Test your LGBT Knowledge

1. When did the World Health Organization remove homosexuality as an illness from their classification of diseases?
1. In 1945
2. In 1968
3. In 1973
4. In 1990

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2. Who is Lilith ?
1. A famous Canadian rock star, icon of Canadian lesbian and gay community of early ‘80s
2. The mythological first wife of the biblical Adam
3. A Buddhist divinity, goddess of nature

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3. Who are the Vegetarian Sisterhoods ?
1. A Christian nuns’ congregation of the Middle Ages, living autonomously, growing their own vegetables and selling them to the market.
2. A German political movement of lesbian separatists of the ‘70s living in semi-autarchy.
3. A Chinese Buddhist community of the 19th century, organised in houses where the eating of meat and heterosexual contacts were forbidden.

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4. When did IGA (International Gay Association) changed its name into ILGA (International Lesbian and Gay Association) ?
1.At the 8th World Conference in 1986 in Copenhagen, Denmark
2. At the 18th World Conference in 1997 in Cologne, Germany
3. At the 21st World Conference in 2001 in Oakland, USA.

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Replies to the above questions

Question 1
4. In 1973 American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). But it was only in 1990 that the World Health Organization decided to remove homosexuality as an illness from their classification of diseases.

Question 2
2. The legend was inspired by the Bible's dual accounts of the creation of the first woman. Adam had a first wife before his marriage to Eve. Adam's original mate was the demonic Lilith who had been fashioned, just like her male counterpart, from the dust of the earth. Lilith insisted from the outset on equal treatment, a fact which caused constant friction between the couple. Eventually the frustrated Lilith used her magical powers to fly away from her spouse. At Adam's urging, God dispatched three angels to negotiate her return. When these angels made threats against Lilith's demonic descendants, she countered that she would prey eternally upon newborn human babies, who could be saved only by invoking the protection of the three angels. In the end Lilith When Eve was afterwards fashioned out of Adam's rib, symbolic of her subjection to him), this was to serve as an antidote to Lilith's short-lived attempt at egalitarianism.
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/950206_Lilith.html
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/Lilith/

Question 3
3. During the 19th century, in the Southern Chinese province of Guangdong, thousands of women entered relations with other women by forming sisterhoods. The women were mostly silk workers whose income allowed them some economic independence. They vowed to the Goddess Yin never to marry a man and formed sisterhoods with c-such names as “The golden Orchid Association” or the “Association of Mutual Understanding”. The sisters lived together in co-operative houses and helped each other in cases of illness or death. Some houses were vegetarian hall where the eating of meat and heterosexual contacts were forbidden. In the houses women led a religious life, but not as strictly as in a Buddhist nunnery. Sexual relations between women occurred in the so called “spinster halls”.
Sex, Love & Homophobia, Vanessa Baird, Amnesty International UK

Question 4
1. At the 8th World Conference in July 1986 held in Copenhagen, Denmark, the members decided to increase the recognition of lesbians by changing its name IGA into ILGA. They also created two Secretaries Generals posts, to be held by a woman and by a man and established a Women’s Secretariat. The six regions of ILGA in the world (North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and Pacific) are also represented by a female and a male Board member.