Born this day
Xuan Dieu (1916 – 1985) Vietnamese
Poet. A colossal figure in modern Vietnamese literature, he wrote about 450 poems (largely in posthumous manuscripts) especially love poems, several short stories, and many notes, essays, and literary criticisms. Many people believe that he was homosexualalong with his lifelong friend the famous poet Huy Cận, as shown through his many poems about love dedicated to (and apparently addressed to) various men.
Liz Smith (1923 – ) US
Gossip columnist, known as The Grand Dame of Dish. Smith acknowledged her bisexuality (or as she refers to it, 'gender neutrality') in her memoirs.
Jane Wagner (1935 – ) US
Writer, director and producer,best known as Lily Tomlin's comedy writer, collaborator and life partner
Thomas M Disch (1940 – 2008) US
Award - winning science fiction author and poet. Among his other nonfiction work, he wrote theatre and opera criticism for The New York Times, The Nation, and other periodicals.
Following an extended period of depression following the death in 2005 of his life-partner, Charles Naylor, Disch stopped writing almost entirely, and later committed suicide by gunshot in 2008.
J. E. Freeman (1946 – ) US
Actor, especially known for his menacing characters roles,including the ferocious gay hitman from "Miller's Crossing". In 2009, he published a letter to the editor on sfgate.com, detailing his reminiscences of the 1969 Stonewall riots.
Frank Ferri (1954 – ) US
Democratic member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives.
Michel Marc Bouchard (1958 – ) Canadian
Playwright.
Hella von Sinnen (1959 – ) German
TV comedian, whose stage name is a pun on the German von preposition denoting noble descent; "von Sinnen" is a German expression for mad or insane. She supported the fight for same-sex marriage in Germany with her wife Cornelia Scheel
Dana International (1972 – ) Israeli
Israeli pop singer of Yemenite Jewish ancestry,who is most famous for having won the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 in Birmingham with the song "Diva". She has been credited with being one of the world's best known transsexuals.
David Paisley (1979 – ) UK
Scottish actor, especially well known for roles as midwife Ben Saunders in Holby City, Ryan Taylor in Tinsel Town and most recently Rory Murdoch in River City. Openly gay, he has been voted 'Britain's sexiest man' by readers of Gay Times magazine
Jeff Whittington (1985 – 1999 ) New Zealand
A teenager who was murdered by two men in an anti-gay hate crime in Wellington, New Zealand. It is unknown whether Whittington was gay. Whittington was beaten by Jason Morris Meads and Stephen Smith, suffering severe facial injuries and perforated bowels. After being taken to the hospital, he died of brain swelling. At the time of his death, Whittington had dyed his hair purple and was wearing fluorescent green nail polish.
Died this day
Adolf Brand (1874 - 1945 ) GermanAuthor / Anarchist / Activist
Natalie Clifford Barney (1876 - 1972) US
Playwright, poet and novelist who lived as an expatriate in Paris. She was openly lesbian and began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, considering scandal as "the best way of getting rid of nuisances" (meaning heterosexual attention from young males).
Ondrej Nepala (1951 - 1989) Czechoslovakian
Olympic gold medalist and three-time World champion Slovak figure skater who competed for Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He died of AIDS-related complications in 1989, at the age of 38.
Oliver Sipple (1941 - 1989 ) US
Oliver "Billy" W. Sipple was a decorated US Marine and Vietnam War veteran widely known for saving the life of US President Gerald Ford during an assassination attempt in San Francisco on September 22, 1975. The subsequent public revelation that Sipple was gay turned the news story into a cause célèbre for gay activists.
Lou Harrison (1917 - 2003 ) US
Composer, particularly noted for incorporating elements of the music of non-Western cultures into his work, and one of the most prominent composers to have worked with microtones. Harrison lived for many years with Bill Colvig in Aptos, California.
Sodomy in history, February 2nd
1809 — The Illinois Territory receives the statutory law of Indiana, adopting its harsh sodomy law.
1960 — The Florida Attorney General issues an opinion that most crimes, including sodomy, can not be prosecuted on Indian reservations, so long as at least one of the parties to the act is an Indian.
1965 — A Florida appellate court rules that a "lewd, lascivious or indecent assault or act upon a child" is a lesser included offense within the "crime against nature."
1960 — The Florida Attorney General issues an opinion that most crimes, including sodomy, can not be prosecuted on Indian reservations, so long as at least one of the parties to the act is an Indian.
1965 — A Florida appellate court rules that a "lewd, lascivious or indecent assault or act upon a child" is a lesser included offense within the "crime against nature."
Sources:
glbtq emcyclopedia
On this gay day
Calendar of Sodomy, February
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