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Madame de Brinvilliers

Marie-Madeleine d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers (22 July 1630 – 16 July 1676) was a French aristocrat who was accused and convicted of murdering her father and two of her brothers in order to inherit their estates. After her death, there was speculation that she tested her poisons on upwards of 30 sick people in hospitals, but these rumours were never confirmed. Her alleged crimes were discovered after the death of her lover and co-conspirator, Captain Godin de Sainte-Croix, who saved letters detailing dealings of poisonings between the two. After being arrested, she was tortured, forced to confess, and finally executed. Her trial and death spawned the onset of the Affair of the Poisons, a major scandal during the reign of Louis XIV accusing aristocrats of practising witchcraft and poisoning people. Components of her life have been adapted into various media including short stories, poems, and songs to name a few.

Early life

The Marquise was born in 1630 to the relatively wealthy and influential household of d'Aubray. Her father, Antoine Dreux d'Aubray (1600–1666), held multiple important governmental and high-ranking positions such as the Seigneur of Offémont and Villiers, councillor of State, Master of Requests, the Civil Lieutenant and prévôt of the city of Paris, and Lieutenant General of the Mines of France. Her mother, Marie Olier (1602–1666) was the sister of Jean-Jacques Olier, who founded the Sulpicians and helped establish the settlement of Ville-Marie in New France, which would later be called Montreal. In her confession, the Marquise acknowledged being sexually assaulted at the age of seven, though she did not name her assaulter. Further admitted in her confession is that she also had sexual relations with her younger brother Antoine, whom she would later poison.

Though the eldest of five children and loved by her father, she would not inherit his estate and was thus expected to marry into another. Coming from a family of such wealth, whomever she married would inherit quite a large dowry from her, 200,000 livres, in fact. At the age of 21, in 1651, she was married to Antoine Gobelin, Baron de Nourar, and Chevalier in the order of Sainte Jean of Jerusalem and later Marquis de Brinvilliers, whose estate was worth 800,000 livres. His wealth came from his ancestors' famed tapestry workshops. His father was the President of the Chamber of Accounts. Upon marriage, the Marquise's father bestowed upon the couple a house at 12 rue Neuve St. Paul in Marais, an aristocratic district of Paris. With the Marquis de Brinvilliers, she soon had three children, two girls and a boy. She had a total of seven children, of which at least four are suspected of being illegitimate children from the Marquise's various paramours. The Marquis befriended a fellow officer, Godin de Sainte-Croix, and introduced him to the Marquise; she would later have a long-lasting affair with Sainte-Croix.

The Marquise's father was displeased to hear of his daughter's sexual affair with Sainte-Croix (which if became public, could damage his reputation due to his high position in French society) and was further displeased that the Marquise was in the process of separating her wealth from that of her husband (who was gambling it away), which was almost akin to divorcing him, a major faux-pas in French aristocratic society. Due to her father's position as a prévôt, granting him a large amount of power and influence, in 1663 he instigated a lettre de cachet, against her lover, Sainte-Croix, which called for his arrest and imprisonment at the Bastille. While riding in a carriage with the Marquise de Brinvilliers, Sainte-Croix was arrested in front of her and thrown in the Bastille for a little under two months. The Marquise later commented that perhaps if her father had not had her lover arrested, she might have never poisoned her father.

Many historians say that it was during his time in the Bastille that Sainte-Croix learned much about the art of poisoning. He was imprisoned in the Bastille at the same time as the infamous Exili (also known as Eggidi), an Italian in the service of Queen Christina of Sweden, who was an expert on poisons. Exili was imprisoned in the Bastille not because he had committed a crime, but rather because Louis XIV was suspicious of his presence in France because the courts of Sweden and France were not on the best of terms at the time. Other historians say that it is highly possible that Sainte-Croix was already an acquaintance of Christopher Glaser, a famed Swiss pharmaceutical chemist and had attended some lectures given by him. Yet, other historians doubt that Sainte-Croix came into contact with either and might have just been using their well-established names to sell his poisons for a higher price.

Upon his release from prison, Sainte-Croix married but remained in close contact with the Marquise. Sainte-Croix started an alchemy business to allow him to work with poisons, of which he now knew a lot about from his time in prison, by obtaining the necessary license to use certain equipment in order to distil his poisons. It was under his tutelage that the Marquise de Brinvilliers started to experiment with poisons and concoct ideas of revenge.

Crimes

It has been suggested by many researching the Marquise that before poisoning her father she tested out her poisons on unsuspecting sick hospital patients. This theory comes from a report made by the lieutenant general of the Paris police, Gabriel Nicolas de La Reynie, who, in speaking of the Marquise, indicated that she, a pretty and delicate high-born woman from a respectable family, amused herself in observing how different dosages of her poisons took effect in the sick.

Scholars who support and acknowledge this theory do so because the era in which the Marquise lived would have enabled a woman of her rank to get away with murder quite easily. Typical for the era, female members of French nobility would often visit hospitals to help care for the sick. Because many of these patients were already ill, it provided the means for the Marquise to test out her poisons without much suspicion. She tested out her poisons at the hospital, Hôtel Dieu, close to Notre Dame. Furthermore, because Hôtel Dieu was not a very well managed hospital, as it was overflowing with patients, and was more concerned with saving souls than saving lives, deaths, even those under suspicious circumstances, went unnoticed. She also started to experiment on her servants, giving them food tainted with her experimental poisons. The Marquise was not tried for these crimes, however, because they were only attributed to her after her execution.

In 1666, the Marquise started to slowly poison her father, who died on 10 September. She placed a man, Gascon, in her father's household to slowly administer poison to him. In the week before his death, her father invited the Marquise and her children to stay with him. She gave him multiple doses of "Glaser's recipe," a tried-and-true mixture of chemicals that would render him dead seemingly of natural causes. Antoine Dreux d'Aubrey died with the Marquise at his side. An autopsy was performed on his body which concluded that Dreux d'Aubrey died of natural causes, exacerbated by gout. After the death of her father, the Marquise inherited some of his wealth. She quickly burned through the money, and needing more, decided to poison her two brothers, hoping to get their share of her father's fortune as she was, to the best of her knowledge, their next heir.

Her two brothers lived in the same household but the Marquise was not on the best of terms with either of them, making them harder to slowly poison than her father. She thus employed Jean Hamelin, more commonly known as La Chaussée, to work as a footman in her brothers' household. La Chaussée went to work straight-away. Antoine d'Aubray actually suspected that he was perhaps a target of attempted poison when he noticed that his drink had a metallic taste to it. La Chaussée's attempt at poisoning him there failed, but not long after, during an Easter feast, Antoine d'Aubray fell ill after eating a pie and never recovered, dying on 17 June 1670. The second brother was poisoned soon after, dying in September of the same year; their subsequent autopsies would hint of poison due to the fact that their intestines were suspiciously coloured but nevertheless concluded that they both died of "malignant humour". Numerous individuals around the inquest of the brothers' deaths were suspicious that they were poisoned, especially because their deaths were so close to one another and in similar circumstances, but La Chaussée was never suspected; in fact, he was so well loved by the younger Dreux brother that upon his death, he bequeathed one hundred écus to La Chaussée.

Discovery of her crimes and her escape and capture
The Marquise's poisonings were not discovered initially, and in fact continued to be unknown until 1672, upon the death of her lover and conspirator, Sainte-Croix. Many claim that Sainte-Croix died because an accident exposed him to his own poisons. However, others argue that this is purely speculation and that Sainte-Croix simply died of disease. At the time of his death, Sainte-Croix owed a great deal of money. Among his possessions was a box containing letters between him and the Marquise, various poisons, and a note promising a sum of money to Sainte-Croix from the Marquise dated around the time her father first starting feeling ill was found, re-opening the case of foul play for her father and brothers. These contents were instructed to be given to the Marquise upon his death, and thus were resealed and given to the Commissary Picard, until formal procedures could happen. La Chaussée, hearing that Picard was in charge of Sainte-Croix's remaining affairs, went to him explaining that his former boss owed him money, and in explaining this, provided a suspiciously accurate account of Sainte-Croix's laboratory. Picard mentioned to La Chaussée that among Sainte-Croix's possessions was the box with the incriminating letters. La Chaussée, on hearing this, fled, leading to Picard to demand an inquest for La Chaussée for this suspicious behaviour. He was soon found, and, on interrogation, implicated not only himself but the Marquise for crimes against her family. La Chaussée was then tortured before being executed on 24 March 1673. On the same day as his execution, the Marquise was condemned in absentia for her crimes and a warrant went out for her arrest. Similarly, upon news that this box had been found, the Marquise fled France to hide in England. She evaded authorities for a number of years, who continued to hunt her. While in hiding, she survived on sums of money sent to her by her sister, Marie-Thérèse. Her sister died in 1674, leaving the Marquise with little money. She continued to evade capture, moving from place to place, including locations such as Cambrai, Valenciennes, and Antwerp. It was in Belgium that the Marquise finally was caught. In 1676, she rented a room in a convent in Liège where authorities recognized her and alerted the French government who subsequently had her arrested. Among her possessions was a letter titled "My Confessions", which detailed the various crimes she had committed over the years along with other personal information. In this letter, she admits to having poisoned her father and two brothers, and that she had attempted to poison her daughter, sister and husband, although the latter three were unsuccessful. She also confessed to having had many affairs, and that three of her children were not her husband's. Some scholars doubt the Marquise's authenticity in her letters, but certainly the content of her confession was heavily used against her in the French court. Madame de Sévigné, a contemporary French aristocrat of the Marquise's, talked about her in many of her famous letters, highlighting the gossip that spread around French nobility. While being extradited back into France, the Marquise made various suicide attempts. On her return to France, she was first interrogated at Mézières before being imprisoned in the Conciergerie, a prison located in Paris.

Trial
Madame de Sévigné, in a letter to her daughter, wrote that the Marquise's trial captured the attention of all of Paris. Initially when questioned the Marquise heavily feigned ignorance, neither denying or admitting the questions raised against her but rather pretended that she was not aware of any happenings around her concerning the deaths of her family and her illicit relationship with Sainte-Croix. Much of the early interrogation centred around the money trail between her, Sainte-Croix, and Pennautier, the Marquise's financier. Later in the trial, the Marquise denied all crimes levied against her, placing blame on her former lover Sainte-Croix. This lack of substantial evidence soon changed, however, from the testimony of another of the Marquise's former lovers, Jean-Baptiste Briancourt. Briancourt alleged that not only had the Marquise admitted to him that she poisoned her brothers and fathers, but that she and Sainte-Croix had tried to murder him as well. The Marquise dismissed all of Briancourt's accusations against her citing that he was a drunkard. She was not believed, however, and after a final interrogation it was decided that she was guilty of her crimes and she was to be tortured before finally being executed by being beheaded and then having her body burned as a public spectacle.

Torture and execution

As France was a Catholic state at the time of her execution, a confessor was given to the Marquise in her final hours. The man chosen was the abbé Edem Pirot, a theologian from the Sorbonne. Despite never having ministered to a criminal in their final hours, he was nonetheless chosen for the role. He compiled a grand account of her final hours of which the original copy was housed in the Jesuit Library in Paris. Within this recounting, Pirot speaks of her final hours and of her life leading up to her crimes.

Before her death, as part of her sentence, the Marquise was subjected to a form of torture known as the water cure where the subject was made to drink (often through a funnel) copious amounts of water in a short period of time. In his account, Pirot noted that when faced with the prospect of torture, the Marquise said she would confess to all, however, she noted that she knew that this would not alleviate her sentence of torture. She added no new information that she had not already confessed under torture except for adding that she once sold poison to a man who intended to kill his wife. After four hours of torture she entered a final confession session with Pirot in the prison chapel. She was not allowed to take communion before her death due to laws at the time forbidding condemned prisoners to take it. As she left the chapel, a crowd of aristocrats gathered to see the spectacle of her death march as she and the abbé travelled to the Place de Grève for her execution. The Marquise was covered in a white slip as was a customary outfit for the condemned at their execution. On the way to her execution, they stopped at Notre Dame so that the Marquise could perform the amende honorable inside the packed Cathedral. When they finally reached the Place de Grève the Marquise was unloaded from the cart and brought up to a platform. The executioner shaved her hair before drawing a sword and chopping off her head. The surrounding area was packed with spectators who hoped to grasp a glimpse of her execution. Madame de Sévigné was among them, and in fact, her most well-known letter mentions the Marquise's execution. After the beheading, the Marquise's body was burned of which Madame de Sévigné quotes that Brinvilliers (or, rather, her ashes) were "up in the air".

Ramifications
After the Marquise's execution, authorities, notably La Reynie and Louis XIV, were convinced that the Marquise could not have acted alone, and more individuals were involved than Sainte-Croix, La Chaussée, and Pennautier. Because the first two were already dead, an investigation was launched into Pennautier. Nothing came of this investigation however, and Pennautier was cleared of all formal suspicions. The inquest into the Marquise's accomplices did not stop there. As La Reynie explained in a letter, because someone so highborn was involved in such a deadly scandal, it was not a far leap of thought that other members of the nobility could be involved in poisonings and other suspicious manners of death. Many people in high positions of power were arrested and tried for murder and other criminal dealings. This gradually expanded until 1679 when the investigations came to their height in the resulting affair known as the Affair of the Poisons where more than a few hundred individuals were arrested. Notable individuals implicated in the resulting affair include: Catherine Monvoisin, a fortune-teller better known as La Voisin, Madame de Montespan, a mistress of the king, and Olympia Mancini, the Countess of Soissons.

Popular culture
Fictional accounts of her life include The Leather Funnel by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Marquise de Brinvilliers by Alexandre Dumas, père, The Devil's Marchioness by William Fifield, Intrigues of a Poisoner by Émile Gaboriau, and The Marchioness of Brinvilliers: The Poisoner of the Seventeenth Century, by Albert Richard Smith. In her 1836 poem, "A Supper of Madame de Brinvilliers", Letitia Elizabeth Landon envisages the poisoning of a discarded lover. Robert Browning's 1846 poem "The Laboratory" imagines an incident in her life. Her capture and burning are mentioned in The Oracle Glass by Judith Merkle Riley, also the poisoning of the poor is echoed by the main character, Genevieve's, mother. The plot of the novel The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr concerns a murder that appears to be the work of the ghost of Marie d'Aubray Brinvilliers.

There have been two musical treatments of her life. An opera titled La marquise de Brinvilliers with music by nine composers—Daniel Auber, Désiré-Alexandre Batton, Henri Montan Berton, Giuseppe Marco Maria Felice Blangini, François-Adrien Boieldieu, Michele Carafa, Luigi Cherubini, Ferdinand Hérold, and Ferdinando Paer—premiered at the Paris Opéra-Comique in 1831. A musical comedy called Mimi – A Poisoner's Comedy, written by Allen Cole, Melody Johnson and Rick Roberts, premiered in Toronto, Canada in September 2009.

The radio docu-drama Crime Classics featured her story in 1954. The 2009 French television film The Marquise of Darkness (French: La Marquise des Ombres) starred Anne Parillaud as de Brinvilliers.

title: Madame de Brinvilliers


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Louis Bouilhet

Louis Hyacinthe Bouilhet (27 May 1821 – 18 July 1869) was a French poet and dramatist.

Bouilhet was born in Cany, Seine Inférieure. He was a schoolfellow of Gustave Flaubert, to whom he dedicated his first work, Melaenis, conte romain (1851), a narrative poem in five cantos dealing with Roman manners under the emperor Commodus. His volume of poems Fossiles attracted considerable attention for being an attempt to make science a subject for poetry. These poems were also included in his Festons et astragales (1859).

As a dramatist he was successful with his first play, Madame de Monlarcy (1856), which ran for 28 nights at the Odéon; Hélène Peyron (1858) and L'Oncle Million (1860) were also favorably received. Of his other plays, only Conjuration d'Amboise (1866) met with any real success.

Bouilhet died on 18 July 1869, at Rouen. Flaubert published his posthumous poems with a notice by the author in 1872.

Bouilhet was Flaubert's mentor and guide; Flaubert never wrote anything without his advice. A few months after Bouilhet's death in 1869, Flaubert wrote about his old friend, "When I lost my poor Bouilhet, I lost my midwife, the man who saw more clearly into my mind than I did myself." According to Starkie, Maxime Du Camp, who knew Bouilhet and Flaubert well, said of the two authors, "It was Bouilhet who was the master, in the matter of literature at least, and that it was Flaubert who obeyed." Throughout their lives, Flaubert referred to Bouilhet as "Monseigneur."

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Louis Bouilhet


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User:Summerweb

Summerweb (engl. "Sommernetz")

title: User:Summerweb


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Robert Fox

Robert Fox may refer to:

 * Robert Were Fox the Elder (1754–1818), Falmouth businessman, father of Robert Were Fox the Younger
 * Robert Were Fox the Younger (1789–1877), English geologist and natural philosopher, father of Barclay Fox
 * Robert Fox (antiquarian) (1798–1843), English antiquarian
 * Robert Barclay Fox (1873–1934), Falmouth businessman and Conservative Cornish politician, grandson of Barclay Fox
 * Robert Fox (activist) (1846–?), 19th-century African-American civil rights activist
 * Robert Bradford Fox (1918–1985), Philippine historian
 * Robert J. Fox (1927–2009), Roman Catholic priest and author from South Dakota
 * Robert J. Fox (pastor) (1930–1984), associate pastor and activist from The Bronx
 * Robert Fox (footballer) (born 1931), Australian rules footballer
 * Robert Fox (historian) (born 1938), historian of science
 * Robert Fox (producer) (born 1952), English theatre and film producer
 * Bob Fox (architect) (born 1941), New York City architect
 * Robert Fortescue Fox (1858–1940), British physician and surgeon
 * Toby Fox (born 1991), game developer

title: Robert Fox


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LGBT rights in Ukraine

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Ukraine face legal and social challenges not experienced by non-LGBT individuals; historically, the prevailing social and political attitudes have been intolerant of LGBT people, and strong evidence suggests this attitude remains in parts of the wider society. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and Ukraine's independence in 1991, the Ukrainian LGBT community has gradually become more visible and more organized politically, organizing several LGBT events in Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Kryvyi Rih.

In a 2010 European study, 28% of Ukrainians polled believed that LGBT individuals should live freely and however they like, the lowest number of all European countries polled apart from Russia. In 2015, the Ukrainian Parliament approved an employment anti-discrimination law covering sexual orientation and gender identity, and in 2016, Ukrainian officials simplified the transition process for transgender people and began allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood. In 2023 the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association ranked Ukraine 39th out of 49 European countries in terms of LGBT rights legislation, similarly to EU members Lithuania and Romania. Marriage remains limited to heterosexual couples under the 1996 constitution.

In the 2011 UN General Assembly declaration for LGBT rights, Ukraine was the only East Slavic country to express its support. In late 2022, parliament unanimously approved a media regulation bill that banned hate speech and incitement based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In March 2023, a parliamentary bill was introduced for civil unions.

Legality of same-sex sexual activity
In 1991, the Criminal Code was revised so as to better protect the right to privacy and homosexuality became legal. Today, the law relates to same-sex sexual activity when it involves prostitution with people under the legal age of consent or public conduct that is deemed to be in violation of public decency standards. The age of consent is set at 16, regardless of gender and/or sexual orientation.

Recognition of same-sex relationships
Article 51 of the Constitution, adopted in 1996, specifically defines marriage as a voluntary union between a man and a woman. No legal recognition exists for same-sex marriage, nor is there any sort of more limited recognition for same-sex couples.

On 23 November 2015, the Government approved an action plan to implement the National Strategy on human rights in the period up to 2020, which include the promise to draft a bill creating registered civil partnerships for opposite-sex and same-sex couples by 2017, among others. However, in early 2018, the Ministry of Justice stated that "the development and submission to the Government of a draft law on the legalization of a registered civil partnership in Ukraine cannot be implemented" due to "numerous appeals from the regional councils, the Council of Churches and other religious organizations".

In June 2018, the Justice Ministry confirmed that currently "there is no legal grounds" for same-sex marriage and civil partnerships in Ukraine.

In July 2022, a petition in Ukraine asking for the legalisation of same-sex marriage reached over 28,000 signatures, and all petitions in Ukraine that reach over 20,000 signatures automatically start the consideration of the President of Ukraine. On 2 August 2022, in response to the petition, Zelensky asked the Government of Ukraine to study legalising same-sex marriage, while also stating that there could be no action as long as the Russo-Ukrainian war continues, as the constitution cannot be changed in wartime, but that there remains a possibility of clarification of same-sex unions by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine or for legalization of same-sex partnerships. The war has spurred efforts to legalize same-sex marriage to ensure gay soldiers' partners are given the same rights and privileges afforded to those in legally recognised marriages, with activists pointing to the service of LGBT military personnel as having shifted attitudes towards LGBT people.

Adoption and parenting
Single people who are citizens of Ukraine, regardless of sexual orientation, are allowed to adopt, but same-sex couples are explicitly banned from adoption (Clause 211 of Family Code of Ukraine). The law also mentions that people "whose interests conflict with the interests of the child" may not be adopters, but whether this provision has ever been applied against gay adopters is unknown.

Additional restrictions are placed on foreign adopters. Only couples married in a registered different-sex marriage are allowed to adopt children from Ukraine.

However, lesbian couples are given more access to parenting than men, as IVF and assisted insemination treatments are legal.

Discrimination protections and hate crime laws
A law that (if enacted) would have barred employers from rejecting workers based on their sexual orientation was indefinitely postponed on 14 May 2013.

After having failed to gain enough votes on 5 and 9 November 2015, the Ukrainian Parliament approved an amendment to the Labor Code banning sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination at work on 12 November 2015. The law passed on 12 November 2015 was an EU requirement for Ukraine to move forward in its application for visa-free travel to the Schengen Area. Before the vote of the bill, Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Groysman strongly spoke out against same-sex marriage.

The Criminal Code of Ukraine contains a number of articles that provide for harsher penalties for crimes committed on the grounds of racial, national, or religious intolerance. Thus, although the concept of “hate crime” is currently absent in Ukrainian legislation, in practice, such a category of crimes is recognized, but only for the three above-mentioned motives. However, if a crime stems from intolerance towards an individual’s or group’s sexual orientation or gender identity, existing legislation does not stipulate heightened punishment, thus failing to classify it as a “hate crime.” In April 2020, a parliamentary draft aimed at amending the Ukrainian Criminal Code to address hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity was introduced. However, in September 2020, the draft was withdrawn from consideration following the Committee on Law Enforcement’s conclusion, citing the absence of terms such as “gender identity of a person,” “sexual orientation,” “intolerance towards gender identity,” and others within Ukrainian legislative texts.

In November 2016, the Ukrainian Parliament refused to back the Istanbul Convention, a European domestic violence treaty, because its references to sexual orientation and gender violated what many Ukrainian lawmakers said were basic Christian values. Ukrainian Council of Churches, too, opposed the ratification of the Istanbul convention citing “promotion of gender ideology,” which they claimed was threatening to the younger generations’ since it could “distort their sexual identity, popularize the same-sex relations, and spread gender dysphoria.” The Council of Churches did not change their opinion on the Istanbul Convention following the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022, and argued against its ratification, advocating for “alternative ways of combating domestic violence and violence against women.” Despite the opposition from religious groups, eleven years after signing the Istanbul Convention, Ukrainian Parliament voted to ratify the Convention in response to the surge of reports of violence against women since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale aggression. The adoption of the Treaty coincided with Ukraine’s EU membership bid, with some EU members indicating that ratifying the convention is a precondition for approving Ukraine’s candidacy status.

In December 2022, the Ukrainian Parliament unanimously passed a bill that banned hate speech and discrimination against LGBT people in mass media. The provision was included in the media regulation bill, which was one of the main requirements for approval of Ukraine’s EU candidacy status. The bill aimed to align Ukrainian legislation with the EU's Audiovisual Media Services Directive (Directive (EU) 2018/1808).

Gender identity and expression
Transsexuality is classified as a psychiatric disorder in Ukraine. Sex reassignment surgery is legal, but it is only permissible for those over the age of 25 years.

In 2011, the Ukrainian Civil Code was amended to allow transgender people who have undergone gender affirming surgery to change their name to better reflect their gender identity. In 2014, seven people had undergone sex reassignment surgery, and five people received new documentation.

Since December 2016, new identity documents are issued before surgery is conducted. This followed an August 2016 ruling which ordered changes requested by two transgender people to their passports and all other documents without requiring them to undergo surgery. Transsexual individuals who are married or have an underage child can also apply for transition. Previously, all applicants needed permission from a special commission of the Ministry of Healthcare, had to spend 30 days in a psychiatric hospital (usually placed in the same wards with patients considered "mentally ill"), and needed to be "diagnosed with transsexuality"; this is no longer required.

Military service
All able-bodied male citizens from ages 20–27, must serve either 18 months in the navy or one year in all other services. After serving out the term of service Ukraine's conscripts become part of the inactive reserve and are eligible to be recalled for mobilization until they reach age 55 or age 60 for officers.

According to law, homosexuality is not a reason for exemption from the army. However, many young gay men try to avoid call-up to military service, as they are afraid to face unauthorized relations and other difficulties. In 2018, Viktor Pylypenko, who had served in the Donbass area for two years during the Russia–Ukraine war, became the first Ukrainian soldier to come out publicly. In 2019, several gay soldiers in the Ukrainian army participated in a photo exhibition called "We are here". In 2021, Pylypenko was trying to organize a special unit in the Ukrainian army for LGBT soldiers. In July 2021, Pylypenko stated there were 16 open LGBT soldiers in the Ukrainian army.

The 2022 Russian invasion resulted in an increased influx of openness and acceptance regarding LGBTQ soldiers in the Ukrainian military. A growing number of soldiers disclosed their identity, believing that they could fight not just for their home country but also against existing stereotypes. The invasion also saw the spread of "unicorn insignia" which Ukrainian LGBTQ soldiers sew onto their uniforms. The unicorn was chosen due to its nature as "fantastic 'non-existent' creature", sarcastically countering claims about there being no LGBT+ individuals in the Ukrainian military.

Blood donation
In April 2016, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health enacted new regulations governing blood donation, allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood. Previously, the Ministry of Health listed homosexuality as a "risky behaviour" for which donors could not give blood.

Society
"'I knew one 19-year-old guy who accidentally left his laptop lying around his house and his parents saw messages he sent to his boyfriend. For over a year they didn't let him go out of the house to work or study, they just kept him inside for fear of shame. And that's a familiar story in Ukraine.'" Sexual orientations and gender identity remain taboo subjects in Ukraine. Most Ukrainians affiliated with the Orthodox or Catholic Church tend to view homosexuality and non-traditional gender roles as signs of immorality. Prior to the 25 May 2013 Kyiv pride parade, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate, Patriarch Filaret, stated that people supporting LGBT rights would be cursed, and Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church denounced homosexuality as a sin tantamount to manslaughter.

Beyond the traditional religious teachings, most Ukrainians grew up with little, if any, comprehensive, fact-based public education about human sexuality in general, let alone sexual orientation and gender identity. The lack of sex education promotes the view of homosexuals as a dangerous social group and as a source of sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.

During the Soviet era, non-heterosexual sexual relations were labelled as abnormal. Some remnants of the Soviet mentality, which sees sexual topics as taboo and even denies their existence, still exist today.

In 2011, there were frequent reports of harassment, even violence directed at LGBT people in Ukraine. Many LGBT people in Ukraine reported feeling the need to lie about their true sexual orientation or gender identity in order to avoid being a target for discrimination or violent harassment. Hate crimes against the LGBT community are frequently reported on in the international press and, while such violence is not legal in Ukraine, there is a perception by Ukrainians and globally that such violence is frequently tolerated by the Government. The Ukrainian police hardly ever detain attackers. The prevailing intolerance and threats of violence pressure many LGBT people to remain in the closet, especially if they are public figures who feel that their career as a politician or celebrity would end if people knew that they are part of the LGBT community. While prevailing public attitudes are intolerant, the Ukrainian LGBT community has gradually become more visible and more organized politically since 1991. The issue of LGBT rights in Ukraine has been publicly debated much more, largely as the result of the actions of right-wing nationalists and social conservatives to classify any positive depictions of LGBT people or LGBT rights as being pornographic.

One of the major movements in opposition to LGBT rights in Ukraine is the "ex-gay" movement which believes that lesbian, gay, or bisexual sexual orientations, as well as transgender identities, can be "cured" through therapeutic or religious programs. The largest of these groups in Ukraine is Love Against Homosexuality, who believe that LGBT people are "sexual perverts" who need to be cured.

Freedom of expression and censorship
In 1999, the former President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, stated that there are more important issues than LGBT rights to discuss in Parliament and that homosexuality is caused by a mental illness or the corrupting influence of foreign films.

In 2007, the leader of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights called gay men "perverts" who must be stopped. Other MPs, namely Communist MP Leonid Grach, have listed homosexuality and lesbianism as evils the state must stop.

A draft law that would make it illegal to talk about homosexuality in public and in the media and to import, distribute, and broadcast video, photo, and audio products that "encourages homosexuality" (with penalties of up to five years in prison and fines for up to ₴5,000 (US$616)) was passed in first reading in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) on 2 October 2012. An estimated 20 community activists representing several organizations protested outside of the Verkhovna Rada building during the vote. On 4 October 2012, a second vote was tentatively scheduled for 16 October. This law was deemed homophobic by the LGBT community and human rights organisations and condemned by Amnesty International, the European Union, and the United Nations. The Venice Commission concluded in June 2013 that the bill was "incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and international human rights standards". In January 2015, the bill was removed from the agenda.

A petition was subsequently started by anti-gay groups, calling for "measures to be taken to stop the propaganda of homosexuality and for defending family values". In March 2018, Ukraine's Anti-Discrimination Ombudsperson removed the petition from the electronic petitions section. By then, the petition had received 23,000 signatures and support from various religious organisations. The Ombudsman described the petition as "anti-freedom", and deleted it due to "containing calls to restrict human rights".

Living conditions
In 1998, the first LGBT rights group was created. Our World (Наш світ) is an LGBT community center and human rights advocacy organization. In 2008, Ukrainian LGBT rights organizations came together to create a coalition, the Union of Gay Organizations of Ukraine (Рада ЛГБТ-організацій України). The Gay Alliance of Ukraine (Гей-альянс Україна) was founded in 2009.

2003 to 2015
In September 2003, the first, albeit small, public pride parade was held in Kyiv.

In May 2008, Ukrainian LGBT groups were prevented from marking the International Day Against Homophobia after a last-minute intervention by authorities who told organisers that due to the likelihood of friction the events would have to be canceled. Roman Catholics, Evangelic Christians, Seventh-day Adventists, Eparchy of Christianity and Baptist and the Union of Independent Orthodox churches had asked local authorities to forbid any action by representatives of sexual minorities.

A May 2012, a Kyiv gay pride parade was cancelled by its participants because they feared for their safety. Two gay rights activists were beaten up and tear-gassed by a group of youths after pride goers were evacuated by police escort.

On 23 May 2013, a Ukrainian court satisfied a petition by Kyiv city authorities to ban the holding of any events, other than those envisaged by the program for the celebration of Kyiv Day (in the central part of the city); in doing so it de facto banned the gay pride parade in Kyiv that was planned for 25 May. The pride event was then changed to "a private event outside of the central part of Kyiv". On this day on a narrow pathway near Pushkin Park and Shuliavska metro station, about 50 people gathered and marched. Among them, at least 10 were from Munich (Germany), including Vice Mayor Hep Monatzeder, and some were from Sweden. They marched under the protection of 1,500 policemen, 13 of the about 100 anti-gay protesters were arrested and no physical violence occurred. After one hour, the protesters who took part in the parade were evacuated from the area. In an attempt to avoid revenge attacks, they then changed their clothes and switched modes of transport multiple times.

A procession organised by gay rights activists took place in central Kyiv on 11 January 2014; amidst the Euromaidan-protests.

The Kyiv gay pride parade was again cancelled on 5 July 2014 after the police failed to guarantee its protection. It would have been a small, closed march several kilometers outside Kyiv. The Love Against Homosexuality movement demanded its cancellation. On 7 July 2014, Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko had asked to cancel the pride, "I think that currently, when battle actions take place and many people die, holding entertainment events does not match the situation existing. And I am urging all these people not to do this. I think that this will be wrong amid these circumstances". The "battle actions" Klitschko referred to was the post-ceasefire government offensive of the War in Donbass.

2015 to 2022
On 6 June 2015, Ukraine's second pride parade was held in Kyiv. The march was finished in less than half an hour. The number of police protection far outnumbered the pride participants. The venue for the march was only disclosed to the march's participants that had registered on its website. During the march, five policemen were injured in scuffles after unidentified people had attacked the rally with smoke bombs and stones. One police officer was admitted to intensive care. 25 anti-gay activists were arrested. Members of Parliament Svitlana Zalishchuk and Serhiy Leshchenko attended the march along with the Swedish Ambassador to Ukraine, Andreas von Beckerath, and other foreign diplomats. The organizers urged the pride participants to disperse in small groups and not to use the Kyiv Metro. On 4 June 2015, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko had, as in the previous year, asked to cancel the pride citing "danger of provocations". On the other hand, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stated on 5 June 2015 that there was no reason to prevent the march.

On 12 June 2016, Ukraine's third pride parade, dubbed the Equality March, was held in Kyiv without incidents. The march of 1,500 people lasted about half an hour and was guarded by more than 5,500 police officers and 1,200 members of the National Guard. 57 people were detained for aggressive behaviour.

On 13 August 2016, an LGBT Equality March was held in Odesa. The march of 50 people lasted about half an hour and was guarded by more than 700 police officers. Twenty men, who were trying to break through to the event, were detained.

In May 2017, LGBT activists organised a rally in the city of Kharkiv. Thirty people attacked the participants and police officers, injuring two.

On 18 June 2017, Kyiv's fourth pride parade, again dubbed Equality March, was held in the city without major incidents with 6 people detained for trying to breach the security cordon.

On 17 June 2018, Kyiv's fifth pride parade was held in the city centre. It lasted less than one hour and was, according to Kyiv police attended by 3,500 people, while the organizers said there were at least 5,000 participants. No serious incidents occurred during the march. Clashes did break out when 150 far-right protesters who tried to block off the route were dispersed by riot police. 57 protesters were detained.

In June 2019, an estimated 8,000 people marched at the Kyiv Pride parade, among them politicians and foreign diplomats. The event was peaceful. Police foiled a plot to throw condoms filled with human excrement at marchers. President Volodymyr Zelensky, who took office in May 2019, urged the police to prevent violence and safeguard the safety of the participants.

In August 2019, about 300 people took part in the LGBT Equality March in Odesa. A number of diplomatic missions took part, as well as guests from Canada, Germany, the United States and other countries. Some small clashes were reported. The marchers were protected by 500 police officers, who arrested three people for minor hooliganism.

In September 2019, an estimated 2,000 people participated in Kharkiv's first pride march. The march went forward despite Mayor Hennadiy Kernes threatening to file legal action against the organizers. At the end of the march, clashes between the police and anti-pride march right-wing demonstrators saw two police agents being treated for pepper spray-related injuries. After the march ended, far-right counter demonstrators gathered in Shevchenko park hoping to attack LGBT activists attempting to leave on foot. One march participant had to be rescued by a press photographer.

On 30 August 2020, an LGBT Equality March in Odesa ended in a fight between members of the LGBT community and opponents of the march. Sixteen people were detained and two police officers were injured. A 13 September 2020 "AutoPride rally" in Kharkiv passed without incidents. In Zaporizhzhia a pride parade was held on 20 September 2020 on the city's Festival Square; although pride goers were harassed by anti-LGBT activists, no injuries were reported. There were twice as many pride opponents as there were pride goers (reportedly 500 people).

On 22 May 2021 a Trans-March, organised by Insight and partners KyivPride and Cohort, took place in Kyiv. The march was attended by about 150 participants, protected by 400 police officers and there was a counter-demonstration with approximately 200 opponents. During the march, several people tried to attack the marchers, but the police quickly prevented that.

On 29 August 2021 violent clashes broke out between police and the far-right nationalist group Tradition and Order during an LGBT Equality March in Odesa. 29 law enforcement officers were injured, mostly from reactions to tear gas, and 51 members of Tradition and Order were arrested.

On 12 September 2021 an LGBT Equality March, organised by KharkivPride, took place in Kharkiv. According to KharkivPride, up to 3,000 people took part in the march.

The KyivPride-2021 Equality March took place in Kyiv on 19 September 2021 with between 5,000 and 7,000 participants. Several hundred activists opposing the march held their own rally, no clashes between the two sides took place. The KyivPride-2021 Equality March was attended by the Ambassador of Sweden to Ukraine Tobias Thyberg, MP of the Voice faction Inna Sovsun and deputy of the Kyiv City Council from the Servant of the People party faction Yevhenia Kuleba.

Since the 2022 Russian invasion
Due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine causing many Ukrainians to flee the country and Russian aerial bombing campaigns, KyivPride 2022 was held in Warsaw, Poland, in a combined event with the city's Equality Parade on June 25. In addition to LGBT rights, the march also focused on supporting Ukraine and calling for peace.

The first Kyiv Pride march in Ukraine itself since the 2022 Russian invasion took place on 16 June 2024 in Kyiv. About 500 participants joined. Due to safety concerns only 500 people were allowed to attend. The tightly policed march was stopped by Ukrainian police after travelling only a few metres due to safety fears. The police had warned that radical, anti-LGBTQ+ groups had also organised gatherings in the city. Due to the possibility of these threats and the frequent missile strikes on Kyiv by the Russian Armed Forces the event was held close to a metro station for shelter in the event of an air raid warning.

Attacks on the LGBT community
On 22 June 2012, a man approached LGBT activist Taras Karasiichuk saying, "Are you a fag?" and then kicked him in the head and jaw. Human Rights Watch said authorities should treat the incident as a hate crime.

An Amnesty International expert on Ukraine stated in 2013 that "people have been beaten and in one case murdered because of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Most of these crimes have not been properly investigated and have gone unpunished."

On 6 July 2014, a group of 15-20 neo-Nazis mounted an attack against the gay club "Pomada" (Lipstick) in Kyiv. The attackers wore camouflage and balaclava (ski masks) and threw a smoke grenade and firecrackers.

On 29 October 2014, Kyiv's oldest movie theater, Zhovten, caught fire when a smoke grenade was thrown into it during the screening of the French film Summer Nights, which was shown as part of an LGBT program at the Molodist Film Festival. None of the roughly hundred people attending were injured. Police arrested two suspects, one of whom said that the intent was not to burn the building down, but to make a protest against films with an LGBT theme.

Oleksandr Zinchenko, an Our World representative, stated on 3 June 2015 that 40 hate crimes had been committed against LGBT people in 2014 and that about 10 such crimes had already happened in 2015.

Persecution in Russian-occupied territory
LGBT people have faced active persecution in the parts of the country under Russian occupation since 2014.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals have complained about an increase of attacks in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in Eastern Ukraine. On 8 June 2014, ten armed people attacked the gay club Babylon in the city of Donetsk. They fired blank cartridges into the air for intimidation and declared that there should not be gay clubs in the city, after which they robbed the visitors. In 2015, the Deputy Minister for Political Affairs of the Donetsk People's Republic stated: "A culture of homosexuality is spreading… This is why we must kill anyone who is involved in this." Many volunteers who took in refugees from territories controlled by the Donetsk People's Republic refused to host LGBT people.

In July 2015, the head of the Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, said he respected Ukraine's far-right party Right Sector "when they beat up the gays in Kyiv and when they tried to depose Poroshenko".

Public opinion
In a 2007 country-wide survey by the Institute of Sociology, 16.7% disagreed strongly and 17.6% disagreed with the following statement: Gay men and lesbians should be free to live their own life as they wish. Only 30.2% agreed strongly and agreed with the statement. That was the lowest rating of agreed strongly and agreed with the statement of 24 countries investigated.

In a December 2007 survey by Angus Reid Global Monitor, 81.3% of Ukrainians polled said that homosexual relations were "never acceptable", 13% answered "sometimes acceptable" and 5.7% "acceptable". Of all the behaviors listed, homosexuality was viewed as the third worst after shoplifting and drunk driving. Notably, more people viewed this as never acceptable than adultery (61.5% never, 29.3% sometimes), traffic rule violation (70.2% never, 25.6% sometimes), pollution (73.3% never, 22.4% sometimes), tax evasion (48.5% never, 37.5% sometimes), deception for the sake of profit (48.3% never, 41.6% sometimes), as well as a list of other things including abortion, premarital sex, complaining to authorities about a friend who has stolen something, etc.

In another Angus Reid Global Monitor survey, this one in June 2007, on a long list of possible social reforms in the country, legalization of same-sex marriage only received 4.7% of the vote, the lowest by far (the next lowest being light drugs, at 7.1%).

A December 2010 Gorshenin Institute poll stated that the "Ukrainian attitude to sexual minorities" was "entirely negative" for 57.5%, "rather negative" for 14.5%, "rather positive" for 10% and "quite positive" for 3%.

A May 2013 poll by GfK Ukraine found that 4.6% of respondents were in favour of same-sex marriage and 16% supported other forms of recognition, while 79.4% were opposed to any form of recognition.

A summer 2015 survey by the British Council revealed that one in five of Ukrainian youth would be uncomfortable with having lesbian and gay people as friends.

According to a 2015–16 survey by the Pew Research Center, 86% of Ukrainian respondents believed that homosexuality should not be accepted by society.

In May 2016 in a survey by Nash Svit Center, conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, only 3,3% of respondents claimed to be positive about LGBT people in general, while 60,4% were negative and 30,7% were indifferent. When asked about equal rights, 33,4% agreed that LGBT members should have the same rights as others, while 45,2% disagreed and 21,3% could not or did not want to answer.

On 25 September 2016, European scientific studies detected that Ukrainians displayed higher levels of homophobia than Albanians and Italians, confirming the central role of cultural differences in homophobic attitudes.

A Pew Research Center poll published in May 2017 suggested that 9% of Ukrainians were in favor of same-sex marriage, while 85% opposed it. According to the poll, younger people were more likely than their elders to favor legal same-sex marriage (11% vs. 7%).

According to a 2017 poll carried out by ILGA, 56% of Ukrainians agreed that gay, lesbian and bisexual people should enjoy the same rights as straight people, while 21% disagreed. Additionally, 59% agreed that they should be protected from workplace discrimination. 20% of Ukrainians, however, said that people who are in same-sex relationships should be charged as criminals, while 55% disagreed. As for transgender people, 60% agreed that they should have the same rights, 58% believed they should be protected from employment discrimination and a plurality of 43% believed they should be allowed to change their legal gender.

In May 2022 in a survey by Nash Svit Center, also conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 12.8% of respondents claimed to be positive about LGBT people in general, while 38.2% were negative and 44.8% indifferent. When asked about equal rights, 63.7% agreed that LGBT members should have equal rights, while 25.9% disagreed and 10.4% could not or did not want to answer. Nash Svit Center believes that acceptance of LGBT people in Ukraine has "Dramatically improved" compared to results from their similar survey from 2016. It might have been a result of Russian invasion, carried out under the slogans of defending traditional values and fighting gay parades.

One study suggests that the norms of male prisons, which evolved as means of self-regulation in numerous post-Soviet nations, contribute to anti-gay sentiments. This is attributed to the significant portion of individuals who experienced the Soviet Union's penitentiary system.

According to a poll conducted in January 2023 by the National Democratic Institute with the help of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 56% of Ukrainians agreed that same-sex couples should have the right to register their relationship in the form of a civil partnership, while 24% disagreed. 44% supported same-sex marriage, 36% were against it. 30% supported the adoption of children by same-sex couples, 48% were against. The role of LGBT community members in the Ukrainian military following the 2022 Russian invasion has been credited with shifting public attitudes toward same-sex partnerships in Ukraine.

In a June 2024 survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology when asked if LGBTQ people should have the same civil liberties and constitutional rights as all Ukrainians 70% of respondents said "yes." People polled were asked if they would support a (at the time not existing) possibility for LGBTQ couples) legal civil partnership for LGBTQ couples (minus the ability to adopt); 28.7% of respondents said "yes", while 35.7% said "no" and 25.6% stated "indifference." The poll also inquired about the attitudes (of those polled) toward LGBTQ people; 47.3% stated "indifference" and 32.1% stated "negative."  The pollster concluded that the support for LGBTQ rights in Ukraine continued to improve, and that the younger demographic and women were generaly more positive about LGBTQ issues.

title: LGBT rights in Ukraine


text:
Talk:Joint railway

The word "competing" is not quite correct: all the railways competed, but in the case of joint railways they worked together! I have also added a list of the more important railways operated as such. "Category": note spelling! Peter Shearan 12:44, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Joint railway


text:
User talk:Aulus Gellius

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! - UtherSRG 12:45, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
 * How to edit a page
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 * If you're ready for the complete list of Wikipedia documentation, there's also Topical index.

title: User talk:Aulus Gellius


text:
Shitkatapult

Shitkatapult is a German record label which focuses on electronic music, spanning both IDM and techno. The label was founded by Marco Haas (T. Raumschmiere) and Marcus Stotz in 1998, and is now run by Haas and Sascha Ring (Apparat).

Besides the work of T. Raumschmiere and Apparat, Shitkatapult has released music by Anders Ilar, Håkan Lidbo, Das Bierbeben and Fenin amongst others.

title: Shitkatapult


text:
Talk:List of bagpipers

Untitled
I removed "Fred Maynard upton ma". Never heard or him. The bagpipers listed must have released a solo album or have a massive reputation. Ogg 12:46, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Wayne Tonna, San Gwann, Malta". I am perplexed by this empty link. As far as I can tell, San Gwanna, Malta, is a location, not a person's name. Also I can find no trace of any person called "Wayne Tonna". I will delete this line within a couple of weeks, enless someone comes forward with convincing evidence of any such bagpiper. Ogg 15:10, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I thik this page woud be more interesting if it was annotated instead of just being a list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Columbiarun4me (talk • contribs) 03:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Clean up
I have googled every name on the list. Sean Fulsom appears twice, but this appears to be justified by the number of instruments he plays. I found a few photographs of Jonathan Davis, and on every one he is playing the Higland pipes, not the Northumbrian pipes, so I have re-located him. Goran Hallmarken (hurdy-gurdy player) and Olov Johansson (fiddle player)are genuine musicians, but they don't play bagpipes, as far as I can detect, so I have deleted them. I have been unable to locate anyone called Wayne Tonna, so I have deleted that line.

The following appear to non-notable players, so I have deleted them:

 * Adam Tianello
 * Keaton Doig

Several other lines were badly formatted, so I have tidied them up. Ogg 12:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

In keeping with other discussion on this talk page, I've tracked down this website's URL...

http://www.bagpipejourney.com/articles/whoswho.shtml

As *notable* Highland bagpipers go, this one appears to be a pretty well put together list already that at very least can be used to check this one against. ManOnPipes

PS -- Just went through the Highland bagpiper list and removed a number of names; noted in the edits-history are a number of these removals of folks 'not known anywhere', which is not totally correct, some of them aren't known anywhere I can find while others do not seem to be adequatly known to be included in this list ... which is why you don't find myself in this list, but here's to hopin' someday! ManOnPipes

Object of this page
What exactly is the point of this page? It strikes me that this should be changed to a category page and the pipers (if there is sufficient interest) should be given their own articles. I don't understand the point of an article consisting of a list of names. MatthewLiberal 02:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I created this article on 26th April 2005, when the category "Bagpipe players" didn't exist. Now that the three categories "Bagpipe players", "Irish uilleann pipers" and "Spanish bapgipe players" exist, this page is redundant, since all players who are worthy of an article, will have one of those categories. On the other hand, if such trivia as "List of songs about disasters" and "List of songs containing overt references to real musicians" and "List of songs whose title includes geographical names" are allowed to exist, why not this one? Ogg 18:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I've just gone through the list of Highland pipers -- made some corrections/additions -- I'm a Highland bagpiper and only 1/2-versed in the community of my instrument, and it seems the list is comprised of a few notable pipers and a bunch of unknowns (I may as well add my name, speaking of unknowns). It seems to me that the overall list should be retitled to "List of Famous Bagpipers" (famous, notable, etc), then sectioned off by the type of bagpipe followed by the lists of pipers pertaining to that kind of pipe -- basically the same as it currently is, but just listing noted pipers. Otherwise these lists could go on for ever, mostly being nobodys -- I'm not suggesting a popularity contest ... but if you take golf for example, Tiger Woods is a famous & noteworthy player and yes he is a golfer, and your neighbor's friend's uncle down the street plays and is therefor a golfer but isn't famous or noteworthy, if you had a list of golfers what purpose would it serve to have said unknown-golfer-guy on a list of golfers? I suggest its time to consider updating it to a list with a more worthy purpose. ManOnPipes

I agree. That means deleting every red link, then carefully re-assessing the red links to decide which ones should be put back in - a time-consuming task. Do you really want to take on all that work? Ogg 10:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay... I just took the initiative that no one else yet has had and changed this to being "List of famous bagpipers by types of bagpipes in alphabetical order." in the description line. If I could change the "List of bagpipers" title too, I would -- maybe the coffee was particularly strong this morning, but I'm feelin' the gumption and it feels good. If someone else knows how to change the title to fit with the description, I say PLEASE DO IT!

Now that I have done this, the section "Bands with bagpipes in them" seems drastically out of place, let alone lacking detail. This section ought to be moved -- IMO -- to the page List of nontraditional bagpipe usage and given a line in the "See Also" section at the bottom of this page. (just changed the name to "Famous bands with nontraditional use of bagpipes" so its at least more-accurate for the time being)

The section now titled "Miscellaneous other famous bagpipers" to me looks like a mess -- chiefly because of all the names with no links (those in red). In fact, that coffee was strong enough -- I'm also taking out those red names... so there! If someone wants to re-add them once they have their own Wiki-articles, I say go for it -- but if the person named play pipes that fit with above sections, THEN MOVE THEM PLEASE.

Finally! ManOnPipes (talk) 20:09, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

John Bottomley, Michael Dalton, Michael Kenny, Gordon Campbell, Doug MacRae, Jimmy Mitchell, Partick Regan, and Lyric Todkill are not notable pipers. How about adding a few real notable pipers, such as Alasdair Gillies or Willie McCallum? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.51.135 (talk) 14:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:List of bagpipers


text:
Talk:Bruno Latour

Deletion
whoever keeps removing the reference to latour - he is an anthropologist! not a sociologist. naturally, there are a lot of idios who claim the latter, and these idiots are often found in good referenceable newspapers, however, it doesn't change the fact that latour's method is the paradigm of anthropology - in depth fieldwork. the making of law, his new book, proclaims itself to be anthropology and is quite blatantly so. we must accept the sociology tag for that is what ignorant people wish to call him, however, do not remove the fact he is an anthropologist first and foremost. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.106.174 (talk) 20:58, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Is Bruno Latour from a wealthy or privileged background? I would like to know for one) to have some context of his opinion and 2) discern and use information about his to develop a further sense of who, how and why certain people contribute to the human debate and who, how and why others do not, or maybe do it differently. In either case, knowing his personal background and upbringing explains whether he is educated, how well, how much idol time he might have had to think when growing up (unless us middle class folks who had to work, learn, think and repeat the cycle), etc. Is he from the Latour estate wine family? Is he part of the aristocracy? Is he an exception, that has arisen out of poverty?

Stevenmitchell 03:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * what inference could you make from that information? --Buridan 12:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Criticism
The criticism you want, I think, is from Epistemological Chicken by Collins and Yearly in Pickering, A. (1992). Science as practice and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. It has to do with the agency of non-human objects.

Also the criticism of Schaffer, 1991.

Sokal and Bricmont

RE: "their critics were most particularly directed against the concept of Strong Programme". I do not believe that Sokal's criticism was directed at the 'strong programme'. At no point does he or Bricmont refer to Barry Barnes, David Bloor or John Henry, or anything else that derives from the Edinburgh school of Science and Technology Studies. A closer reading of Sokal would show that he is actually critical of relativism, nominalism, constructivism, and in particular postmodernism - therefore not the 'strong programme'. If anybody would like to disagree with this I am happy to discuss the matter further when i have the time. --CJ 12:47, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Sokals attack is on postmodernism, literary theory and cultural studies. Though, much of the following debate is within science studies. A very interesting debate actually. Christopher Kullenberg 20:20, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Right. The authors of SSK (Bloor, Barnes,..) are as much positivists as Sokal : to them Science tells something about the world, which is not the case of Latour : To him scientists represent Nature. Sokal has quite weak criticisms (in fact he doesn't understand latour's point at all), but the debate between Bloor and Latour is truely great ("Anti-Latour" by Bloor, "For David Bloor and Beyond" by Latour, "A Reply To Bruno Latour" by Bloor).

After Re-reading, this page is totally wrong : Pasteurization of France is everything BUT a biography of Pasteur! In the whole first part Latour describes "what and who made and translated Pasteur" to avoid giving the first place to somzthing like "the genius of Pasteur", "or the ideas of Pasteur" which he considers as nonsense. Latour has a very complex reflexion : it's not society that "explain" sciences nor the opposite. They're both simultenaously constructed : The discovery of microbs IS a sociological idea and construction.

You are right. The Pasteurization of France needs to be rewritten. I havent read it though, but it is on my "to-read-list". You are absolutely right about Pasteur and the microbes. I added the section "Science in Action" since I am reading the book right now. It will be completed as I go along reading. Since I am not a native english speaker, I would be happy if someone looked over the spelling. Christopher Kullenberg 15:53, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

In response to the above, Sokal and Bricmont do explicitly attack the strong programme at some length, in particular in their "Science and Sociology of Science: Beyond War and Peace" in The One Culture?: A Conversation about Science (University of Chicago Press, 2001) (PDF). --Delirium 22:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Sokal and Bricmont also have a very critical chapter about the strong programme in their book Fashionable_Nonsense. This criticism is directly followed by the chapter about Latour. --J Beckman 17:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It is ridiculous to state that Sokal and Bricmont are attacking postmodernism, literary theory and cultural studies. They are attacking wooly thinking, linguistic obscurity disguised as profundity, and above all the misuse of scientific concepts to advance some notions of relativism which simply demonstrate the weakness (or, to state my own POV, utter banality) of Latour's (and other's) pronouncements.Cross Reference 05:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

He's received a lot of it, obviously a section needs to be created. Sokal should be featured in it, as should Olga Amsterdamska. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0162-2439%28199023%2915%3A4%3C495%3ASYAJML%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F --RedHouse18 02:18, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

'''Someone (preferably an articulate historian of science, which leaves me out) should start writing a Criticism section in the main article ASAP. The general public needs to know that many of Latour's peers think he's all smoke and mirrors. 70.111.85.72 (talk) 2Frann89 18:58, 3 May 2008 (UTC)'''

 * I hope that the critizism-section will not put too much weight on the Sokal Bricmont critizism. As stated before here, their specific critizism of Latour is pretty poor, based probably in a lack of understanding (see eg Callon's "Whose imposture") of his work, and also their work is also more of a polemic in general (though I agree with many of their key points). I think, like the previous speaker argues that we should focus on critizism from his peers, meaning people with the knowledge and interest in his field. Note that Sokal and Bricmont explicitly state a lack of interest in the content of the research they criticise. Also: I do not mean that S&B are not relevant. They should be mentioned. But I know there are a lot of S&B fans out there in the internet-world, and I have a hunch that it will quickly gain undue prominence. pertn (talk) 18:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

 * I concur on RedHouse18's recommendation that Olga Amsterdamska's "Surely you're joking, Mr. Latour" is worthy of note here (review of Science in Action)--a quote from her intro would be nice. Another critic of Latour is John Searle, e.g., he makes passing criticism of one of Latour's more extreme claims in his review of Paul Boghossian's Fear of Knowledge, which some blogger has reposted at http://koneill41.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/12/searle-and-relativism.html Lippard (talk) 01:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

'''Unless you're in academia, it's impossible to access both positive and negative reviews of Latour's works, because the average person can only visit his publishers' sites (e.g., Harvard Univ. Press) without ponying up a fee--unsurprisingly, they display nothing but glowing reviews. The sites that contain unfavorable reviews (e.g., MUSE), require a fee or association with a heavyweight library.'''... 2Frann89 (talk) 18:04, 12 February 2011 (UTC)2Frann892Frann89 (talk) 16:15, 3 September 2012 (UTC)2Frann89

I'm pretty sure that Latour is intended as a kind of performance art directed at creating a philosophy that is maximally intellectually incapacitating to anyone who takes it seriously. As such I'm not sure a conventional "criticism" section would be appropriate, since he would seem to have achieved that objective  — Aldaron • T/C 12:34, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Reference
Regarding the reference:

Latour Bruno 1992. "Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts." Pp. 225-258 in Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, edited by W. E. & Law Bijker, J. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Shouldn't the authors of the volume be W.E. Bijker & J. Law? Wijnand

 * Correct, well noticed Wijnand. When you observe such glaring mistakes you should be bold and make the necessary changes.--Nicholas 13:20, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure about that. Making a reference to an article in a book that contains several articles one should make the reference to the authors and not the editors. But I guess that varies along different systems and practices... Christopher Kullenberg 21:42, 12 November 2005 (UTC)]

 * Of course, the author was indeed referenced. The problem identified by Wijnand, as I understood it, was that the editors had been referenced wrongly. For some reason, it said "W.E. & Law Bijker, J." ..... which makes no sense, it should havesaid: "W.E. Bijker & J. Law". --Nicholas 15:28, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

 * True, my mistake. I did not read properly but misunderstood Christopher Kullenberg]

Latour falsely described social constructionist
I was a bit dismayed to come across this page and see Latour described as a "social constructionist" in the first paragraph; I believe this is misleading, and it ignores the pains Latour has taken to distinguish his form of "constructionism" from a "social" constructionism. Tonight I only had time to make a change to the first paragraph, but I believe many more changes are needed. At this point, the article fails to take into account recent developments in Latour's thought, best reflected in _Pandora's Hope_, _The Politics of Nature_, and _Reassembling the Social_. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Holi0023 (talk • contribs)

 * Yes, I think this page is somewhat misleading as it stands, though I'm sufficiently knowledgeable to change it. Latour doesn't, currently at least, promote the view that science is wholly socially constructed, and David Bloor for one has attacked Latour for allowing for an influence from the natural world into the sociology of scientific knowledge. It might be fairly said that he used be either a social cosntructionist or at least something very similar prior to the 1990s. --Delirium 22:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I think you are mistaken, you can clearly see Latour distance himself from social constructionism already in Science in Action. I don't think the epistemological basis of Latour's work has altered since the late 70s. Aleksi Knuutila 22:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Latour is social constructivist in its most radical form. In his 1986 publication written with Steve Woolgar, Labratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts, Latour and Woogar writes:

Our argument is not just that facts are socially constructed. We also wish to show that the process of construction involves the use of certain devices whereby all traces of production are made extremely difficult to detect.
 * Latour is clearly in agreement with social constructivists that facts are socially constructed. And he even goes one step further to suggest that scientists not only construct facts, but fabricate these facts as though they represent the mind-independent world directly. This is one of the most cynical caricatures of science. --Stampit (talk) 05:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but that's wrong. His epistemological stance is that reality and the instruments/arrangements by which we percieve it is indistinguisable. Hence, you can't really distinguish the experiment, and the social reality it is performed within, from what it discovers of reality. That does not imply that Latour (the late, at least) claims that scientific facts are made up randomly. Check out the "do you believe in reality?" chapter in Pandora's pertn (talk) 12:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hello, Pertn. Would you point out where you think I am wrong? I am not exactly sure where I disagree with you from what you wrote. Stampit (talk) 01:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi. Maybe i misunderstood you. I would not say that Latour goes further than social constructivists. (note also that he changed the sub-heading of the 2. ed of Laboratory life from "The social construction of scientific facts" to "The construction of scientific facts" to distance himself from social constructivism. Where I think you are wrong is if you see him as a radical social constructivist seeing the construction as cynical fabrication. Rather I would see describe his argument as regarding the "construction" as a neccesity for science to percieve anything at all. I am sorry if I misinterpreted what you wrote. If you agree with me, then of course you are not wrong!pertn (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * To quote the man (Pandora's Hope, 197):
 * "It is a commonplace in critical theory to say that techniques are social because they are socially constructed -- yes, I know, I also used that term once, but that was twenty years ago and I recanted it immediately, since I meant something entirely different from what sociologists and their adversaries mean by social. The notion of a social mediation is vacuous if the meanings of 'mediation' and 'social' are not made precise. To say that social relations are 'reified' in technology, such that when we are confronted with an artifact we are confronted, in effect, with social relations, is to assert a tautology, and a very implausible one at that. If artifacts are nothing but social relations, why must society work through them to inscribe itself in something else? Why not inscribe itself directly, since the artifacts count for nothing? Because, critical theorists continue, through the medium of artifacts, domination and exclusion hide themselves under the guise of natural and objective forces. Critical theory thus deploys a tautology -- social relations are nothing but social relations -- to which it adds a conspiracy theory: Society is hiding behind the fetish of techniques."
 * Considering all social constructivists say could be summarized as everything is text seems to suggest that Latour does in fact differ from them quite a bit.boombaard (talk) 18:53, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Latour falsely called a sociologist
In fact, Latour was very critical of SSS. I think he's actually an anthropologist, no? (I have no argument that his work has contributed a great deal to SSS)

 * Latour is a past President of Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).Untalker (talk) 05:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Tubercholosis quote
User:Languagehat, I propose you put this..

 * An example of his social constructivist approach is his reaction to research showing that the pharaoh Ramses II probably died of tuberculosis: "How could he pass away due to a bacillus discovered by Koch in 1882? ... Before Koch, the bacillus has no real existence." He says that it is as much of an anachronism as it would be to claim that the pharaoh died of machine-gun fire.

..under a criticism section. I do not know the source you are using, but I propose you start the paragraph something like this: "The social constructivism of Latour's early works has been criticized by XX.... " and then include their argument of which this example is a part. We the WP users sadly aren't supposed to prove our own points by providing examples. I like Latour myself, but I think this entry needs a criticism section. pertn (talk) 20:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not understand your point or why the quote was removed. It was provided with a verifiable citation, which as I understand it is what Wikipedia requires.  In particular, I do not understand "WP users sadly aren't supposed to prove our own points"; what do you suppose my point to be?  I was providing a quotation that I came across and that struck me as illuminating Latour's approach. I would have assumed the deletion was carried out in order to preserve Latour's image except that you say you think the quote should be in there, so I confess myself baffled.  If you indeed think it should be there, I can only suggest you add it yourself in whatever way you think best.  I am not about to attempt different formats only to have them deleted with a "try again!" on the talk page.  Languagehat (talk) 16:51, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

 * Please do not assume bad intentions from my side here, Languagehat. I think the quote is noteable and the source is good. The policy which I refer to is that we need sources drawing the syntesis and not draw our own syntesis based on examples and evidence. It is a quite annoying policy, but it has its merits. See WP:SYNT I am not at all interested in removing the point that you are including. I think there is a point to the criticizm of Latour's view and that the qoute illustrates it well. What I asked you to include from your source is (and here you do not even have to qoute it directly) is a sentence referring to the point that your source is trying to prove with the quote. I would guess (though I haven't read the book) that it would look something like this. "Latour has been criticized for a constructivist stance towards scientific facts. One of these critics, Boghossian, refers to Latour's response to to research showing that the pharaoh Ramses II probably died of tuberculosis: "How could he pass away due to a bacillus discovered by Koch in 1882? ... Before Koch, the bacillus has no real existence." He says that it is as much of an anachronism as it would be to claim that the pharaoh died of machine-gun fire. " .. and then maybe a sentence on why Boghossian think this is bad. And I would create a separate criticism section for it. Promise I won't delete it. SeeWP:FAITH PS: I know I seem like a geek with all these policy references. pertn (talk) 22:14, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks for explaining and sorry I got my back up. --Languagehat (talk) 23:16, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Science in Action Quote
In "Science in Action" Latour famously wrote his Second Principle as follows:

 * Scientist and engineers speak in the name of new allies that they have shaped and enrolled; representatives among other representatives, they add these unexpected resources to tip the balance of force in their favor.

Untalker (talk) 16:07, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

sociologist of science
this is innacurate. latour is an anthropologist, and he says this himself. he is not a sociologist, though, to avoid lengthy and unnecessary debate when i'm revising i'll leave it as sociologist. however, in his book 'making of law' he specifically states 'anthropology of science, my original field' (Latour 2010:Viii) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.149.96 (talk) 14:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

 * Latour was previously President of Society for Social Studies of Science. He is also an anthropologist.Untalker (talk) 23:22, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

this is not disputed, but it does not change his primary method, which is qualitative, speaking as a doctoral student, latour would use the denotation anthropologist only for conveniance, as his whole argument is that such modernist paradigms do not exist, or at least, in the way in which our language constrains us to depict them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.30.50.145 (talk) 05:06, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

 * If you look in the paper by Will Wheeler in Bruno Latour: Documenting Human and Nonhuman Associations "Critical Theory for Library and Information Science", you'll see that Wheeler lists Bruno Latour as a French sociologist of science.  It's also interesting that he cites wikipedia in his paper.  Interesting to see wikipedia actually being cited in a scholarly published piece of work. --Sarg123 (talk) 04:59, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

 * Furthermore, Wheeler explains in his paper that "Science (with a capital S) is not the process of discovering a reality "out there." The true study of science (and society) shows a completely different picture:  a science that is made up of the successive constructions of relatively known states of affairs established through chains of circulating reference that are more or less well articulated" (Wheeler, 189).  Yes, Latour is a sociologist of science, but not science as is commonly understood.  Perhaps mentioning this would be good on the article?  --Sarg123 (talk) 05:10, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

We Have Never Been Modern
I believe that a section on the book by Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, would benefit this article greatly. I know that there is another wikipedia page that is on the book as well, but I find it does not help much if the section is not included in the article about Latour himself. Therefore I've added a new section. I tried to mention some of the very basic concepts and principles of Latour's work in this book. I know there is a lot of scholarship on it and what I have is not enough or nearly as detailed. But with the groundwork that has been established, it can be worked on further to better represent Latour's scholarship. --Sarg123 (talk) 08:06, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Pandora's Hope
I also added a section for Pandora's Hope. Does anyone have any comments/suggestions? I tried to give an overview of the book's structure, and give an idea of the critical reaction. It's one of Latour's lesser-known works - do I give enough of a summary? Conorechlin (talk) 12:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, are my citations satisfactory? Is it appropriate to have two block quotes in a subsection of this size? Conorechlin (talk) 13:48, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

 * I like how you've done your citations. It makes the citations look a lot neater and organized.  One thing that we might want to work on is the references list.  The way it is now, and most likely its me from the citations I've done, the reference list has a lot of repeats.  I looked at the featured article, and the reference list is sorted by type of source (ie. print, web etc).  What do you suggest?  --Sarg123 (talk) 01:13, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

 * In addition, I would like to make a recommendation for the section 'Pandora's Hope'. As the section is, it doesn't link to other wikipedia articles.  For example, 'we have never been modern' is actually another wikipedia page, so perhaps when its mentioned in the section, you could put  around it, and it'll link to the wiki page.  What do you think? --Sarg123 (talk) 01:18, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

 * Good comments, and glad you like the citations. I'll make the changes for the links in Wikipedia. Thanks for the input Sarg!Conorechlin (talk) 23:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Edinburgh Lectures

 * A Shift in Agency - with apologies to David Hume Sounds like a interesting topic ;) Serten II (talk) 14:29, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Find an archive of it and add it to the External links section FatalSubjectivities (talk) 12:19, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

He is best known for withdrawing from the subjective/objective division
If that is true, why is so little of the article about it? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:39, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Pen Name
Should it be noted somewhere that he also wrote under the name Jim Johnson? 1988	"Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer". Social Problems, 35,(3), pp. 298–310.Johundhar (talk) 00:41, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at University of Toronto supported by WikiProject Wikipedia and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Fall term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 15:55, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Bruno Latour