Homosexuality is older than humankind. It wasn’t until the middle of the last century that same-sex relationships were an integral part of many cultures – historically these relationships have embraced and often even celebrated within their communities. These are a few podcasts that explores homosexuality throughout pieces of history – from Pompeii to Stonewall. History is super gay, so just know that this isn’t a fully comprehensive list, but more like a taster.
This once thriving Roman city is so well preserved from volcanic ash that we have a wealth of archaeological information that provides an insight into daily roman life. This episode of Queer as Fact looks at sexuality in Pompeii both through the so called "Two Maidens,” which are two men found embracing in their final moments, as well as dissecting Roman Graffiti – one that may be the only piece of female-female love poetry preserved from ancient Rome.
Stonewall, and LGBTQ rights may not be where they are today if it weren’t for the civil rights movement. This episode of History is Gay looks at how work done by Black activists was absolutely essential to the evolution of LGBTQ rights actions – many individuals contributing in both movements and sharing lessons learned between them.
New Year’s Day 1965. A large police task force raids a queer new years ball in San Francisco, harassing and beating the attendees. This episode of A Queer Serial walks through the aftermath of the event, and how it brought public attention police mistreatment of LGBT people in San Francisco, and the several concrete changes it brought to policing.
The story of the Stonewall Uprising has been told hundreds of times from many different perspectives –some of them conflicting or ever-changing details. This episode of You're Wrong About goes into why that is, the importance of the event, and pieces together as complete-a-version that we can get of how the Stonewall Uprising really went down.
This episode of Making Gay History dives into the oral history that led up to the Stonewall Uprising – it includes voices from the turbulent 1960s and take you to the tinderbox that was Greenwich Village on the eve of an uprising.
