Tammy Baldwin

b. February 11, 1962

“There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it’s now O.K. to express ourselves publicly.We make that day by doing things publicly until it’s simply the way things are.”

 A self-proclaimed “forceful supporter of civil rights and those whose voices are not heard,” Baldwin spearheaded efforts to pass inclusive hate crimes legislation and the Employment Non- Discrimination Act (ENDA). 

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin is the first out lesbian elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. As of 2011, she was one of four openly gay members and the first openly gay non-incumbent elected to Congress. In November 2012, she won election to the US Senate election for Wisconsin. In doing so, she became the first openly lesbian or gay US senator.

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Baldwin was raised by her mother and maternal grandparents. She graduated from high school at the top of her class and attended Smith College, where she majored in government and mathematics.

In 1986, Baldwin was elected to the Dane County Board of Supervisors, her first public office. During this time, she earned her degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School. After practicing law from 1989 to 1992, she won a seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly.

In 1998, Baldwin was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, making her the first congresswoman from Wisconsin. She was elected to her sixth term in 2008. She serves on the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee of Energy and Commerce and on the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties of the Committee of the Judiciary.

Baldwin is a leading advocate for universal health care, as well as a proponent of renewable fuel sources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A self-proclaimed “forceful supporter of civil rights and those whose voices are not heard,” Baldwin spearheaded efforts to pass inclusive hate crimes legislation and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). She has authored legislation that would extend benefits for same-sex partners to federal employees.

Baldwin lives with her partner, Lauren Azar.

Bibliography

• Canon, David T., “First things first: Democrat Tammy Baldwin's Wisconsin win blended professionalism, people power” Campaigns & Elections. 1 May 2009
• Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin’s Official Web site
• Nichols, John. "Tammy Baldwin's Turn." The Nation. 27 May 2009
• "Tammy Baldwin"  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 27 May 2009

Films

• Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)  
• Outrage (2009) 

Video Clips

• Tammy Baldwin speaks at the University of Wisconsin 
• Rep. Tammy Baldwin on "The Rachel Maddow Show" 
• Tammy Baldwin speaks about coming out at work 
• Tammy Baldwin speaks on the Federal Marriage Amendment 

Websites and Articles

• Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
• Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin’s Voting Record
• On the Issues: Tammy Baldwin

Related articles

• Is Rep. Tammy Baldwin Still Facing The Violent Threats That Forced Her to De-List Her Home Address? (queerty.com)
• Rep Baldwin Introduces Legislation To Mandate LGBT Health Data (lezgetreal.com)

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)

Christina of Sweden (1626 –1689)

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.

Bessie Smith, (1892/4 - 1937)

Singer
b. Unknown: July 1892 or April 15, 1894
d. September 26, 1937

It's a long old road, but I know I'm gonna find the end

Details of Bessie Smith's childhood, including the year of her birth, vary. Both Smith's parents died before her ninth birthday. As a child, she and her brother performed as a musical duo on the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee to support themselves.

In 1912, Smith joined a traveling troupe. While with the troupe she met blues singer Ma Rainey, who became Smith's friend and mentor. Smith's extraordinary talent as a blues singer, coupled with her vivacious personality, quickly landed her a solo act in Atlanta, Georgia. She entered the Eastern Seaboard vaudeville circuit and over the next ten years her popularity soared.

Columbia Records signed her in 1923 and she quickly became the highest paid African American entertainer of her time. She earned up to $2000 per week during the height of her career. Her successful first recording, titled "Down-Hearted Blues," catapulted her to national success.

Smith toured the country and recorded over 160 songs while accompanied by some of the greatest jazz instrumentalists of her time, including Louis Armstrong. From slow blues to jazz standards, Bessie Smith consistently produced original work with her broad range and versatility. Columbia Records upgraded her unrivaled status as "Queen of the Blues" to "Empress of the Blues."

Five years after signing with Columbia Records, Smith's career began to decline during the Great Depression. Her last recording, featuring Benny Goodman, took place in 1933. Although she never received the same level of acclaim bestowed on her during her early career, Bessie Smith continued to perform in clubs up until her death. She died shortly after a car accident in 1937.

Bibliography
“Bessie Smith: Selected Artist Biography.” PBS: Jazz, a Film by Ken Burns. June 29, 2007
Albertson, Chris. Bessie. Yale University Press, 2003
Selected Works
After You’ve Gone (2001)
An Introduction to Bessie Smith: Her Best Recordings 1923-1933 (1996)
Beale Street Mama (1996)
Bessie Smith Sings the Jazz (1996)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 1 (1991)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 2 (1991)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 3 (1992)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 4 (1993)
Best of the Empress of the Blues (2004)
Down Hearted Blues (2006)
Queen of the Blues Vol. 1 (2007)
St. Louis Blues (2005)
The Collection (1989)
The Essential Bessie Smith (1997)
The Incomparable (1999)

Barbara Gittings, pioneer LGBT activist

n.July 31, 1932
d. February 18, 2007

A prominent American activist for gay equality. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) from 1958 to 1963, edited the national DOB magazine The Ladder from 1963 to 1966, and worked closely with Frank Kameny in the 1960s on the first picket lines that brought attention to the ban on employment of gay people by the largest employer in the US at that time: the United States government. Her early experiences with trying to learn more about lesbianism fueled her lifetime work with libraries.

Her friend and fellow gay rights activist Jack Nichols once heralded Barbara as “the Grand Mother of Lesbian and Gay Liberation.” That’s not much of exaggeration when one considers what she had accomplished for the LGBT community. Her quest for equality and dignity began when she flunked out of her freshman year at Northwestern University because she spent too much time in the library trying to understand what it meant to be a lesbian. Ever since then, her mission was to tear down what she called “the shroud of invisibility” that facilitated the ongoing criminal persecution of homosexuality as well as its being regarded as a mental illness. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Billitis in 1958, and she gained a national platform within the gay and lesbian community as the editor of the pioneering lesbian journal The Ladder in the mid-1960s."

Box Turtle Bulletin

'via Blog this'

Audre Lorde, poet, gay, lesbian, LGBT, history

b. February 18, 1934
d. November 17, 1992

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

A self-proclaimed "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," Audre Lorde dedicated her life to combating social injustice. She helped found Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the world's first publishing company run by women of color.

Lorde was the third daughter of immigrant parents from Grenada. She began writing poetry at age twelve and published her first poem in Seventeen magazine at age fifteen. Lorde was strongly influenced by her West Indian heritage, which she explored in her autobiography, "Zami: A New Spelling of My Name."

In 1954, Lorde attended the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), where she solidified her identity as both a poet and a lesbian. She entered the Greenwich Village gay scene after her return to New York in 1955.

She continued her studies, receiving a bachelor's degree from Hunter College in 1959 and a master's degree in Library Science from Columbia University in 1961.

Lorde worked as a librarian while continuing to write and publish poetry. In 1962, she married Edwin Rollins. The couple had two children before their marriage dissolved. Much of Lorde's poetry written during these years explores themes of motherhood and love's impermanence.

In 1968, Lorde received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and published her first volume of poetry, "The First Cities" as a poet-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. She began a romantic relationship with Frances Clayton that same year that would last until Lorde's death in 1992.

Rich with introspection, Lorde's work contains extensive sociopolitical commentary. As a lesbian woman of color Lorde asserted, "I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and to share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigating pain."

Lorde explored her long battle with cancer in her last work, "The Cancer Journals" (1980). In an African naming ceremony shortly before her death, Lorde took the name Gamba Adisa: "Warrior: She Who Makes Her Meaning Known."

Bibliography

“Audre Lorde.” Lambda. June 29, 2007

De Veaux, Alexis. Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde. W. W. Norton, 2006

Green, Becky and Aletnin Nguyen. “Audre Lorde (1934-1992).” VG: Voices from the Gaps, Women Artists and Writers of Color. December 6, 1996. June 29, 2007

Sullivan, James. “Audre Lorde (1934-1992).” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Modern American Poetry. June 29, 2007

Selected Works

A Burst of Light: Essays (1988)

Coal (1976)

From a Land Where Other People Live (1973)

Need: A Chorale for Black Women Voices (1990)

New York Head Shop and Museum (1974)

Our Dead Behind Us (1986)

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

The Black Unicorn (1978)

The Cancer Journals (1980)

The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power (1978)

Undersong: Chosen Poems, Old and New (1982)

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982

Related articles

• Ten Lesbian & Bisexual Poets To Fall in Love With [Womanly Wordsmiths] (Jezebel)
• Fool That I Am: National Coming Out Week (The New Gay)
• We were there: Stonewall Honors 2009 (Time Out NY)
• Womanist Roots: Our History with Homosexuality (Clutch Mag Online)
• Emanuel Xavier, Poet (Its a Queer World)

January 1st in Queer History

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

Pope Alexander VI (1431-1503), Italian

One of the Borgia family, notorious for their many excesses. He was believed to have reduced Rome to unparalleled depths of depravity, and the city teemed with assassins and prostitutes of both sexes. Alexander was himself much given to womanizing, having sired eight or more children, including the infamous Lucrezia Borgia, but he was apparently not averse to the charms of young men as well. 

Katherine Philips (1632 –  1664) UK
Poet, who may have had a ten-year relationship with "Lucasia", from 1651 to 1661. At their more ecstatic, Philips' poems celebrate the sublime "mysteries" of love between women. 

EM Forster (1879 –  1970) UK

A prolific and internationally acclaimed writer. His works display his acute awareness of the social and political problems of his time and his belief in the power of human connection. Though best known for novels, he wrote numerous short stories and nonfiction works.

“Maurice,” his only novel to deal directly with a homosexual theme, was not published until a year after his death, at the author’s request. Written when homosexuality was illegal in England, the book revolved around a gay man and his relationships. Though unwilling to publish “Maurice,” Forster fought against the suppression of Radclyffe Hall’s novel about a lesbian Englishwoman, “The Well of Loneliness” (1928).

Albert Mol (1917 – 2004) Dutch
Author / Actor

James Hormel (1933 – ) US
A philanthropist and community leader who was the first openly gay United States Ambassador.

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 1st

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

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day
Calendar of Sodomy, January

December 31st in Queer History

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 31st

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

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

December 30th in Queer History

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

English-American writer and painter, admired for his vivid prose and precise descriptions.

Sodomy in history, December 30th

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

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day