Queers in History

January 20th in Queer History

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Pat Parker (1944 – 1989) US
Poet

Josh Weston (1973 – ) US
Porn

Nina Arsenault (1974 – ) Canadian
Columnist / Actress

Will Young (1979 – ) UK
Singer / Actor

Cort Stevens (1981 – ) US
Porn

Ryan Raz (1984 – ) US
Porn

Saints Day

Sebastian – icon of homoerotic art.

Died this day

John Minton (1917 - 1957) UK
Painter

Sodomy in history, January 20th

January 20

1953 — Civil rights leader Bayard Rustin is arrested in Los Angeles for sex with another man.

Sources:

January 19th in Queer History

2012-01-19T07:34:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Patricia Highsmith (1921 – 1995) US
Author

Pat Patterson (1941 – ) Canadian
Wrestler

Stan Persky (1941 – ) Canadian
Columnist / Author

Janis Joplin (1943 – 1970 ) US
Singer

Marshall Kirk McKusick (1954 –) US
Computer Programmer

Rob Cryston (1971 – ) US
Porn

Steve Balderson (1975 – ) US
Director

Natalie Cook ( 1975 – ) Australian
Beach Volleyball

Coral Smith (1979 – ) US
Reality TV [Real World]

Luke MacFarlane (1980 – ) Canadian
Actor

Leo Babsky (1982 – ) UK
Sculptor / Artist

Died this day

Max Adrian (1903 - 1973 ) UK
Actor / Singer

Morris Kight (1919 - 2003) US
Activist

K Sello Duiker (1974 - 2005 ) South African
Author

Gary Downie (1925 - 2006 ) UK
Production Manager

Sodomy in history, January 19th

1851 — The "State of Deseret," better known as Utah, enacts a criminal code that makes sodomy illegal only between males, and sets the penalty at a prison term and/or fine in the discretion of the court.

1887 — Newspapers report an apparent blackmail ring in Greenville, Ohio that leads to seven indictments and one conviction for sodomy, but the Governor of Ohio pardons the one convicted.

1897 — The Missouri Supreme Court upholds a conviction for assault to commit sodomy of a St. Louis police officer who attempted sodomy with another male after threatening to arrest him unless he accompanied him to a lumber yard, where the attempt was made.

1900 — An Ohio newspaper reports that a man was arrested for sex with his 13-year-old male companion. Both claim that the younger partner’s mother "gave" him to the other.

1949 — The Illinois Supreme Court overturns the contempt citation of a man convicted of consensual sex with another man for refusing to be interviewed by a psychiatrist under the state’s psychopathic offender law. The trial court held him in contempt, then tried and jailed him after he would not give in.

1995 — The Idaho Court of Appeals rules that the sodomy law can not be applied to married couples.

Sources:

January 18th in Queer History

2012-01-18T07:33:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Cary Grant (1904 – 1986) UK/US Actor

Danny Kaye (1913 – 1987) US
Actor / Singer / Dancer

Betty Berzon (1928 – 2006) US
Author / Psychotherapist

James Stoll (1936 – 1994) US Minister

Tony Holland (1940 – 2007) UK
Screenwriter/ Actor

Bill Lippert (1950 – ) US
Politician / Activist

Giz Watson (1957 – ) UK / Australian
Politician

Ace Hanson (1978 – ) US Porn

Died this day

Archduke Ludwig Viktor (1842 - 1919 ) Austrian
Aristocrat

Adolf von Hildebrand (1847 - 1921 ) German?
Sculptor / Architect

Gladys Bentley (1907 - 1960 ) US
Singer

Tom Dooley (1927 – 1961) US
Author

Chester Kallman (1921 - 1975 ) US
Poet / Translator

Sir Cecil Beaton (1904 - 1980 )
Photographer

Wilfrid Brambell (1912 - 1985) UK
Actor

Bruce Chatwin (1940 - 1989 ) UK
Journalist / Author

Leonor Fini (1907 - 1996) Argentine
Painter

Died this day

Sodomy in history, January 18th

1923 — The Virginia Supreme Court interprets the 1916 oral sex law literally and reverses the conviction of a man and woman arrested for oral sex, saying that only people of the same sex can be prosecuted under the law.

1949 — A California appellate court upholds the oral copulation conviction of a man over his contention that he "was just giving the kid a blow job."

1965 — An Ohio appellate court finds unconstitutionally vague the state’s law banning solicitation for an "unnatural sexual act."

1971 — A California appellate court overturns an oral copulation conviction because the undercover police officer making the arrest allowed himself to be fellated before making the arrest.

1989 — The Kansas Supreme Court rejects the contention that a man convicted of sodomy was "married" to his partner, thus blocking his prosecution under the state’s discriminatory sodomy law.

Sources:

January 17th in Queer History

2012-01-17T07:32:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Oscar Browning (1837 – 1923) UK
Author / Historian

Ronald Firbank (1886 – 1926) UK
Author

Nils Asther (1897 – 1981) Swedish
Actor

Peggy Gilbert (1905 – 2007) US
Musician / Band Leader

Robert de Niro Sr. (1922 – 1993) US
Painter

Tom Dooley (1927 – 1961) US
Author

Jean Barraque (1928 – 1973) French
Composer / Author

Denis O’Hare (1962 – ) US
Actor / Singer

Chris Cole (1964 – ) US
Politician

Stephin Merritt (1966 – ) US
Singer

Nici Sterling (1968 – ) UK
Porn

Kenny Greene (1969 – 2001) US
Singer / Songwriter / Record Producer

Ann Wolfe (1971 – ) US
Boxer

Jake Deckard (1972 – ) US
Porn / Director

Tom Dolby (1975 – ) US
Author / Journalist / Editor

Stefan Petzner (1981 – ) Austrian
Politician

Died this day

TH White (1906 - 1964) UK
Author

Helen Stephens (1918 - 1994) US
Shot Put / Sprinter / Discus / Softball / Baseball / Basketball / Manager

Barbara Jordan (1936 - 1996) US Politician

Robert Eads (1945 - 1999) US Documentary Subject [Southern Comfort]

Basil Hoskins (1929 - 2005 ) UK
Actor

Sodomy in history, January 17th

1977 — The Arkansas Supreme Court rules that the drunk tank of the local jail is a public place for sexual purposes.

1979 — The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals upholds a "crime against nature" conviction even though the prosecuting witness denied all accusations against the defendant.

1983 — The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the Arkansas sodomy law against privacy and discrimination challenges.

Sources:

January 16th in Queer History

2012-01-16T07:32:00.000-08:00

Born this day

George Kelly (1887 – 1974) US
Actor / Playwright

Irving Rapper (1898 – 1999) US
Director

Francesco Scavullo (1921 – 2004) US
Photographer

Susan Sontag (1933 – 2004) US
Author / Activist

Julie Anne Peters (1952 – ) US
Author

Jill Sobule (1965 – ) US
Singer / Photographer

David Catania (1968 – ) US
Politician

Anders Gasland (1968 – ) Norwegian
Politician / Activist / Psychiatrist

Jake Deckard (1972 – ) US
Porn / Director

Died this day

Sodomy in history, January 16th.

1899 — A Pennsylvania court finds the 1879 sodomy statute, as amended to include oral sex, unconstitutional on technical grounds.

1926 — An Ohio appellate court prohibits the introduction of prior acts of sodomy into a trial.

1985 — A new sex offenses law repealing the consensual sodomy law takes effect in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Sources:

January 15th in Queer History

2012-01-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Loie Fuller (1862 – 1928) US
Dancer

Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864 – 1952) US
Photographer / Photojournalist

Mazo de la Roche (1879 – 1961) Canadian
Author

Ivor Novello (1893 – 1951) UK
Actor / Playwright / Composer

Disley Jones (1926 – 2005) UK
Set Designer

Agustin Gomez-Arcos (1939 – 1998) Spanish
Author

Kate Hogan (1957 – ) US
Politician

Zak Spears (1965 – ) US
Porn

Jeffrey Altergott (1968 – ) US
Singer / Songwriter

Mason Wyler (1984 – ) US
Porn

Died this day

Francois Raucourt (1756 - 1815) French
Actress

Modest Tchaikovsky (1850 - 1916 ) Russian
Playwright

Torvald Tu (1893 - 1955) Norwegian
Poet / Playwright / Author

Brian Howard (1905 - 1958) UK
Poet

John Dall (1918 - 1971) US
Actor

Sodomy in history, January 15th

1892 — An Ohio newspaper reports the arrest of a man for throwing a kettle of hot soup over his wife because she wouldn’t leave the house so that he could "sleep with" a man he brought home.

1958 — An Ohio appellate court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man while conceding that there is evidence that he was framed.

1958 — A Texas appellate court upholds the right of the state to try sodomy defendants without an attorney.

1968 — The Virginia Supreme Court rules that merely placing the mouth on a penis does not violate the state’s sodomy law.

Sources:

January 13th in Queer History

2012-01-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Charlotte Charke (1713 – 1760) UK
Actress / Playwright / Author

Horatio Alger Jr. (1832 – 1899) US
Author

Oliver Messel (1904 – 1978) UK
Artist

Yannis Tsarouchis (1910 –1989) Greek
Painter

Charles Nelson Reilly (1931 – 2007) US
Actor / Director

Ralph Sylvester (1934 – ) US
Publisher

Rip Taylor (1934 – ) US
Actor / Comedian

Edmund White (1940 – ) US
Author / Literary Critic

Clive Betts (1950 – ) UK
Politician

Jason Stuart (1959 – ) US
Actor / Comedian / Producer

Matthew Bourne (1960 – ) UK
Dancer / Choreographer

Lawrence “Larry” King (1993 – 2008) US
Student / Hate Crime Victim

Died this day

Sir Edward Marsh (1872 - 1953) UK
Translator

Sibilla Aleramo (1876 - 1960 ) Italian
Author

Salvador Novo (1904 - 1974) Mexican
Author / Poet / Playwright / Presenter

Mark Herron (1928 - 1996 ) US
Actor

Sodomy in history, January 13th

1923 — A Pennsylvania appellate court upholds the right of trial courts to ignore state law that requires sodomy and solicitation to be tried in separate courts and try them in the same court.

1956 — The West Virginia Attorney General issues an opinion that cunnilingus is covered by the state’s sodomy law.

Sources:

January 12th in Queer History

2012-01-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Nobuko Yoshiya (1896 – 1973) Japanese

Novelist active in Taishō and Showa period Japan. She was one of modern Japan's most commercially successful and prolific writers, specializing in serialized romance novels and adolescent girls’ fiction, as well as a pioneer in Japanese lesbian literature.

Pierre Bernac (1899 – 1979) French

Singer (baritone)and teacher.

June Miller (1902 – 1979) US

Second wife of the novelist Henry Miller. June was bisexual,and briefly left Miller to live with the artist Jean Kronski in Paris. After returning to her marriage with Miller, she became involved in a flirtatious, and possibly sexual, relationship with the writer Anais Nin. Both writers (Miller and Nin)used June as the basis for some of their writing.

Barbro Alving (1909 – 1987) Swedish

Journalist and writer, a pacifist and feminist. Alving never married, but she had a daughter Maud Fanny Alving. When her daughter was only one year old, Alving began living with Anna Laura Sjöcrona. Alving and Sjöcrona lived together for over 40 years, until Alving's death.

Patsy Kelly (1910 – 1981) US

Actress / Singer / Comedian

Long John Baldry (1941 – 2005) UK

English and Canadian blues singer and a voice actor. In his early career in the 60's, the keyboard player in his band was Reg Dwight - later and better known as Elton John.

Baldry was openly gay even in the early 1960s when homosexuality was still criminalised and medicated. He later had a brief relationship with lead-guitarist of The Kinks, Dave Davies, and supported Elton John in coming to terms with his own sexuality.

Felipe Rose (1954 – ) US

Founding member and inspiration for the disco group the Village People. Rose was working as a dancer and a bartender in a gay New York Go-Go club, dressed as an Indian when he was discovered by French producer Jacques Morali and executive producer Henri Belolo and so became the first recruit for Village People. Both Jacques and Henri were fascinated by Rose's Indian attire and saw the potential in organizing a singing group where each individual would wear a different costume and have a particular identity.

In 2000, Rose began to work on his solo career.

Simon Russell Beale (1961 – ) UK

Actor and music historian. He has been described by The Independent as "the greatest stage actor of his generation." In the Independent on Sunday 2006 Pink List – a list of the most influential gay men and women in the UK – he was placed at number 30.

Jurgen Stein (1973 – ) Dutch
Singer / Actor

Dreuxilla Divine (1974 – ) Puerto Rican
Drag Queen character on televisionand as a drag performer in Puerto Rico and eastern United States cities.

Kieron Richardson (1986 – ) UK
Actor, best known for playing the role of Ste Hay in Hollyoaks.

Saints Day:

St Aelred,
Patron of the LGBT Anglican group Integrity, and also widely regarded as a patron saint of male couples, on the strength of his book in praise of spirituality found in close friendship between male couples.

Died this day

Lorraine Hansberry (1930 - 1965) US
African American playwright and author of political speeches, letters, and essays.

Robert Friend (1913 - 1998) US/ Israeli
American-born poet and translator. After moving to Israel, he became a professor of English literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Flores “Flo” McGarrell (1974 - 2010) US

artist, filmmaker, writer and arts administrator, who died in the Haiti Earthquake.

Born biologically female, McGarrell identified strongly with androgyny since childhood, and the transgender and queer (or radical queer) community as an adult. He began formally identifying as a male in 2003-04. He described himself as "a total gender mash up (beard, miniskirt, etc.)" and "as a non-passing transperson."

Sodomy in History, January 12th

1706 — Pennsylvania eliminates the castration penalty from its sodomy law.

1939 — The Georgia Supreme Court rules that two women can not be prosecuted for sodomy under state law.

1950 — The Pennsylvania Superior Court overturns a sodomy conviction because the trial judge told the jury that "the crimes as charged were actually committed by someone," and the appellate court feels that this prejudiced the jury.

1962 — The North Carolina Supreme Court upholds the right of the state to amend sodomy indictments.

1966 — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upholds the sentence of 18 months for consensual sodomy solely because it was within the 10-year statutory maximum.

1987 — The Louisiana Supreme Court upholds the "crime against nature" law provision covering solicitation for compensation and rejects a discriminatory enforcement argument.

1994 — The Texas Supreme Court dismisses a sodomy law challenge argued more than a year earlier. Three of the five members of the majority are up for reelection in 1994, and the majority claims it cannot make a constitutional decision on a criminal law in a civil case.

Sources:

January 11th in Queer History

2012-01-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

Events this day in Queer History

2007 – Northern Mexican state of Coahuila passed bill legalising civil unions

Born this day

Eva Le Gallienne (1899 – 1991) UK
Actress / Producer / Director

Al Berto (1948 – 1997) Portuguese
Poet

Rick Bebout (1950 – 2009) Canadian
Journalist / Activist

John Sessions (1953 – ) UK
Actor / Comedian

Chris Bryant (1962 –) UK
Politician

Marc Acito (1966 – ) US
Author / Screenwriter

Jackie Biskupski (1966 – ) US
Politician

Chad Donovan (1972 – ) US
Porn / Director

Rahsaan Patterson (1974 –) US
Singer / Songwriter / Actor

Died this day

Max Lorenz (1901 - 1975 )German
Singer

Sarah Aldridge (1911 - 2006) Brazilian / US
Author

Sodomy in history, January

1908 — The Massachusetts Supreme Court, in interpreting the state’s law banning "unnatural and lascivious acts," says that it covers "any and all" unnatural and lascivious acts, but never defines the term.

Sources:

January 10th in Queer History

2012-01-09T22:45:00.000-08:00

Born this day

George Washington Carver (1864 – 1943) US
Botanist

Aaron Bridgers (1918 – 2003) US
Musician

Johnnie Ray (1927 – 1990) US
Singer / Songwriter / Pianist

Sal Mineo (1939 – 1976) US
Actor / Murder Victim

Jeff Jones (1944 – ) US
Artist

Craig Russell (1948 – 1990) Canadian
Female Impersonator / Actor

Nathan Moore (1965 – ) UK
Singer

Died this day

Hannah Gluckstein / Gluck (1895 - 1978 ) UK
Painter

Paul Lynde (1926 - 1982 ) US
Actor / Comedian

Ian Harvey (1914 - 1987 ) UK
Politician

Ien Dales (1931 - 1994) Dutch
Politician

Sodomy in history, January 10th

1924 — A California appellate court rules that charging a person with "an assault to commit the crime against nature" is sufficient, because "every person of ordinary intelligence understands what that crimes is."

1930 — The Washington Supreme Court rules that one partner in an act of sodomy can be convicted even if the other is acquitted.

1952 — The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals reverses the conviction of a man arrested in Franklin Square by police for solicitation. He is the seventh arrestee in a single night by just one officer. The Court feels that this proves entrapment.

1954 — In England, Peter Wildeblood, Michael Pitt-Rivers, and Lord Montagu are arrested on a sodomy charge in a case in which the government later admits that it used forged evidence. All three are political opponents of the Churchill Administration.

1961 — The New Jersey Supreme Court suspends, until he is "cured," an attorney who had sex with another male.

1966 — The District of Columbia Court of Appeals rules that a person accused of sodomy can be convicted on the lesser charge of an attempt.

1974 — The Missouri Court of Appeals refuses to consider sociological articles in a challenge to the state’s sodomy law

Sources:

January 9th in Queer History

2012-01-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Simone de Beauvoir (1908 – 1986) French
Author / Philosopher

Bunney Brooke (1921 –2000) Australian
Actress

Sergei Parajanov (1924 – 1990) Armenian
Director / Artist

Joan Baez (1941 – ) US
Singer / Songwriter

Edward von Kloberg III (1942 – 2005) US
Lobbyist

Rio Reiser (1950 – 1996) German
Singer / Musician

Oliver Goldstick (1961 – ) US
Screenwriter / Producer

Tom Braddock (1967 – ) US
Porn

Renato Bellagio (1977 – ) Hungarian
Porn / Dancer

Christian Mollerop (1981 – ) Norwegian
Activist

Saints Day:

Polyeuct and Nearchos
Like the later and better known Sainsts Sergius and Bacchus, Polyeuct and Nearchos were a pair of Roman soldiers and male lovers who were martyred for their Christian faith.

Died this day

Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923) New Zealand
Author

Countee Cullen (1903 - 1946 ) US
Poet

Richard Barr (1917 - 1989) US
Producer

Felix Gonzales-Torres (1957 - 1996) Cuban
Artist

Died this day

Sodomy in history, January

Sources:

January 8th in Queer History

2012-01-08T07:26:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Winnaretta Singer (1865 - 1943 ) US. Heiress

Winnaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac,was an American musical patron and heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune.

She had affairs with numerous women, never making attempts to conceal them, and never going for any great length of time without a female lover. She had these affairs during her own marriages and afterwards, and often with other married women. The affronted husband of one of her lovers once stood outside the princess's Venetian palazzo, declaring, "If you are half the man I think you are, you will come out here and fight me."

Richard Cromwell (1910 – 1960) US
Actor

Tharon Musser (1925 – 2009) US
Lighting Technician

Kerwin Mathews (1926 – 2007) US
Actor

Daniel Farson (1927 - 1997 ) UK.

British writer and broadcaster, who was a popular television personality and prominent public figure in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Graham Chapman (1941 – 1989) UK
Actor / Screenwriter

George Passmore (1942 – ) UK
Artist [Gilbert & George]

William Bonin (1947 – 1996) US
Serial Killer

David Bowie (1947 –) UK
Singer / Actor

Sir Adrian Fulford (1953 – ) UK
Judge

Nacho Duato (1957 – ) Spanish Dancer / Director

Noel Alumit (1970 – ) US Actor / Author / Activist

Charlie Condou (1973 – ) UK Actor

Rafe Judkins (1983 – ) US Reality TV [Survivor] / Screenwriter

Died this day

Arcangelo Corelli (1653 - 1713) Italian
Composer / Violinist

Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896)French
Poet associated with the Symbolist movement, and considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.
In 1872 he left his wife for what became a stormy relationship with Arthur Rimbaud.

Johnny Jordaan (1924 - 1989 ) Dutch
Singer

Sir Michael Tippett (1905 - 1998 ) UK
Composer

Sodomy in history, January

Sources:

January 7th in Queer History

2012-01-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963) French

Composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music.

Some writers consider Poulenc one of the first openly gay composers.

Robert Duncan (1919 – 1988) US

Poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition. Duncan's mature work emerged in the 1950s in the literary context of Beat culture. He was a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance.

Chester Kallman (1921 – 1975) US

Poet,librettist, and translator, best known for his collaborations with W. H. Auden and Igor Stravinsky.

In addition to being professional collaborators, Kallman and Isherwood were lovers for a time, and remained life long friends.

Pierre Gripari (1925 – 1990) French

Writer, born to a Greek father and French mother.

Jann Wenner (1946 – ) US

Co-founder and publisher of the music and politics biweekly Rolling Stone, as well as the owner of Men's Journal and Us Weekly magazines.

Wenner and his wife separated in 1995. Since then, Wenner's partner has been the fashion designer Matt Nye, .

Frans Kellendonk (1951 – 1990) Dutch

Professor of English language and literature in the Netherlands. He was also a novelist, who won the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs in 1987 for his novel Mystiek lichaam. This work attracted criticism in gay circles for its alleged homophobia, but Kellendonk was himself gay, and died of complications following AIDS a month after his 39th birthday.

Dionne Brand (1953 – ) Canadian

Poet, novelist, essayist and documentarian. She was named Toronto's third Poet Laureate in September 2009.

Rex Lee (1969 – ) US

Actor, best known for his role on the HBO original series, Entourage, as Lloyd Lee.

David Yost (1969 – ) US

Actor and producer known for his role of Billy Cranston on the television series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie and Power Rangers Zeo.

Paul Ferreira (1973 – ) Portuguese / Canadian

Social democratic politician and one of the first openly gay politicians elected to provincial office in Canada.

Billy Merrell (1982 – ) US

Author and poet. He published his first book Talking in the Dark, a poetry memoir, with Scholastic in 2003. Together with David Levithan,he also co-edited "The Full Spectrum" a collection of queer writing for young readers, which won the 2007 Lammy in the Children's/Young Adult category .

Died this day

Napoleon Lapathiotis (1888 - 1944) Greek

Poet, who began writing and publishing poetry when he was just eleven.

Colin McPhee (1900 - 1964) Canadian

Composer and musicologist. He is primarily known for being the first Western composer to make an ethnomusicological study of Bali, and for the quality of that work. He also composed music influenced by that of Bali and Java decades before such world music–based compositions became widespread.

Richard Hunt (1951 - 1992) US

Puppeteer best known as a Muppet performer. Hunt's Muppet roles included Scooter, Beaker, Janice, Statler, and Sweetums. After Hunt died of AIDS-related complications, Episode 3136 of Sesame Street and the film The Muppet Christmas Carol were dedicated to his memory.

Larry Grayson (1923 - 1995) UK

Stand-up comedian and television presenter of the 1970s and early 80s. He is best remembered for hosting the BBC's popular series The Generation Game and for his high camp and English music hall humour.

Don Moreland ( - 2012) US
Activist, local politician

Sodomy in history, January 7th

1829 — William Maxwell is the last English sailor hanged for sodomy.

1876 — New Mexico passes a sodomy law with a penalty of up to life imprisonment. Prior to this, it had relied on the English common law.

1957 — The American Civil Liberties Union publishes a position paper on sodomy laws and states that it supports the existence of such laws.

1983 — A Georgia appellate court rules that accomplices’ testimony in sodomy cases needs no corroboration, even though state law specifically requires it.

1986 — The Oklahoma Court of Appeals overturns a crime against nature conviction for cunnilingus, because actual penetration of the vagina had not been proven.

Sources:

Frans Kellendonk, Dutch Writer

2012-01-06T15:50:00.000-08:00

b. 7th January 1951
d. 15 February 1990

Professor of English language and literature in the Netherlands. He was also a novelist, who won the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs in 1987 for his novel Mystiek lichaam. This work attracted criticism in gay circles for its alleged homophobia, but Kellendonk was himself gay, and died of complications following AIDS a month after his 39th birthday.

Kellendonk studied English Language and Culture at the University of Nijmegen. He also studied for a time in England, and later worked at Utrecht University, the Free University and the University of Amsterdam. Besides his academic career as lecturer in English language and literature, Kellendonk wrote several stories and novels which brought him literary fame.His stylistic skill was praised, but his cultural criticism often maligned.Kellendonk's alleged neo-conservative world view, with a revaluation of traditional values, was far from fashionable in the Netherlands of the eighties. Kellendonk's literary home. from 1978 to 1983 was the magazine The Government where he was editor in chief .

He debuted as a writer in May 1977 with the collection of stories “Bouwval“ (Ruin), for which he was awarded.the Anton Wachter Prize, established in that year. The novel "Mystiek Lichaam" (Mystical Body)(1986) is his most successful work. The book was acclaimed, awarded the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prize and was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize, but it also drew allegations against Kellendonk of anti-Semitism and homophobia. .In gay circles, where Kellendonk was known to be homosexual, the vision of homosexuality as "sterile lifestyle" was controversial. Kellendonk defended himself against this criticism with the classic argument that an author can not be held responsible for the ideas of his fictional characters.

Kellendonk belonged to the generation of AFTh. van der Heijden and de Jong Oek .

Mystical Body confirmed his place in Dutch literature. Even before the publication of that book, the first symptoms of AIDS were revealed to Kellendonk. A book about the Kerwin Duinmeijer affair that he had prepared, therefore remained unfinished.

He died one month after his 39th birthday and was buried in Amsterdam Cemetery Zorgvlied .

In accordance with instructions he left, his complete works were published in 1992. In 2006 publishing Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep began to reissue Kellendonk's works. In 2006 the archives of Frans Kellendonk came under the management of the Library of the Society of Dutch Literature, University of Leiden .

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), French Composer

2012-01-06T15:30:00.000-08:00

b. 7 January 1899
d. 30 January 1963

Composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music.
Some writers consider Poulenc one of the first openly gay composers.

Poulenc and harpsichordist Wanda Landowska.

Poulenc was born into an affluent Parisian family. His father directed the pharmaceutical company that became Rhône-Poulenc; his mother was a talented amateur pianist. At the death of his parents, Poulenc inherited the country estate "Noizay", which would be an important retreat for him as he gained fame.

From 1920, Poulenc became a member of a group of young composers dubbed "Les Six", in which the others were Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Auric, Germaine Tailleferre, and Louis Durey. His first great popular success was hia ballet score for Diaghilev's Bellet Russe, "Les biches" (1924). Later, there followed two commissions from the lesbian American expatriate Winnaretta Singer (known in France as Princesse Edmond de Polignac): the Concerto for Two Pianos (1932) and the Organ Concerto (1938).

Poulenc's growing recognition of his homoesexuality from the late 1920's, combined with the death in 1930 of the only woman he had ever considered marrying, contributed to a period of grave depression, and may have led also to return to the Roman Catholic Church for solace. Following a religious pilgrimage in 1936, he composed a substantial body of sacred works,including some of his most popular works: the Stabat Mater (1950) the Gloria (1959), and his operatic masterpiece, Les Dialogue de Carmelites. In the finale, one by one the nuns face the guillotine, which can be clearly heard:

This turn to religious however, did not result in any rejection of his interest in men. The surrealistic opera "Les mamelles de Tirésias" (1944) the World War II Resistance cantata "La figure humaine" (1943), and other works were dedicated to his second lover, the bisexual chauffeur Raymond Destouches. Earlier, his first lover had been the painter Richard Chanlaire, whom he met in the late twenties. Later, his lovers were Lucien Roubert, who died of pleurisy in 1955, and from 1957 his last significant lover, Louis Gautier.

Joan of Arc, Cross-dressing Christian Saint and Martyr.

2012-01-06T03:38:00.000-08:00

b. ca. 1412 (formally celebrated in France on January 6th)

d. 30 May 1431

Among all the multitude of queer saints, Joan of Arc is one of the most important. In her notorious martyrdom for heresy (a charge which in historical context included reference to her cross-dressing and defiance of socially approved gender roles), she is a reminder of the great persecution of sexual and gender minorities by the Inquisition, directly or at their instigation. In LGBT Christian history, "martyrs" applies not only to those martyred by the church, but also to those martyred by the church. In her rehabilitation and canonization, she is a reminder that the leaders and theologians of the church, those who were responsible for her prosecution and conviction, can be wrong, can be pronounced to be wrong, and can in time have their judgements overturned.(This is not just a personal view. Pope Benedict has made some very pointed remarks of his own to this effect, while speaking about Joan of Arc). In the same way, it is entirely possible (I believe likely) that the current dogmatic verdict of Vatican orthodoxy which condemns our relationships will also in time be rejected. We may even come to see some of the pioneers of gay theology, who have in effect endured a kind of professional martyrdom for their honesty and courage, rehabilitated and honoured by the Church, just as St Joan has been.

Joan of Arc: Interrogation by the Bishop of Winchester
(Paul Delaroche, 1797 -1856)

Joan of Arc is the best known cross-dresser in history, defying gender expectations to lead an army, and lead it to victory in the service of her country. This much is well known, and immediately qualifies her as a trans hero (or heroine. Take your pick.) What of the ret of us? Well, remember her story in the church as well as the battlefield: she was burned as a heretic, before her later rehabilitation and eventual canonization. Now recall the association of heresy and “sodomy”.

John Boswell has clearly shown that the religious opposition to homoerotic relationships was not based in scripture, nor was it deeply entrenched in the early church. Instead, the opposition of the church followed, not led, popular intolerance that grew with the decline in urbanisation after the sack of Rome. This growth in intolerance was not only directed at homosexuals, but also at other social outsiders – jews, gypsies and “heretics”. Writers such as Mark D Jordan and Allan Bray have since shown how the very word “sodomite”, now widely used as a pejorative epithet against gay males, was a late medieval coinage which was originally used far more loosely and indiscriminately, often including ay other form of sexual non-conformism – or heresy.

So what was the crime of “heresy” of which she was accused? Well, nominally it was based on her claim to have seen “visions” which inspired her to follow her path of resistance to the foreign invaders. But note the nationality of her accusers: it was not the French Church which tried and judged her, but the English Bishops: countrymen of the army she had opposed and defeated. Was her crime to have experienced visions, or was it to have opposed the English?

Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII: Ingres

Consider that which has made her most famous, iconic as an historic figure: the cross-dressing. This was a clear violation of her expected gender role, and may have been described by some as “sodomy” – which was closely related to heresy. I have recently seen a claim (sadly, I have no link) that the real reason for her trial and execution was this cross-dressing. If so, she is the first Christian martyr we know of who was executed not just executed and was gay, but executed because of her gender expression. However, there is of course a happy ending: she was later rehabilitated, and canonized. Now consider the obvious moral for us as GLBT Christians today.

Joan had a “vision”, an apparition of Mary. There are also other kinds of vision, some more mundane, more political, of the Martin Luther King “I have a dream”. In this sense, many of us too have a vision, a dream, of proper inclusion and acceptance in the Christian churches, where we belong with everybody else, on the strength of the promises of Christ.

Joan was persecuted by the church authorities, condemned and executed. We are not (directly) executed by the church today, but we are certainly condemned and persecuted, labelled as “fundamentally disordered”, and told that if we simply live truthfully in our god-given sexuality,we are committing “grave sin”. Worse, by the clear failure to take a strong stand against civil laws and proscriptions, as for example the failure to sign the UN resolution on the decriminalisation of homosexuality early this year, the Church is indirectly giving support to some forces that do actively seek our death.

But in the end, she was vindicated. We have not yet seen that development, but I am certain it will come. It is required by the Gospel of inclusion and social justice, it is also required by the internal logic of theology. James Alison has recently noted that theology will in time be forced to face up to the plain finings of science that same sex relationships are not unnatural, just uncommon. They have occurred throughout history, in many societies, and across the animal kingdom. Theologians will be slow to catch up, but they will, and we too will be vindicated.

St Joan of Arc and the queer community: we have a lot in common.

Further reading;

Boswell, John : Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century

Bray, Alan : Homosexuality in Renaissance England

Jordan, Mark D : The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology

January 6th in Queer History

2012-01-06T03:24:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Joan of Arc (c 1412 - 1431)
Although St Joan's exact date of birth is not known, January 6th is the date on which it is celebrated in France, where she is honoured as a heroine for her struggle against foreign domination. For the queer community, she deserves to be honoured for her role in standing up to religious oppression. Part of the ecclesiastical hostility was directed against her insistence on adopting a male role and dress, for which she was accused of "heresy", convicted and burned at the stake. Over the next four centuries, thousands more people were suffered judicial murder, either directly by Church authorities, or at their instigation.

But the Catholic authorities later recanted, and eventually recognized not only that she was no heretic, but in fact deserved recognition as a saint of the Church. She thus is a powerful symbol of the hope that in time, the church will likewise repent of the harm it has done by its disordered teaching on homoerotic relationships.

Marie Dorval (1798 – 1849) French

Actress, who was believed to be a lover of George Sand. After Dorval's death in 1849, Sand assumed the financial support for Dorval's surviving grandchildren.

HA de Rochemont (1901 – 1942) Dutch

Journalist, fascist and later a collaborator with the Nazis.

Walter Sedlmayr (1926 – 1990) German

Stage, television, and movie actor.

Nancy Ruth (1942 – ) Canadian

On her appointment to the Canadian Senate in 2005, she became Canada's first openly lesbian senator.

Suzi Wizowaty (1954 – ) US

Author and politician who is a member of the Vermont House of Representatives.

Yvonne Zipter (1954 – ) US

Journalist, author and poet, who was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1995.

Bjorn Lomborg (1965 – ) Danish

Author, academic, and environmental writer, who became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Gabor Szetey (1968 – ) Hungarian

Former Secretary of State for Human Resources in Hungary's Gyurcsány government, for the Hungarian Socialist Party.

Szetey publicly declared that he was gay at the opening night of Budapest's Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, on July 6, 2007. He is the first LGBT member of government in Hungary, and the second politician to come out, after Klára Ungár.

Danny Pintauro (1976 – ) US

Actor best known for his role on the popular American sitcom Who's the Boss? and his role in the 1983 film Cujo.

Trenton Straube (???? – ) US

Journalist

Died this day

Adolf de Meyer (1868 - 1949) French / German

Photographer famed for his elegant photographic portraits in the early 20th century, many of which depicted celebrities such as Mary Pickford, Rita Lydig, Luisa Casati, Billie Burke, Irene Castle, John Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Ruth St. Denis, King George V of the United Kingdom, and Queen Mary.

His marriage was one of marriage of convenience rather than romantic love, since he was homosexual and the bride was bisexual or lesbian.

Weaver W Addams (1901 - 1963) US

Chess master, author, and chess opening theoretician. His greatest competitive achievement was winning the U.S. Open Championship in 1948. Addams disclosed his sexuality in an autobiographical article, republished in Chess Pride.

Ian Charleson (1949 - 1990) UK

Scottish stage and film actor. He is best known internationally for his starring role as Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell, in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. He is also well known for his portrayal of Rev. Charlie Andrews in the 1982 Oscar-winning film Gandhi.

Rudolf Nureyev (1938 - 1993) Russian

Dancer, considered one of the most celebrated ballet dancers of the 20th century. Nureyev's artistic skills explored expressive areas of the dance, providing a new role to the male ballet dancer who once served only as support to the women.

Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn became longstanding dance partners and continued to dance together for many years after Nureyev's departure from the Royal Ballet. Their last performance together was in Baroque Pas de Trois on 16 September 1988 when Fonteyn was 69, Nureyev was aged 50, with Carla Fracci also starring, aged 52. Nureyev once said of Fonteyn that they danced with "one body, one soul".

Nureyev met Erik Bruhn, the celebrated Danish dancer, after Nureyev defected to the West in 1961. Nureyev was a great admirer of Bruhn, having seen filmed performances of the Dane on tour in Russia with the American Ballet Theatre, although stylistically the two dancers were very different. Bruhn and Nureyev became a couple[23][24] and the two remained together for 25 years, until Bruhn's death in 1986

Henrietta Moraes (1931 - 1999 ) UK

Artists' model, bohémienne, and memoirist. During the 1950s and '60s, she was the muse and inspiration for many artists of the Soho subculture, like Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, and known for her marriages and love affairs.

Among these affairs were relationships with the singer Marianne Faithful, and the artist Maggi Hambling,

Francesco Scavullo (1921 - 2004 ) US

Fashion photographer best known for his work on the covers of Cosmopolitan and his celebrity portraits. Some of Scavullo's more controversial work included a Cosmospolitan centerfold of a nude Burt Reynolds, and photographs of a young Brooke Shields that some considered overly sexual.

Sodomy in history, January 6th

1950 — California increases the maximum penalty for sodomy from 10 to 20 years.

Sources:

St Apolinaria / Dorotheos

January 5th in Queer History

2012-01-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Events this day

1974 – Brunswick 4 arrested in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The Brunswick Four were four lesbians involved in a historic incident in Toronto, Ontario in 1974. The four were evicted from the Brunswick Tavern, a working-class beer hall on Bloor Street, subsequently arrested, and three were later tried in Ontario Court for obstruction of justice. Gay historian Tom Warner believes that the arrest and its consequences was a key incident ushering in a more militant gay and lesbian liberation movement in Canada, much as the Stonewall Inn Riots politicized gays and lesbians in the United States.

Born this day

Alvin Ailey Jr (1931 - 1989 ) US

A prolific choreographer, Alvin Ailey created 79 original works for his company. His signature piece, “Revelations” (1960), is touted as the most-watched work of modern dance.

Ailey died at age 58 from complications of AIDS. In his memory, a section of West 61st Street in New York was named “Alvin Ailey Way.”

Terenci Moix (1942 – 2003) Spanish

Catalan writer who wrote in Spanish and in Catalan. He is also the brother of poet/novelist Anna Maria Moix. An annual literature prize, the Terenci Moix Fundación Arena de Narrativa Gay y Lésbica bears his name.

Ignace van Swieten (1943 – 2005) Dutch

Football referee, who was named Dutch Referee of the Year in 1984.

He was the first professional football referee to come out as gay.

David DeCoteau (1962 – ) Candian / US

American and Canadian film director and producer

Steven Cojocaru (1965 – ) Canadian

Steven Cojocaru (known by the nickname "Cojo"), is a Canadian fashion critic.

Kate Schellenbach (1966 – ) US

Drummer for The Beastie Boys from 1979 to 1984, and drummed for Luscious Jackson until the band broke up in spring of 2000. Schellenbach was also the drummer for the New York all-girl punk band, the Lunachicks, during the summer of 1992.

Chris McKoy (1971 - 2001 ) UK

DJ who used the name Dr. Funk. When he was 21 he was one of the people behind Vox in Brixton, London, which became Europe's biggest black gay club. He introduced black music to the mainstream gay club scene in a new way, and brought black gay club music out of the shadows.

Ryan O’Meara (1984 – ) US

Ice dancer. With partner Jamie Silverstein, he is a 2006 Olympian. Following his retirement from competitive skating, he began working full time as a coach and an interior designer.

Solomon (1987 – ) US

Electronic hip hop recording artist, rapper, producer and songwriter based in San Diego, California.[1] He is also the founder of SolRay Records.

Saint's day:

One of a group of several "cross-dressing" saints in the early Christian church: women who dressed as men, to gain admittance to male monasteries.

Died this day

George Washington Carver (1864 – 1943 ) US

Botanist

Lincoln Kirstein (1907 - 1996 ) US

Author

Sodomy in history, January 5th

1919 — New York City police raid the Everard baths and arrest 10 men for sexual activity.

1921 — The Massachusetts Supreme Court upholds the nuisance conviction of a man for operating a Gay bath house.

1977 — A bill to reinstate sodomy as a crime in Indiana is introduced into the House. It is defeated in a committee by a vote of 6-4.

1984 — Illinois repeals its "lewd fondling or caress" law, more than two decades after repealing its sodomy law.

1993 — The Wisconsin Court of Appeals finds that the solicitation and touching of an undercover police officer constitutes "disorderly conduct" under state law.

1997 — A British tabloid accuses Conservative M.P. Jerry Hayes with having an affair in 1991 with a then-18-year-old male. At the time, 18 was under the age of consent.

Sources:

January 4th in Queer History

2012-01-04T03:33:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Marsden Hartley (1877 – 1943) US

Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Known as "the painter of Main", Hartley was also among a handful of gay and lesbian artists who came to define the delicate balance between the poetic and the erotic in the early days of the American avant-garde.

In 1913, Hartley visited Berlin and Munich, where he met artists Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky, and formed a close friendship with a young German soldier named Karl von Freyburg. Hartley's famous Portrait of a German Officer (1914) includes abstracted versions of von Freyburg's initials and his own. The painting, in which military regalia is arranged to suggest a body, is both a memorial to Hartley's friend and an expression of forbidden desire. From the late 1930's, Hartley again took up painting male figures, notably including Christ Held by Half-Naked Men (1940-41) and Adelard the Drowned, Master of the "Phantom" (1938-1939). In 1969, writing in the New York Times, Hilton Kramer praised Hartley's portraits as "the boldest paintings of male figures in the history of American art."

Joel Dorius (1919 – 2006) US

Professor of literature caught in a pornography scandal and forced out by Smith College in 1960 only to be exonerated in a celebrated case of sexual McCarthyism.

Gianni Vattimo (1936 – ) Italian
Author, philosopher,many of whose works have been translated into English. Between 1999 and 2004 he was a member of the European Parliament. In 2004, after leaving the party of the Democrats of the Left, he endorsed Marxism.

Michael Stipe (1960 – ) US
Singer,lyricist and visual artist. He was the lead vocalist of the alternative rock band R.E.M.

Craig Revel Horwood (1965 - ) Australian/ UK
Dancer, choreographer, and theatre director. Judge for the British Television show, "Strictly Come Dancing".

Chris Kanyon (1970 – 2010) US
Professional wrestler, best known for his work in World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation, under the ring names Chris Kanyon and Mortis.
In 2006, after Kanyon's release from WWE, he began a gimmick in which he was an openly homosexual pro wrestler. This included a publicity stunt wherein he stated that WWE released him from his contract because of his sexuality. Kanyon later told reporters and even stated on a number of radio interviews, that this was just a publicity stunt and he was heterosexual. However, he later retracted these statements and acknowledged that he was in fact homosexual

Kaj Hasselriis (1974 – ) Canadian
Journalist, community activist and politician.

Died this day

Forrest Reid (1875 - 1947) UK
Author / Literary Critic / Translator

Christopher Isherwood (1904 - 1986) UK / US
Author

Mason Flynt (1960 - 2002) US
Porn

Sodomy in history, January

1919 — New York City police raid the Everard baths and arrest 10 men for sexual activity.

1921 — The Massachusetts Supreme Court upholds the nuisance conviction of a man for operating a Gay bath house.

1977 — A bill to reinstate sodomy as a crime in Indiana is introduced into the House. It is defeated in a committee by a vote of 6-4.

1984 — Illinois repeals its "lewd fondling or caress" law, more than two decades after repealing its sodomy law.

1993 — The Wisconsin Court of Appeals finds that the solicitation and touching of an undercover police officer constitutes "disorderly conduct" under state law.

1997 — A British tabloid accuses Conservative M.P. Jerry Hayes of having an affair in 1991 with a then-18-year-old male. At the time, 18 was under the age of consent.

Sources:

January 3rd in Queer History

2012-01-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Dorothy Arzner (1897 – 1979) US
Director

Boris Kochno (1904 – 1990) Russian
Poet

John Marsden (1942 – 2006) Australian
Lawyer / Activist

David Starkey (1945 – ) UK
Historian / Presenter

Marla Glen (1960 – ) US
Singer / Composer

Colin Cowie (1962 – ) Zambian / US
Lifestyle Guru

Bruce Labruce (1964 – ) Canadian
Director / Screenwriter / Photographer / Porn

Carol Guess (1968 – ) US
Author / Poet

Daniel Bryan (1971 – ) UK
Reality TV [Big Brother] / DJ / Hairdresser

Died this day

Guglielmo Pluschow (1852 - 1930 ) German
Photographer

Arthur Gold (1917 - 1990) US
Pianist / Presenter / Author

Monique Wittig (1935 - 2003) French
Author / Feminist Theorist

Mary Daly (1928 - 2010 ) US
"Radical lesbian feminist", feminist theologian.

Sodomy in history, January 3rd

1757 — In England, the 18-year-old son of Lord Denbigh successfully resists an attempt to extort money from him on grounds of his being a sodomite.

1911 — The Washington Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction over the contention that the requirement that all jurors be taxpayers created a biased jury and after leading questions were asked.

1918 — The Louisiana Supreme Court overturns the forfeiture of bail of a man convicted of sodomy assessed against him because he had not appeared for trial due to an oversight.

1980 — A Michigan appellate court upholds the state’s sodomy law against vagueness and sex-discrimination charges.

Sources:

Wikipedia

On this gay day
Calendar of Sodomy, January

Mary Daly, "Radical Lesbian Feminist", Theologian

2012-01-02T22:11:00.000-08:00

Radical feminist philosopher, academic, and Catholictheologian. Daly, who described herself as a "radical lesbian feminist", taught at Boston College, a Jesuit-run institution, for 33 years. She retired in 1999, after violating university policy by refusing to allow male students in her advanced women's studies classes. She allowed male students in her introductory class and privately tutored those who wanted to take advanced classes.

Women who are pirates in a phallocratic society are involved in a complex operation. First, it is necessary to plunder--that is, righteously rip off gems of knowledge that the patriarchs have stolen from us. Second, we must smuggle back to other women our plundered treasures. In order to invent strategies that will be big and bold enough for the next millennium, it is crucial that women share our experiences: the changes we have taken and the choices that have kept us alive. They are my pirate's battle cry and wake-up call for women who want to hear.

As one of the most influential feminist thinkers and theologians of the second half of the twentieth century, Daly had a profound impact upon other feminist writers and scholars. As colleague Mary E. Hunt observed in announcing her death to the Women's Alliance in Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) email list: "Her contributions to feminist theology, philosophy, and theory are many, unique, and if I may say so, world-changing. She created intellectual space; she set the bar high. Even those who disagreed with her are in her debt for the challenges she offered...She always advised women to throw our lives as far as they would go. I can say without fear of exaggeration that she lived that way herself."

However, Hunt was also controversial in some feminist and LGBT circles. Audrey Lourde and some other Black feminists accused her of ignoring the contributions of feminists of colour, and she angered the community. In Gyn/Ecology, Daly asserted her negative view of transsexual people, writing, "Today the Frankenstein phenomenon is omnipresent . . . in . . . phallocratic technology. . . . Transsexualism is an example of male surgical siring which invades the female world with substitutes."[24] "Transsexualism, which Janice Raymond has shown to be essentially a male problem, is an attempt to change males into females, whereas in fact no male can assume female chromosomes and life history/experience."[25] "The surgeons and hormone therapists of the transsexual kingdom . . . can be said to produce feminine persons. They cannot produce women."

Daly's other published books are:

Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Beacon, 1978);
Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy (Beacon, 1984);
Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (Beacon, 1987);
Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage Containing Reflections from My Logbook of a Radical Feminist Philosopher (Harper 1992);
Quintessence...Realizing the Archiac Future: A Radical Elemental Feminist Manifesto (Beacon, 1999); and
Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

Mary Daly and the Invitation to Explore Wild Ideas about Inclusivity: A Memorial Reflection

January 2nd in Queer History

2012-01-01T23:34:00.000-08:00

Born this day

M Carey Thomas (1857 – 1935) US Suffragette
William Haines (1900 – 1973) US Actor
Sir Michael Tippett (1905 – 1998) UK Composer
Christopher Durang (1949 – ) US Playwright / Actor
Marlo Broekmans ( 1953 – ) Dutch Photographer
Todd Haynes (1961 – ) US Director
Adam Elliot (1972 – ) Australian Director / Author / Animator

Saints' day:

Saints Basil and Gregory Nazianzus

Died this day

Jess Collins (1923 - 2004) US Artist
John Wojtowicz (1945 – 2006) US Bank Robber
Casey Johnson (1979 - 2010) US Socialite

Sodomy in history, January 2

1806 — Ohio repeals its common-law reception statute. Since it has no sodomy law, sodomy becomes legal and remains so for nearly eighty years.

1992 — The Idaho Court of Appeals reaffirms a 1913 decision that a sentence of life imprisonment for private, consensual sodomy is both permissible and constitutional.

Sources:

Wikipedia

On this gay day
Calendar of Sodomy, January

January 1st in Queer History

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

Events this day in Queer History

2004 – Tasmania adopts registered partnerships as part of their Relationships Act 2003
2007 – Registered partnerships begin in Switzerland
2007 – Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations come into effect inNorthern Ireland, UK
2008 – Same-sex civil unions adopted in New Hampshire, USA & Uruguay
2009 – Norway adopts same-sex marriages / Allows joint & step adoption by same-sex couples / IVF/artificial insemination for women married to, or in a relationship with women
2009 – North Cyprus legalises homosexuality
2010 – New Hampshire, USA adopts same-sex marriages effective this day

Born this day

Katherine Philips (1632 – 1664) UK
Poet

EM Forster (1879 – 1970) UK
Author

Albert Mol (1917 – 2004) Dutch
Author / Actor

James Hormel (1933 – ) US
Politician

Joe Orton (1933 – 1967) UK
Playwright

Eloy de la Iglesia (1944 – 2006) Spanish
Director

Nahum B Zenil (1947 – ) Mexican
Artist

Romy Haag (1951 – ) Dutch
Dancer / Singer / Actress / Club Manager

Adriano Marquez (1965 – ) Spanish
Porn

Joey Stefano (1968 – 1994) US
Porn

Magdalen Hsu-Li (1970 – ) US
Singer / Painter / Poet / Activist

Peter Raeg (1975 – ) Australian
Porn

Died this day

Loie Fuller (1862 - 1928) US
Dancer / Lighting Designer

Victor Buono (1938 - 1982 ) US
Comedian / Actor

Cesar Romero (1907 - 1994 ) US
Actor

Jim Hutton (1949 - 2010 )
Hairdresser / Former lover of Freddie Mercury

Sodomy in history, January

New laws take effect repealing consensual sodomy laws in

Illinois (1962),
Oregon (1972),
Hawaii (1973),
Ohio (1974),
California (1976),
Guam (1978),
Iowa (1978),
Alaska (1980),
American Samoa (1980).

Sources:

Wikipedia

On this gay day
Calendar of Sodomy, January

December 31st in Queer History

2011-12-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Orry-Kelly (1897 – 1964) Australian / US
Professional name of Orry George Kelly, a prolific Hollywood costume designer.

Joe Dallesandro (1948 – ) US
Actor in Andy Warhol films, and famous as a male sex symbol of American underground films.

Jennifer Higdon (1962 – ) US
Composer of classical music. Higdon has received many awards, including the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto and the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Percussion Concerto.

Logan McCree (1977 – ) German
Krieger or DJ Krieger, is the stage name of a German DJ who has been working in gay porn since 2007.

Died this day

Felice Schragenheim (1922 - 1944 ) German
Jewish resistance fighter during World War II. She is known for her tragic love story with Lilly Wust and death during a march from Gross-Rosen concentration camp (today Poland) to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.

Xavier Villarrutia (1903 - 1950 ) Mexican
Poet and playwright, whose most famous works are the short theatrical dramas, called Autos profanos, compiled in the work Poesía y teatro completos published in 1953.

Samuel Steward / Phil Andros (1909 - 1993) US
Professor of English, who wrote high quality gay erotica, kept meticulous notes of all his sexual encounters, assisted Kinsey in his research, and switched careers to become a professional tattoo artist decades before tats became respectable. He also developed extended correspondence with several literary icons, notably Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tolkas, and an extended sexual relationship with Thornton Wilder.

Phil Andros was both the pen - name he used for his erotica, and the name of the hustler who was his chief protagonist.

Brandon Teena (1972 - 1993) US
Trans man who was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska.[2][3][4] His life and death were the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, which was based on the documentary film The Brandon Teena Story.

Leigh Bowery (1961 - 1994) Australian
Performance artist, club promoter, actor, pop star, model and fashion designer, based in London.

Sodomy in history, December 31 st

1949 — The Washington Supreme Court reverses a sodomy conviction after the prosecutor contended that the defendant flew from San Francisco to Spokane for an act of sodomy and then flew back.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 30th in Queer History

2011-12-30T06:25:00.000-08:00

Events this day in queer history

2008 - ACLU sues the state of Arkansas, in the USA, arguing that the state's ban on same-sex adoptions is unconstitutional

Born this day

Beauford Delaney (1901 – 1979) US

Modernist painter. In Greenwich Village, where his studio was, Delaney became part of a gay bohemian circle of mainly white friends; but he was furtive and rarely comfortable with his sexuality.

Paul Bowles (1910 - 1999), US.

Gay American expatriate composer, writer, and translator Paul Bowles liked to examine sexuality from a dispassionate perspective for its psychological suggestiveness. Bowles's literary reputation rests on his novels, but until he was thirty-five he showed more interest in musical composition and poetry.

Sverker Astrom (1915 – ) Swedish

Former Swedish diplomat from 1940 to 1982, who came out as gay aged 88. While in service, he had felt unable to come out publicly, but had disclosed his sexuality to his superiors, to avoid any risk of blackmail.

Mike Lawlor (1956 – ) US

Politician, criminal justice professor, and lawyer who served as a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1987 to 2011.

Douglas Coupland (1961 – ) Canadian

Novelist, whose fiction is complemented by recognized works in design and visual art arising from his early formal training. Coupland has been described as "...possibly the most gifted exegete of North American mass culture writing today" and "one of the great satirists of consumerism". A specific feature of Coupland's novels is their synthesis of postmodern religion, Web 2.0 technology, human sexuality, and pop culture.

Kevin Greening ( 1962 - 2007 ) UK

Radio presenter, who co-hosted the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show with Zoe Ball from 1997 to 1998.

Michelle Douglas (1963 – ) Canadian

Human rights activist who was involved in a landmark case around lesbian and gay equality rights, which led to the Canadian military abandoning its policy banning gays and lesbians from service/

Sophie Ward (1964 – ) UK

Actress and the daughter of actor, Simon Ward. In 1996 her marriage broke down when she became involved with Rena Brannan, a female Korean-American writer.

Ivelin Yordanov (1978 –) Bulgarian

Politician

Died this day

Denton Welch (1915 - 1948 ) UK Author / Painter

Sodomy in history, December 30 th

1910 — In New York, two men are convicted of sodomy after police saw them speaking on a corner and followed them into a hotel, looking into their room through the transom.

1959 — The New York Court of Appeals upholds the loitering conviction of a Gay man, over the argument that there is insufficient evidence of solicitation.

1966 — The Arizona Supreme Court reverses the conviction of two men for sodomy because their conviction was based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

1975 — The Tennessee Supreme Court urges the legislature to reevaluate the state’s "crime against nature" law and hints that it may be unconstitutional.

Sources:

Wikipedia

Paul Bowles (1910 - 1999), American. Musician and Writer.

2011-12-29T09:22:00.000-08:00

b. December 30, 1910

d. November 18, 1999.

American expatriate composer, author, and translator. Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris in the 1930s. He studied music with Aaron Copland, and in New York wrote music for various theatrical productions, as well as other compositions. He achieved critical and popular success with the publication in 1949 of his first novel The Sheltering Sky, set in what was known as French North Africa, which he had visited in 1931.

In 1947 Bowles settled in Tangier, Morocco, and his wife, Jane Bowles followed in 1948. Except for winters spent in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) during the early 1950s, Tangier was his home for the next fifty-two years, the remainder of his life.

In France, Bowles became a part of Gertrude Stein's literary and artistic circle. On her advice he made his first visit to Tangier with Aaron Copland in the summer of 1931.[7] They took a house on the Mountain above Tangier Bay. Morocco was later to become the home of Bowles (and the inspiration for many of his short stories).[8] From there he traveled back to Berlin, where he met Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood (Isherwood being so taken with him that he named his character Sally Bowles for him), before returning to North Africa the next year to travel throughout other parts of Morocco, the Sahara, Algeria and Tunisia.

In 1937 he returned to New York, and over the next decade established a solid reputation as a composer, collaborating with Orson Welles, Tennessee Williams and others on music for stage productions as well as orchestral pieces. In 1938 he married the author and playwright Jane Auer. It was an unconventional marriage: their intimate relationships were with people of their own sex, but they maintained close ties to each other,[9] and despite being frequently anthologised as a gay writer Bowles always regarded such typecasting as both absurd and irrelevant.

The American author and composer Paul Bowles, best known for The Sheltering Sky, has died in Morocco aged 88.

He died of a heart attack on Thursday in the port of Tangiers, where he had lived for most of his life. He had been in hospital with cardiac problems since 7 November.

He was the last survivor of a whole generation of American writers which included William S Burroughs and Jack Kerouac.

Although not a 'beat' himself, Bowles was heavily influenced by the introspection which marked their works.

Wealthy family

His existentialist masterpiece, The Sheltering Sky, the film version of which was directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, details the destruction of an American couple in the soporific decadence of 1930s Morocco, drawing upon his own experiences as a long-term American expatriate in Tangiers.

Paul Frederick Bowles was born in New York City in 1910 into a wealthy New England family.

During his early years an aunt and uncle introduced him to the esoterica of yoga, theosophy and transcendentalism, themes which he would explore further in later life.

His grandparents' agnosticism was also to play a central role in his outlook.

After graduating from high school, Paul Bowles enrolled at the University of Virginia, but soon ran away to the intellectual hothouse of Paris where he worked for a while as a switchboard operator at the International Herald Tribune.

Returning to the United States and a reconciliation with his parents, he became friends with the composer Aaron Copland, who taught him composition.

With Copland, Bowles travelled extensively in Europe, meeting Ezra Pound, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein and her lover, Alice B Toklas.

His surrealist poetry and nihilistic outlook irritated Stein who advised him and Copland to travel to Tangiers.

It was a journey which would change his life.

"As a result of this arbitrary action," he wrote later, "my life was permanently altered.

"If Morocco had been then as it is now, I should have spent the summer and gone away, probably not to return. But Morocco in 1931 provided an inexhaustible succession of fantastic spectacles."

Entranced by what he perceived to be the transcendental nature of North African life as well as by a society tolerant of homosexuality, Paul Bowles produced his first musical compositions.

Although these were often arcane pieces, including settings of Cocteau's poetry, Bowles was to gain himself a glowing reputation as a composer of incidental and other music for theatrical productions on Broadway.

Among his credits are such works as Love's Old Sweet Song, The Glass Menagerie and Sweet Bird of Youth.

A radical Marxist, Paul Bowles co-founded the Committee on Republican Spain, which raised money for the anti-Franco campaign during the Spanish Civil War.

In 1938 he married the woman considered to be his muse, the writer Jane Auer, author of the acclaimed play, In The Summer House. It was a loving marriage of opposites, even though both were homosexual.

In 1947 Bowles and his wife returned to Morocco and he wrote his first, and most celebrated, novel.

He described The Sheltering Sky as, "an adventure story in which the actual adventures take place on two planes simultaneously: in the actual desert and in the inner desert of the spirit."

The novel was on the New York Times best-seller list for ten weeks following its publication in 1949. The initial critical response to the novel was mixed: it was called 'gripping', 'puzzling' and 'strange'.

But, as the years went by, the novel gained the reputation of a cult classic.

His other novels defied any conventional pigeon-holing. Let It Come Down tells of an American bank clerk's descent into the seedy underworld of a Tangiers dope fiend.

The Spider's House looks at the effects of Morocco's anti-colonial struggle through the eyes of an American expatriate and a young Arab boy.

Bowles denied that his works were autobiographical but was resigned to the fact that no-one else agreed with him. Indeed, the idea of resignation to fate was central to much of Bowles' work.

Though he travelled widely, Paul Bowles always returned to his beloved Tangiers. Following his wife's death in 1973, he became increasingly reclusive.

In his book The Pillars of Hercules, Paul Theroux paints a poignant picture of an aged and ill Paul Bowles: an American in an Arab city, still enjoying the illicit pleasures of kif and hashish jam but with one eye firmly on the past.

"His world had shrunk to these walls," writes Theroux, "But that was merely the way it seemed. It was an illusion. His world was within his mind, and his imagination was vast."

December 29th in Queer History

2011-12-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

Events this day in queer history

2009 – Malawi couple (Tiwonge Chimbalanga & Steven Monjeza) arrested and expected to be charged with gross indecency at their engagement party

2009 – Mexico City’s same-sex marriages signed into law (effective March 2010)

Born this day

Elsa Gidlow (1898 – 1986) US

Poet who in 1923 published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States, "On A Grey Thread". Born in England, as a child she had no formal education. After moving to Canada with her family at the age of 16, she took a typing job, attended courses at McGill College (now University), and had her first passionate relationship with a woman.In time, she co-founded and owned a publishing house.

Her two long-term life partners were Violet Henry-Andreson and Isabel Quallo.

Billy Tipton (1914 – 1989) US

Jazz musician and bandleader. Born Dorothy Tipton, he is also notable for the discovery, after his death, that he was female assigned at birth.

Joseph Maher (1933 – 1998) Irish

Character actor who appeared in 43 films and was nominated for three Tony Awards and a Drama Desk Award for his supporting roles on the stage.

Paul Rudnick (1957 –) US

Playwright, screenwriter and novelist. His plays include I Hate Hamlet, Jeffrey, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Valhalla and The New Century.

Sean Martin ( 1960 – ) Canadian

Cartoonist, set designer, and graphic designer, best known for the Doc and Raider comic strip series which appeared in LGBT publications in the 1980s and 1990s.

Jason Gould (1966 – ) US

Actor, writer and director, who is the son of Barbra Streisand and actor Elliott Gould. About 1991, tabloids outed Gould as being gay.

Dave Brinson (1977 – ) UK

Labour Party politician, who was a candidate for the English constituency of Eastbourne in the 2010 general election.

Ariel Schrag (1979 – ) US

Cartoonist and television writer who achieved critical recognition at an unusually early age for her autobiographical comics. Schrag was listed in The Advocate's list of "Forty under Forty" out media professionals in its June–July 2009 issue.

Died this day

Frank Thring (1926 - 1994) Australian

Character actor.

Cassia Eller (1962 - 2001) Brazilian

Musician, who performed a fusion of rock and MPB.
Eller gave birth to a son, Francisco "Chicão" Eller, in 1993. That same year, she went public with her long-term relationship with Maria Eugênia Vieira Martins. She explained that she came out so that her son could grow up without hearing rumors about his mother.As one of Brazil's most prominent lesbian artists, Eller was sometimes called the "South American Melissa Etheridge."

Kevin Greening ( 1962 - 2007 ) UK

Radio presenter, who co-hosted the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show with Zoe Ball from 1997 to 1998.

Sodomy in history, December 29 th

1804 — Ohio repeals the 1795 common-law reception statute, making sodomy legal in the state.

1992 — The Michigan Court of Appeals rules that the state’s laws against sodomy and "gross indecency" are constitutional as applied to private, consensual activity among adults.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 28th in Queer History

2011-12-28T01:40:00.000-08:00

Events this day in Queer History

2009 - First same-sex couple (Alejandro “Alex” Freyre & Jose Maria Di Bello) to legally marry in Argentina and Latin America.

2009 – The Matthew Shepard Act signed into law by President Obama

Born this day

FW Murnau (1888 – 1931) German

One of the most influential German film directors of the silent era, and a prominent figure in the expressionist movement in German cinema during the 1920s.

Willmer “Little Ax” Broadnax US

African-American hard gospel quartet singer. A tiny man with glasses and a high, powerful tenor voice, he worked and recorded with many of the most famous and influential groups of his day.

Upon his death in 1994, it was discovered that Broadnax was female assigned at birth.

Simon Raven (1927 – 2001) UK

Novelist, essayist, dramatist and raconteur who, in a writing career of forty years, caused controversy, amusement and offence. Among the many things said about him, perhaps the most quoted was that he had "the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel". E W Swanton called Raven's cricket memoir Shadows in the Grass "the filthiest cricket book ever written"

Antoine Bodar (1944 – ) Dutch

Roman Catholic priest , historian and author of several theological books.Shortly before his ordination, it was disclosed that he was gay, but later distanced himself from homosexual practice.

In a newspaper interview in 2005, and later in the book Unordered Love, he discussed his views on homosexuality, religion and church.

Birgitt Bender (1956 – ) German

Politician and member of Alliance '90/The Greens, who has been a member of the German Bundestag since 1992.

Malcolm Gets (1963 – ) US

Actor, who is best known for his role as Richard in the American television sitcom Caroline in the City.

Died this day

Leon Bakst (1866 - 1924) Russian

Painter and scene- and costume designer. He was a member of the Sergei Diaghilev circle and the Ballets Russes, for which he designed exotic, richly coloured sets and costumes.

Edward Perry Warren (1860 - 1928 ) US

Art collector and the author of works proposing an idealized view of homosexual relationships. The Warren Cup, now in the British Museum,was one of his purchases, which he did not attempt to sell during his lifetime because of its explicit depiction of homoerotic scenes.

Warrem Cup, showing anal sex between an older Roman man and a youth

Jeremy Wolfenden (1934 - 1965) UK

Foreign correspondent and British spy at the height of the Cold War.

Terry Dolan ( 1950 - 1986 ) US

New Right political activist, and co-founder and chairman of the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC). Although Dolan was a proponent of family values and the organization he led was persistently critical of gay rights, he was discovered to have been a closeted homosexual who frequented gay bars and died from complications of AIDS, aged 36.

Chris McKoy (1971 - 2001 ) UK

Susan Sontag (1933 - 2004 ) US

Essayist, literary and cultural theorist, icon, and political activist. Sontag became aware of her bisexuality during her early teens and at 15 wrote in her diary, "so now I feel I have lesbian tendencies (how reluctantly I write this)." At 16, she had her first sexual encounter with a woman. Later in life, she said in an interview that she had been in love nine times - five women, four men.

Sodomy in history, December 28 th

1962 — The Rhode Island Supreme Court rules that the state’s "crime against nature" law includes fellatio.

1973 — The New Hampshire Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of that state’s sodomy law.

1984 — A Michigan appellate court upholds the gross indecency law as applied to private, consensual sexual activity.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 27th in Queer History

2011-12-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Marlene Dietrich (1901 – 1992) German / US

German-American actress and singer, who remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth greatest female star of all time.

Dietrich's personal life was kept out of public view. Dietrich, who was bisexual, enjoyed the thriving gay scene of the time and drag balls of 1920s Berlin.

Fritz Klein (1932 – 2006) US

Sex researcher, psychiatrist, inventor of the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid and author. He was also a pioneering bisexual rights activist, who was an important figure in the modern LGBT rights movement.

Bob Brown (1944 – )

Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens, who was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia.Brown has led the Australian Greens since the party was founded in 1992 until the present.

Since 1997, he has been a regular fixture on the SameSame annual list of the 25 most influential gay and lesbian Australians.

Guido Westerwelle (1961 – ) German

German liberal politician, currently serving as the Foreign Minister and a former Vice Chancellor of Germany in the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel (since 28 October 2009). He is the first openly gay person to hold either of those positions. Since 2001, he has been the chairman of the Free Democratic Party of Germany. A lawyer by profession, he has been a Member of Parliament since 1996.

On 20 July 2004, Westerwelle attended Angela Merkel's 50th birthday party accompanied by his partner, businessman Michael Mronz, thereby tacitly acknowledging that he was gay. It was the first time that he attended an official event with his partner. Today, he is frank about his homosexuality and lives together with his partner Michael Mronz. The couple registered their partnership on 17 September 2010 in a private ceremony in Bonn

Joe Mantello (1962 – ) US

Actor and director best known for his work on Broadway productions of Wicked, Take Me Out and Assassins, as well as earlier in his career being one of the original Broadway cast of Angels in America. Mantello directed The Ritz, his sixth production with playwright Terrence McNally, in 2007.

Tobias Billstrom (1973 – ) Swedish

Politician currently serving as Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy in the Swedish government. At the age of 37, Billström is the youngest member of the cabinet. He is also the first openly bisexual person to serve as minister in a Swedish cabinet

Wilson Cruz (1973 - ) US

Actor, known for playing Rickie Vasquez on My So-Called Life[1] and a recurring character on Noah's Arc. As an openly gay person of Afro-Puerto Rican ancestry, he has served as an advocate for gay youth, especially gay youth of color.

Peter Zuckerman (1979 – ) US

Prize-winning journalist and author who has focused his career in court reporting, investigative journalism and adventure stories.

His partner is Sam Adams, the mayor of Portland.

Saint's day

John the Evangelist: the Beloved Disciple?

The Gospel of John makes several references to "the disciple Jesus loved", and to "the Beloved Disciple", including references to special priviliges that Jesus gave to this relationship, not granted to other disciples. This is taken by some Biblical scholars as evidence that Jesus had a relationship with this disciple which was at least emotionally intimate, and possibly sexual.

It is not clear whether this "Beloved Disciple" was John himself (although it could have been), or someone else possibly Lazarus.

In any event, there are suggestions from elsewhere that John may have had a same-sex relationship with another, his scribe Prochorus, after Christ's death.

Died this day

Arthur Rhames ( 1957 – 1989 ) US

Guitarist, tenor saxophonist, pianist and melodica stylist, Krishna devotee, and a legend of New York City avant-garde jazz.

Hervé Guibert (1955 – 1991) French

Writer and photographer, and a close friend of Michel Foucault. The author of numerous novels and autobiographical studies, he played a considerable role in changing French public attitudes to AIDS.

Michael Callen (1955 - 1993) US

Singer, songwriter, composer, author, and AIDS activist. He was a significant architect of the response to the AIDS crisis in the United States.

Sir Alan Bates (1934 - 2003) UK

Actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he appeared in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving. He is also known for his performance with Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek, as well as his roles in King of Hearts, Georgy Girl, Far From the Madding Crowd, and The Fixer, which gave him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1969, he starred in the Ken Russell film Women in Love with Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson, with a renowned fireside naked wrestling scene with Oliver Reed.

Although he was married to Victoria Ward from 1970 until her death from a wasting disease in 1992, Bates had numerous homosexual relationships throughout his life, including those with actors Nickolas Grace and Peter Wyngarde, and Olympic skater John Curry. In 1994 Curry died from AIDS in Bates's arms.

Ryan Shay Hoskie (???? - ????) US

Sex worker from Albuquerque,New Mexico, whose partially-undressed body was discovered in an alley. He had suffered upper body trauma that led to his death.

Sodomy in history, December 27 th

1935 — The Florida Supreme Court holds that a sodomy indictment charging "the abominable and detestable crime against nature per os" is sufficient.

1943 — A California appellate court upholds an attempted crime against nature conviction of drunken teenagers driving around together who, under the influence, tried sex.

1960 — An Ohio appellate court overturns a sodomy conviction of a man who was given a lie detector test and had the test mentioned in his trial. The court felt that this could prejudice the jury.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 26th in Queer History

2011-12-26T01:37:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Thomas Gray (1716 – 1771) UK

Poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University. He is best known for his masterpiece, the " Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard".

Simon Fanshaw (1956 – ) UK

Writer and broadcaster. He contributes frequently to British newspapers, TV and radio.

David Sedaris (1956 – ) US

Grammy Award-nominated American humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor.

Reichen Lehmkuhl (1973 – ) US

Reality show winner[Amazing Race], model, and occasional actor.

Died this day

William Haines (1900 - 1973) US

Film actor and interior designer. He was a star of the silent era until the 1930s, when Haines' career was cut short by MGM Studios due to his refusal to deny his homosexuality.

Hurd Hatfield (1917 - 1998) US

Actor, known especially for his starring role in "The Picture of Dorian Grey".

Sir Nigel Hawthorne (1929 - 2001 ) UK

Actor, perhaps best remembered for his role as Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary in the 1980s sitcom Yes Minister and the Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister.

"Fred with Tires" (1984)

Herb Ritts (1952 - 2002 ) US

Fashion photographer who concentrated on black-and-white photography and portraits, often in the style of classical Greek sculpture. He is of special interest to the glbtq community because of the homoerotic qualities and the "homosexual iconography" in many of his photographs.
Ritts's male nudes have been described as having "a profoundly intimate feeling." The photographer himself felt that his pictures reflected a "classic sensuality" rather than a "gay sensibility." Nevertheless, although his images are widely admired by mainstream audiences, they have a particular appeal to gay viewers. One of his best-known works, "Fred with Tires" (1984), shows an almost impossibly muscular young man clad only in jeans that sag slightly below his waist.

Sodomy in history, December 26th

1912 — In Philadelphia, Rev. Alfred Mortimer of the Episcopal Church, is forced to resign and leaves the country because of sex with male parishioners.

1978 — The Oregon Court of Appeals overturns the license revocation of a physician who had been barred by the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners from engaging in consensual sexual relations.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 25th in Queer History

2011-12-25T06:22:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Quentin Crisp (1908 – 1999) UK Author / Actor

John Minton (1917 – 1957) UK
Painter

Noel Tovey (1934 – ) Australian
Dancer / Choreographer / Actor

Ismael Merchant (1936 – 2005) Indian
Director

Kenny Everett (1944 – 1995) UK
Comedian / Presenter

Noel Greig (1944 – 2009) UK
Actor / Playwright / Director

Joey Yale (1949 – 1986) US
Porn

Christine Kaufmann (1951 – ) US
Politician

Joanna Werners (1953 – ) Suriname / Canadian
Author

Stephen Twigg (1966 – ) UK
Politician

Matthew Rettenmund (1968 – ) US
Author

Brad Benton [aka Dylan Vox] (1974/8 – ) US
Porn / Actor / Columnist / Blogger

Leo Bramm (???? – ) Israeli
Porn

Died this day

Neil Francis Hawkins (1903 - 1950) UK
Politician / Author

Sodomy in history, December 25th

1842 — An all-male bathing party in Cincinnati is met with "a torrent of abuse" from the public.

1982 — Two married army men are found, fully clothed, in bed together and are accused of sex. They say they only fell on the bed while drunk, but accept honorable discharges rather than fight the charges and possibly receive dishonorable discharges.
Sources:

Wikipedia

December 24th in Queer History

2011-12-24T06:21:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Hans von Marees (1837 – 1887) German.
Painter, who mainly painted country scenes in a realistic style.

Robert Joffrey (1928/30 – 1988) US
Dancer, teacher, producer and choreographer, known for his highly imaginative modern ballets for his company, the Joffrey Ballet.
Joffrey died on March 25, 1988 of AIDS at the age of 57. In 2000, Joffrey was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame.

Dean Corll (1939 – 1973) US
Serial Killer, also known as the "Candy Man", who, together with two youthful accomplices named David Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley, abducted, raped, tortured and murdered a minimum of 28 boys in a series of killings spanning from 1970 to 1973 in Houston, Texas.

Brenda Howard (1946 – 2005) US
Bisexual rights activist and sex-positive feminist. Howard was an important figure in the modern LGBT rights movement.

Deborah Glick (1950 – ) US
Democratic member of the New York State Assembly. The first openly LGBT member of the New York Legislature,she has focused on areas relating to civil rights, reproductive freedom, Lesbian and Gay rights, environmental improvement and preservation, and the arts.

Bob Smith (1958 – ) US
Comedian and author, who was the first openly gay comedian to appear on The Tonight Show and the first openly gay comedian to have his own HBO half-hour comedy special.

Lee Daniels (1959 –) US
Actor, film producer, and director.

Jim Roth (1968 – ) US
A Democrat, Roth was appointed by Republican Governor Mary Fallin to serve on the Oklahoma State Election Board as the panel's lone Democrat.

Died this day

Prince Aribert of Anhalt (1866 - 1933) German.
Prince of the German Duchy of Anhalt.

Edmund Goulding (1891 - 1959) US
Film writer and director.

Louis Aragon (1982 – 1897) French
Poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.

John Damien (1933 - 1986 ) Canadian
Damien worked in horse-racing in Ontario for twenty years, as a trainer, jockey and racing steward for the Ontario Jockey Commission. He was one of the top three racing judges in Ontario when on February 7, 1975, he was dismissed without notice after his gay sexual orientation came to the attention of the Commission, an independent agency of the Ontario provincial government.

Pat Bond (1990 – 1925) US
Actress, who starred on stage and on television, as well as in motion pictures. For many people, she was the first gay woman they saw on stage.

John Boswell (1947 - 1994 ) US
Prominent historian and a professor at Yale University. Many of Boswell's studies focused on the issue of homosexuality and religion, specifically homosexuality and Christianity.

Nizah Morris (1955 - 2002 ) US
Transgender entertainer.

Sodomy in history, December 24th

1912 — A report issued by Utah’s State Board of Insanity recommends sterilization of persons convicted of sexual crimes.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 23rd in Queer History

2011-12-23T06:28:00.000-08:00

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – Chief Justice of Pakistan orders National Database & Registration Authority to issue national identity cards showing “distinct” gender allowing hijras to register as a separate gender

Born this day

Tsar Alexander I of Russia
Grandson of Catherine the Great, who came to the throne following the assassination of his father, Paul I. Rumors of his homosexuality began circulating shortly after his coronation in 1801. During the early part of his rule, he relied on an "Unofficial Committee," composed of four of his young companions, for political guidance and support.

Christa Winsloe (1888 – 1944) German

German-Hungarian novelist, playwright and sculptor, best known for her play Gestern und heute, filmed in 1931 as "Mädchen in Uniform",the first detailed play on female homosexuality in the Weimar Republic.
During World War II, she joined the French Resistance.In 1944, she and a companion were shot and killed by four Frenchmen, who mistook them for Nazi spies.

Carol Ann Duffy (1955 – ) UK

Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's poet laureate, She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly gay person to hold the position. Duffy rose to greater prominence in UK poetry circles after her poem "Whoever She Was" won the Poetry Society National Poetry Competition in 1983, and went on to gain both critical and popular success.

Tim Fountain (1967 – ) UK

Playwright whose first major success was "Resident Alien", based on the life and writings of Quentin Crisp. Fountain hit the headlines in 2004 when his one man show, "Sex Addict" opened at the Edinburgh Festival. During the show he solicited sexual partners on-line and the audience got to choose who he had sex with.

Nikolai Alekseev (1977 – ) Russian

LGBT rights activist, lawyer and journalist. In October 2010, Nikolay Alexeyev won the first ever case at the European Court of Human Rights on LGBT human rights violations in Russia when the court unanimously ruled that by banning three Moscow Prides in 2006, 2007 and 2008 Russia had breached three articles of the European Convention.

Died this day

Pierre Gripari (1925 - 1990 ) French

Writer who first gained critical success with his autobiography, "Pierrot-la-lune". Until his death, he was more known to French audiences as a children's author. His other work, was not commercially successful, often included gay themes.

Vincent Fourcade (1934 - 1992 ) French

Interior designer and the business and life partner of Robert Denning. "Outrageous luxury is what our clients want," he once said.

Pierre Vallieres (1938 - 1998 ) Canadian

Journalist and writer, who was considered an intellectual leader of the Front de libération du Québec.

Sodomy in history, December 23rd

1833 — Georgia changes the wording of its sodomy law to read "man with man or in the same unnatural manner with woman," thus eliminating the possibility of Lesbians being prosecuted. The penalty of life imprisonment is retained.

1917 — The North Carolina Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man who claims that, since he is 52 years old and a father, he can not possibly be guilty of sodomy. The Court agrees that it is difficult to believe, but does not question the jury’s finding.

1998 — Chile decriminalizes consensual sodomy.

Sources:

December 22nd in Queer History

2011-12-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Myron Brinig (1896 – 1991) US

Jewish-American author who wrote twenty-one novels from 1929 to 1958. Brinig's novels often dealt with homosexuality. According to the Gay & Lesbian Literary Heritage, Brinig was the "first American Jewish novelist to write in any significant way about the gay experience."

Gustaf Grundgens (1899 – 1963) German

One of Germany's most famous and influential actors of the 20th century, intendant and artistic director of theatres in Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Hamburg. His career continued undisturbed through the years of the Nazi regime, but the extent to which this can be considered as deliberate collaboration with the Nazis was hotly disputed. In 1934 he became intendant of the Prussian State Theatre; though constant attacks on his sexual orientation made him ask the Prussian Minister President Hermann Göring for his discharge after the Night of the Long Knives. Göring rejected the request and instead appointed him a member of the Prussian state council to ensure his immunity. Posthumously, Gründgens was the subject of a novel entitled "Mephisto" by his former brother-in-law Klaus Mann, who had died in 1949.

Marc Allegret (1900 – 1973) French

Screenwriter and film director. Allégret became André Gide's lover when he was fifteen and Gide was forty-seven. Later, Marc was to fall briefly under the spell of Cocteau

Martin Sherman (1938 –) US

Dramatist and screenwriter, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Bent (1979), which explores the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust.

David Parks (1943 – ) US

Democrat member of the Nevada Senate, who was the first openly gay member of the Nevada Legislature.

Frank Israel (1945 – 1996) US

Los Angeles architect, who designed a series of residences, remodels and office buildings, mainly for entertainment industry clients, that exemplify the contemporary West Coast style.

Kuwasi Balagoon (1946 - 1986 ) US

Bisexual Black Panther, a member of the Black Liberation Army, a New Afrikan anarchist, and a defendant in the Panther 21 case in the late sixties.

Maggie McIntosh (1947 – ) US

Maryland politician, the Chairman of the Environmental Matters Committee of the Maryland House of Delegates. Delegate McIntosh is the first woman to be appointed majority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates and the first openly gay person in the Maryland General Assembly

Nick Enright (1950 – 2003) Australian

Playwright / Author

Michael Williams [Sister Roma] (1962 – ) US

drag queen and art director of gay pornography. She is a twenty-year member of San Francisco's Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Inc.

Martina Voss-Tecklenburg (1967 – , German.

Retired football midfielder and lately was head coach for women's football club FCR 2001 Duisburg in Germany's top flight, the Fußball-Bundesliga.

Vicky Galindo (1983 – ) US

Athlete on the USA Softball Women's National Team

Died this day

Wallace Thurman (1902 - 1934 ) US

Novelist during the Harlem Renaissance. He is best known for his novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life, which explores discrimination among black people based on skin color.

Ma Rainey (1886 - 1939 ) US

One of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record.She was billed as The Mother of the Blues.

Tucker Smith (1936 - 1988 ) US

Actor/dancer/singer best known for his role as Ice in the movie musical West Side Story.

George Stambolian (1938 - 1991 ) US

Educator, writer, and editor of Armenian descent, who was a key figure in the early gay literary movement that came out of New York during the 1960s and 1970s. He was best known as the editor of the Men on Men anthologies of gay fiction.

Lance Loud (1951 - 2001 ) US

Magazine columnist and new wave rock-n-roll performer, Loud is best known for his 1973 appearance in An American Family, a pioneer reality television series that featured his coming out, leading to his status as an icon in the gay community.

Sodomy in history, December 22 nd

1853 — The Oregon Territory enacts its own sodomy law. The penalty is set at 1-5 years.

1952 — The High Commissioner for the U.S. Trust Territories promulgates a criminal code which creates a penalty of up to 10 years for sodomy, and apparently includes oral sex.

1953 — A California appellate court upholds an oral copulation conviction of a man even though his partner is acquitted.

1955 — The Washington Supreme Court reverses a sodomy conviction that is based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

1970 — The Indiana Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction even though evidence of similar acts with other persons many years before was admitted.

1972 — Ohio passes a new criminal code that makes it the seventh state to legalize sodomy, the first to have gender-neutral sexual assault laws, and the only state to legalize many forms of incest, such as between two brothers, two sisters, or cousins of the same sex.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 21st in Queer History

2011-12-21T00:00:00.000-08:00

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – Mexico City legalises same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples (effective March 2010)

Born this day

Michael Tilson Thomas (1944 – ) US
Conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra.

Gordon D Fox (1961 – ) US
Politician from Providence, Rhode Island and the Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives.
Fox came out publicly in 2004 and is in a long-term relationship with Marcus LaFond. He is one of four openly gay members of the Rhode Island General Assembly. He was also the first openly gay house speaker in the United States.

Kecia Cunningham (1965 – ) US
City Commissioner of Decatur Georgia, and the first openly gay African American elected official in the Southeast.

Andy Dick (1965 – ) US
Comedian, actor, musician and television/film producer.

Frank Rossavik (1965 – )
Norwegian Journalist. Openly gay,he has been called "the best writer among the homosexuals" by the Christian Conservative Finn, Jarle Sæle.

Karrie Webb (1974 – ) Australian
Australia's most successful female professional golfer, and one of the top players in the history of global women's golf. She is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, with 38 wins on the LPGA Tour, more than any other active player.

Died this day

Carl van Vechten (1880 - 1964 ) US
Writer and photographer, who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein.

Anna Elisabet Weirauch (1887 - 1970 ) German
Author, who worked for a decade starting 1904,at Berlin's German State Theatre.
She started writing plays but later moved to novels. In 1933 she moved to Gastag, Upper Bavaria, where she lived with her life partner.

Sodomy in history, December 21 st

1836 — Texas adopts the common law of England, making sodomy a capital offense.

1856 — A man in Utah records in his diary that a married woman in Salt Lake City had been accused of trying to seduce the daughter of a man in town.

1988 — The Oregon Court of Appeals reverses two public indecency convictions of men looking for sex in restrooms, finding a right to sexual privacy even outside of enclosed stalls.

2001 — Romania repeals its sodomy law.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 20th in Queer History

2011-12-20T00:15:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Elsie de Wolfe (1865 – 1950) US
Actress / Interior Designer

Zebedy Colt (1929 – 2004) US
Actor / Musician

Dafydd Jenkins (1946 – 2001) UK
Club Manager / Editor

John Spencer (1946 - 2005) US

Film and television actor, most widely known for his role in "The West Wing".

In 1990 Spencer joined the cast of the television series "L.A. Law", playing rumpled, pugnacious associate attorney Tommy Mullaney. Spencer's work also extended to video games, portraying the role of Captain Hugh Paulsen in the 1995 video game Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom.
From 1999 until his death in 2005, Spencer was cast in the role of White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry on the NBC political drama series "The West Wing". Both Spencer and his character were recovering alcoholics.

Sky Gilbert (1952 – ) Canadian
Drag Queen / Actor / Author / Playwright / Columnist / Critic

Stephen Bicknell (1957 –2007) UK
Organ Builder / Author

Tista Das (1976 – ) Indian
Actress

Spencer Duhm (1989 – ) US
Reality TV [Survivor]

Saints' Day:

Ruth and Naomi: Biblical Women in Love

Died this day

Moss Hart (1904 – 1961)
American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway. Married and a father, but known by his friends to have been gay.

Irving Rapper (1898 - 1999 ) US
Director

Bernard King (1934 - 2002 ) Australian
Actor/ Chef / Presenter

C Hernandez (???? –????) Argentine
Murder Victim

Sodomy in history, December 20 th

1785 — The last known execution for sodomy in the United States occurs in Pennsylvania. Joseph Ross is the victim.

1817 — Georgia reenacts its 1816 criminal code with an identical sodomy law, and this code is enforced.

1897 — The California Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of two prisoners for a consensual act in their cell, the first such reported case in the United States.

1978 — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rules that touching a clothed crotch constitutes "public lewdness."

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 19th in Queer History

2011-12-19T06:20:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Vander Clyde [Barbette] (1899 – 1973) US

Female impersonator, high wire performer and trapeze artist. Barbette began performing as an aerialist at around the age of 14 as one-half of a circus act called The Alfaretta Sisters. After a few years of circus work, Barbette went solo and adopted his exotic-sounding pseudonym. He performed in full drag, revealing himself as male only at the end of his act.

Robert Medley (1905 – 1994) UK

English painter who worked in both abstract and figurative styles, and a theatre designer.

Jean Genet (1910 – 1986) French

Prominent and controversial[1] French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing. His major works include the novels Querelle of Brest, The Thief's Journal, and Our Lady of the Flowers, and the plays The Balcony, The Blacks, The Maids and The Screens.

Jose Lezama-Lima (1910 – 1976) Cuban

Writer and poet who is considered one of the most influential figures in Latin American literature.

Cyril Collard (1993 - 1957 ) French

Author, filmmaker, composer, musician and actor. He is known for his unapologetic portrayals of bisexuality and HIV in art, particularly his autobiographical novel and film Les Nuits Fauves (Savage Nights). Openly bisexual, Collard was also one of the first French artists to speak openly about his HIV-positive status.

Limahl (1958 – ) UK

Christopher Hamill better known by his stage name Limahl is an English pop singer, who rose to fame as the lead singer of the 1980s pop group Kajagoogoo

Michelangelo Signorile (1960 – ) US

Writer, a national talk radio host whose program is aired each weekday across the United States and Canada, and Editor-at-Large for the Gay Voices vertical of The Huffington Post. Signorile's seminal 1993 book Queer in America explored the negative effects of the LGBT closet, and provided one of the first intellectual justifications for the practice of outing public officials. He has argued that the homosexuality of public figures—and only public figures—should be reported on when relevant, and only when relevant. In 1992 Newsweek listed him as one of America's "100 Cultural Elite," and he is included in the 2002 book, The Gay 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Gay Men and Lesbians, Past and Present, which begins with Socrates at number 1 and ends with Signorile at number 100.

Matthew Waterhouse (1961 – )UK

Actor and writer best known for his role as Adric in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.

Gregory Douglass (1980 – ) US

Singer-songwriterm who plays lead guitar and piano. Some of his lyrics deal with queer themes.

Lady Sovereign (1985 – ) UK

Louise Amanda Harman, better known by the stage name Lady Sovereign, is an English rapper & grime artist. She is noted for her professional success in performing styles of music generally dominated by males.

Died this day

Hans Warren (1921 - 2001) Dutch

Dutch poet, writer and literary critic, born in Borsele, whose full name was Johannes Adrianus Menne Warren. He published a an extended series of candid diaries of his life ans sexual experiences as a gay man in the Netherlands, including the early years when married and closeted, coming out, and later living and writing as openly gay. He is also notable for a fictionalized account of what it was like to be both Jewish and gay under Nazi occupation, in the novel "Secretly Inside".

Sodomy in history, December 19 th

1816 — Georgia adopts a new criminal code, reinstating sodomy as a crime after a 32-year hiatus. The penalty is compulsory life imprisonment. The law is not enforced.

1917 — A Georgia appellate court reverses a man’s conviction for assault to commit sodomy for soliciting another man and touching his crotch.

1917 — A Georgia appellate court rejects the contention of a man and woman that only people of the same sex can commit sodomy.

1955 — The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturns the sodomy conviction of a man in Guam because it was based on an information instead of an indictment.

1978 — A Virgin Islands court upholds the constitutionality of that territory’s sodomy law.

1991 — The New York Court of Appeals rules that sex in a parked car on a public street does not necessarily violate the state’s public indecency law.

Sources:

December 18th in Queer History

2011-12-18T06:19:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Portrait by
Sébastien_Bourdon

Christina of Sweden (1626 –1689)

Queen regnant of Swedes, Goths and Vandals, Grand Princess of Finland, and Duchess of Ingria, Estonia, Livonia and Karelia, from 1633 to 1654. She was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustav II Adolph and his wife Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. As the heiress presumptive, at the age of six she succeeded her father on the throne of Sweden upon his death at the Battle of Lützen. Being the daughter of a Protestant champion in the Thirty Years' War, she caused a scandal when she abdicated her throne and converted to Catholicism in 1654. She spent her later years in Rome, becoming a leader of the theatrical and musical life there. As a queen without a country, she protected many artists and projects. She is one of the few women buried in the Vatican grotto.

Saki (1870 – 1916) UK
Hector Hugh Munro, better known by the pen name Saki, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Kipling, he himself influenced A. A. Milne, Noël Coward, and P. G. Wodehouse.

Cliff Tucker (1993 - 1912 ) UK
British industrial relations executive, magistrate and local government politician.
His partner of 35 years was the gay-rights activist and literary critic A.E. Dyson

Robert Eads (1999 - 1945 ) US
American transsexual man, whose life and death was the subject of the award-winning documentary Southern Comfort.

Ed Flanagan (1950 – ) US
Vermont politician, who served as Vermont State Auditor from 1993 to 2001 and as a State Senator from 2005 to 2011.

Randi Weingarten (1957 – ) US
American labor leader, attorney, and educator, the current president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a member of the AFL-CIO, and former president of the United Federation of Teachers.

Brian Orser (1961 – ) Canadian
Retired competitive and professional figure skater. He is the 1984 and 1988 Olympic silver medalist, 1987 World champion and the 1981-1988 Canadian national champion.In 1985 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Officer in 1988.
In November 1998, Orser lost a legal battle to prevent public disclosure when ex-boyfriend Craig Leask sued him for palimony. Orser initially feared the revelation of his homosexuality would ruin his career, but he has since embraced support from other skaters and the public.

Sia Furler (1975 – ) Australian
pop, downtempo, and jazz singer and songwriter. In 2000, her single, "Taken for Granted" was a top 10 hit in the United Kingdom.
In 2008, Furler discussed her bisexuality in interviews with Scotland on Sunday and AfterEllen.com.
She was included on a list of gay entertainers in the June–July 2009 issue of The Advocate, and was twice named in the Australian "SameSame25" awards as among the 25 "most influential" gay and lesbian Australians (in 2010 and 2009)

Died this day

Xuan Dieu (1916 - 1985 ) Vietnamese

Prominent 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.
Well-known for his love poems, he married briefly before separating from his wife in his youth and died a bachelor. Many people believe that he was homosexual along 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.

Paulina [Juan Pablo Mendez Cartagena] ( ?? - 2005 ) Guatemalan
Transvestite sex worker, shot and killed in Guatemalan City by four men on motorcycles (who, according to eye-witness reports, were dressed in police uniforms).

Ruth Bernhard (1905 - 2006 ) US
Photographer, whose work is mostly studio-based, ranging from simple still lives to complex nudes. (Bernhard was hailed by Ansel Adams as "the greatest photographer of the nude").
By the late-1920s, while living in Manhattan, Bernhard was heavily involved in the lesbian sub-culture of the artistic community, becoming friends with photographer Berenice Abbott and her lover, critic Elizabeth McCausland. She wrote about her "bisexual escapdes" in her memoir. In 1934 Bernhard began photographing women in the nude.
By 1944 she had met and became involved with artist and designer Eveline (Evelyn) Phimister. The two moved in together, and remained together for the next ten years.

Daniel Pinkham (1923 - 2006 ) US
Composer, organist, and harpsichordist. Pinkham was one of America's most active composers during his lifetime.
His longtime partner was the organist Andrew Paul Holman

Robin Wood (1931 - 2009 ) UK / Canadian
Canada-based film critic and educator.
In September 1974, Wood and his wife divorced. Around this time, he also had a relationship with John Anderson, the dedicatee in at least one of Wood's books. Later he was to meet Richard Lippe, with whom he lived from 1977 until his death in 2009.
After his coming out as a gay man, Wood's writings became more political, primarily from a stance associated with Marxist and Freudian thinking, and with gay rights.

Sodomy in history, December 18 th

1907 — The Washington Supreme Court rules that deadly force can be used against sodomy.

1975 — The District of Columbia Court of Appeals rules that the city’s law against solicitation for "lewd and immoral purposes" is limited to solicitations for sodomy.

1980 — The New York State Court of Appeals strikes down the state’s consensual sodomy law on sweeping grounds of privacy.

Sources:

Wikipedia

Christina of Sweden (1626 –1689)

2011-12-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

b. 18 December 1626
d. 19 April 1689

Portrait by
Sébastien_Bourdon

Queen regnant of Swedes, Goths and Vandals, Grand Princess of Finland, and Duchess of Ingria, Estonia, Livonia and Karelia, from 1633 to 1654, Christina was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustav II Adolph and his wife Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. As the heiress presumptive, at the age of six she succeeded her father on the throne of Sweden upon his death at the Battle of Lützen. Being the daughter of a Protestant champion in the Thirty Years' War, she caused a scandal when she abdicated her throne and converted to Catholicism in 1654. She spent her later years in Rome, becoming a leader of the theatrical and musical life there. As a queen without a country, she protected many artists and projects. She is one of the few women buried in the Vatican grotto.

From the moment of her birth, Christina confounded sexual and gender stereotypes. Her parents had been anxious for a male royal heir, and astrologers had confidently predicted a boy would be born. When the robust baby arrived, it was first thought to be a boy, on account of a hairy body and strong voice. After it had been recognized that she was in fact a girl, her father the king was undeterred, and proceeded to raise her as the boy she had been expected to be: with an education education of a prince. Thus, her lessons included languages, political and military science, riding, and shooting- all of which suited her much better than women's traditional activities such as needlework, for which she claimed to have no aptitude whatsoever.

After her father's death, she was proclaimed "king" by the Swedish parliament - not queen. During the regency until she began to rule in her own right, she continued to receive an excellent education.

As an adult, she continued to resist all gender conformity. She showed no interest at all in fashion and adopted mannish styles of dress. She ignored traditionally approved "feminine" interests, and instead continued to pursue and promote her love of scholarship, books and culture. She also resisted marrying, and rejected several proposals. Immediately after abdicating in favour of her cousin Gustav, she left Sweden for Rome, dressed as a man.

Details of her sexual relationships, if any are not known conclusively, but she did have close personal friendships with both men and women. Some frank letters to her lady-in-waiting Ebba Sparre suggest that their relationship may have been sexual. The question of her biological sex is also unclear. In addition to the confusion around the matter at birth, other physical details suggest that she may have been intersex. However, it has not been possible to confirm this, in the absence of soft tissue remains.

What is clear, from the evidence of her rejection of marriage and feminine pastimes, ambiguous love relationships and cross-dressing, that in modern terms she should be thought of as either lesbian or trans.

December 17th in Queer History

2011-12-17T06:19:00.000-08:00

Events this day in 1ueer history

2007 – Hungarian Parliament passes registered partnerships into law (effective 1st January 2009?)

Born this day

Paul Cadmus (1904 – 1999) US
Artist

Bertha Harris (1937 – 2005) US
Author

James “Bing” Davidson (1940 – 1965 ) US
Actor

Michael Cashman (1950 – ) UK
Actor / Politician / Activist

Gregg Araki (1959 – ) US
Director / Producer / Screenwriter

Paul Koering (1964 – ) US
Politician

Maciej Nowak (1964 – ) Polish
Journalist / Author / Theatre Critic / Chef

Fabrice Neaud (1968 – ) French
Comic Book Artist

Sarah Paulson (1975 – ) US
Actress

Died this day

Marguerite Yourcenar (1903 - 1987) French
Author

Jennifer Gale (1960 - 2008 ) US
Politician

Sodomy in history, December 17 th

1838 — Arkansas passes a sodomy statute, after relying on a common-law statute for two decades. The penalty is set at 5-21 years.

1931 — The Illinois Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction after uncorroborated testimony was admitted in the trial and the state entered evidence of a theft conviction of 13 years earlier.

1934 — A California appellate court upholds a sodomy conviction in which there was no proof of penetration, something state law requires.

1941 — Congress enacts a vagrancy law for the District of Columbia, labeling as vagrant "anyone convicted of a felony loitering in a public place" and anyone guilty of "acts of perversion for hire."

1971 — The Florida Supreme Court strikes down the state’s "crime against nature" law as unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. It says that, with a constantly changing world, what is a crime against nature today is different from what it was a hundred years ago.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 16th in Queer History

2011-12-16T06:18:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Sir Noel Coward (1899 – 1973) UK

Playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".

Coward was knighted in 1969 and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement. The Noël Coward Theatre in St Martin's Lane, originally opened in 1903 as the New Theatre and later called the Albery, was renamed in his honour.

Coward was homosexual but, following the convention of his times, this was never publicly mentioned. Coward firmly believed his private business was not for public discussion, considering "any sexual activities when over-advertised" to be tasteless.[104] Even in the 1960s, Coward refused to acknowledge his sexual orientation publicly, wryly observing, "There are still a few old ladies in Worthing who don't know."

Margaret Mead (1901 – 1978) US

Margaret Mead was an innovative cultural anthropologist who brought public attention to the field by making her work understandable and relevant. Famous for her trademark cape and walking stick, Mead shaped anthropology with her nontraditional research methods.

Mead rocked the American public and the anthropology world with her first book, “Coming of Age In Samoa” (1928), about the sexual behavior of young Samoan women. This book and her subsequent reports on the sexual attitudes of other cultures influenced the sexual revolution of the 1960's.

Hazel Barnes (1915 – 2008) US

American philosopher, author, and translator. Best known for her popularization of existentialism in America, Barnes translated the works of Jean-Paul Sartre as well as writing original works on the subject.

Arthur C Clarke (1917 – 2008) UK

Science fiction author, inventor,and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them "2001: A Space Odyssey", and as a host and commentator in the British television series ""Mysterious World". For many years, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction.

Gerald Glaskin (1923 – 2000) Australian

Western Australian author. Although he won the Commonwealth Prize for Literature in 1955, his works were received more favourably in Europe than in Australia where he had virtually no public profile, and he lived mostly in Asia and later the Netherlands, until returning to Perth in 1968.
Glaskin's extensive time overseas may have been because of the oppressive Australian moral climate of the period against homosexuality. In 1961 he had been charged with indecent exposure (presumably while sexually cruising) on a Perth beach.

Barbara and Beverly Smith (1946 – ) US

Barbara Smith is a lesbian feminist who has played a significant role in building and sustaining Black Feminism in the United States. Since the early 1970s she has been active as an innovative critic, teacher, lecturer, author, independent scholar, and publisher of Black feminist thought. She has also taught at numerous colleges and universities over the last twenty five years. Smith's essays, reviews, articles, short stories and literary criticism have appeared in a range of publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The Black Scholar, Ms., Gay Community News, The Guardian, The Village Voice, Conditions (magazine) and The Nation. Barbara has a twin sister, Beverly Smith, who is also a lesbian feminist activist and writer.

Christopher Biggins (1948 – ) UK

Actor and media personality,best known as a comedy actor, appearing as the regular character Lukewarm in the popular situation comedy Porridge (1974–77).
Biggins was married to Australian actress Beatrice Norbury from 1971 to 1974, but is now openly gay and formed a civil partnership with his partner, flight attendant Neil Sinclair, on 30 December 2006.

Bonnie Dumanis (1951 – ) US

Republican District Attorney of San Diego County since 2003, when she defeated incumbent Paul Pfingst. She then became the first openly gay or lesbian DA in the USA.

Edward Barnes (1958 – ) US

Composer and nusic Producer

Ron Athey (1961 – ) US

performance artist associated with body art and with extreme performance art. He has performed in the U.S. and internationally (especially in the UK and Europe). Athey's work explores challenging subjects like the relationships between desire, sexuality, and traumatic experience. Many of his works include aspects of S&M in order to confront pre-conceived ideas about the body in relation to masculinity and religious iconography.

Kanako Otsuji (1974 – )

LGBT rights activist and former member of the Osaka Prefectural Assembly (April 2003–April 2007). One of only seven women in the 110-member Osaka Assembly, Otsuji represented the Sakai-ku, Sakai City constituency.

Died this day

Charles Camille Saint-Seans
Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony).
He is widely reported that he was, or may have been, gay. He did not marry until he was nearly 40, to a woman aged only 19. The marriage lasted before six years, before they separated, and he and resumed living alone.

Denham Fouts (1914 - 1948 ) US

Male prostitute, socialite and literary muse, who served as the inspiration for characters by Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood and Gavin Lambert.

W Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965 ) UK

Playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and, reputedly, the highest paid author during the 1930s.
When World War I broke out, Maugham served in France as a member of the British Red Cross's so-called "Literary Ambulance Drivers", a group of some 23 well-known writers, including the Americans John Dos Passos and E. E. Cummings. During this time, he met Frederick Gerald Haxton, a young San Franciscan, who became his companion and lover until Haxton's death in 1944.
Although Maugham's first and many other sexual relationships were with men, he also had sexual relationships with a number of women, marrying Syrie Wellcome in 1917, after fathering a child with her.

Sylvester James (1947 - 1988) US

American disco and soul singer, and a drag performer. Sylvester was sometimes known as the "Queen of Disco," although this moniker has also been bestowed on some of the women of the disco era (i.e. Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer). His most significant works are the songs "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", "Dance (Disco Heat)" (both 1978) and "Do You Wanna Funk" (1982).

Pier Vittorio Tondelli (1955 - 1991 ) Italian

Italian writer who wrote a small but influential body of work. Tondelli enjoyed modest success as a writer but often encountered trouble with censors for his use of homosexual themes in his works.

John Spencer (1946 - 2005) US

Film and television actor, most widely known for his role in "The West Wing".

Sodomy in history, December 16 th

1890 — The Virginia Supreme Court rules that an accusation of sodomy is the only threat not requiring fear of danger for purposes of being accused of robbery by making a threat.

1913 — The Utah Supreme Court rules that fellatio does not violate the state’s "crime against nature" law.

1933 — A Pennsylvania appellate court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man after he was denied his request to strip naked in court to show the jury that he was not physically abnormal.

1955 — Wisconsin amends its sodomy law to cover cunnilingus.
Sources:

Wikipedia

December 15th in Queer History

2011-12-15T06:18:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Vida Dutton Scudder (1861 – 1954) Indian / US

Educator, writer, and welfare activist in the social gospel movement, who was one of the most prominent lesbian authors of her time. Her career combined academic pursuits, social activism, and religious fervour.

In 1895 she became one of the first two American women admitted to graduate study at Oxford university, and later taught at Wellesley College, where she was a full professor from 1910.

Her religious beliefs led her to a commitment to social activism. In 1888, Scudder joined the Companions of the Holy Cross, a group of Episcopalian women dedicated to intercessionary prayer and social reconciliation. Later, she worked constantly for trade union rights and socialism. She is recognized as a saint by the Episcopal Church (USA), with a feast day on October 10.

From 1919 until her death, Scudder was in a lesbian relationship with Florence Converse.

W Dorr Legg (1904 – 1994) US

A landscape architect and one of the founders of the United States gay rights movement, then called the homophile movement. In 1958, he sued the US Post Office for the right to distribute the Mattachine's journal through the mail. In 2011 the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association announced that Legg would be inducted into its hall of fame.

Muriel Rukeyser (1913 – 1980) US

poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism. Her poetry, which breaks the silence of many aspects of female experience, has been enormously important to many feminist and lesbian readers.

Details of Rukeyser's personal life remain a matter of speculation. However, in 1978, she accepted an invitation to participate in a Lesbian Poetry Reading at the annual conference of the Modern Language Association

Tom Ammiano (1941 – ) US

Politician and LGBT rights activist from San Francisco, California. Ammiano is a Democrat who has served as a member of the California State Assembly since 2008, representing the 13th district. He had previously been a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and had mounted an unsuccessful bid for mayor of San Francisco in 1999.

Ammiano was in a 16-year domestic partnership with a fellow schoolteacher, Tim Curbo, who died of complications from AIDS in 1994. He has one daughter and is now a grandfather. Aside from his teaching and political careers, Ammiano has been a stand-up comedian since 1980. Ammiano portrayed himself in the 2008 film Milk.

Alfredo Ormando (1958 – 1998) Italian

On 13 January 1998 he set himself on fire in Saint Peter's Square in Rome to protest the attitudes and policies of the Roman Catholic Church regarding homosexual Christians. After two policemen put out the flames, he was brought to Sant'Eugenio hospital in critical condition. He died there 11 days later.

Ormando was one of eight children from an impoverished family, who had been struggling to make a success of a writing career, after spending two years in a seminary. He had been suffering from serious depression, which clearly had multiple causes. After his death, the Vatican denied that this had anything to do with the Church or homosexuality. Through its spokesperson, Father Ciro Benedettini, the Church downplayed the significance of the act

Donna Brazile (1959 – ) US

Author, professor, and political analyst affiliated with the Democratic Party. She was the first African American to direct a major presidential campaign, for Al Gore in 2000. Brazile briefly served as interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee in the spring of 2011.

David N Cicilline (1961 – ) US

Democratic Party U.S. Representative for Rhode Island's 1st congressional district. He is formerly the Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, and was the first openly gay mayor of a U.S. state capital.

Will Wikle (1978 – ) US

Registered nurse and a reality television participant best known for his appearance in the fifth American season of Big Brother.

Died this day

Charles Laughton (1899 - 1962 ) UK/US

English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director. Although he married Elsa Lanchester in 1929, Laughton's homosexuality reportedly has been corroborated by several of his contemporaries and is generally accepted by Hollywood historians

Serge Lifar (1905 - 1986 ) Russian

French ballet dancer and choreographer of Ukrainian origin, famous as one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century.

Floris Michiels van Kessenich (1957 - 1991 ) Dutch

Activist

Jack Robinson (1928 - 1997 ) US

Photographer and stained glass designer. Robinson was freelance photographer for Vogue and The New York Times from the 1950s to the early 1970s before he left New York to return home to the American South and pursue a career as a stained glass designer.

Sodomy in history, December 15 th

1939 — A New York trial court judge says that to be convicted of sodomy, one must be "homosexually inclined" and states that "the natural sex instinct is for the opposite sex."

1971 — A California appellate court overturns the oral copulation conviction of a man for sex in a restroom. It says his arrest violated the "spirit" of a law banning two-way mirrors in restrooms.

1980 — The Massachusetts Supreme Court overturns "lewd and lascivious conduct" convictions for solicitations at a rest stop.

Sources:

Wikipedia

Vida Dutton Scudder (1861 – 1954) Indian / US, Modern Saint

2011-12-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

b. December 15, 1861
d. October 9, 1954

In 1895 she became one of the first two American women admitted to graduate study at Oxford university, and later taught at Wellesley College, where she was a full professor from 1910.

From 1919 until her death, Scudder was in a lesbian relationship with Florence Converse, who like Scudder, had graduated from Wellesley College and was a member of the editorial staff of the The Churchman from 1900 to 1908

Carmen Rupe, N Zealand trans legend, dies in Sydney.

2011-12-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

6.25am: Transgender goddess and glbt community icon Carmen Rupe has died in Sydney, aged 75, from kidney failure following months of poor health.

Carmen had suffered a fall and subsequently underwent hip surgery earlier this year but never retained her vigour after a series of return visits to hospital. "Even as recently as Monday night she was lucid and coherent and had a strong will to live," says close friend and guardian Jurgen Hoosma. But since her fall her mood and outlook had been dversely affected. "She had put on some weight but overall her health has been in a downward spiral throughout the year," says Hoosma.

She died just under an hour ago at St. Vincent's Hospital, in the company of friends who have been keeping a bedside vigil for several days. With Carmen at the end were Hoosma's partner Robin Waerea plus two other of her closest friends, Diego and Kelley.

The word 'icon' does not quite encompass New Zealand's most-loved tranny, who over her 75 years achieved everything from belly dancing with a snake in Kings Cross to running for Mayor of Wellington.via GayNZ.com

December 14th in Queer History

2011-12-14T05:00:00.000-08:00

Saint's Day:

Venantius Fortunatus, Italian (c.530-c.603)

Bishop and poet, whose includes some clearly homoerotic verse which has been included in Stephen Coote's "Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse".

St John of the Cross, Spanish (1542-1591)
Mystic and poet, whose devotional writing uses extensive homerotic imagery.

Born this day:

David Lewis ( 1903 - 1987) US

Hollywood film producer who produced such films as Dark Victory (1939), Arch of Triumph (1948), and Raintree County (1957). He was also the longtime companion of director James Whale from 1930 to 1952.

Gerard Reve (1923 – 2006) Dutch

Gerard Kornelis van het Reve was a Dutch writer who adopted a shortened version of his name, Gerard Reve in 1973.Together with Willem Frederik Hermans and Harry Mulisch, he is considered one of the "Great Three" of Dutch post-war literature. His 1981 novel De vierde man was the basis for Paul Verhoeven's 1983 film.

Reve was one of the first homosexuals to come out in the Netherlands.He often wrote explicitly about erotic attraction, sexual relations and intercourse between men,which he did in an ironic, humorous and recognizable way, and which contributed to making homosexuality acceptable for many of his readers.

Jobraith (1946 – 1983) US

American folk and glam rock musician and actor.He was one of the first pop musicians in the United States to openly identify as gay, and one of the first professional musicians to die of AIDS complications.

Boudewijn Buch (1948 – 2002) Dutch

Dutch writer, poet and television presenter.

Paul Zaloom (1951 – ) US

Actor and puppeteer best known for his role as the character Beakman on the television show Beakman's World.

Hervé Guibert (1955 – 1991) French

French writer and photographer, and a close friend of Michel Foucault. The author of numerous novels and autobiographical studies, he played a considerable role in changing French public attitudes to AIDS.

Kerryn Phelps (1957 – ) Australian

Australian medical practitioner and public commentator. Professor Phelps was the first woman and first LGBT person to be elected president of the Federal Australian Medical Association (AMA). In 2003 she was awarded the Centenary Medal for services to Health and Medicine.

Bob Paris (1959 – ) US

Writer, actor, public speaker, civil rights activist and former professional bodybuilder. Paris was the 1983 NPC American National and IFBB World Bodybuilding Champion, Mr. Universe.

In the July 1989 issue of Ironman, Paris came out in the media as a gay man.

He and his then-partner, Rod Jackson, had a commitment ceremony in a Unitarian church in 1989, started successful non-profit companies, lectured on a wide variety of LGBT rights issues, and made many television, radio, newspaper and magazine appearances.

Died this day

Lee Kok Cheong (1939 - 1993) Singapore

Teacher / Hate Crime Victim

Kate Fleming (1965 - 2006) US

Actress / Producer

Dennis deLeon ( 1948 - 2009 ) US

Activist

Sodomy in history, December 14 th

1808 — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issues a report listing all English statutes in force in Pennsylvania. Neither the Henrican nor Elizabethan buggery law is listed, meaning that Pennsylvania will be dependent on its own sodomy statute to authorize prosecutions.

1914 — The Louisiana Supreme Court rules that the 1896 oral sex law "perhaps" criminalizes cunnilingus, and does criminalize fellatio.

1915 — The California Supreme Court reverses the sodomy conviction of a man for consensual relations after a landlady witnessed him and his partner enter a bathroom together. The Court feels that the evidence is all hearsay.

1967 — The Puerto Rico Supreme Court uses religious references in a sodomy case and decides that government knows best in these issues.

1970 — A California appellate court reinstates the trial of a man challenging the constitutionality of the state’s oral copulation law, saying that a judge can not be expected to know case law.

1987 — The U.S. Court of Military Appeals upholds the sodomy conviction of a Navy officer based on his partner’s diary "found" by investigators.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 13th in Queer History

2011-12-13T06:16:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Lucia Sanchez Saornil (1895 – 1970) Spanish

Spanish poet, militant anarchist and feminist. best known as one of the founders of Mujeres Libres and served in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA). Writing in anarchist publications, Lucía outlined her perspective as a feminist, attacking the essentialism of gender roles in Spanish society. In this way, Lucía established herself as one of the most radical of voices among anarchist women.

In 1937, while working in Valencia as the editor of the journal Threshold, Lucía met América Barroso, who became her lifelong partner.

Glen Byam Shaw ( 1904 –1986 ) UK

actor and theatre director, known for his dramatic productions in the 1950s and his operatic productions in the 1960s and later.

He had sexual relationships with both Ivor Novello and Siegfried Sassoon, but later married the actress Angela Baddeley, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

Linda Bellos (1950 – ) UK

Former politician, businesswoman and activist for gay rights. After marriage in 1970 and giving birth to two children, Bellos came out in 1980. On 21 December 2005, she and her partner, Caroline Jones, were among the first couples to sign a Civil partnership in the UK.

Bellos is a revolutionary feminist and was the first mixed-race lesbian to join the Spare Rib feminist collective in 1981.

Anne-Marie Alonzo (1951 - 2005) Canadian

Playwright, poet, novelist, critic and publisher. In 1996, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada

Sal Sapienza (1964 – ) US

Author abd actor, whose debut novel "Seventy Times Seven" deals with the struggle of its leasing character to reconcile his life as a high school religion teacher, with his life as an openly gay man.

Allen R Schindler Jr. (1969 – 1992 ) US
Naval Petty Officer, murdered in hate crime killing.

Radioman Petty Officer Third Class in the United States Navy who was murdered for being gay. He was killed in a public toilet in Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan by shipmate Terry M. Helvey, who acted with the aid of an accomplice, Charles Vins, in what Esquire called a "brutal murder". The case became synonymous with the gays in the military debate that had been brewing in the United States culminating in the "Don't ask, don't tell" bill.

Winfried Baijens (1977 – ) Dutch

Dutch journalist and radio/television presenter. In December 2006 Baijens was in third place in the "Lexicon 100" list of out Dutch and Flemish gay role models.

Anthony Callea (1982 – ) Australian

Singer-songwriter who rose to prominence when he became runner up in the 2004 season of Australian Idol.

Died this day

Donatello (1386 - 1466) Italian

Italian artist and sculptor from Florence, and the most inventive, prolific sculptor of the early Renaissance. Donatello was both technically versatile and adept at powerfully expressive effects. His most famous work is his bronze David, the first free-standing nude statue known to have been produced since ancient times, but his varied oeuvre includes other figures of beautiful male youths imbued with homoerotic sensuality.

Although details of Donatello's personal relationships are sketchy and speculative, the historian Paul Strathern makes the claim that Donatello made no secret of his homosexuality, and that his behaviour was tolerated by his friends.

Mary Renault (1905 - 1983 ) UK / South African

English writer best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece. However, her early novels had a contemporary setting,and dealt with lesbian love. After she and her partner emigrated to South Africa in 1949, she found in Durban a community of gay expatriates and a society, which was more sexually tolerant, but racially repressive.

In South Africa Renault was able to write forthrightly about homosexual relationships for the first time, especially in a series of historical novels, all set in ancient Greece; her sympathetic treatment of love between men would win Renault a wide gay readership. Though Renault appreciated her gay following, she was uncomfortable with the "gay pride" movement that emerged in the 1970s after the Stonewall riots.

Kuwasi Balagoon (1946 - 1986 ) US

Bisexual Black Panther, a member of the Black Liberation Army, a New Afrikan anarchist, and a defendant in the Panther 21 case in the late sixties.

Stuart Challender (1947 - 1991 ) Australian

Symphony conductor, known particularly for his work with Opera Australia and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Tommy Sexton (1957 - ) Canadian

Openly gay television actor and comedian, who died of complications from AIDS. After his death, his colleague Greg Malone campaigned for HIV and AIDS education in Sexton's memory. His sister, filmmaker Mary Sexton, produced a documentary film about him, Tommy...A Family Portrait, in 2001.Along with Malone and their co-star Andy Jones, Sexton was a posthumous recipient of the Earle Grey Award, the lifetime achievement award of Canadian television's Gemini Awards, in 2002.

The Tommy Sexton Centre, a new assisted housing complex for people living with HIV and AIDS, was opened in St. John's in 2006.

Robert Wagenhoffer (1960 - 1999 ) US

Figure Skater who won the bronze medal at the 1981 U.S. Figure Skating Championships and a silver the following year before turning pro in 1982. He also competed in pairs with Vicki Heasley and won a silver medal at Nationals in 1979.

Robert Long (1943 - 2006) Dutch

Dutch singer and television presenter.

In 1998 a revealing book containing letters was released. Letters about life, death, love, sex, work and colleagues were made public by him and Cees van der Pluijm, using the title Beste Robert, Waarde Cees.

On 8 September 2005 Long suffered a myocardial infarction and was treated with angioplasty. Later that year, on 6 December 2005 Long married his Belgian boyfriend and manager Kristof Rutsaert.

Marland Woods (1976 - 2009 ) US Hate Crime Victim

A 32-year-old gay Toledo man who was "kicked and stomped in the head" across the street from a gay bar. Woods was hospitalized and died six days from head injuries.

Sodomy in history, December 13 th

1904 — The Iowa Supreme Court rules that "irresistible insane impulse" is a possible defense against a charge of sodomy.

1912 — England requires flogging for a second violation of the 1898 law prohibiting Gay solicitation.

1925 — A California appellate court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man even though the prosecuting witness inexplicably left town during trial and inconsistencies concerning facts were admitted into trial.

1932 — The Utah Supreme Court reverses the sodomy conviction of a man that was based on the uncorroborated testimony of a consenting partner and the admission of evidence of earlier acts with another partner.

1933 — The Washington Supreme Court reaffirms that sodomy defendants can be convicted on the uncorroborated testimony of a partner.

1937 — A California appellate court upholds the convictions of 16 men for consensual sex in an isolated cabin. The police had drilled holes in the ceiling to watch.

1951 — The Iowa Supreme Court overrules its 1920 decision and rules that the "sucker" can be prosecuted for sodomy along with the "suckee," even though the sodomy law hasn’t changed.

1955 — The North Dakota Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man even though only an attempt had been proven.

1969 — The Oregon Criminal Law Commission, studying a proposed new criminal code, defeats an attempt by the Oregon Attorney General to tone down the proposed solicitation law. Attorney General Lee Johnson warns that it is so broad that police harassment of Gay men could occur.

1973 — A California appellate court upholds the right of a state to revoke the license of a doctor for soliciting another man for sex.

1976 — The Louisiana Supreme Court upholds a 2½-year jail sentence of two prisoners for engaging in consensual sodomy with each other.

Sources:

Wikipedia

Donatello (1386 -1466 ), Italian Sculptor

2011-12-13T00:59:00.000-08:00

b. c. 1386
d. December 13, 1466

Some have perceived the David as having homo-erotic qualities, and have argued that this reflected the artist's own orientation. Yet, details of Donatello's relationships remain speculative. The historian Paul Strathern makes the claim that Donatello made no secret of his homosexuality, and that his behaviour was tolerated by his friends.

Evidence about Donatello's sexuality comes from the sculptures themselves and from anecdotes collected around 1480, sometimes attributed to Poliziano. Seven of these anecdotes concern Donatello, who was renowned for a sharp wit and called "very tricky (intricato)" by the Duke of Mantua.

Three anecdotes eroticize Donatello's relations with apprentices. He hired especially beautiful boys, and "stained" them so that no one else would find them pleasing; when one assistant left after a quarrel, they made up by "laughing" at each other, a slang term for sex. Two of these anecdotes were omitted from some sixteenth-century editions, and the one on laughter was glossed as "licenzioso."

Other than the bronze David, other works with an homoerotic streak include Atys/Amorino (ca 1440), a laughing boy faun with exposed genitals, while clothed youths with a sensual appeal include the marble David (1408-1416), St. George (ca 1415-1417), and St. Louis of Toulouse (ca 1418-1422). In the mid-sixteenth century, the Florentine poet Lasca praised the St. George as an ideal substitute for a living boyfriend, providing constant amorous pleasure to his gaze.

Mary Renault (1905 - 1983 ) UK / South African /English

2011-12-13T00:29:00.000-08:00

Writer best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece. However, her early novels had a contemporary setting,and dealt with lesbian love. After she and her partner emigrated to South Africa in 1949, she found in Durban a community of gay expatriates and a society, which was more sexually tolerant, but racially repressive.

December 12th in Queer History

2011-12-12T06:15:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Karl Gorath (1912 – 2003) German
Imprisoned for homosexuality

Jose Sarria (1922/23 – ) US
Drag Queen / Politician / Activist

Massimo Consoli (1945 – 2007)
Italian Activist

Ken Yeager (1952 – ) US
Politician

Robert Lepage (1957 – ) Canadian
Playwright / Screenwriter / Actor / Director

Susan Powter (1957 – ) US Fitness Instructor / Actress

Toby Radloff (1957 – ) US Actor

Jasper Conran (1959 – ) UK Fashion Designer

Volker Beck (1960 – ) German Politician / Activist

Jon Vincent (1962 – 2000) US
Baseball / Porn

Dmitry Kuzmin (1968 – ) Russian
Poet / Critic / Publisher

Brandon Teena (1972 – 1993) US
Hate Crime Victim

Desislava Petrova (1980 – ) Bulgarian Activist

Died this day

Raymond Radiguet (1903 - 1923 ) French
Author

Tallulah Bankhead (1902 - 1968) US
Actress

Jack Cassidy (1927 - 1976) US
Actor

Paul Cadmus (1904 - 1999 ) US
Artist

Van Johnson (1916 - 2008 ) US Actor / Dancer

Sodomy in history, December 12 th

1704 — New Jersey dismisses all pending prosecutions for most crimes, including sodomy.

1712 — South Carolina enacts a buggery statute with a sentence of death.

1922 — The Florida Supreme Court reaffirms its decision that fellatio is a "crime against nature."

1956 — The Idaho Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of the second Boys of Boise defendant whose case reaches the Court.

1956 — A California appellate court upholds the sodomy conviction after a warrantless body cavity search of the defendants.

1966 — A Pennsylvania trial court allows a sodomy defendant to withdraw his guilty plea, entered under pressure from his attorney in the hope that the court would be lenient with him.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 11th in Queer History

2011-12-11T03:26:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Francesco Algarotti (1712 – 1764). Italian

Italian philosopher and art critic. He is said to have been the lover of Frederick the Great, who made him a Prussian count in 1740 and court chamberlain in 1747.

Jean Marais (1913 – 1998) French

Actor and director, who was the muse and lover of Jean Cocteau until Cocteau's death, and who starred in several movies directed by him.

Reg Livermore (1938 – ) Australian

Actor, singer, theatrical performer and television presenter.

John Preston (1945 – 1994) US

Author of gay erotica and an editor of gay nonfiction anthologies, who was not embarrassed to state his occupation as "pornographer".

He was the author or editor of nearly fifty books, including such erotic landmarks as Mr. Benson and I Once Had a Master and Other Tales of Erotic Love. Other works include Franny, the Queen of Provincetown (first a novel, then adapted for stage), The Big Gay Book: A Man's Survival Guide for the Nineties, Personal Dispatches: Writers Confront AIDS, and Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong.

Preston's writing (which he described as pornography) was part of a movement in the 1970s and 1980s toward higher literary quality in gay erotic fiction. Preston was an outspoken advocate of the artistic and social worth of erotic writings, delivering a lecture at Harvard University entitled My Life as a Pornographer. The lecture was later published in an essay collection with the same name. The collection includes Preston's thoughts about the gay leather community, to which he belonged.

Vicki Randle (1954 – ) US

Singer, multi-instrumentalist (primarily acoustic guitar and percussion) and composer, known as the first (and only) female member of the Tonight Show Band.

Died this day

Elmyr de Hory ( 1906 – 1976) Hungarian
Painter / Forger

Oskar Seidlin (1911 - 1984) US
Poet / Author

Allan Berube (1946 - 2007 ) US
Activist / Author

Maddie Blaustein (1960 - 2008) US
Actress

Sodomy in history, December 11 th

1978 — A California appellate court overturns the prostitution conviction of a man picked up by an undercover police officer. His probation had prohibited him from talking to any male on the street, and the appellate court found that unreasonable.

Sources:

Wikipedia

Gay Popes: Leo X (r. 1513-1521)

2011-12-11T01:18:00.000-08:00

b. 11 December 1475
d. 1 December 1521

Accounts about the homosexual liaisons of Julius's successor, Leo X (Giovanni de' Medici, 1474-1521; reigned 1513-21), are recorded in a variety of different types of contemporary sources, and they were repeated in historical accounts of the papacy published in the later sixteenth century. Having received an outstanding humanistic education, he was appointed Cardinal in 1492 by Innocent VIII. Beginning in 1508, he served Julius II as papal legate; in that capacity, he arranged for papal troops to invade Florence in order to secure the return of the Medici, who had been exiled from the city in 1497.

Unanimously elected Pope, Leo focused his energies upon the patronage of the arts and sciences. He established Greek colleges in Rome and Florence, promoted the study of Hebrew and Arabic writings, and gave strong support to printing. He funded extensive archaeological excavations, which uncovered the monumental antique statue of the river-god Nile (Vatican Museums) and other significant works, and he ordered the restoration of several important Early Christian churches, including Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.

To give the city of Rome a more dignified appearance, Leo widened the streets and restored several public squares, including the Piazza del Popolo. In Florence, he commissioned Michelangelo to design a new façade for San Lorenzo (project design, 1516-19; never realized) and to undertake one of his most significant projects--the building and decoration of the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, including Medici family tombs (1519-34).

William Plomer (1903 – 1973) South African

2011-12-10T06:08:00.000-08:00

Author, known as a novelist, poet and literary editor. He became famous in South Africa with his first novel, Turbott Wolfe (1925), which had inter-racial love and marriage as a theme. He was co-founder of the short-lived literary magazine Voorslag ("Whiplash") with two other South African rebels, Roy Campbell and Laurens van der Post; it promoted a racially equal South Africa. In the 1950s and 60s he edited several of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels.

Although he never spoke openly about his sexuality, his biographers record that during a period when he lived in Japan, he was in a sexual relationship with a Japanese man. Although overt homosexuality is absent from William Plomer's novels and poems, the relevance of his sexuality to his work is evident. He confided to the editor of his revised, posthumously published autobiography that he expected his biographer to take his sexual orientation seriously because it was important to his work.

After settling in England in 1929, he associated with a circle of homosexual literary people, and for the last thirty years of his life, his devoted companion was Charles Erdmann.

Ed Watson: Gay marriage proponent who urged halt to Prop. 8 enforcement

2011-12-10T00:40:00.000-08:00

Gay marriage proponent who urged halt to Prop. 8 enforcement dies - Los Angeles Times: "Derence Kernek and Ed Watson became prominent faces in the California gay community's campaign for the right to marry when they urged a federal appeals court earlier this year to halt the enforcement of Proposition 8 so they could wed before Watson succumbed to advancing illness.

On the eve of a Thursday hearing on challenges to a 2010 ruling that the voter initiative banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, Watson died at age 78 of complications from Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and hypertension."

'via Blog this'

December 10th in Queer History

2011-12-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

Events this day in history:

South African constitution signed at Sharpeville by President Nelson Mandela, the first anywhere to include in its bill of rights protection from discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

This clause was the basis of a series of landmark decisions on LGBT rights by the Constitutional Court, culminating in South Africa approving legislation for full marriage and family equality.

Born this day

William Plomer (1903 – 1973) South African / British.

Author, known as a novelist, poet and literary editor. He became famous in South Africa with his first novel, Turbott Wolfe (1925), which had inter-racial love and marriage as a theme.

Although he never spoke openly about his sexuality, his biographers record that during a period when he lived in Japan, he was in a sexual relationship with a Japanese man. Although overt homosexuality is absent from William Plomer's novels and poems, the relevance of his sexuality to his work is evident. After settling in England in 1929, he associated with a circle of homosexual literary people, and for the last thirty years of his life, his devoted companion was Charles Erdmann.

William Armstrong Percy III (1933 – ) US

American professor, historian, encyclopedist, and gay activist. He taught from 1968 at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and started publishing in gay studies in 1985.

Scott Capurro (1962 – ) US

Stand-up comedian, writer and actor.[1] His comedy material is deliberately provocative, referring often to gay life and culture, politics, race and racism, and popular culture.

Cassia Eller (1962 – 2001) Brazilian

A Brazilian musician, who performed a fusion of rock and MPB.
After she died at the age of 39 in 2001, custody of her young son, Francisco, was assumed by her partner of 14 years, Eugênia, after an almost one-year legal battle against the child's grandfather, Altair Eller.

Jason Lorber (1966 – ) US

A consultant, comedian and politician from Burlington, Vermont. A Democrat, he is a member of the Vermont House of Representatives, where he is one of five openly gay members. He is joined in a civil union with his partner Nathaniel G. Lew, an assistant professor at Saint Michael's College.

Brian Molko (1972 – ) Belgian

songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist of the band Placebo. He is known in particular for his high-pitched vocals, androgynous appearance, and unique, Sonic Youth-influenced guitar style and tuning.
Molko is openly bisexual.

Nicole Georges (1980 – ) US

An illustrator, pet portrait artist, zinester and educator living in Portland, Oregon. She is best known as the author of the autobiographical comic zine Invincible Summer. The zine has a queer and feminist slant, and provides crafting tips and simple vegan recipes.

Died this day

Henry Cowell (1897 - 1965 ) US

Composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario.
Cowell, who was bisexual, was convicted in 1936 of "impairing the morals of a minor". He had been led to believe by the district attorney that, if he pleaded guilty to a limited offense, he would be sentenced to only a brief confinement in a sanatorium. He naively accepted that advice, but he was instead given the maximum sentence of up to 15 years incarceration in prison.[25] He would spend the next four years in San Quentin State Prison.

Thelma Wood (1901 - 1970) US

Sculptor

Dorothy Porter (1954 - 2008 ) Australian

Poet / Librettist / Author

Sodomy in history, December 10 th

1792 — Virginia eliminates its reliance on the English buggery statute by passing its own statute that retains the death penalty.

1828 — New York lowers the penalty for sodomy from life imprisonment to a maximum of ten years.

1957 — A New York appellate court overturns the sodomy conviction of two men for sex in a restroom stall because the arresting officer testified that he did not actually see an contact between them and because one man’s employment time card, verifying that he was at work at the time of the alleged offense, had been excluded from his trial.

1991 — A Missouri appellate court overturns a sodomy conviction because the defendant’s homosexuality was made an issue. The appellate court correctly notes that the homosexuality of a defendant is irrelevant.

Sources:

Wikipedia

December 9th in Queer History

2011-12-09T06:12:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Lucius Beebe (1902 – 1966) US
American author, gourmand, photographer, railroad historian, journalist, and syndicated columnist.

Beebe wrote a syndicated column for the New York Herald Tribune from the 1930s through 1944 called This New York. which chronicled the doings of fashionable society at notable restaurants and nightclubs Mr. Beebe is credited with popularizing the term "cafe society" which was used to describe the people mentioned in his column.

In 1940, Beebe met Charles Clegg, who became his life partner. By the standards of the era, the homosexual relationship Beebe and Clegg shared was relatively open and well-known.

Marleen Gorris (1948 - ) Netherlands
A writer-director from the Netherlands, Gorris is known as an outspoken feminist and supporter of gay and lesbian issues which is reflected in much of her work.
She wrote and directed the films "A Question of Silence"(1982), "Broken Mirrors" (1984), "The Last Island" (1991), "Antonia's Line"(1995 - Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film), "Mrs. Dalloway" (1997) and "The Luzhin Defence" (2000).

Joan Armatrading (1950 - ) UK.
British singer, songwriter and guitarist Armatrading is a three-time Grammy Award-nominee and has been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She also received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection in 1996. In a recording career spanning almost 40 years she has released a total of 17 studio albums, as well as several live albums and compilations.

Armatrading is reluctant to discuss her personal life in interviews. However, in April 2011, it was reported that Armatrading and her girlfriend Maggie Butler were planning to enter a civil partnership on 2 May 2011, in the Shetland Isles.

Mario Cantone (1959 – ) US
American stand-up comedian, writer and actor, with numerous appearances on Comedy Central including Chappelle's Show. He also played Anthony Marentino on Sex and the City.
In October 2011, Cantone married his partner of 20 years, musical theater director Jerry Dixon, in a ceremony officiated by pastor Jay Bakker

Hape Kerkeling (1964 –) German
A well-known German actor, presenter and comedian. In a survey by the television station Kabel 1 in 2005, Kerkeling made it into the top ten favourite faces on German television; the only other two presenters were Günther Jauch and Thomas Gottschalk.
When the filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim revealed on a television talkshow that Kerkelingwas gay. Kerkeling's comment on the ensuing fuss was that while anyone of a more sensitive nature than him would probably have climbed into the bath with a hairdryer, he could not see the point: they would be dragging another poor soul through the dirt the next day anyway.

Mathew Helm (1980 – ) Australian
Australian diver who won the silver medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in the men's 10 metre platform. He was in first place at the end of the preliminary round and the semi-finals, but was passed by Chinese diver Hu Jia in the finals. He was one of only eleven openly gay athletes who competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Berenice Abbott (1898 - 1991) US
American photographer best known for her black-and-white photography of New York City architecture and urban design of the 1930s. She also made memorable images of lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men in Paris in the 1920s and in New York from the 1930s through 1965.

David Brudnoy (1940 - 2004 ) US
American talk radio host in Boston from 1976 to 2004. His radio talk show aired on WBZ radio. He was known for espousing his libertarian views on a wide range of political issues, in a manner that was courteous.
Brudnoy came to realize that he was homosexual early in life but successfully hid the fact for many years. He came out publicly in 1994, after returning from hospitalization to overcome his long-hidden fight with AIDS.

Sodomy in history, December 9th

1806 — English sailor John Sky is acquitted of sodomy after a physician testified that the inflammation of the victim’s rectum may or may not have been caused by sodomy.

1829 — Tennessee passes a criminal code, after having adopted North Carolina’s for several years. The penalty for sodomy is set at 5-15 years.

1837 — Arkansas recognizes common-law crimes.

1899 — Ohio Governor Asa Bushnell commutes George Pague’s sodomy sentence from three years to two years because of doubt as to his guilt.

1913 — The Missouri Supreme Court rules that cunnilingus does not violate the state’s anti-oral sex law. It says that the charge of "sexual intercourse with the mouth" is a contradiction in terms.

1967 — Jim Morrison, lead singer for The Doors, is arrested in New Haven after having told a police officer to "eat it" and directing him to his crotch. The charges later are dropped after much negative publicity to the city.

Sources:

Wikipedia

James Stoll, US. (1936 – 1994) Minister of Religion.

2011-12-08T05:16:00.000-08:00

b. January 18, 1936
d. December 8, 1994

Rev. James Lewis Stoll, M.Div. was a Unitarian Universalist minister who became the first ordained minister of any religion in the United States or Canada to come out as gay. He did so at the annual Continental Conference of Student Religious Liberals on September 5, 1969 in La Foret, Colorado. Later, he led the effort that convinced the Unitarian Universalist Association to pass the first-ever gay rights resolution in 1970.

After training at Starr King School for the Ministry, in Berkeley, followed by ordination, he served as pastor at a church in Kennewick, Wash., from 1962 until 1969. For reasons that are not clear, he was asked to resign, and then moved to San Francisco, where he shared an apartment with three others.

In September of 1969, he attended a convention of college-age Unitarians in Colorado Springs. One evening after dinner, he stood up and came out publicly as a gay man. He declared his orientation, stated that it was not a choice, that he was no longer ashamed of it, and that from then on, he would refuse to live a lie.

“On the second or third night of the conference,” according to Mr. Bond-Upson, “after dinner, Jim got up to speak. He told us that he’d been doing a lot of hard thinking that summer. Jim told us he could no longer live a lie. He’d been hiding his nature — his true self — from everyone except his closest friends. ‘If the revolution we’re in means anything,’ he said, ‘it means we have the right to be ourselves, without shame or fear.'

“Then he told us he was gay, and had always been gay, and it wasn’t a choice, and he wasn’t ashamed anymore and that he wasn’t going to hide it anymore, and from now on he was going to be himself in public. After he concluded, there was a dead silence, then a couple of the young women went up and hugged him, followed by general congratulations. The few who did not approve kept their peace.” ’

After the convention, Stoll wrote articles on gay rights, and preached sermons on the subject at several churches. The following year, the full annual meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association passed a resolution condemning discrimination against homosexual persons, beginning a gradual but irresistible move towards full LGBT inclusion.

No action was ever taken by the church against Stoll, and so he remained a minister in good standing, but he was never again called to serve a congregation. It is not clear whether this had anything to do with lingering prejudice against his orientation. It could also be on the grounds of some suspicions of drug abuse, or of inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Later, he founded the first counseling center for gays and lesbians in San Francisco. In the 1970s he established the first hospice on Maui. He was president of the San Francisco chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1990s. He died at the age of 58 from complications of heart and lung disease, exacerbated by obesity and a life-long smoking habit

Stoll's name is not well known today, but for this brave and honest public witness, he deserves to be better remembered.In declaring himself, he was not the first ordained clergyman to come out, but he was the first to do so voluntarily, and the first in an established denomination. His action undoubtedly made it easier for the others who followed him, and to the formal acceptance by the Unitarians of openly gay men and lesbians in the church, and to the now well-established process to full LGBT inclusion in so many denominations.

Source:

Haunted Man of the Cloth, Pioneer of Gay Rights (NY Times)

December 8th in Queer History

2011-12-08T02:55:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Norman Douglas (1952 - 1868) UK

British writer, now best known for his 1917 novel South Wind.

Leroy F Aarons (1933 - 2004 ) US

journalist, editor, author, playwright, founder of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. In 2005 he was inducted into the NLGJA Hall of Fame.

Dan Hartman (1994 - 1950 ) US

American singer, songwriter and record producer, who died of an AIDS-related brain tumor three and a half months past his 43rd birthday .

Paul Rutherford (1959 – ) UK

The former backing vocalist, dancer and occasional keyboardist with 1980s pop band Frankie Goes to Hollywood (FGTH), Rutherford was one of the group's two openly gay singers.

Hope Powell (1966 – ) UK

English former international footballer who is the coach of the England women's national football team and the Great Britain and Northern Ireland women's Olympic football team.
In August, 2010, she was named in 68th place on The Independent newspaper’s Pink List of influential lesbian and gay people in the UK.

Brendan Burke (1988 – 2010) Canada / US

Athlete and student manager at Miami University for the RedHawks men's ice hockey team.
In November, 2009, he made international headlines for coming out, advocating for tolerance and speaking out against homophobia in professional sports.

Died this day

Claude Cahun (1894 - 1954) French

French artist, photographer and writer. [1] Her work was both political and personal, and often played with the concepts of gender and sexuality.

Boris Kochno (1904 - 1990) Russian

Russian poet, dancer and librettist, in 1920 became Sergei Diaghilev's secretary, librettist, and eventually main collaborator. He also had an affair with Cole Porter in 1925, with whom he carried on a lengthy correspondence.

Nicky Crane (1958 - 1993) UK

British neo-Nazi skinhead activist. He came out as gay before dying from an AIDS-related illness in 1993.

James Stoll (1936 -1994 ) US

Unitarian Universalist minister who became the first ordained minister of any religion in the United States or Canada to come out as gay. He led the effort that convinced the Unitarian Universalist Association to pass the first-ever gay rights resolution in 1970.

Howard Rollins (1950 - 1996 )

American television, film, and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Coalhouse Walker, Jr. in the film Ragtime, and as Virgil Tibbs on the NBC/CBS television series In the Heat of the Night.

Sodomy in history, December 8 th.

1943 — A California appellate court upholds a crime against nature conviction based on a judge’s "inferences" from testimony.

1989 — The Kansas Supreme Court rules that cunnilingus does not violate the state’s sodomy law. Since the law applies only to people of the same sex and covers only oral and anal sex, this means that Gay men can be prosecuted under it, but Lesbians can not.

Sources:

Calendar of Sodomy, December

December 7th in Queer History

2011-12-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Willa Cather (1873 – 1947) US.

American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922), a novel set during World War I.

As a student at the University of Nebraska in the early 1890s, Cather sometimes used the masculine nickname "William" and wore masculine clothing.[17] A photograph in the University of Nebraska archives depicts Cather dressed like a young man and with "her hair shingled, at a time when females wore their hair fashionably long."

Throughout Cather's adult life, her most significant friendships were with women.

Hurd Hatfield (1917 - 1998) US

Actor, known especially for his starring role in "The Picture of Dorian Grey".

AJ Antoon (1944 – 1992) US

American theatre director, who directed numerous plays at the New York Shakespeare Festival over a period of nearly 20 years. In addition to winning a Tony Award, Antoon was also the winner of a Drama Desk Award, a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and an Obie Award. His career lasted until 1991; he died less than a year later from AIDS-related lymphoma.

Kevin M McCarthy (1957 - ) US

A judge of the San Francisco Superior Court, McCarthy is married to Dr. David Bui, with whom he has a son, Gavin.

Roberta Close (1964 – ) Brazilian

A Brazilian model, she is the first pre-operative transsexual model to have posed for the Brazilian edition of Playboy, Close is probably Brazil's most famous transsexual woman.

Linda Bresonik (1983 – ) German

Footballer,who plays as a midfielder or wing back for FCR 2001 Duisburg and the German national team.

Chris Crocker (1987 – US)

Internet celebrity, songwriter, blogger, and recording artist. In almost all of Crocker's work he presents himself as an openly gay and effeminate Southern adolescent in a "small-minded town" in the Bible Belt where his sexual orientation and outspokenness are a "subtext... rarely addressed directly and never completely accepted." The Tennessee-based Crocker, a stage name, keeps his identity and exact location private.

Died this day

Per Imerslund (1912 - 1943) Norwegian

One of the most prominent figures in the national socialist scene in the pre-World War II Norway. He first gained prominence at home and abroad with the publication in 1936 of his début book, Das Land Noruega, a fictionalised autobiography of his youth in Mexico. His blond, blue-eyed stature and extravagant way of life gave him the position of "det ariske idol" (The Aryan Idol). A loathing of his homosexuality and self-perceived feminine traits, led him to frequently risk his life.

Laurette Taylor (1884 - 1946 ) US

Actress

Eric Portman (1901 - 1969 ) UK

A distinguished English stage and film actor. He is probably best remembered for his roles in several films for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger during the 1940s.Portman is quoted as saying, "Acting is like masturbation - one either does it or one doesn't, but one never talks about it."

Portman was homosexual, although newspapers never reported this during the mid-1950s when homosexuality was illegal in the UK. Newspapers refrained from identifying his sexual preference throughout the 1960s when it could have still damaged his career.

Romaine Brooks
Self-portrait

Romaine Brooks (1874 - 1970) US

An American painter who worked mostly in Paris and Capri, she specialized in portraiture and used a subdued palette dominated by the color gray. She is best known for her images of women in androgynous or masculine dress, including her self-portrait of 1923, which is her most widely reproduced work.

She often painted people close to her, such as the Italian writer and politician Gabriele D'Annunzio, the Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein, and her partner of more than 50 years, the writer Natalie Barney.

Thornton Wilder (1897 - 1975) US

American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.

Although Wilder never discussed being gay publicly or in his writings, his close friend Samuel Steward is generally acknowledged to have been a lover. Wilder was introduced to Steward by Gertrude Stein, who at the time regularly corresponded with the both of them.

Darby Crash (1958 -1980) US

Musician / Singer

Reinaldo Arenas (1943 - 1990) Cuban / US

Poet / Playwright / Activist / Author / Professor

Sodomy in history, December 7 th

1682 — Pennsylvania outlaws sodomy with a first-offense penalty of six months in jail, the first non-capital sodomy law in the English colonies. The law also covers what now is Delaware.

1889 — The general ignorance of sex even by medical professionals is revealed as Dr. A.B. Holder publishes an article on male Absaroke American Indians and their oral sex practices. He assumes that the fellator achieves orgasm along with the fellatee because he can not understand why else fellatio would be practiced. He also calls oral sex "the most debased [sex practice] that could be conceived of."

1915 — A Missouri appellate court rules that being called a "cocksucker" is actionable as slander.

1917 — Russia decriminalizes sodomy by repealing its entire criminal code.

1929 — The North Dakota Supreme Court rules that the state’s law against indecent liberties covers all erotic acts not covered by the state’s rape or sodomy laws.

1951 — A California appellate court rules that the state’s oral copulation law is violated merely by placing the mouth on a sex organ, even without penetration.

1954 — A Pennsylvania appellate court upholds the right of a single jury to try a large number of sodomy cases from arrests at "Homo-Haven," a resort.

1956 — The Tennessee Supreme Court upholds a 5-year sentence for sodomy for a 17-year-old defendant.

1964 — The Maryland Court of Appeals rules that the sodomy law applies to heterosexual activity.

1987 — A Michigan appellate court upholds a conviction for merely kissing a penis, stating that penetration need not be proven.

Sources:

Wikipedia

On this gay day
Calendar of Sodomy, December

December 6th in Queer History

2011-12-06T01:45:00.000-08:00

Born this day

Charles Edward Sayle (1864 – 1924) UK

Poet / Librarian

Sir Osbert Sitwell (1892 – 1969) UK.

English writer, brother of Dame Edith Sitwell and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell.

Author / Soldier

Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893 – 1978) UK.
English novelist and poet, who is an important lesbian voice of the earlier twentieth century. and was the life partner of the poet Valentine Ackland,

Together, Ackland and Warner embarked on an unusual poetry venture - a book of poems, at the heart of which is a group of celebratory, erotic love poetry, published under both names simultaneously, with no indication which poem was the work of which poet.

Agnes Moorehead (1900 – 1974), US

American actress, best known to modern audiences for her role as the witch Endora in the series Bewitched, although she has appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years.

Zeki Muren (1931 – 1996), Turkish.

a prominent Turkish singer, composer and actor. He was famous for his compelling voice and precise articulation in his singing of both established Turkish classical music and contemporary songs.
Müren dressed effeminately, wearing large, ornate rings and heavy make up, especially in the later years of his life. In many ways, he had a pioneering role in rendering the Turkish society more accepting about homosexuality. He, with his distinct style, remained a highly respected artist throughout his career, and in a sense, paved the way for many later, more openly gay or transsexual Turkish artists.

Tom Hulce (1953 - ), US.

American actor and theater producer. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated portrayal of Mozart in the movie Amadeus and his role as "Pinto" in National Lampoon's Animal House. Additional acting awards included a total of four Golden Globe nominations, an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award nomination. Hulce retired from acting in the mid-1990s in order to focus upon stage directing and producing. In 2007, he won a Tony Award as a lead producer of the Broadway musical Spring Awakening.

In a 2008 interview with Seattle Gay News, he stated that he was "comfortable" being placed in lists of openly gay actors.

Jim Provenzano (1961 – ), US.

American author, playwright, photographer and currently the Assistant Arts Editor for the Bay Area Reporter. In May, 2010, he co-created and became editor of BARtab, the Bay Area Reporter's monthly LGBT nightlife guide.

Kathleen Bryson (1968 – ), US.

Novelist, painter, actor and filmmaker. Bryson, who describes herself as bisexual, has been clear in several interviews that she does not consider either heterosexuality or homosexuality to have a genetic basis, but rather considers them to be the result of many social and environmental factors.
"People often forget that 'gayness' and 'heterosexuality' are new concepts, less than a hundred and fifty years old... 'Straight' and 'gay' and 'bisexual' are all social constructions anyway, but until the world is more comfortable with same-sex desire I'll be calling myself bisexual, as that word comes the closest to describing my own personal make-up."

Anders Hornslien (1970 – ) Norwegian.

Norwegian media personality and politician for the Labour Party, he has served as a member of Oslo city council and as deputy representative to the Norwegian Parliament from Oslo.
In 1996 he became the world's first member of parliament to enter a partnership union, with former state secretary and political party fellow Vidar Ovesen.

Carole Thate (1971 – ) Dutch.

Dutch former field hockey player, who played 168 international matches for the Netherlands. Thate is married,to one of the highest international goal scorers, the Australian striker Alyson Annan.

Heather Mizeur (1972 – ) US.

American politician from Maryland. A Democrat, she is a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, representing the state's 20th district in Montgomery County.
She lives with her partner Deborah Mizeur (née Veres. Her election campaigns have both won the backing of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.

Died this day

Elisabeth de Gramont (1875 - 1954) French

Antoinette Corisande Élisabeth, Duchess of Clermont-Tonnerre (née de Gramont) was a French writer of the early 20th century, best known for her long-term lesbian relationship with Natalie Clifford Barney. She was a close friend, and sometimes critic of writer Marcel Proust, whom she had met on June 9, 1903. In her youth, Élisabeth de Gramont was a strikingly pretty woman. Opinionated, outspoken, she became openly bisexual by the turn of the century, despite being married.

George Platt Lynes (1907 - 1955) US

American photographer, who became one of the country's most successful fashion and portrait photographers, but his greatest work may have been his intensely homoerotic dance images and male nudes.

Lynes also photographed several series of male nudes. These photographs frequently depict mythological figures, utilize theatrical lighting, feature symbolic tableaux or props, and are nearly always frankly homoerotic in their appeal.

Given the state of censorship at this time, it is not surprising that Lynes never published these photographs. Instead, he restricted their circulation to friends and admirers. Nevertheless, he considered these private photographs his most significant work, a judgment in which some later critics have concurred.

Timothy Patrick Murphy (1959 - 1988) US

American actor, perhaps best known for his role as "Mickey Trotter" on the popular CBS prime time soap opera Dallas during the 1982–83 season. Murphy contracted HIV and died of AIDS on December 6, 1988 in Sherman Oaks, California. He once stated that he'd had an affair with the allegedly bisexual actor Brad Davis, who had AIDS and committed assisted suicide in 1991.

Robert Fizdale (1920 - 1995) US

Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale were an American two-piano ensemble; they were also authors and television cooking show hosts.
Gold and Fizdale met during their student years at the Juilliard School. They formed a lifelong partnership based around their common interests of music , travel and cooking.

Sodomy in history, December 6th

1918 — A California appellate court upholds the sodomy conviction of a soldier, rejecting an intoxication defense.

1927 — The Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that cunnilingus is not a "crime against nature." The oral sex provision of the Wisconsin law specifically outlaws only fellatio.

1956 — The South Carolina Supreme Court upholds a libel judgement in favor of a 12-year-old boy against a newspaper for accusing him of attempted sodomy with other boys during an initiation.

1957 — The Tennessee Supreme Court upholds an attempt to commit the crime against nature by having "tried" to touch another male.

1972 — Pennsylvania passes a new criminal code that reduces the penalty for sodomy from a felony to a misdemeanor and exempts married couples from its coverage.

1978 — In a post-repeal case, a New Jersey appellate court finds the state’s sodomy law unconstitutional as an invasion of privacy.

1989 — The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that California’s high age of consent (18) does not violate equal protection of the law because it is different from that of other states.

Sources:

Wikipedia