January 19th in Queer History

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

Writer, whose debut novel, "Thirteen Cents", won the 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize for best first book written by an African writer. He was a pioneer among Black South African writers in tackling the taboo subject of homosexuality, and male-to-male sexual violence.

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.

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Sources:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, January

January 18th in Queer History

Born this day

Cary Grant  (1904 - 1986 ) UK/US

Archibald Alexander Leach, better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor and "dashing good looks", Grant is considered one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men.

Grant was married five times, but some, including Hedda Hopper and screenwriter Arthur Laurents, have said that Grant was bisexual, the latter writing that Grant "told me he threw pebbles at my window one night but was luckless". Grant allegedly was involved with costume designer Orry-Kelly when he first moved to Manhattan, and lived with Randolph Scott off and on for twelve years. Richard Blackwell wrote that Grant and Scott were "deeply, madly in love", and alleged eyewitness accounts of their physical affection have been published.

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, the youngest brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. Despite his mother's attempts to arrange a marriage for him with Duchess Sophie Charlotte in Bavaria, youngest sister of Empress Elisabeth he remained a bachelor all his life. As a result of his very public homosexuality and transvestitism, and prolonged visits to the Central Bathhouse in Vienna, his brother Emperor Franz Joseph finally forbade him to stay in the capital.


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:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, January

January 17th in Queer History

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
Abstract expressionist painter and the father of actor Robert De Niro.

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:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, January

Susan Sontag, Author and Commentator

b. January 16, 1933
d. December 28, 2004

To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old.

Susan Sontag spent her childhood in Tucson, Arizona and Los Angeles, California. A precocious child who excelled in academics, Sontag graduated from high school at age 15. She earned her bachelor's degree at the University of Chicago. Sontag pursued graduate work in literature, philosophy and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne's College, Oxford.

In 1950, at age 17, Sontag married Philip Rieff, a professor of sociology theory. Two years later, Sontag gave birth to her only child, David Reiff. After her divorce nine years later, Sontag never remarried.

Sontag began her writing career at age 30 with "The Benefactor" (1963). Literary critics consider her critically acclaimed short story "The Way We Live Now" (1986) a monumental work of literature on the subject of AIDS. It was selected for inclusion in John Updike's "The Best American Short Stories of the Century" (1999).

In addition to writing six works of fiction, including her best selling novel "The Volcano Lover" (1992), Sontag produced her most celebrated work as an essayist. The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation and the London Review of Books have published her provocative essays.

Sontag kept her sexuality mostly private. In an interview with Out Magazine, she discussed her reluctance to live an openly gay life: "Maybe I could have given comfort to some people if I had dealt with the subject of my private sexuality more, but it's never been my prime mission to give comfort, unless somebody's in drastic need. I'd rather give pleasure, or shake things up." Sontag had several committed relationships with women, including her decade long relationship with photographer Annie Leibovitz.

On December 28, 2004, Sontag lost her battle with cancer. Her Village Voice obituary read: "She was the indispensable voice of moral responsibility, perceptual clarity, passionate (and passionately reasonable) advocacy: for aesthetic pleasure, for social justice, for unembarrassed hedonism, for life against death."

Bibliography
Paddock, Lisa and Carl Rollyson. Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon. W. W. Norton & Company, 2000
“Susan Sontag.” Susansontag.com. July 3, 2007
Selected Works
A Susan Sontag Reader (1982)
Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1968)
Alice in Bed (1993)
At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches (2007)
Brother Carl (1974)
Cage-Cunningham-Johns: Dancers on a Plane (1990)
Conversations with Susan Sontag (1995)
Death Kit (1967)
Duet for Cannibals (1970)
I, Etcetera (1977)
Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors (1988)
In America (1999)
On Photography (1976)
Regarding the Pain of Others (2003)
Styles of Radical Will (1969)
The Benefactor (1963)
The Story of the Eye (1979)
The Volcano Lover (1992)
The Way We Live Now (1991)
Trip to Hanoi (1969)
Under the Sign of Saturn (1980)
Where the Stress Falls (2001)

January 16th. in Queer History

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 

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. 

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:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, January

January 13th in Queer History

Born this day

Al-Hakem II (915 - 976), Spain
Muslim Caliph of Cordoba

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:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, January

Mary Daly, "Radical Lesbian Feminist", Theologian

b. October 16, 1928 d. January 3, 2010
Radical feminist philosopher, academic, and Catholic theologian. 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 (Harper 1992); 
Quintessence...Realizing the Archaic Future (Beacon, 1999); 
Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big Mary Daly and the Invitation to Explore Wild Ideas about Inclusivity: A Memorial Reflection(The Open Tabernacle)