“…In the 1800s, some women established households together, in what were referred to as "Boston Marriages," and throughout history women have engaged in erotic, public "romantic friendships" with other women (Faderman, 1992;Lahey & Anderson, 2004;Ross, 1998). Similarly, male homosexual relations have, at times, been accepted as a rite of passage (Adam, 1995;Herdt, 1997), integral to the religious and cultural life of a community (Warner, 2002a), and mutable, depending upon age and class (Valdes, 1995(Valdes, , 1996. However, even more prevalent and ingrained is the oppression, discrimination, rejection, and subordination of persons identified or identifying as LGBTQ.…”