Pink Pages

Nipun Goyal takes a bird’s eye view of nearly three thousand years of recorded homosexual history, from the ancient Greeks to the modern day gay liberation movement.

Michelangelo's David

When I sat down to write for this column about ‘gay history’ I did not know where to begin and what all to include within its scope. For, though the chronicling of the history of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people began only in the nineteenth century as the Christian-dominated western world finally began acknowledging the legitimacy of the gay community with the emergence of the gay movement, recorded history has never been devoid of the homosexual- his love, his hedonism and his heroism even in the face of unimaginable adversities.

And so when we trace the history of homosexuals, we need to go back four thousand five hundred years to the ancient Egyptian male lovers- Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, from the fifth dynasty of pharaohs. To the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations where homosexual love was revered as sacred, and celebrated by Plato’s famous work- The Symposium, which is still possibly one of the most powerful testimonies in defense of homosexual love available in any language. To the Greek legends and myths, for even the king of gods, Zeus, was not immune from the attractions of the adolescent male. His abduction of the young Trojan shepherd Ganymede is a story that has been frequently depicted in painting and poetry down the centuries. To the pair of homosexual lovers- Harmodius and Aristogiton, credited with preserving Athenian democracy. To Alexander and his lifelong companion Hephaestion, and Julius Caesar’s love affair with king Nicomedes IV of Bithynia. Indeed, closer home to the homoerotic sculptures of Khajuraho, and the unapologetic homosexuality in the Kamasutra. Not to forget the legend of Harihara- the son born of the union of Vishnu and Shiva.

An Athenian red-figure kylix from the 5th c. B.C. A man is soliciting a boy for sex in exchange for a purse containing coins. The inscription reads “The Boy is Beautiful”

However the period often referred to as the ‘Golden age’ soon ended with the rise and spread of Christendom- whose Biblical rhetoric against Sodom and Gomorrah ensured centuries of hatred directed against the homosexual. The papacy, which systemized the faith deemed homosexuality a heresy, and homosexuals began to be burnt at stake. However, such incidents were rare, and the Church was as much a failure in curbing homosexuality as every other homophobic government in the world has been.

Things took a brighter turn with the advent of the Renaissance age in Europe. Across the continent, especially Italy, which became the cultural epicenter, a strong homosexual sub-culture developed in the cities. Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci are undoubtedly the most celebrated homosexual figures of this age. Michelangelo’s David- that unparalled epitome of male beauty was and has remained one of the greatest homosexual icons ever.

Seventeenth and Eighteenth century Europe saw a string of homosexually inclined rulers. Two British kings in the seventeenth century appear to have had exclusively homosexual interests- James I and his grandson, William III. During the same period, homosexual subcultures flourished in London, Paris and Amsterdam. The nineteenth century however saw a religious revival, along with the advent of the industrial age. Policing against homosexual inns in London became stricter, but was also coincided by a new found interest in the country’s homosexual past. And of course, this was also the time when Oscar Wilde- the ‘homosexual martyr’ was arrested and tried because of his sexual orientation, in one of the biggest public scandals of Britain. It was also in the middle of the nineteenth century that science discovered homosexuality, and Freud- the ‘greatest intellectual charlatan of the century’- came up with much of the modern mythology surrounding homosexuality. He proposed that all humans are naturally bisexual, and that heterosexuality is the normal goal of all healthy men and women. The ‘deviants’ from the normal path are the homosexuals. Thankfully, we now appreciate the fact that most of his theories were the product of his overheated imagination.

The beginning of the modern gay rights movement can be traced back to the creation of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in Germany in 1897. Despite the law, Germany had a strong homosexual culture- where homosexuality was practiced in a largely liberal environment and gay magazines and newspapers were regularly published. No wonder Weimar Berlin was referred to as the “Gay Mecca of Europe”. However things took a U-turn after Hitler assumed power. Homosexual men were systematically and brutally eliminated along with Jews and Communists. According to estimates nearly 60,000 homosexual men were murdered in Nazi concentration camps in the largest act of violence against homosexuals in history.

But while homosexuals were being persecuted in Europe, rapid changes were happening across the Atlantic in the United States. With Kinsey’s report on the prevalence of homosexuality in American society shocking most Americans, what slowly emerged was a strong underground homosexual culture through the 1940s and 50s. It was only in the mid-1960s that it was exposed to the media in general. But while gay bars and groups continued to operate clandestinely, they were constantly harassed by the authorities. The turning point in the history of gay movement came on 27 June 1969 when police raided the Stonewall Inn- an obscure gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village. Tired and frustrated by these regular raids and harassments, gays retaliated in what is described as the Bastille moment of the gay movement. They resisted arrest and rioted against the police for several nights in the first ever incident of gay resistance. The next year the riots were marked with a small demonstration in New York by a dozen or so gay rights demonstrators. Since then the annual Gay Pride parades marking the anniversary of Stonewall draw millions of gays, lesbians and their families and friends to the streets of major cities around the world in a colourful celebration of sexual diversity.

Since then the gay liberation movement worldwide has assumed importance as a major human rights issue, as government after government was forced through democratic means to recognize the equality of all citizens- irrespective of sexual orientation. Today, almost all of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South America, South Africa, and many parts of the United States recognize same-sex marriages/civil unions and have passed anti-discrimination laws. Last year, the United Nations passed a resolution asking all member states to decriminalize homosexuality.

A gay rights demonstration in New York, 1976

India was the only serious democracy that refused to sign the UN declaration. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a vestige of India’s colonial past (long repealed in Britain) continued to criminalize same sex behavior.

The first Gay Pride parade in India took place in Kolkata in 1999 with only 16 people attending. Last year thousands of gay Indians came out on the streets of Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata demanding equal rights in the country they call home. In 2002, the Naz foundation, a Delhi based NGO filed a case in the High Court demanding amendments to Section 377 so as not to criminalize consensual adult gay sex. Meanwhile several prominent writers, artists and politicians like Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Amartya Sen, A Ramadoss and Celina Jaitley have spoken out in favour of gay rights. A major victory in the struggle for gay rights came on 2nd July 2009 when the Delhi High Court decriminalized homosexuality in a landmark judgement. The Indian Gay Liberation Movement will be a test of time, endurance and most importantly, the liberal credentials of this great nation- which was founded on the principles of equality and freedom.

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