Queers in History

Thursday, 20 February 2014

February 20th in Queer History

Born this day

William Lygon  (1872 –   1938) UK
Politician

Baron Jacques D’Adelsward-Fersen  (1880 –  1923) French
Author / Poet / Aristocrat

Robert Andrews  (1895 –  1976) UK
Actor

Roy Cohn  (1927 –  1986) US
Lawyer / Politician

Dr Joel Weisman  (1943 –  2009)  US
Physician

Torstein Dahle  (1947 –  ) Norwegian
Politician

Andre van Duin  (1947 – ) Dutch
Actor / Singer

Lord John Browne  (1948 –  ) UK
Businessman

Mab Segrest  (1949 –  ) US
Poet / Activist

Gaetan Dugas  (1953 – 1984 ) Canadian
Flight Attendant [Alleged to be Patient Zero in the AIDS epidemic]

Philip Hensher  (1965 –  ) UK
Journalist / Author

Stephen Gendin  (1966 –  2000) US
Author / Activist

Stuart Miles  (1970 –  ) UK
Presenter

Calpernia Addams  (1971 –  ) US
Author / Activist / Actress / Musician

Aditya Bondyopadhyay  (1972 –  ) Indian
Lawyer / Activist

Jeremy Jordan  (1978 –  ) Canadian / US
Porn

Adrian Lamo  (1981 – ) US
Journalist

Died this day

Laurence Housman ( 1865 - 1959) UK
Playwright / Author / Illustrator

Anthony Asquith (1902 - 1968) UK Director

John Paul Hudson (1929 - 2002 ) US Activist / Journalist

Marcella Althaus-Reid (? - 2009 ) Argentinian
Theologian, who applied the principles of the liberation theology she she applied in Argentina under the military theology, to sexual liberation and feminist theology. She was a pioneer in the development of queer theology, best known for her landmark books "Indecent Theology" and "The Queer God".

Jason Wood (1972 -2010) UK
Singer / Drag Queen [Cher Travesty]

Sodomy in history, February 20th

1775 — In Frisia, the Netherlands, two teenage servants are banished for three years for "toleration of sodomy."

1852 — Delaware eliminates the flogging penalty for sodomy and substitutes time in the pillory before imprisonment.

1939 — The Indiana Supreme Court rejects the contention of a man and woman convicted of sodomy that oral sex only between people of the same sex is sodomy.

1959 — The Idaho Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of Gordon Larsen, one of the Boise victims, despite inflammatory remarks by prosecutors at his trial. The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review the decision.

1973 — The District of Columbia Court of Appeals rejects a First Amendment challenge to Gay men soliciting for sex.

1974 — A California appellate court rejects a challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s oral copulation law.

Sources:

Wednesday, 19 February 2014

February 19th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – North Dakota Senate votes to include LGBT in the Human Rights Act
2010 – Football V Homophobia launches in the UK

Born this day

F. O. Matthiessen  (1902 – 1950) US
Historian / Literary Critic

Carson McCullers  (1917 –  1967 ) US
Author / Playwright

George Rose  (1920 – 1988) UK
Actor / Murder Victim

Dudley Cave  (1921 –  1999) UK
Activist

Sheila Kuehl (1941 - ), US
California state legilator

Stuart Challender  (1947 –  1991) Australian
Conductor

Jackie Curtis  (1947 –   1985) US
Actress / Poet / Playwright

Pim Fortuyn  (1948 –   2002)
Dutch Politician

Lari Pittman  (1952 –  ) US
Artist

Stephen F Kolzak  (1953 - 1990) US
Director

Justin Fashanu  (1959/61 - 1998)  UK
Footballer who was known by his early clubs to be gay, and came out to the press later in his career, to become the first and only English professional footballer to be openly homosexual. Until former France international Olivier Rouyer came out in 2008, Fashanu was still the only professional footballer in the world to disclose that he was gay. Fashanu hanged himself in May 1998,at a time when he was wanted in the United States on charges of sexually assaulting a teenager in Maryland. In his suicide note, he insisted that the sex had been consensual.
Since his death, he has been frequently held up as a role model, to encourage other sporting figures to come out publicly.

Jaime Bayly  (1965 – ) Peruvian / US
Author / Journalist / Presenter

Dallas Angguish  (1968 – ) Australian
Author / Poet

Beth Ditto  (1981 –  ) US
Singer

Died this day

Andre Gide (1869 - 1951)  French
Author

Suzanne Malherbe (1892 - 1972) French
Artist

Eric Stryker (1954 - 1988) US
Porn

Derek Jarman (1942 - 1994)  UK
Director / Screenwriter

Charles Trenet (1913 - 2001) French
Singer / Author

Sylvia Rivera  (1951 - 2002 ) US
Activist

Sodomy in history, February 19th

1821 — Maine enacts a new sodomy law. It retains the male-only provision of the Massachusetts statute, but sets a one-year minimum penalty.

1926 — A California appellate court upholds a sodomy conviction based on photographs without any relationship to the case found in the defendant’s vest.

Sources:

Tuesday, 18 February 2014

February 18th in Queer History

Born this day

Tuulikki Pietila (1917 –   2009) Finnish
Artist

David March (1925 – 1999) UK
Actor

Ned Sherrin  (1931 –  2007) UK
Presenter / Author / Director

Duane Michals  (1932 – ) US
Photographer

Audre Lorde  (1934 –  1992) US
Author / Poet / Activist

David Ehrenstein  (1947 –  ) US
Film Critic / Journalist / Author / Blogger

Margaret Smith  (1961 – ) UK
Politician

Christopher Sieber  (1969 –  ) US
Actor / Singer

Ben Harvey  (1979 – ) US
Presenter

Died this day

Michelangelo  (1475 - 1564 ) Italian
Sculptor / Painter / Architect / Poet / Engineer

Charlotte Cushman  (1816 - 1876 ) US
Actress / Singer / Playwright / Director

Scott O’Hara  (1961 - 1998 )  US
Porn / Poet / Editor / Publisher / Author

Laurel Hester  (1956 - 2006)  US
Police Officer

Barbara Gittings (1932 - 2007) US
Activist

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.

Sodomy in history, February

1854 — Alabama is the first state in the nation to make conviction of the "crime against nature" a specific grounds for divorce.

1893 — The Washington Supreme Court notes that Washington has no sodomy law, even though it is indictable under the common-law statute.

1930 — The Iowa Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction despite "conflict and contradictions" in the testimony.

1937 — Vermont outlaws oral sex, which the statute calls "fellation."

1957 — The Arkansas Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man committed on a blind boy of borderline intelligence, after the trial judge determined him competent to testify because "he believes in God" and had the Bible read to him.

Sources:

Monday, 17 February 2014

February 17th in Queer History

Born this day

Arcangelo Corelli (1653 – 1713) Italian
Composer / Violinist

Friedrich Alfred Krupp (1854 - 1902), German.

German industrialist, of the Krupp steel manufacturing company, taking over the leadership of his father's company in 1887. He committed suicide in 1902, a week after the Social Democratic magazine Vorwärts claimed in an article that Friedrich Alfred Krupp was homosexual, and that he had a number of liaisons with local boys and men.

Oskar Seidlin (1911 - 1984) US

Poet / Author

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.

Claudia Schoppmann  (1958 – ) German
Historian / Author

Angela Eagle (1961 –  ) UK
Politician

Cheryl Jacques  (1962 –  ) US
Politician / Activist

Peterson Toscano  (1965 – ) US
Playwright / Actor / Blogger / Comedian / Activist / Minister

Peter Karlsson  (1966 –   1995) Swedish Ice Hockey

Billie Joe Armstrong  (1972 – ) US
Singer / Musician

Antton Harri  (1974 –  ) Spanish
Porn

Harisu  (1975 –  ) South Korean
Singer / Model / Actress

Eric Magyar (1975/6 – ??)
Porn / Director

Died this day

Jack Cole (1911 - 1974) US
Dancer / Choreographer

Randy Shilts (1951 - 1994 ) US
Author / Journalist

Sybille Bedford (1911 - 2006) UK
Author

Sodomy in history, February 17th

1755 — Georgia enacts a law making it a crime to deny that Georgian laws are in force, thus showing that English laws are not recognized. Since Georgia has no sodomy law, this shows that the English sodomy law was not considered in force.

1905 — In Ohio, a man is sent to the State Reformatory for sodomy even though the records state that he "proved" his absence from the crime scene. He spends two years in the Reformatory.

1923 — Utah amends its sodomy law to outlaw oral sex and to increase the penalty to 3-20 years.

1950 — Georgia repeals its ban on probation for sodomy.

Sources:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, February

Tuesday, 11 February 2014

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.

Sunday, 2 February 2014

February 2nd in Queer History

Born this day

Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) English
Sexologist.

Xuan Dieu (1916 – 1985) 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. Many people believe that he was homosexualalong 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.

Liz Smith (1923 – ) US

Gossip columnist, known as The Grand Dame of Dish. Smith acknowledged her bisexuality (or as she refers to it, 'gender neutrality') in her memoirs.

Jane Wagner (1935 – ) US

Writer, director and producer,best known as Lily Tomlin's comedy writer, collaborator and life partner

Thomas M Disch (1940 – 2008) US

Award - winning science fiction author and poet. Among his other nonfiction work, he wrote theatre and opera criticism for The New York Times, The Nation, and other periodicals.

Following an extended period of depression following the death in 2005 of his life-partner, Charles Naylor, Disch stopped writing almost entirely, and later committed suicide by gunshot in 2008.

J. E. Freeman (1946 – ) US

Actor, especially known for his menacing characters roles,including the ferocious gay hitman from "Miller's Crossing". In 2009, he published a letter to the editor on sfgate.com, detailing his reminiscences of the 1969 Stonewall riots.

Frank Ferri (1954 – ) US

Democratic member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives.

Michel Marc Bouchard (1958 – ) Canadian

Playwright.

Hella von Sinnen (1959 – ) German

TV comedian, whose stage name is a pun on the German von preposition denoting noble descent; "von Sinnen" is a German expression for mad or insane. She supported the fight for same-sex marriage in Germany with her wife Cornelia Scheel

Dana International (1972 – ) Israeli

Israeli pop singer of Yemenite Jewish ancestry,who is most famous for having won the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 in Birmingham with the song "Diva". She has been credited with being one of the world's best known transsexuals.

David Paisley (1979 – ) UK

Scottish actor, especially well known for roles as midwife Ben Saunders in Holby City, Ryan Taylor in Tinsel Town and most recently Rory Murdoch in River City. Openly gay, he has been voted 'Britain's sexiest man' by readers of Gay Times magazine

Jeff Whittington (1985 – 1999 ) New Zealand

A teenager who was murdered by two men in an anti-gay hate crime in Wellington, New Zealand. It is unknown whether Whittington was gay. Whittington was beaten by Jason Morris Meads and Stephen Smith, suffering severe facial injuries and perforated bowels. After being taken to the hospital, he died of brain swelling. At the time of his death, Whittington had dyed his hair purple and was wearing fluorescent green nail polish.

Died this day

Adolf Brand (1874 - 1945 ) German

Author / Anarchist / Activist

Natalie Clifford Barney (1876 - 1972) US
Playwright, poet and novelist who lived as an expatriate in Paris. She was openly lesbian and began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, considering scandal as "the best way of getting rid of nuisances" (meaning heterosexual attention from young males).

Ondrej Nepala (1951 - 1989) Czechoslovakian
Olympic gold medalist and three-time World champion Slovak figure skater who competed for Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He died of AIDS-related complications in 1989, at the age of 38.

Oliver Sipple (1941 - 1989 ) US
Oliver "Billy" W. Sipple was a decorated US Marine and Vietnam War veteran widely known for saving the life of US President Gerald Ford during an assassination attempt in San Francisco on September 22, 1975. The subsequent public revelation that Sipple was gay turned the news story into a cause célèbre for gay activists.

Lou Harrison (1917 - 2003 ) US
Composer, particularly noted for incorporating elements of the music of non-Western cultures into his work, and one of the most prominent composers to have worked with microtones. Harrison lived for many years with Bill Colvig in Aptos, California.

Sodomy in history, February 2nd

1809 — The Illinois Territory receives the statutory law of Indiana, adopting its harsh sodomy law.

1960 — The Florida Attorney General issues an opinion that most crimes, including sodomy, can not be prosecuted on Indian reservations, so long as at least one of the parties to the act is an Indian.

1965 — A Florida appellate court rules that a "lewd, lascivious or indecent assault or act upon a child" is a lesser included offense within the "crime against nature."

Sources:

Saturday, 1 February 2014

February 1st in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2004 – Cape Verde legalises homosexuality; Marshall Islands legalise homosexuality
2004 – Same-sex marriage licences issued in San Francisco, California (later annulled)
2005 – Civil Marriage Act introduced in Canada sanctioning same-sex marriage (the 4th country to do so)
2005 – LGBT History Month launched in the UK
2008 – HOD (LGBT organisation for Orthodox Jews) founded in Israel
2009 – Johanna Sigurdardottir elected Prime Minister of Iceland, the world's first openly LGBT head of government.
2009 – NoH8 campaign created by Jeff Parshley in the USA

Born this day

Langston Hughes (1902 – 1967) US
Poet, writer, and editor. Together with gay African American poet and novelist Countee Cullen, he was an important figure in the Harlem literary Renaissance of the 1920s. He is known for the use of jazz and black folk rhythms in his poetry.

Hugues never had a significant lover-relationship, though his poem "F.S." (1921) suggests otherwise, and his autobiographical writings briefly mention sex with men. Hugues wrote and published in all genres until his death but he never addressed homosexuality openly. His poems invite gay readings but his biographers disagree about his sexuality. He often said of his life,

There are some things I don't tell nobody, not even God. He might know about them, but it certainly ain't because I told him.

Hildegarde (1906 – 2005) US
Cabaret singer, best known for the song "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup."

Ton Jansen (1944 – ) Dutch
Local politician. When he was elected Mayor of Neerijnen in 1988, he became the first openly gay mayor in the Netherlands. When others followed later, he was involved with an informal association of gay mayors.

Lucy Jane Bledsoe (1957 – ) US
Novelist and science writer,who writes both fiction and non-fiction books for children and adults. She focuses on LGBT literature and has received several awards for her fictional and non-fictional writings, establishing herself as a Stonewall Book Award winner and four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist.

Saint's Day: St Brigid of Ireland

St. Brigid and her soulmate St. Darlughdach were sixth-century Irish nuns who brought art, education and spirituality to early medieval Ireland. Brigid (c.451-525) shares her name and feast day (Feb. 1) with a Celtic goddess -- and she may have been the last high priestess of the goddess Brigid.

Raised by Druids, Brigid seems to have made a smooth transition from being a pagan priestess to a Christian abbess. Today she is Ireland’s most famous female saint.

Died this day

William Desmond Taylor (1872 - 1922) US

Irish-born American actor, successful film director of silent movies and a popular figure in the growing Hollywood film colony of the 1910s and early 1920s. His murder on February 1, 1922 led to a frenzy of sensationalistic and often fabricated newspaper reports.Some of this speculation included suggestions that he lead a clandestine gay life, but Normand.Taylor's murder remains officially unsolved

Howard Junior Brown (1924 - 1975) US

A founder of the National Gay Task Force and a former New York City Health Services Administrator, who helped change the image of gay men and lesbians in the United States by coming out publicly in 1973.

Richard Wattis (1912 - 1975) UK

English character actor,best known for his appearances in British comedies of the 1950s and 1960s, typically as the "Man from the Ministry" or similar character, with trademark thick-rimmed round spectacles. He was an openly gay man in an era when this was a taboo subject.

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.

Gian Carlo Menotti (1911 - 2007 ) Italian / US

Italian-American composer and librettist, best known for his classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, originally written for television and broadcast in 1951. One of the leading classical composers of the twentieth century, Gian Carlo Menotti not only had a distinguished career, but also achieved acclaim at a time when his uncloseted homosexuality could have been a major barrier.

For thirty years, his life partner was the composer Samuel Barber, whom he had met while still at college, and for whom he wrote the libretto for the opera "Vanessa". Later he also had a long personal and professional relationship with the conductor Thomas Schippers.

Sodomy in history, February 1st

1816 — Four English sailors aboard the Africaine are hanged for sodomy following a major scandal. Two others are flogged—one with 200 lashes and the other is sentenced to 300, but receives only 170 when the attending physician warns that any more would endanger his life.

1916 — A California appellate court upholds the "lewd and lascivious act" conviction of a man for having been found on a bed "in contact" with his partner.

1920 — Los Angeles poolice “Purity Squad” raids private party

1955 — A California appellate court upholds an oral copulation conviction after the jury saw graffiti referring to the defendant as "queer."

1964 — The committee reviewing the New York criminal code recommends repeal of the consensual sodomy law.

Sources:

Friday, 31 January 2014

January 31st in Queer History

Events this day in queer history

1964 Randolphe Wicker Appears on the Les Crane Show

1965 Washington Post Publishes “Those Others: A Report on Homosexuality”

Born this day

Tallulah Bankhead (1902 – 1968) US
Actress

Anna Blaman (1905 – 1960) Dutch
Author

Pat Kavanaugh (1940 – 2008) UK
Literary Agent

Derek Jarman (1942 – 1994) UK
Director / Screenwriter

Fred Karger (1950 - ). US

Political consultant and gay rights activist, who in 2012 stood as openly gay candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

His campaign may have seemed quixotic, but Karger was serious about his goal to “open up” the Republican party and to send a message to young people to “stand up and be proud in a tough atmosphere.” He also achieved a notable first by becoming the first openly gay presidential candidate from a major political party in American history.

- Box Turtle Bulletin

Charles Howard (1961 – 1984) US
Hate Crime Victim

Patrick Gale (1962 – ) UK
Author

David Oliver (1962 – 1992) US
Actor

Patricia Velasquez (1971 – ) Venezuelan
Actress / Model

Portia de Rossi (1973 – ) Australian
Actress

The Australian-born actress is best known for her roles as Nelle Porter on Ally McBeal and as Linsay Bluth Fünke on Arrested Development. She married Ellen DeGeneres in 2008, and on August 6, 2010 she field a petition to take Ellen’s name. She became a US citizen in 2012 - Box Turtle Bulletin

Chad Hunt (1973/4 – ) US
Porn

Albert Kennedy (1973 – 1989) UK
Homeless Person

Daniel Tammet (1979 – ) UK Autistic
Savant

Maia Lee Singaporean
Singer

Died this day

Keith Norton (1941 - 2010 )Canadian
Politician / Lawyer

Sodomy in history, January

1729 — A Prussian baker is executed for fellating another man who later died, according to the court, of "exhaustion."

1913 — Oregon amends its sodomy law to include any act of "sexual perversity," thus including not only oral sex, put any other form of erotica. The penalty also is increased from a maximum of 5 years to a maximum of 15.

Sources:

Thursday, 30 January 2014

January 30th in Queer History

Born this day

Howard Sturgis (1920 - 1855) UK
Author

Maud Hunt Squire (1873 – 1955) US
Artist

Jack Spicer (1925 – 1965) US
Poet

Stewart McKinney (1931 – 1987) US
Politician

Thomas Duane (1955 – ) US
Politician

Mark Eitzel (1959 – ) US
Singer

Died this day

Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963) French
Composer

Rodolfo Morales (2001 – 1925) Mexican
Artist

Sodomy in history, January

1827 — Illinois enacts a law prohibiting anyone convicted of sodomy from holding public office.

1951 — A California appellate court upholds the oral copulation conviction of a man based on police looking into the window of a restroom.

1959 — The Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that sodomy convictions can be secured largely on circumstantial evidence.

1961 — The New Mexico House of Representatives votes 37-28 in favor of a revised criminal code that includes a repeal of the state’s sodomy law. This is the first vote by a U.S. legislative body to repeal a sodomy law. This bill refers to sodomitical relations as "variant sexual practice," something unique in U.S. history.

1978 — The Louisiana Supreme Court overturns a sodomy conviction because of testimony given in the trial trying to show that the defendant was Gay. The Court said that whether the defendant was Gay or not was irrelevant under the state’s sodomy law.

Sources:

Wednesday, 29 January 2014

January 29th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2007 – Israeli couple (Avi & Binyamin Rose) become first gay couple to legally register in Jerusalem after the Supreme Court ruled in their favour

Born this day

Ian Meldrum (1946 – ) Australian
Presenter

Gia Carangi (1960 – 1986) US
Model

Greg Louganis (1960 – ) US
Olympic Diver

Mirjam Muntefering (1969 - ) German
Author

Clare Balding (1971 – ) UK
Jockey / Presenter

Sara Gilbert (1975 – ) US
Actress

Francesco D’Macho (1979 – ) Italian
Porn / Director / Model

Adam Lambert (1982 – ) US
Singer / Actor

Todd Herzog (1985 –) US
Reality TV [Survivor]

Died this day

Herman Bang (1857 - 1912 ) Dutch
Author

Benjamin Smoke (1960 - 1999 ) US
Musician

Paco Vidarte (1970 - 2008 ) Spanish
Author / Activist / Philosopher

Sodomy in history, January 29th

1954 — The New Mexico Supreme Court rules that emission is not necessary to prove sodomy.

1973 — The Arkansas Supreme Court rejects a challenge to the state’s sodomy law on the ground that it establishes religion.

Sources:

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

January 28th in Queer History

Born this day

General Charles George Gordon (1833 - 1885) British
British General, also known as "Chinese Gordon", or as "Gordon of Khartoum", for the famous battle in which he died.

Colette (1873 – 1954) French
Author

Richmond Barthe (1901 – 1989) US
Sculptor

John Normington (1937 – 2007) UK
Actor

Guido Bachmann (1940 – 2003) Swiss
Author / Actor

Joel Crothers (1941 – 1985) US
Actor

Bobbi Campbell (1952 – 1984) US
Nurse / Drag Queen / Activist

Frederique Spigt (1957 – ) Dutch
Singer / Songwriter / Composer / Presenter

Adrian Lee Kellard (1959 – 1991) US
Artist

Benjamin Smoke (1960 – 1999) US
Musician

Tyler Riggz (1975 – ) US
Police / Porn

Nadia Almada (1977 – ) Portuguese
Reality TV [Big Brother]

Blake Riley (1986 – ) US
Porn

Died this day

Richard Loeb (1905 - 1936) US
Murderer

Reynaldo Hahn (1874 - 1947) Venezuelan / French
Composer / Conductor / Musician / Critic

Zora Neale Hurston (1891 - 1960), US

Author, anthropologist, and folklorist during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Of Hurston's four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel 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.”

Josephine Herbst (1892 - 1969) US
Author / Historian / Journalist / Literary Critic

Bryher [Annie Winifred Ellerman] (1894 - 1983) UK
Author / Poet / Editor

Jerry Mills (1951 - 1993) US
Cartoonist

Sodomy in history, January 28th

1965 — The Maine Supreme Court rules that penetration is an essential element in the crime of sodomy.

1977 — The Kentucky Supreme Court rules that the alleged homosexuality of a sodomy "victim" is irrelevant under state law.

Sources:

Monday, 27 January 2014

January 27th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2005 – First International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Born this day

Sarah Aldridge (1911 – 2006) Brazilian / US
Author

Ethan Mordden (1949 - ) US
Author

Alan Cumming (1965 – ) UK
Actor

Ryan Andrijich (1977 – ) Australian
Chef / Presenter [Aussie Queer Eye]

Died this day

Augusto d’Halmar (1882 - 1950 ) Chilean
Author

Alain Danielou (1907 - 1994 ) French
Historian / Author

Alan G Rogers (1967 - 2008 ) US
Soldier / Activist

Sodomy in history, January 27th

Sources:

Friday, 24 January 2014

Henri Nouwen, Catholic Priest

b. January 24, 1932
d. September 21, 1996

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection.

A Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books about spirituality. Nouwen's books, which are still being read today, include The Wounded Healer, In the Name of Jesus, Clowning in Rome, Life of the Belovedand The Way of the Heart.. The results of a Christian Century magazine survey conducted in 2003 indicate that Nouwen's work was a first choice of authors for Catholic and mainline Protestant clergy.One of his most famous works is Inner Voice of Love, his diary from December 1987 to June 1988 during one of his most serious bouts with clinical depression - which was rooted in part, in his early conflicts over sexuality and celibacy.

Nouwen is thought to have struggled with his sexuality. "Although his homosexuality was known by those close to him, he never publicly claimed a homosexual identity." Although he never directly addressed the matter of his sexuality in the writings he published during his lifetime, it is said that he acknowledged the struggle both in his private journals and in discussions with friends, both of which were extensively referenced by Michael Ford in the biography Wounded Prophet, which was published after Nouwen's death. Ford suggests that Nouwen only became fully comfortable with his sexual orientation in the last few years of his life, and that Nouwen's depression was caused in part by the conflict between his priestly vows of celibacy and the sense of loneliness and longing for intimacy that he experienced. Ford conjectured, "This took an enormous emotional, spiritual and physical toll on his life and may have contributed to his early death." There is no evidence that Nouwen ever broke his vow of celibacy

His spirituality was influenced notably by his friendship with Jean Vanier. At the invitation of Vanier, Nouwen visited L'Arche in France, the first of over 130 communities around the world where people with developmental disabilities live with those who care for them. In 1986 Nouwen accepted the position of pastor for a L'Arche community called "Daybreak" in Canada, near Toronto. Nouwen wrote about his relationship with Adam, a core member at L'Arche Daybreak with profound developmental disabilities, in a book titled Adam: God's Beloved. Father Nouwen was a good friend of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.

Books:

Ford, Michael: Wounded Prophet: A Portrait of Henri J.M. Nouwen

The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society
In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership
Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer, and Contemplation
Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World
The Way of the Heart

Tuesday, 11 June 2013

May 11th in Queer History

Born this day

Filippo de Pisis (1896 – 1956) Italian
Painter

Frank Thring (1926 - 1994) Australian

Character actor.

Valentino Garavani (1932 –  ) Italian
Fashion Designer

Mychal F Judge (1933 – 2001)  US
Firefighter and Priest, known as the Saint of 9/11, for his heroic work and death at the Twin Towers, 2001.

Logan Carter (1954 –  1988) US
Actor / Entertainer / Model

Daniel Conahan (1954 – ) US
Serial Killer

Ken Cheuvront (1961 – )  US
Politician

Billy Bean (1964 – )  US
Baseball

Patrick Boothe (1980 – )  US
Singer

Died this day

Wick Ederveen (1953 - 1994 ) Dutch
Actor / Director

William Dale Jennings (1917– 2000) US
Author / Activist

Patrick Fyffe [aka Dame Hilda Bracket] (1942 – 2002) UK
Comedian / Singer / Entertainer

Sakia Gunn (1987 - 2003) US
Hate Crime Victim

2008 – Australian Capital Territory legalises civil partnerships [effective 19thMay 2008]

Sodomy in history, May 11

1926 — The Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that police may enter a home without a warrant to arrest people for sodomy if they see them enter the home. The Court says: "To uphold defendant’s contention would seriously embarrass the enforcement of law, and license the defendant and her kind to continue their abominable practices under the protection of the law."

1983 — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rules that placing part of your body into an adjoining booth obviates privacy rights.

1988 — The Oregon Court of Appeals decides that a consensual act of fellatio occurring in a parked car in a driveway off a downtown street is occurring in a private place.

1990 — An Oklahoma appellate court rules that the sodomy law is not violated by placing a finger in the rectum.
2001 – 52 people arrested on “The Queen Boat” moored in the Nile, Egypt. 50 charged with “habitual debauchery” & “obscene behaviour” and 2 charged with“contempt of religion.”

Sources:

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

May 15th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2008 – California State Supreme Court strikes down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, making them available from June 2008
2009 – Same-sex couples in Finland allowed to legally adopt a biological child [no full adoption]

Born 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.

Jasper Johns (1930 – )  US
Contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.

Maruyama Akihiro [aka Akihiro Miwa] (1935 – ) Japanese
Drag Queen / Singer / Actor / Director

Nancy Garden  (1938 - )  US
Author

Barbara Hammer (1939 – ) US
Director

Bill Rosendahl (1945 – ) US
Politician / Teacher / Presenter

Frank Sanders (1946 – ) Dutch
Actor / Singer / Dancer / Director

Boze Hadleigh (1954 – ) US
Journalist

Ricky Ian Gordon (1956 – )  US
Composer

Rustom Padilla [aka BeBe Gandanghari] (1965 – )  Filipino
Actor / Reality TV

Andy Towle (1967 – )  US
Blogger / Editor

Spencer Herbert (1981 – ) Canadian
Politician

Fred Martinez (1985 – 2001 ) US
Hate Crime Victim

Died this day

Nigel Green (1924– 1972 ) UK
Actor

Jackie Curtis (1947 – 1985) US

Actress / Poet / Playwright

Peter Grimwade (1942 – 1990) UK
Screenwriter / Director

Gloria E Anzaldua (1942 - 2004) US
Author / Poet / Activist

Rodger McFarlane (1955 – 2009), US

Gay rights activist who served as the first paid executive director of the Gay Men's Health Crisis and later served in leadership positions with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Bailey House and the Gill Foundation.

Sodomy in history, May 15

1797 — Captain Henry Allen is hanged in England for sodomy, the only ship’s captain ever to be hanged for sodomy.
1968 — The North Carolina Supreme Court rules that sodomy indictments must name the partner of the defendant.
1978 — The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear a challenge to the North Carolina sodomy law.

Sources:

Tuesday, 14 May 2013

May 14th in Queer History

Born this day

Magnus Hirschfeld (1868 – 1935) German
Physician and sexologist, who was an outspoken advocate for sexual minorities. Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."

William Alexander Percy (1885 - 1942 ) US
Lawyer / Poet

Lou Harrison (1917 - 2003 ) US

Composer, particularly noted for incorporating elements of the music of non-Western cultures into his work, and one of the most prominent composers to have worked with microtones. Harrison lived for many years with Bill Colvig in Aptos, California.

Richard Deacon (1921 – 1984)  US
Actor / Presenter

Rolf Gindorf (1939 – )  German
Sexologist / Author

Martin Webster (1943 – )  UK
Politician

Ulrike Folkerts (1961 – ) German
Actress

Charlie Vazquez (1971 – )  US
Artist / Author / Musician / Publisher

Clare Teal (1973 – ) UK
Singer

Died this day

Magnus Hirschfeld  (1868 –   1935) German
Physician and sexologist

Ray Stricklyn  (1928 - 2002) US
Actor / Publicist

Pepper LaBeija (1948 - 2003)  US
Entertainer – Born 5th November

Sodomy in history, May 14

1718 — New Hampshire amends its sodomy law, adopting the 1697 Massachusetts law verbatim.
1915 — Pennsylvania excludes sodomy from the list of crimes for which the defendant is entitled to a preliminary hearing.
1918 — A Delaware appellate court rules that solicitation to commit sodomy does not constitute an attempt to commit it.
1928 — The Nazi Party in Germany responds to a Gay rights questionnaire with a statement of opposition to legalizing same-sex sexual relations.
1931 — North Carolina is the third state to permit a divorce if one spouse is convicted of the "crime against nature.

Sources:

Monday, 13 May 2013

May 13th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – Uruguay legally accepts gays in the military

Born this day

Modest Tchaikovsky (1850 – 1916) Russian
Playwright, brother of the composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Daphne du Maurier (1907 – 1989) UK

British author and playwright. Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca (which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1941) and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

After her death in 1989, numerous references were made to her secret bisexuality; an affair with Gertrude Lawrence, as well as her attraction for Ellen Doubleday, the wife of her American publisher, were cited.[16] Du Maurier stated in her memoirs that her father had wanted a son; and, being a tomboy, she had naturally wished to have been born a boy.

Killer Karl Krupp (1934 – 1995 )  Dutch / US
Wrestler

Bruce Chatwin (1940 - 1989 ) UK
Journalist / Author

Armistead Maupin (1944 – )  US
Author, best known for the popular "Tales of the City" series, set in San Francisco

Jacob Dahlin (1952 –  1991) Swedish
Presenter

Alan Ball (1957 – )   US
Screenwriter / Producer / Director / Actor

Real Menard (1962 – ) Canadian
Politician

Cheryl Dunye (1966 – )  Liberian /US
Film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress, whose work often concerns themes of race, sexuality and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians.

Alison Goldfrapp (1966 – )  UK Singer / Songwriter

Died this day

Sir William Dobell (1899 - 1970 ) Australian
Sculptor / Painter

Rebecca Wight (1959 - 1988) US
Hate Crime Victim

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."

Paul Bartel (1938 - 2000 ) US
Actor / Director / Screenwriter

Larry McKeon (1944 - 2008) US
Politician

Sodomy in history, May 13

1660 — In New Netherland Colony, J.Q. van der Linde, a married man, is tied into a sack and drowned for sodomy with an adolescent male. Three years later his widow files for bankruptcy.

1892 — The Michigan Supreme Court rules that sodomy convictions can be based on unverified information.

1909 — Connecticut reduces the penalty for sodomy from a compulsory life sentence to a maximum of 30 years in prison.

1965 — The Washington Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction over the defendant’s contention that the prosecutor’s closing remarks to the jury constituted misconduct. The defendant didn’t provide text of the remarks, so the Court couldn’t rule on them.

Sources:

Sunday, 12 May 2013

May 12th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – New York marriage bill passed the Assembly, but later defeated in the Senate before final passage in 2011.

Born this day

Bruce Voeller (1934 - 1994 ) US
Biologist

Gerry Studds (1937 – 2006)  US
Politician

Joan Nestle (1940 – )  US
Author / Editor / Activist

Pam St Clement (1942 – )  UK
Actress

Linda Ketner (1950 – ) US
Business Consultant and politician, who was a Congressional candidate for the Democratic Party in South Carolina, 2008

Deborah Warner (1959 – )  UK
Director

Jared Polis (1975 – ) US
IT entrepreneur and Democrat Colorado politician, who was elected to Congress in 2008.

Charlie Herschel (1979 –  )US
Reality TV [Survivor]

Died this day

Amy Lowell (1874 - 1925) US
Poet

Robert Reed (1932 - 1992) US
Actor, best known for "The Brady Bunch". Married and publicly closeted, he was nevertheless well-known as gay to colleagues on the series. He was HIV positive at the time of his death in 1992

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"

Roberto Duncanson (1987 - 2007) US
Hate Crime Victim

Robert Rauschenberg (1925 - 2008) US

Robert Rauschenberg was an 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.

Sodomy in history, May 12

1921 — California changes the penalty for sodomy to 1-10 years.

1961 — A Georgia appellate court rules that the age of a sodomy partner is irrelevant and that the defendant’s homosexuality is irrelevant.

1975 — California repeals its consenting adult laws, including the laws against sodomy and oral copulation.

1976 — A federal court in Virginia suggests that the state’s sodomy law does not apply to married couples, assuming that no third party is present, even though there is no statutory exemption for them.

1977 — A Georgia appellate court upholds a conviction for solicitation for sodomy for offering an undercover police officer a blowjob.

Sources: