Lesbian

A lesbian is defined as a woman who is romantically and sexually attracted to other women. While the term "gay" may be used to describe people of both sexes with homosexual tendencies, the word lesbian is gender-specific in that it refers only to homosexual women.

Ancient Greek poet Sappho wrote love poems to both men and woman and was believed to be a bisexual, a person attracted to both sexes. The word lesbian is derived from her place of birth, the Lesbos Islands.Dictionary.com: Lesbian

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Following the overturning of the ban on same-sex marriage by the California Supreme Court on May 15, 2008,Los Angeles Times: California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban (May 16, 2008) talk show host Ellen DeGeneres announced that she and her partner, Actress Portia de Rossi, were planning to get married.ABC News: Ellen DeGeneres to marry partner after gay ruling (May 17, 2008)

• 625 to 570 BCE: Earliest known written references of same sex attraction in the Lesbos Islands

• 794 to 1185: Lesbians were socially accepted in Japan

• 1649: Two women were prosecuted for lewd contact, one of them was convicted

• 1732: The word lesbian was used

• 1870: The term lesbianism appears in the Oxford English Dictionary

• 1921: Proposal to criminalize lesbianism was rejected

• 1928: Lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness was banned

• 1969: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons rioted following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn

• 1970: One year anniversary of the riot, the Gay Liberation Gay organized a march

• 1985: GLAAD was Founded in New York City

• 2003: The first gay pride parade in the country of Taiwan

• 2004: Massachusetts becomes first state to legalize same sex marriage

• 2005: Gay pride was forbidden in Warsaw but happened anyway