Editing Lesbian (section)

===History of Sexology===

In research on "[[Sexual inversion (sexology)|inversion]]" by German sexologist [[Magnus Hirschfeld]], researchers categorized what was normal sexual behavior for men and women, and therefore to what extent men and women varied from the "perfect male sexual type" and the "perfect female sexual type".<ref name="Aldrich2006"/>{{rp|p=168}}
[[File:Amanda Brewster Sewell, Sappho, 1891.jpg|alt=Painting of a woman dressed in Greek robes holding a lyre, with three partially nude women sitting in front of her on a long marble bench.|left|thumb|273x273px|''Sappho'' by [[Amanda Brewster Sewell]], 1891. [[Sappho]] of [[Lesbos]] gave the term ''lesbian'' the connotation of erotic desire between women.]] Sexologists [[Richard von&nbsp;Krafft-Ebing]] from Germany and Britain's [[Havelock Ellis]] wrote some of the earliest and more enduring categorizations of female [[same-sex attraction]], approaching it as a form of insanity.<ref name="Faderman1981">{{Cite book |last=Faderman |first=Lillian |author-link=Lillian Faderman |date=1981 |title=Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present |publisher=Quill |isbn=0-688-00396-6}}</ref>{{rp|p=241}} Krafft-Ebing, who considered lesbianism a neurological disease, and Ellis, who was influenced by Krafft-Ebing's writings, disagreed about whether sexual inversion was generally a lifelong condition. Ellis believed that many women who professed love for other women changed their feelings about such relationships after they had experienced marriage and a "practical life".<ref name="Faderman1981"/>{{rp|p=242}}

Ellis conceded that there were "true inverts" who would spend their lives pursuing erotic relationships with women. These were members of the "[[Third gender|third sex]]" who rejected the roles of women to be subservient, feminine, and domestic.<ref name="Faderman1981"/>{{rp|p=240}} ''Invert'' described the opposite gender roles, and also the related attraction to women instead of men; since women in the [[Victorian period]] were considered unable to initiate sexual encounters, women who did so with other women were thought of as possessing masculine sexual desires.<ref name="Jennings2007">{{cite book |last=Jennings |first=Rebecca |date=2007 |title=A Lesbian History of Britain |publisher=[[Greenwood World Publishing]] |isbn=978-1-84645-007-5}}</ref>{{rp|p=77}}

The work of Krafft-Ebing and Ellis was widely read and helped to create public consciousness of female homosexuality.{{efn|In Germany between 1898 and 1908 over a thousand articles were published regarding the topic of homosexuality.<ref name="Faderman1981"/>{{rp|p=248}} Between 1896 and 1916, 566 articles on women's "perversions" were published in the United States.<ref name="Faderman1991">{{Cite book |last=Faderman |first=Lillian |author-link=Lillian Faderman |date=1991 |url=https://archive.org/details/oddgirlstwilight00fade |title=Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Century America |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |isbn=0140171223 |edition=paperback}}</ref>{{rp|p=49}}}} The sexologists' claims that homosexuality was a congenital anomaly were generally well-accepted by homosexual men; it indicated that their behavior was not inspired by nor should be considered a criminal vice, as was widely acknowledged. In the absence of any other material to describe their emotions, homosexuals accepted the designation of different or perverted, and used their outlaw status to form social circles in Paris and Berlin. ''Lesbian'' began to describe elements of a subculture.<ref name="Aldrich2006"/>{{rp|pp=178–179}}

Lesbians in Western cultures in particular often classify themselves as having an [[Identity (social science)|identity]] that defines their individual sexuality, as well as their membership to a group that shares common traits.<ref name="rust">{{cite journal |last1=Rust |first1=Paula C. |title=The Politics of Sexual Identity: Sexual Attraction and Behavior among Lesbian and Bisexual Women |journal=Social Problems |date=November 1992 |volume=39 |issue=4 |pages=366–386 |doi=10.2307/3097016 |jstor=3097016 | issn = 0037-7791}}</ref> Women in many cultures throughout history have had sexual relations with other women, but they rarely were designated as part of a group of people based on whom they had physical relations with. As women have generally been political minorities in Western cultures, the added medical designation of homosexuality has been cause for the development of a subcultural identity.<ref name="Aldrich2006"/>{{rp|p=239}}