Pride and prejudice
Vanessa Baird clarifies some of the muddled thinking that has blighted the lives of lesbians and gays for centuries.

Sodom revisited
The Biblical story told in full by Bishop John Shelby Spong.

Do you need treatment?
A chance for heterosexuals to occupy the psychiatrist's couch

Natural gestures
How women get together in Nigeria. A personal view by Buchi Emecheta.

Sexual politics
Why do politicians oppress lesbians and gays? Jeffrey Weeks explains.

On the terrace
Dinyar Godrej recalls a gay party in Bombay.

Homosexuality - the facts

Fear and Loathing
The psychological roots of hostility revealed by Dennis Altman.

Condom cabaret in Bangkok
Singing and dancing against AIDS. Mark Timm reports from Thailand.

Parent of a gay son
A mother's story told by a member of the Manchester Parents Group.

Simply .
How to combat prejudice

What your dreams make you
Rae Trewartha examines how traditional cultures have treated lesbians and gays.

ACTION and Worth Reading

This issue of the NI is a response to popular demand. Indirectly, that is.

A couple of years ago we did an issue on the subject of masculinity. There were many interesting articles but the one which provoked most letters was about homosexuality. A number of those we printed were surprisingly hostile, even prejudiced. Then we received further letters asking us why we had published the earlier ones; would we have used letters that expressed racist opinions?

The answer is 'no'. Clearly we were not treating prejudice against people on the grounds of their sexuality in the same way as we treat prejudice against people on the grounds of their race. Why not? we asked ourselves.

Several months later, when we discussed which subjects we should tackle in the forthcoming year, the idea of doing an issue on homosexuality was mooted. But there were objections. What could one say about it? Quite a lot - as our readers' letters showed. Then there was the argument that gay rights did not seem relevant to people in the Third World; I trust the contents of this magazine, with articles coming from Asia. Africa and Latin America, will help put that myth to rest.

Getting articles from developing countries was not easy - but that was more to do with the oppression of lesbians and gays than their non-existence. Homosexuality is still illegal in many parts of the world and people are afraid to speak out, let alone write articles about it. Although the last few years have seen a tremendous increase in the number of lesbian and gay groups, particularly in Latin America, many operate under extremely difficult conditions. In Chile, for example, they are seen as 'terrorist organizations'.

Getting the gender balance right was also tricky. Lesbians are under-represented in most literature about homosexuality. And they are even more invisible in Third World countries. Gay men in Bombay, say, are obvious - on the streets, the trains and the beaches. But women are meant to stay at home, bound by traditions that generally exclude them from public life. So lesbians living together in India tend to keep a low profile, hoping that their relationship will go unnoticed.

Homosexuality as an aspect of human life is interesting in itself. But more interesting, as I discovered while researching this issue, are attitudes towards it. They tell us a good deal about the politics and prejudices of the world we live in - and how we have to change them.

Letters
Letter from La Paz
Update
Endpiece: by Elizabeth Sourbut
Reviews: including Nadine Gordimer classic
Country profile: Mongolian People's Republic

COVER ILLUSTRATION: Hector Cattolica
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER