Reading the "Timeline of LGBT History" on wikipedia for the hell of it. ...Gave me some interesting thoughts. And some hope for the future.
...Very first thing, Mesolithic rock art in Sicily depicting male-male acts together, including hunting, gathering, and yes, intercourse. This was in the years 9660 to 5000 BCE.
Sooooo right off the bat, we've had that since pretty much the dawn of human history.
Around the same time, 7000 to 1700 BCE, we have Neolithic and Bronze Age drawings of individuals with sometimes gender traits of both male and female, or neither. Basically identified as a third sex. Sooooo transgender was a thing back then too.
Skip ahead fifty centuries or so, and we still have pretty much universal acceptance of homosexuality and transgender. One man buried around 2700 BCE is found in his coffin wearing women's clothing. 700 BCE was about the time of Sappho, a champion of lesbian themes. We only seem to hit a stumbling block around 350 BCE, where Plato of all people criticizes homosexual relationships as being purely lustful and wrong for society, because to him, it does not further the species.
Around the 0th year, Christianity comes into play... Though interestingly, the Roman Emperors of the time are even more for homosexual rights than anywhere else. Hell, Emperor Nero, (you know, the one who was usually crazy and "fiddled while Rome burned) he married two men in legal ceremonies, with them both dressed in the regalia of Caesar's wives. ...Not sure if Nero's exactly a good person to have as a public figure on your side, but whatever.
It's not until the 4th century that the Councils of Elvira and Ancyra (representing the Western and Eastern European Churches respectively) passed canons that explicitly went against homosexuals. Specifically, Elvira denied communion to those in explicit relationships, while Ancyra denied the Sacraments for fifteen years to those caught in these acts... and excluded them for life if they were married and over 50.
This is when things suddenly spin out of control.
342 AD, the first anti-homosexual law is passed by Roman Emperors Constantius II and Constans. Just under fifty years later, in 390 AD? Three separate Christian Emperors declare homosexuality to be illegal, and those guilty of it were to be burned alive in public.
The rest is pretty much just what you might expect... Centuries upon centuries of brainwashing the populace through Christian laws and punishments that Homosexuality is unnatural, wrong, et cetra.
Reading this, you kinda see the Spanish Inquisition coming, by the way, which had about 1600 people prosecuted, and most were stoned, castrated, and burned. It ain't a pretty picture. England is one of the worst offenders on the list, with Elizabeth I actually re-enacting a law that could be used to execute those caught, though that's taken down eventually.
It's finally around the 19th century that we start to see actual movement in the other direction back to equality, with studies being done into it. From there, it's pretty much been a back and forth tug of war up until now, where we're not back to equal YET, but we're a hell of a lot closer than we used to be.
Let's put this into perspective. We as a species spent millennia perfectly fine with homosexuality, to the point that it wasn't even defined as such. It was just... A thing. That happened. And people didn't really care that much. Evidently, same with transgender. It just happened.
It wasn't until a few centuries after Christianity got steam that those councils I mentioned started twisting things. And from there, we got launched into this massive campaign against what we'd come to accept for so long. For very close to 2 millennia.
You know what I take from all this? We're on the right track.
It might not seem like it right now to those suffering, because of these ancient attacks still leaving an impact on generations who had this imprinted on them. But, thanks to information becoming more and more available? We're figuring this out again. The brainwashed old coots will eventually lose power, even if we have to take it from their lifeless old arms. The new generations will become enlightened to the stupidity of their elders, and not follow in their footsteps. And slowly but surely, we're going to come out of this thinking of homosexuality and transgender just as we did 11,000 years ago.
