Out + Proud Around the World and Through the Centuries

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We discuss the lives and achievements of pioneers who defied social conventions and expressed their own sexualities and/or genders, often at great personal cost.

During this talk, here are some of the LGBTQ pioneers you will meet:

• Ancient Roman poet Catullus who publicly made fun of Roman strictures against same-gender love

• The Athenian general who shocked ancient society by confessing how he tried to seduce the great Socrates when he was young–and failed
• The Renaissance Florentine painter who was called Mr. Sodom--and didn't object
• Cyrano de Bergerac and his love life, which did not involve his female cousin
• Magnus Hirschfeld who publicly demanded an end to sodomy laws in Germany in 1867
• The butch lesbian who argued with Hemingway and Picasso while her wife sewed with the wives
• The Dutch anti-Nazi resistance hero who said just before his execution that his actions showed that homosexuals are not cowards
• Greta Garbo and how she got the first lesbian kiss into a movie in 1933 before the Hays Code stifled sexuality and content in Hollywood

A four-time winner of the Harvard Certificate for Excellence in Teaching. has taught art history and Classics at Harvard, Columbia, and NYU. Lear is the founder of , the first company to offer tours focused on LGBT history, and the winner of the Travel Industry’s 2016 Travvy Award for best-escorted tour operator, LGBT; and the Luxury Travel Guide’s 2016 LGBT Tour Operator of the Year. in 2021, Lear founded , an educational nonprofit dedicated to raising public awareness of LGBTQ histories and stories.

“It was one of the best trips we have ever taken. Professor Lear is knowledgeable, personable, and funny, and his explanations cover a wide range of topics, including things that get left out in most tours.” — Bennet Marks

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