Queers in History

Monday, 7 January 2013

Zora Neale Hurston, Author & Folklorist

b. January 7, 1891
d. January 28, 1960

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.”

American author and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston was a principal figure in the Harlem Renaissance. She is the author of “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” a book heralded as “one of the most poetic works of fiction by a black writer in the first half of the 20th century, and one of the most revealing treatments in modern literature of a woman’s quest for satisfying life.”

Hurston grew up in Eatonville, Florida, the first all-black town to be incorporated in the United States, and a source of much of her writing. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was a Baptist preacher, farmer and mayor.

When her mother died in 1904, Hurston was sent to Jacksonville, Florida. Working as a maid for a traveling theatrical company, she ended up in Baltimore and attended high school by claiming to be a decade younger. She adopted 1901 as her birth year.

Hurston attended Howard University and, in 1928, became the first African-American woman to graduate from Barnard College. She went on to do graduate work in anthropology at Columbia University.

During her time in New York, Hurston was a mainstay of the Harlem Renaissance, an African-American cultural movement. Hurston befriended and collaborated with notable figures such as poet Langston Hughes and entertainers Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith. In 1935, she published “Mules and Men,” an anthology of African-American folklore.

Hurston traveled to Haiti and Jamaica for research on a Guggenheim Fellowship. During her travels, she penned what would later become her masterpiece: “Their Eyes Were Watching God” (1937). She wrote two more novels and an autobiography, “Dust Tracks on a Road” (1942).

Though she received awards for her work, Hurston never reaped financial benefit.

In her later years, Hurston wrote for newspapers. After medical and financial complications, she moved into a welfare home in Fort Pierce, Florida, where she died. She was buried in an anonymous grave.

In 1973, writer Alice Walker found an unmarked headstone in Fort Pierce and marked it as Zora Neale Hurston’s. Walker published an article that launched a revival of Hurston’s work. In 2005, Oprah Winfrey produced a film version of “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” starring Halle Berry.

Bibliography
"GradeSaver.com: Zora Neale Hurston." 17 May 2009
The Zora Neale Hurston Official Website. 16 May 2009
"Women In History: Zora Neale Hurston." 16 May 2009
"Zora Neale Hurston" Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 17 May 2009

Books by Zora Neale Hurston
Color Struck in Opportunity Magazine (1925)
How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928)
Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934)
Mules and Men (1935)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1935)
Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939)
Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)
Seraph on the Suwanee (1948)
I Love Myself When I Am Laughing...and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader (1979)
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life co-authored with Langston Hughes (1991)

Films
PBS: Zora is my Name! (1989)
Brother to Brother (2004)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005)
PBS: Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun (2008)

Other Resources
The Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive – University of Central Florida
State Library & Archives of Florida: Florida Memory
Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts & Humanities – ZORA! festival

Sunday, 6 January 2013

Frans Kellendonk, Dutch Writer

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

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.

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 Iinterrogation by the Bishop of Winchester (Paul Delaroche, 1797 -1856)

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

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:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, January

Saturday, 5 January 2013

Alvin Ailey Jr.

b. January 5, 1931
d. December 1, 1989

“I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings and that color is not important. What is important is the quality of our work.”

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.

Alvin Ailey Jr. was an internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer. He founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a dance company hailed as an ambassador of American culture. Ailey formed a multiracial company and revolutionized dance, incorporating elements of ballet and jazz, along with modern and African dance, into his work.

Ailey grew up in Rogers, Texas, the son of a young, struggling single mother. His father abandoned the family when Ailey was six months old. In 1941, the family moved to Los Angeles, where Ailey met Lester Horton, who ran the first multiracial dance school.

Horton took Ailey under his wing, teaching him a variety of dance styles and techniques. In 1953, Ailey joined Horton’s company. Later that year, he was named artistic director.

In 1954, Ailey made his Broadway debut dancing in “House of Flowers.” He also performed in “Sing, Man, Sing” with Harry Belafonte and in “Jamaica” with Lena Horne.

In 1957, Ailey established the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The company’s premiere performance, “Blues Suite”—a riveting work reflecting the African- American emotional experience—defined Ailey’s theatrical and eclectic style.

A prolific choreographer, Ailey created 79 original works for his company. “Revelations” (1960), recognized as his signature piece, is touted as the most-watched work of modern dance. “Cry” (1971), one of Ailey’s most successful works, was dedicated to his mother and African-American women.

In 1979, Ailey received the Springarn Medal for outstanding achievement from the NAACP. In 1988, he was recognized with a Kennedy Center Honors Award.

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.”

January 5th in Queer History

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.