A lesbian police sergeant who was not allowed to work on the same shift as her girlfriend has accused her police force of institutional homophobia in a tribunal. (more…)

A centre for homeless young LGBT people in New York has received a bequest of $300,000 – from former Golden Girl, the late Bea Arthur. (more…)

A candlelight vigil and a ‘march against homophobia‘ have been organised in the wake of a homophobic attack on a trainee policeman in Liverpool on Sunday night. (more…)

A final reminder about Lesbilicious Comedy: it’s tomorrow! (more…)

The 2011 census is set to include a compulsory question about civil partnerships as well as asking for explicit details concerning overnight guests, raising concerns that it could forcibly out people. (more…)

Tegan and Sara’s new album Sainthood is released today (27 Oct 2009). (more…)

A Gay Tourist Centre has opened in London. The centre is the first of its kind and is dedicated to providing visitors with LGBT related information about the city. (more…)

Founder of Little Ms Tees, Rhoda McClure, has launched a new lesbian social networking site. The site is called LESBOOK and has over 800 members. (more…)

At the Conservative Party’s first Gay Pride event a few weeks ago, out MP Nick Hewitt announced, “the Left does not own gay people!” The ‘LGBTory’ audience cheered so enthusiastically it seemed he was correcting an eons-old misapprehension, writes Siobhan McGuirk.

Yet it is undeniable that gay campaign groups have traditionally found their alliances on the left, and that LGBT equality is still considered a ‘liberal’ concern.

But homosexuality and right-wing values are strange bedfellows, surely? Not according to Hewitt, or lesbian Party Vice-Chair Margot James. Their presence at Conservative Pride made a clear statement: the Tories want you! (more…)

Baroness Warsi, Shadow Community Cohesion Minister, has stated that she supports civil partnerships despite previous homophobic outbursts. The Conservative politician was asked the question during last night’s controversial Question Time, in which BNP leader Nick Griffin was a panel member. (more…)

The BBC has announced the cast for its new BBC3 lesbian drama, Lip Service, which is to be broadcast early next year.

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Pope Benedict XVI has created a new structure within the Catholic Church to accommodate conservative Anglicans who want to covert.

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A BBC 3 programme which included derogatory comments about Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson breached the BBC’s editorial standards, according to the Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee (ESC). (more…)

The Press Complaints Commission is considering an investigation following a record number of complaints after journalist Jan Moir linked the death of gay musician Stephen Gately with what she termed his “difficult and dangerous lifestyle” in a Daily Mail article.

To date, complaints to the PCC have topped 25,000. The PCC has had more complaints over one weekend than it has received in the past five years. (more…)

The BBC is creating a one-off costume drama based on the life of Anne Lister, dubbed ‘the first modern lesbian’ by historians. (more…)

Although women today use vibrators for sexual pleasure, the Victorians invented them for a very different reason, writes Jen Newby.

“I screamed merrily – so says Mama. For my own part I do not remember much about it. I felt finely for two hours after bathing and was so much pleased with the bath,” wrote a young American woman, Abigail May, in her journal in 1850.

Abigail had just tried the special douche hoses at Ballston Springs, near New York. The hoses, which propelled jets of water into women’s groins from a distance of ten feet, were considered the ideal treatment for hysteria.

Victorian doctors thought that over a quarter of all women suffered from hysteria or ‘womb disease.’

Faintness, nerves, insomnia, bloating, breathlessness, loss of appetite, frigidity and a mysterious ‘tendency to cause trouble’ were all symptoms of hysteria. The theory had barely moved on from Egyptian healers who believed that lack of female ejaculation during sex made poisonous fluid build up in the womb and spread through the body.

Hysterics were treated with bed rest, bland food, seclusion – or pelvic massage.

Pelvic massage involved, in the words of one doctor, “stimulating the anterior wall of the vagina,” – in other words masturbating – the patient until she experienced ‘hysterical paroxysm’ (clitoral orgasm). Victorian doctors grew rich from treating hysteria as patients needed hands-on treatment for years and there was no risk of death by orgasm.

But some doctors found mastering the technique of pelvic massage difficult or even disgusting. “Many doctors have difficulty treating patients with their own fingers. Special applicators (motor driven) give practical value and convenience to what otherwise is impractical,” wrote Dr Samuel Monell in 1903.

While doctors found pelvic massage distasteful they didn’t consider it a sexual treatment. Sex, for women, was penetration topped off by the male orgasm.

To spare physicians’ aching hands after provoking all those ‘paroxysms’, new devices designed for pelvic massage were soon on the market. Although dildos had been around for centuries, these new inventions meant that the doctor did not have to delve into the patient’s frilly undergarments.

By 1870 a clockwork-driven massager was on sale and hydrotherapy devices were available at spas, like those enjoyed by Abigail May. Eager to escape from patients demanding their daily paroxysm, doctors experimented with shaking machines, swings, train rides and electrotherapy.

By the end of the nineteenth century, more than 50 different kinds of massagers had been invented. Some produced musical vibration, while others gave out ultra-violet rays.

The introduction of electricity to ordinary homes meant that the vibrator quickly became many housewives’ favourite home appliance.

Shaped like a modern hair-dryer with a covered nozzle and about the same size, the electric vibrator – or ‘massager’ as it was disguised – it was on sale a decade before the vacuum cleaner or the iron. “It can be applied more rapidly, uniformly and deeply than by hand and for as long a period as may be desired,” persuaded one innocent-sounding advert in a 1906 copy of Woman’s Home.

Although these adverts concealed their erotic appliances as tame treatments for bad backs, vibrating machines were applied to the crotch rather than the spine.

Over a dozen American manufacturers were producing them by the 1920s. But during the 1930s the tool disappeared. As vibrators began to appear in twenties porn films, their sexual purpose became a little too obvious.

In one film, The Widow’s Delight, a woman chastely allows her date a peck on the cheek, before slamming the door in his face, rushing into her bedroom, and whipping out her vibrator.

So next time you visit Ann Summers, remember a new vibrator might be just what the doctor ordered…

The number of homophobic hate crimes in London have increased by almost a fifth over the last year, according to the latest police figures. (more…)

The Daily Mail page featuring Jan Moir’s homophobic rant about Stephen Gately’s death has lost almost all its adverts as advertisers seek to distance themselves from the controversy. (more…)

A homophobic rant about the recent death of Stephen Gately published in today’s Daily Mail has provoked anger of thousands of Twitter and Facebook users and caused the Press Complaints Commission website to crash. (more…)

You have just 26 hours left to enter our competition to win a copy of Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. (more…)

A BBC gameshow aimed at kids will next week feature a family headed up by lesbian parents. (more…)

If you’re planning to come to Lesbilicious Comedy  and haven’t booked your ticket then you better hurry – the £10 early bird discount ends on Monday 19 October 2009. (more…)

70% of bisexual women and 78% of bisexual men don’t feel they can be open about their sexuality in the workplace, compared to 30% of gay men and women, according to a major new survey. (more…)

The screenwriters responsible for the gay storylines and characters in Coronation Street, Sugar Rush and Skins will be talking about how to present LGBT on TV later this month at the International Screenwriters’ Festival. (more…)

Irish secondary schools have been given a guide to help them support their lesbian, gay and bisexual students after research showed that four out of five teachers witnessed verbal homophobic abuse but did not know how to handle it. Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Students in Post-Primary Education: Guidance for Principals and School-Leaders, was published today. (more…)

Barack Obama has repeated his pledge to end the ban on openly gay people in the military, but he has still not given details of exactly when or how the ban will be overturned. (more…)

Stephen Gately from boyband Boyzone died on Saturday. Police have said there were no signs of suspicious circumstances. (more…)

Team Gina is an electroqueer spandex-wearing synchronised robot-dancing phenomena – not to mention one of The Advocate’s ‘top 5 queer groups to look out for’.

We spoke to the two fierce femmes of Team Gina, Gina Bling and Gina Genius, about rapping, butches and matching tattoos. (more…)

Jeanette Winterson’s classic tale of growing up gay in a deeply religious environment is 25 years old next year. (more…)

Swedish officials have been forced to make a statement denying the existence of a secret city of 25,000 lesbians. (more…)

Conservative Party leader David Cameron says he doesn’t believe the party’s new partners in Europe are homophobic. (more…)

Over 30 people gathered last night (6 October 2009) to protest against the Conservative Party’s ‘Conference Pride’, a gay pride party held in the centre of Manchester’s gay village. (more…)

Sarah Waters has been denied the Man Booker Prize for the third year running.

Waters’ novel The Little Stranger was shortlisted but lost out last night to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. (more…)

Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill has cancelled his appearance as star speaker at tonight’s Conservative Party event in Manchester’s gay village in protest at the presence of extremist homophobic MEPs at the Conservative conference. (more…)

A lesbian activist in the United States has been arrested on suspicion of money laundering and fraud.

Phyllis Stevens, a prominent campaigner for gay marriage, appears to have siphoned off $5.9 million from her previous employers, insurance company Aviva USA. (more…)

Carol Leifer, writer, comedian, and the woman who brought us Ellen is producing a new lesbian sitcom. (more…)

These days, every straight girl worth her salt has dabbled in a bit of same-sex exploration, writes Kaite Welsh.

Long before Katy Perry kissed a girl and liked it, Cindy Crawford was straddling k d lang on the cover of Vanity Fair. And whilst ‘I Kissed a Girl’ has become the kareoke choice de jour of the lesbian population, mention Perry – or Britney and Madonna locking lips – and you’re met with a collective eye-roll. (more…)

From 1 Oct 2009 same-sex couples will be able to register as ‘domestic partners’ in the US state of Nevada. (more…)

Adopted children with gay parents grow up just as happy and health as those with straight parents, according to a new study. (more…)