October 22nd in LGBT History

Events in LGBT History: 

Born this day

Lord Alfred Douglas (1870 - 1945) UK
British writer and poet, and the lover of Oscar Wilde. Bosie, as he was known to his friends, married Olive Cunstance in 1902 and they had a son, Raymond, that same year. The 1997 film 'Wilde' tells the story about his relationship with Oscar Wilde.

Robert Rauschenberg (1925 - 2008) US 
American artist, who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the "Combines" are a combination of both. Rauschenberg's approach was sometimes called 'Neo-Dada', a label he shared with the painter Jasper Johns, with whom he had a long artistic and personal relationship.


Delmas Howe ( 1935 –  ) US 
Artist 

Sir Derek Jacobi  ( 1938 –  ) UK 
Actor / Director

Robert Long ( 1943 – 2006  ) Dutch 
Singer, writer, playwright, Radio- and TV-host and songwriter


Claude Charron  ( 1946 –  ) Canadian 
Teacher / Politician / Presenter / Author 

Bill Condon  ( 1955 –  ) US 
Actor / Director / Producer / Screenwriter

Mark Shaiman ( 1959 – ) American 
Composer, lyricist, arranger, musical director and music producer

Saffron Burrows  ( 1972 –  ) UK 

Actress / Activist 

Jesse Tyler Ferguson  ( 1975 –   ) US 

Actor 

Sodomy in history, October 22nd

1840 — Maine makes its sodomy law gender-neutral.

1968 — The Michigan Court of Appeals upholds a "crime against nature" conviction even though prior acts with others were admitted into evidence.

1971 — The Nebraska Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

Sources:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, October

October 21st in LGBT History

Born this day

Claire Waldoff ( 1884 –  1957 ) German

Singer / Entertainer 

William Dale Jennings ( 1917 –  2000 ) US 

Author / Activist 

Fred Sadoff (1926 - 1994) US 

Actor 

Doeschka Meijsing (1947 - ) Dutch 

Writer, born in Eindhoven. She won the AKO Literatuurprijs in 2000 for her novel "De tweede man", and in 2008 the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prize for her novel "Over de liefde" ("About Love").

Scott Smith  (1948 – 1995 ) US 

Activist [Lover of Harvey Milk]

Peter Mandelson (1953 – ) UK
Politician. During the last Labour government, Mandelson was one of the most powerful politicians in the UK - and openly gay,after being outed by the gay former MP Matthew Parris

Fred Hersch (1955 - ) US

American jazz pianist and composer, born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

John C Goss  ( 1958 – )  US

Artist / Author 

Mark Finch  ( 1961 – 1995  ) UK 

Actor / Film Promoter 

Trev Broudy ( 1968 –  ) US 

Actor / Presenter / Model / Hate Crime Victim 

Died this day

Pietro Aretino  ( 1492 – 1556) Italian

Author / Playwright / Poet 

Jack Kerouac  ( 1922 – 1969 ) US 

Author / Poet / Artist 

Sodomy in history, October 21st

1893 — The New Orleans Mascot features a cover picture of their concept of two Lesbians with the heading: "Good God! The Crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah Discounted."

1985 — The Louisiana Supreme Court upholds that part of the crime against nature law that includes solicitation for money.

Sources:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, October

Chris Wayne Beers, Mormon Missionary - and Suicide

d. March 18, 2012

According to stories posted on several Mormon blogs, Chris Wayne Beers, a returned missionary and former church employee, took his life on March 18. He was 38 years old.

Beers was a returned missionary and had worked for years at the Church Office Building in the missionary and travel department, and at the time of his passing he was working at the University of Utah Hospital.

A native from Bountiful, Utah, Beers graduated from Woods Cross High, where he played football and other sports. After serving an honorable mission for the LDS Church, he touched the lives of countless youth as an EFY counselor. "If we, as Mormons, did what we were supposed to do for all of our brothers and sisters--love them unconditionally--Chris would never have been stripped of his family of faith," wrote Mitch Mayne on a Facebook entry. "He would not have been forced to choose. He would have had a deeper, richer and more spiritual support network to walk him through what life brought his way. Sadly, like many, he was given the 'Sophie's Choice:' live life according to a heterocentric cultural practice and do so alone, without a partner--or live life without your family of faith and the strength of that spiritual community."

- from "Affirmation" (LGBT Mormons)

Hans Warren, Dutch poet, writer and literary critic

.b. October 20, 1921
d. December 18, 2001

Johannes Adrianus Menne Warren was a Dutch writer, much of whose fame in the Netherlands derived from a collection of diaries, published under the title, "Geheime Dagboek (Secret Diary)" in which he described his early life and homosexual experiences, with a frank account of his awakening as a homosexual in the countryside, his tempestuous relations with his mostly North African lovers and with his wife, who gave birth to several children. He also explains his divorce and the start of a new life, first living alone, later with his lover Mario.

He is also renowned for a fictionalised account of these early years, describing what it was like to be both Jewish and gay in the Netherlands under the Nazi occupation, in "Secretly Inside".

The publication of his series of diaries caused some concern among Warren's friends and colleagues: as the title implies, the diaries are quite frank. Warren openly describes his own life and experiences, and offers his opinions on everyone, including his friends. The twentieth volume covered the years 1996 to 1998, with one more volume to be published.

In 1952 he married an English woman, and they had three children. Soon after their marriage his wife was offered a position in Paris, where Warren's repressed homosexual feelings found an outlet in many contacts with North African boys. Although this created tension in his marriage, it also sparked his poetic career: Warren published three collections of poetry during his years in Paris, and the marriage, in the end, lasted until 1978.

In 1958 the family returned to Zeeland, and Warren produced little writing until the end of the 1960s, when the publishing company Bert Bakker published a collection of new poems by Warren, Tussen hybris en vergaan. In 1969 Warren met Gerrit Komrij and the two poets began a long and mutually inspiring friendship. During the next ten years, Warren published a new book of poetry every year.

In 1978 Warren met Mario Molegraaf, forty years his junior (Warren was 57 at that time). The two began a tumultuous love affair that lasted until Warren's death. Molegraaf was a talented writer himself, and together they published a number of translations: the entire work of Constantine P. Cavafy, several poems by George Seferis, works by Plato and Epicurius, and the four gospels.

From 1985 until 2002, Meulenhoff published a Warren calendar with a poem each day. Together with Molegraaf, Warren published several popular poetry anthologies.

October 20th in LGBT History

Events in LGBT History: 

Born this day

Arthur Rimbaud (1854 –  1891) French
Poet / Anarchist 

Eoin O’Duffy (1892 – 1944) Irish

General 

Hans Warren (1921 - 2001) Dutch 

Poet, writer and literary critic, born in Borsele, whose full name was Johannes Adrianus Menne Warren. He published an extended series of candid diaries of his life and 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".

Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu [3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu]  ( 1926 –  ) UK 

Politician

Allan Horsfall  ( 1927 –  ) UK 

Activist

William J G Turner  ( 1952 – 1987 )  US 

Composer / Producer / Director / Actor / Screenwriter 

David Sanchez Camacho (1963 –  ) Mexican 

Politician

Died this day

Peter Dudley  ( 1935 –  1983) UK
Actor

Robert Medley  ( 1905 – 1994 )  UK
Artist / Teacher

James Gleeson  ( 1915 –  2008 ) Australian
Artist / Poet / Author / Critic

Pat Kavanagh  ( 1940 –  2008) UK
Literary Agent

Sodomy in history, October 20th

1896 — The Iowa Supreme Court permits divorce on cruelty grounds due to one spouse’s violating a sodomy statute.

1941 — South African police are called in to quiet a disturbance at a gold mine caused by the dismissal of 122 miners for refusing to stop dances in which boys are squeezed and kissed.

1941 — The Arkansas Supreme Court rejects the request of a sodomy defendant to be sent to a hospital to determine his mental status.

Sources:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia 

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, October

Robert Reed

b. October 19, 1932
d. May 12, 1992

Robert Reed, born John Robert Rietz, Jr., in the northeast Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois. was a prolific American character actor of stage, film and television. In his first big break, he played Kenneth Preston on the popular 1960s TV legal drama, The Defenders, alongside E. G. Marshall. But he was best remembered for portraying the father, Mike Brady, on the long-running 1970s sitcom, The Brady Bunch, from 1969 to 1974. He also had a recurring role as Lt. Adam Tobias on Mannix

John began acting in college, where he performed in more than 8 plays in college all with leading roles and mastered Shakespeare as well. He practiced his skills for a camera while revealing a rarely seen, comical side. While he was working hard in college, he was keeping a private secret. He would not reveal that he was gay, especially to his best friend, Tam Spiva. Despite his sexual orientation, he was dating a woman.

When he became an actor, he adopted the stage name Robert Reed.

Like many gay actors and others of the time, Reed was married, to Marilyn Rosenberg (1954–1959). The couple had one daughter, Karen Rietz, who was born in 1956. Karen had a small role in an episode of The Brady Bunch entitled "The Slumber Caper." Her character's name was Karen and she is credited as "Carolyn Reed." This episode also reunited Reed with his co-star from The Defenders, E. G. Marshall.

Reed felt his career required him to be secretive about his homosexuality. Nonetheless, most of the Brady Bunch cast members—most notably Barry Williams and Florence Henderson—knew of his sexual orientation, and expressed outrage at the media's exploitation of it after his death.

Divine

b. October 19, 1945
d, March 7, 1988

Born Harris Glenn Milstead, Divine was an American actor, singer and drag queen, who was described by People magazine as the "Drag Queen of the Century".

The fat fabulous drag queen, immortalized by director John Waters in such films as "Mondo Trasho", "Pink Flamingos", and "Female Trouble", once described himself as "just another man in a dress."

The New York Times said of Milstead's '80s films: 

"Those who could get past the unremitting weirdness of Divine's performance discovered that the actor/actress had genuine talent, including a natural sense of comic timing and an uncanny gift for slapstick." He was also described as "one of the few truly radical and essential artists of the century… [who] was an audacious symbol of man's quest for liberty and freedom." 

Since his death, Divine has remained a cult figure, particularly with those in the LGBT community, of which he was a part, being openly gay.

Divine died in his sleep in the Plaza Suites in Hollywood, shortly after the premiere of "Hairspray".

Films:

• Roman Candles (1966)
• Eat Your Makeup (1968)
• Multiple Maniacs (1970)
• Mondo Trasho (1970)
• Pink Flamingos (1972)
• Female Trouble (1974)
• Polyester (1981)
• Lust in the dust (1985)
• Trouble In Mind (1986)
• Hairspray (1988)
• Out of the Dark (1989)