Events this day in Queer History:
1996 - The Ashland Wisconsin school district agreed to pay former student Jamie Nabozny $900,000 in damages. While he was a student, administrators took no action to alleviate the physical and verbal abuse he suffered because he was gay.
1998 - John Geddes Lawrence and Tyrone Garner of Texas were ordered to pay fines of $125 each after being arrested for having sex in their home. The couple refused to pay and announced they would challenge the Texas sodomy law- initiating what became known as the historic "Lawrence vs Texas" Supreme Court decision which decriminalized homosexual sex.
1999 – First Transgender Day of Remembrance held in the USA
Born this day
Grace Darmond(1898 – 1963) Canadian / US
American actress from the early 20th century, active onscreen between 1914 and 1927. Although performing in a substantial number of films over roughly 13 years, she was best known in Hollywood's inner circle as the lesbian lover to actress Jean Acker, the first wife to actor Rudolph Valentino. Darmond and Acker reportedly remained lovers through most of the 1920s.
Genevieve Pastre (1924 – ) French
One of France's leading lesbian theorists and political activists, was a respected French poet and academic in her fifties when she came out as a lesbian and made radical lesbian feminism the root of her political and literary work. Pastre has become a major influence within the French lesbian and gay movement. She became an advocate of lesbian autonomy and gay rights in her own work, and created her own publishing house to ensure that radical queer voices could be heard. In addition, she has worked to place gay and lesbian concerns on the French national agenda by helping to found the Parti des Mauves (Lavender Party).
Esquerita (Eskew Reeder Jr) ( 1935 – 1986) US
Esquerita was the stage name of singer, songwriter and pianist Eskew Reeder Jr,He is credited with influencing rock and roll pioneer Little Richard, though the extent and nature of Reeder's influence or vice-versa is uncertain. He died in Harlem, New York on October 23, 1986, of AIDS.
Oliver Sipple (1941 – 1989) US Soldier
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. Though he was known to be gay among members of the gay community, and had even participated in Gay Pride events, Sipple's sexual orientation was a secret from his family. He asked the press to keep his sexuality off the record, making it clear that neither his mother nor his employer knew he was gay. Even so, Harvey Milk reportedly outed Sipple as a "gay hero" to San Francisco Chronicle's columnist Herb Caen in hopes to "break the stereotype of homosexuals" of being "timid, weak and unheroic figures". Sipple later unsuccesfully sued the Chronicle and other papers for invasion of privacy.
Meredith Monk (1942 – ) US
Composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance. Her partner was the Dutch-born choreographer Mieke van Hoek, who died in 2002. |
| Benno Thoma, Wet 01 |
Benno Thoma (1956 – ) Dutch Photographer
Dutch photographer Benno Thoma regularly travels the world and the seven seas to capture lighting on his subjects, either architecture, landscapes or models. His book "Around the Globe" filled with rather sumptuous images of the men of Bel Ami. For his published work see Amazon.com. See a selection of his male photography work on his website: Benno Thoma
Eric de la Cruz (1981 – ) Filipino
Theater actor. He was born Eric Villanueva dela Cruz in Manila. His film debut was in a digital film titled "La Funeraria Toti" which was produced with a tie up with the AIDS Society of the Philippines for the benefit of people living with AIDS, and was endorsed by the Mowelfund to the Philippine Pink Festival.
Died this day
Katharine Anthony (1877 - 1965), US.
US biographer best known for The Lambs (1945), a controversial study of the British writers Charles and Mary Lamb. She became a public school teacher by 1910, working in Arkansas. By 1920 she was living in Manhattan with her life-partner Elisabeth Irwin (1880–1942), the founder of the Little Red School House, with whom she raised several adopted children
Director / producer, who began his career as an actor in off-Broadway productions, but soon moved to the production side of the business. In 1967, he founded Compton-Ardolino Films with Gardner Compton. In the 1970s and 1980s Ardolino worked for PBS; his profiles of dancers and choreographers for their Dance in America and Live from Lincoln Center series won him a total of 17 Emmy Award nominations. He actually won the Emmy three times.
Ardolino won an Academy Award for Best Documentary for the 1983 movie He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'. He found commercial success with the 1987 sleeper hit Dirty Dancing, and went on to make several other mainstream films.
Ardolino, who lived openly gay, died in 1993 of complications from AIDS.
Steven Powsner (? - 1995 ) US
Activist, founder and president of the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in Greenwich Village from 1992-1994.
Activist, founder and president of the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in Greenwich Village from 1992-1994.
Among the many later gay artists influenced by Tom of Finland's work is the prominent Japanese painter, Sadao Hasegawa. In such works as Lion Dance (1982) and Secret Ritual (1987), Hasegawa successfully sought to incorporate Tom's hyper-masculinity and exuberant sexuality into innovative depictions of themes ultimately inspired by the spiritual traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism.
His work is notable for superb technical skills, elaborate fantastic settings (occasionally reminiscent of William Blake), and for incorporating Japanese, Indian, South-East Asian and African mythology. While focusing on depictions of muscular male physique, Hasegawa often turns to extreme sexual situations, bondage and SM themes, which, in the context of his stylized fantasy world, attain a nearly sacral intensity. Hasegawa and ended his life by committing suicide on November 20, 1999 in Bangkok, Thailand.
His work is notable for superb technical skills, elaborate fantastic settings (occasionally reminiscent of William Blake), and for incorporating Japanese, Indian, South-East Asian and African mythology. While focusing on depictions of muscular male physique, Hasegawa often turns to extreme sexual situations, bondage and SM themes, which, in the context of his stylized fantasy world, attain a nearly sacral intensity. Hasegawa and ended his life by committing suicide on November 20, 1999 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Dirk Dirksen (1937 – 2006) US
Born in Germany and emigrated to the US in 1948,Dirksen was a music promoter and emcee of the San Francisco punk rock clubs Mabuhay Gardens and On Broadway, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Dirksen was nicknamed the "Pope of Punk".
Sodomy laws in history, November 20
1940 — The Maryland Attorney General issues another opinion backing up the 1918 opinion that sodomy is an "infamous crime" that would bar someone from military service.
1951 — The Georgia Attorney General lists sodomy as an "offense against the family."
1973 — A California appellate court upholds the dismissal of a teacher acquitted of oral copulation. Both the California and United States Supreme Courts refuse to review the decision.
1990 - A London judge convicted 14 gay men of committing criminal assaults upon themselves because of their participation in s&m. All 14 received prison sentences.
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