We can sometimes forget how far we’ve come in LGBT equality and how dreadful things were for gay people in the recent past. Alan Turing’s case exemplifies all those people whose productive lives were curtailed because of irrational prejudice. Alan Turing was a British hero but he was treated abominably by the state.

There are lots of good websites for transgender people, but one of the best we’ve come across is Lynn Conway’s. Lynn is a highly regarded American professor of electrical engineering and computing, who underwent transition to a woman in 1968 and incidentally still looks absolutely gorgeous. Her website is full to the brim with useful, practical advice on such matters as face feminization surgery, interactions with employers and doctors.

Identity is one of things. “Most people are other people,” is how Oscar Wilde put it, but in the case of an artist, it’s often the case that they are all of us combined. Ane Lan is a Norwegian artist working in the field of performance, music and experimental film/video. 

Five religious groups have backed gay marriage in Scotland.The Unitarians, Quakers, Metropolitan Community Church, Pagan Federation and Liberal Judaism are backing members of the Scottish Youth Parliament in their campaign on the issue.

Equality between people of all races, religions, colours, genders, sexual preferences, hair colour (and so on) is one of the aims of any progressive society. People should not be disadvantaged because they happen to have ended up as part of a particular group that they did not choose. Whatever the televangelists in the USA might say, being gay is not a lifestyle choice; there are lifestyle choices made by gay people in relation to their sexuality - flamboyant, promiscuous gay vs. low-key gay, for example - but sexuality itself is no more a choice than one's blood type.

You always used to be able to get your BUTT on paper twice a year. BUTT was there to be discovered or rediscovered, often on a visit to a book shop such as Gay’s The Word, in Marchmont Street in London. Inscrutable, nude, spunky, shaved, tattooed, posed, clothed, naked, BUTT and its men also captured something all of its own, monochroming everything on carefully coloured paper.

It has been a monumental struggle for gays serving in the military, literally for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks generally shrugged it off, though Plato mused that a regular army was no match on the battlefield against a force made up of lovers and those they were intimate with. But for other armies, acceptance has been slower to materialise.

Homosexuals in the armed forces have had a tough time for centuries, regardless of the country they have pledged to defend, whether it is the United States, China, or somewhere else. The same holds true in the United Kingdom (UK), where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) persons were prohibited from joining or serving in any branch of the armed forces until 2000.

As of 2009, there were 25 countries that allowed gays to serve openly in their armed forces, but of the bunch, none has been more liberal inside and outside the military than Spain. In that most Catholic of countries, this is a surprising turn of events, given the influence of established religion on all parts of society for several hundred years.

In 1925, Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen reportedly said to his followers who were growing complacent: “Revolution has not yet succeeded; our comrades need to push on.” And so it goes for the plight of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community in the most populous country on earth. China has more than a billion people living within its borders, and change occurs painfully slowly.

Canada may be lauded for its national healthcare and progressive trade policies with other nations, but the country had a horrible track record for dozens of years when it came to gays serving in its armed forces. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) persons in the Canadian military regularly were discriminated against by their peers and superiors, physically or psychologically abused, forced out of the services all together, or forced to never come clean and simply keep their mouths shut.

Homosexuals have long been the subject of persecution for thousands of years, and though lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) individuals have started to gain more equality and acceptance socially, their struggles within rigid organisations – like the military or within religious groups – continues to this day.