Queers in History

Tuesday, 7 February 2012

February 7th in Queer History

Born this day

Olive Custance (1874 – 1944) UK
British poet. She was part of the aesthetic movement of the 1890s, and a contributor to The Yellow Book.
Bisexual, in 1901 she became involved in a lesbian relationship with writer Natalie Clifford Barney in Paris, which Barney later included in her memoirs. Custance then became engaged to George Montagu, but ran away and married Lord Alfred Douglas instead.

Johnny Jordaan (1924 – 1989) Dutch
The pseudonym for Johannes Hendricus van Musscher, a Dutch folk singer. He was well known for his songs about the city of Amsterdam, especially the Jordaan district.

Gary Bond (1940 – 1995) UK
English actor, best known as a theatrical actor , but also played a number of roles in feature films and on television. Bond was the companion of actor Jeremy Brett from 1969 to 1976. Later, American artist and illustrator E.J. Taylor was Bond's long-term partner from 1979 to 1995.

Witi Ihimaera (1944 – ) New Zealand
Author, and often regarded as one of the most prominent living Māori writers.

Steve Bronski (1960 – ) UK
Musician, and eponymous member of the British synthpop trio Bronski Beat, who achieved success in the mid 1980s, particularly with the 1984 chart hit "Smalltown Boy". All members of the group were openly gay and their songs reflected this, often containing political commentary on gay-related issues.

Mark Tewksbury (1968 – ) Canadian
Swimmer, best known for winning the gold medal in the 100 metres backstroke at the 1992 Summer Olympics. In December 1998, Tewksbury announced to the Canadian media and people that he was gay. He was the first Canadian athlete to voluntarily state his homosexuality and his announcement drew great public attention. In 1998, he lost a six-figure contract as a motivational speaker because he was "too openly gay. Tewksbury has simce become a prominent advocate for gay rights and gay causes in Canada and the world. On May 16, 2003, Tewksbury joined the board of directors for the 2006 World Outgames in Montreal and was named co-president.

Died this day

D. K. Broster (1877 - 1950) UK
British novelist and short-story writer

Norman Douglas (1868 - 1952) UK
British writer, now best known for his 1917 novel South Wind. His other claim to fame, is to have been possibly the first person to publish a collection of bawdy verse, a set of limericks such as this one:

There was a young man called McLean
Who invented a f**king machine.
Concave or convex,
It would fit either sex,
And was perfectly simple to clean.

The verses were accompanied by extensive, mock scholarly annotations.

Benny Neyman (1951 - 2008) Dutch
Singer

Sodomy in history, February

1706 — Queen Anne disallows the 1700 Pennsylvania sodomy law that included flogging and castration provisions, unaware that it had been changed less than a month earlier.

1877 — The Dakota Territory reduces the maximum penalty for sodomy from life to 10 years.

1950 — The Maine Supreme Court rules that cunnilingus is a "crime against nature."

1966 — The New Jersey Supreme Court overturns the conviction of two prisoners for forcible sodomy on another because a third prisoner said during the trial that all of them had engaged in sodomy with the victim. Evidence also is presented at trial to show that the victim was the lover of one of the defendants.

1980 — The Wisconsin Supreme Court upholds the right of police discriminatorily to enforce prostitution and solicitation laws against Gay men.

1984 — A Michigan appellate court upholds the applicability of the gross indecency law to consenting adults.

Sources:

Sunday, 5 February 2012

February 5th in Queer History

Born this day

William S Burroughs (1914 – 1997) US
Author

Vivica Bandler (1917 – 2004) Finnish
Director

Ronald Jason Palmieri (1950 – ) US
Politician

Russell Grant (1951 – ) UK
Astrologer / presenter

Carol Philipps (1965 – 2009) Canadian
Journalist / / Activist / Editor

Joe Foster (1976 – ) Australian
Porn
Pavel Novotny [aka Jan Dvorak / Jakub Moltin / Max Orloff] – (1977 – ) Czechoslovakian
Porn

Died this day

Ernst Burchard (1876 – 1920) German
Physician / Sexologist / Author / Activist

Brendan Burke (1988 - 2010 ) Canadian/US
Ice Hockey / Manager

Sodomy in history, February 5th

1957 — The Iowa Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of a farmer for fellating consenting teenagers.

1993 — A Texas appellate court upholds a public indecency conviction for masturbating in a public restroom. The police had spied the activity through roof holes. The court finds that, because the activity could have been seen by anyone in the restroom, the police could use the roof holes.

Sources:

Saturday, 4 February 2012

February 4th in Queer History

Born this day

Julian Bell (1908 – 1937) UK
Poet / Military Ambulance Driver
Wallace Potts (1947 – 2006) US
Screenwriter / Director

Evan Wolfson (1957 – ) US
Lawyer / Activist

Mark Trevorrow (1959- ) Australian
Presenter / Comedian / Singer

David Thompson (? - ???? ) US
Porn / Director

Died this day

Lucius Beebe (1902 - 1966 ) US

Author / Photographer / Journalist

Liberace (1919 - 1987 ) US
Musician

Patricia Highsmith (1921 - 1995) US
Author

Scott Smith (1948 - 1995) US
Activist, Partner of Harvey Milk

Ronald Robertson (1937 -2000) US
Figure Skater

George Nader (1921 - 2002 ) US
American actor and writer, born in Pasadena, California, who was partner to Mark Miller.

Sodomy in history, February 4th

1864 — Idaho outlaws sodomy with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

1869 — South Carolina abolishes the death penalty for sodomy, but fails to include a new penalty.

1893 — A Gay sex scandal begins in Denmark and later Friedrich Hammerich, son of a prominent judge, is arrested. The press claims that Hans Christian Andersen started a seduction chain leading to the present scandal.

1981 — Rep. Jon Hinson (R-MS) resigns from the House following an arrest for attempted sex in a public restroom with another man.

1982 — Police in Kingston, Jamaica use tear gas to disperse a crowd of 2,000 which has gathered at a hospital to see two Lesbians in such a tight embrace that they required medical attention to be separated.

Sources:

Friday, 3 February 2012

February 3rd in Queer History

Born this day

Gertrude Stein (1874 – 1946) US
Author

Helen Stephens (1918 – 1994) US
Athlete / Softball/Baseball/ Basketball

Kenneth Anger (1927 – ) US
Actor / Director

James Bridges (1936 – 1993 ) US
Screenwriter / Director

Victor Buono (1938 – 1982) US
Comedian / Actory

Emile Griffith (1938 – ) US
Boxer

Dave Davies (1947 – ) UK
Singer / Musician

Nathan Lane (1956 – ) US
Actor / Singer

Marlon Riggs (1957 – 1994) US
Director / Poet / Activist

Lizzie Borden (1958 – ) US
Director

Ferzan Ozpetek (1959 – ) Turkish / Italian
Director / Screenwriter

Gengoroh Tagame (1964 – ) Japanese
Manga Artist

Hong Seok-Cheon (1971 – ) South Korean
Actor

Jason Ricci (1974 – ) US
Singer / Musician

Daniel Allen Cox (1976 – ) Canadian
Author

Antonio Madiera (1981 – ) US US
Porn

Died this day

Joe Meek (1929 - 1967) UK
Composer / Record Producer / Lyricist

Robert Duncan (1919 - 1988 ) US
Poet

Alexis King (?? - 2006 ) US
Murder Victim

Maria Schneider (1952 – 2011)French
Actress, best known for playing Jeanne, opposite Marlon Brando, in the 1972 film Last Tango in Paris.

Sodomy in history, February 3rd

1859 — Kansas reduces the penalty for sodomy from 10 years-life to a maximum of 10 years.

1942 — The West Virginia Supreme Court rules that emission is not required for conviction of sodomy.

1958 — A New York court dismisses a disorderly conduct charge against a Gay man, saying there was no evidence that he did anything wrong.

1960 — The Ohio Supreme Court denies a habeas corpus release from prison for sodomy. The U.S. Supreme Court later refuses to hear the case.

1964 — The New Mexico Supreme Court rules that, since the state’s sodomy law prescribes only a minimum penalty, a sentence of life imprisonment is permissible.

Sources:

Thursday, 2 February 2012

February 2nd in Queer History

Born this day

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:

glbtq emcyclopedia
On this gay day
Calendar of Sodomy, February

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

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.

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.

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