.7, respectively, per figures from 2007. The overall Hispanic or Latino ratio was 53.8%.


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: In 2017, the Pew Research Center reported that high intermarriage rates and declining Latin American immigration has led to 11% of US adults with Hispanic ancestry (5.0 million people) to no longer identify as Hispanic. First generation immigrants from Spain Latin America identify as Hispanic at very high rates (97%) which reduces in each succeeding generation, second generation (92%), third generation (77%), and fourth generation (50%).


title: White Hispanic and Latino Americans

text: White Hispanics are widespread, with Florida and Texas being 2 states with some of the highest percentages of Hispanics self identifying as white. New Mexico has the highest percentage of the overall population identifying as white Hispanic with 37.4%.