November 21st in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

1981 - Sergeant Charles Cochrane testified before a New York City Council hearing on a gay rights bill, that  Following on the testimony of a Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association Vice President who denounced the  “I am very proud of being a New York City Police Officer, and I am equally proud of being gay.” This  testimony lent significantly toward the official formation of the Gay Officers Action League, Inc which became the first official police fraternal society in the world to represent LGBT professionals within the criminal justice system. 

1997 - The University of California Board of Regents voted to extend domestic partner benefits to partners of lesbian and gay employees.

Born this day

Francis Leon (1844 – ?), US. 

Blackface minstrel performer, best known for his work as a female impersonator. He was largely responsible for making the prima donna a fixture of blackface minstrelsy.

Harold Nicholson ( 1886 – 1968)
Diplomat, author, diarist and politician, the husband of writer Vita Sackville-West. Their unusual relationship being described in their son's book, Portrait of a Marriage. Nicolson and his wife practiced what today would be called an open marriage. They each had a number of same-sex affairs, and once Harold had to follow Vita to France, where she had "eloped" with Violet Trefusis, to try to win her back. However, they remained happy together.

Laurier LaPierre (1929 – ). Canadian. Politician, Presenter, Author, Journalist

Retired Liberal Party Senator and former broadcaster, journalist and author. Canada's first openly gay senator, he has been an activist with EGALE, a lobby group for gay and lesbian rights, since coming out as gay in the late 1980s.

Malcolm Williamson (1931 – 2003), Australian. 

Composer, who was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death. In 1960, he married Doris Daniel, but later "became a homosexual", and had a series of one-night stands, before setting up home with ex-Jesuit, Simon Campion.

Robert Drivas (1938 – 1986), US. 

Born Robert Choromokos, Robert Drivas was an American actor and theatre director. He died in 1986 of AIDS-related complications, at age 47.

Nickolas Grace (1947 – ), UK. 

British actor known for his roles on television, including Anthony Blanche in the acclaimed ITV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited and the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1980s series Robin of Sherwood. In the biography of the actor Alan Bates, "Otherwise Engaged" Grace is quoted describing his "intense affair" with Bates.

Corny Littman (1952 – ), German.

Football Club President, Entrepreneur, entertainer, theater owner (Schmidt Theater) and former President of the club FC St. Pauli.

Littmann toured throughout Germany for years with the "Familie Schmidt" theatre group before setting up the "Schmidt Theater" in Hamburg's St. Pauli in 1988. He is the managing director of two theatres – with the opening of the "Schmidt's Tivoli" theatre in 1991. In 1999 he was named "Hamburg Entrepreneur of the Year". Littmann was from 2002 between 19 May 2010 the president of the German football club FC St. Pauli.

He came out as gay in the 1970's, soon after dropping out of university.

Cherry Jones (1956 – ), US. 

American actress and recipient of the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series and the 2005 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play.

Throughout her acting career, she has never hidden her sexuality. In 1995, when accepting a Tony award, she openly acknowledged her then lovers, architect Mary O'Connor. In 2005, she did the same, acknowledging and kissing her then lover, actress Sarah Paulson.

Christine Vachon (1962 – ), US. 

American film producer active in the American independent film sector. Her first feature "Poison" won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1991.

Vachon and her partner, artist Marlene McCarty, live in the East Village of New York with their daughter Guthrie.

Moises Kaufman (1963 – ), Venezuelan.  

Playwright, director and founder of Tectonic Theater Project,with whom he wrote "The Laramie Project".

Died this day

Quentin Crisp (1908 - 1999 ) UK. 

Born Denis Charles Pratt, Crisp was an English writer and raconteur. He shot to prominence and became a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant. (The title comes from his time working as a model for an art school life drawing class. Working in education, he claims he was a civil servant - and worked naked).

Vanessa Facen (?? - 2005 ) US. .

Pre-op transsexual, who was taken into police custody, bleeding profusely, after smashing through a plate glass window in an attempted burglary at a neighbour's home. She became enraged while en route to hospital, and again later in the intake area to the jail - possibly because the police were treating her as male. In the police attempts to subdue her, she suffered severe injuries, which led to her death.

Sodomy laws in history, November 21

1922 — The Iowa Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction even though it felt trial questions were leading.

1984 — The Minnesota Supreme Court rules that cunnilingus violates the state’s sodomy law.

1987 - In a series of raids on gay bars, the Los Angeles Police Department closed down the One Way for fire ordinance violations. The LAPD came to the conclusion that the manpower necessary to close the One Way would be ten police cars and several fire trucks and various other city vehicles.

1995 — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upholds the solicitation conviction of a man, partially because he was of the same sex as the solicited undercover officer.

2000 — The Virginia Court of Appeals upholds the solicitation convictions of 10 men for soliciting or fondling undercover police officers while seeking sex in a public park.

Sources:

Wikipedia
Today in Gay History, Blue Pride
On This Gay Day

glbtq emcyclopedia

Gay History Wiki
Calendar of Sodomy, November

Gay History Wiki

November 20th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History:

1996 - The Ashland Wisconsin school district agreed to pay former student Jamie Nabozny $900,000 in damages. While he was a student, administrators took no action to alleviate the physical and verbal abuse he suffered because he was gay.

1998 - John Geddes Lawrence and Tyrone Garner of Texas were ordered to pay fines of $125 each after being arrested for having sex in their home. The couple refused to pay and announced they would challenge the Texas sodomy law- initiating what became known as the historic "Lawrence vs Texas" Supreme Court decision which decriminalized homosexual sex.

1999 – First Transgender Day of Remembrance held in the USA

Born this day

Grace Darmond(1898 – 1963) Canadian / US

American actress from the early 20th century, active onscreen between 1914 and 1927. Although performing in a substantial number of films over roughly 13 years, she was best known in Hollywood's inner circle as the lesbian lover to actress Jean Acker, the first wife to actor Rudolph Valentino. Darmond and Acker reportedly remained lovers through most of the 1920s.

Genevieve Pastre (1924 – ) French  

One of France's leading lesbian theorists and political activists, was a respected French poet and academic in her fifties when she came out as a lesbian and made radical lesbian feminism the root of her political and literary work. Pastre has become a major influence within the French lesbian and gay movement. She became an advocate of lesbian autonomy and gay rights in her own work, and created her own publishing house to ensure that radical queer voices could be heard. In addition, she has worked to place gay and lesbian concerns on the French national agenda by helping to found the Parti des Mauves (Lavender Party).

Esquerita (Eskew Reeder Jr) ( 1935 – 1986) US  

Esquerita was the stage name of singer, songwriter and pianist Eskew Reeder Jr,He is credited with influencing rock and roll pioneer Little Richard, though the extent and nature of Reeder's influence or vice-versa is uncertain. He died in Harlem, New York on October 23, 1986, of AIDS.

Oliver Sipple (1941 – 1989) US  Soldier

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. Though he was known to be gay among members of the gay community, and had even participated in Gay Pride events, Sipple's sexual orientation was a secret from his family. He asked the press to keep his sexuality off the record, making it clear that neither his mother nor his employer knew he was gay. Even so, Harvey Milk reportedly outed Sipple as a "gay hero" to San Francisco Chronicle's columnist Herb Caen in hopes to "break the stereotype of homosexuals" of being "timid, weak and unheroic figures". Sipple later unsuccesfully sued the Chronicle and other papers for invasion of privacy.

Meredith Monk (1942 – ) US  

Composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance. Her partner was the Dutch-born choreographer Mieke van Hoek, who died in 2002.

Benno Thoma, Wet 01

Benno Thoma (1956 – ) Dutch  Photographer

Dutch photographer Benno Thoma regularly travels the world and the seven seas to capture lighting on his subjects, either architecture, landscapes or models. His book "Around the Globe" filled with rather sumptuous images of the men of Bel Ami. For his published work see Amazon.com. See a selection of his male photography work on his website: Benno Thoma

Eric de la Cruz (1981 – ) Filipino  

Theater actor. He was born Eric Villanueva dela Cruz in Manila. His film debut was in a digital film titled "La Funeraria Toti" which was produced with a tie up with the AIDS Society of the Philippines for the benefit of people living with AIDS, and was endorsed by the Mowelfund to the Philippine Pink Festival.

Died this day

Katharine Anthony (1877 - 1965),  US. 

US biographer best known for The Lambs (1945), a controversial study of the British writers Charles and Mary Lamb. She became a public school teacher by 1910, working in Arkansas. By 1920 she was living in Manhattan with her life-partner Elisabeth Irwin (1880–1942), the founder of the Little Red School House, with whom she raised several adopted children

Emile Ardolino (1943 - 1993 ) US  

Director / producer, who began his career as an actor in off-Broadway productions, but soon moved to the production side of the business. In 1967, he founded Compton-Ardolino Films with Gardner Compton. In the 1970s and 1980s Ardolino worked for PBS; his profiles of dancers and choreographers for their Dance in America and Live from Lincoln Center series won him a total of 17 Emmy Award nominations. He actually won the Emmy three times.

Ardolino won an Academy Award for Best Documentary for the 1983 movie He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'. He found commercial success with the 1987 sleeper hit Dirty Dancing, and went on to make several other mainstream films.

Ardolino, who lived openly gay, died in 1993 of complications from AIDS.

Steven Powsner (? - 1995 ) US
Activist, founder and president of the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in Greenwich Village from 1992-1994. 

Sadao Hasegawa (1945? - 1999) Japanese  

Among the many later gay artists influenced by Tom of Finland's work is the prominent Japanese painter, Sadao Hasegawa. In such works as Lion Dance (1982) and Secret Ritual (1987), Hasegawa successfully sought to incorporate Tom's hyper-masculinity and exuberant sexuality into innovative depictions of themes ultimately inspired by the spiritual traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism.
His work is notable for superb technical skills, elaborate fantastic settings (occasionally reminiscent of William Blake), and for incorporating Japanese, Indian, South-East Asian and African mythology. While focusing on depictions of muscular male physique, Hasegawa often turns to extreme sexual situations, bondage and SM themes, which, in the context of his stylized fantasy world, attain a nearly sacral intensity. Hasegawa and ended his life by committing suicide on November 20, 1999 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Dirk Dirksen (1937 – 2006) US  

Born in Germany and emigrated to the US in 1948,Dirksen was a music promoter and emcee of the San Francisco punk rock clubs Mabuhay Gardens and On Broadway, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Dirksen was nicknamed the "Pope of Punk".

Sodomy laws in history, November 20

1940 — The Maryland Attorney General issues another opinion backing up the 1918 opinion that sodomy is an "infamous crime" that would bar someone from military service.

1951 — The Georgia Attorney General lists sodomy as an "offense against the family."

1973 — A California appellate court upholds the dismissal of a teacher acquitted of oral copulation. Both the California and United States Supreme Courts refuse to review the decision.

1990 - A London judge convicted 14 gay men of committing criminal assaults upon themselves because of their participation in s&m. All 14 received prison sentences.

Sources:

Wikipedia

Today in Gay History, Blue Pride

On This Gay Day

glbtq emcyclopedia

Gay History Wiki

Calendar ofSodomy, November

Gay History Wiki

Tom Villard (1953 – 1994), US. Actor

b. November 19, 1953
d. November 14, 1994

American actor, best known for his leading role in the 1980s series "We Got it Made" as Jay Bostwick, as well as roles in feature films "One Crazy Summer", "Heartbreak Ridge", "My Girl", and "Popcorn".

Born Thomas Louis Villard in Waipahu Ewa, Hawaii, he grew up in Spencerport, New York. He has two brothers and one sister. After high school Tom attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania for two years. After college he moved to New York City. There he attended the Lee Strasburg Acting Studio and The American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Although his name wasn't instantly recognizable, Tom Villard's face was, as he appeared throughout his career on television, in feature films, and on stage around the country. He was featured in situation comedies, episodic tv series', and had leading roles in lower and mid-range budgeted features. At the peak of his career Villard was given featured supporting roles in big-budget studio fare, (such as Heartbreak Ridge, and My Girl). Toward the end of his life he had a recurring supporting role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and portrayed multiple characters in the tv episodics The Golden Girls and Baywatch.

Toward the end of his life, Tom Villard became one of the few actors in Hollywood in the early 1990s who chose to be open about his homosexuality, and the challenge of living with HIV and AIDS. In February 1994 Villard made an unprecedented appearance on the CBS tabloid-style news show Entertainment Tonight, admitting to "...more than 13 million viewers that he was gay, that he had AIDS, and that he needed some help."

Tom moved to Los Angeles in 1980. During Tom's film career he landed roles in numerous films and television shows. Tom passed away from AIDS related pneumonia, in Los Angeles, California.

Morris Kight (1919 – 2003), US. Labor and Gay Rights Activist

b. November 19, 1919
d. January 19, 2003

Born in Comanche County, Texas, but later based in Los Angeles, Kight was active in many political, civil rights, and labor rights groups. He is considered one of the original founders of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement in the United States.

Even in high school in the 1930's Texas he recognized his sexual orientation, and then as a student at Texas Christian he was "somewhat" sexually active, although social opportunities for gay men were limited.  After graduation, he moved to New Mexico, where he found gay bars and a gay community. Even so, he married in 1950, and remained married until 1955.

After he moved to Los Angeles in 1958, where he found a much more active gay community,Kight became involved, opening his house for meetings to foster gay identity and pride, and helping arrested gay men secure lawyers so that they could get out of jail.

He is considered one of the original founders of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement in the United States.
He was a pioneering leader in Southern California's gay rights movement - former owner of a hotel chain, activist and health worker; co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front, 1969; co-founder of the Los Angeles Gay Community Services Center; co-founder of the Van Ness Recovery House, an addiction treatment centre for gay people. A key figure in the West Coast fight to end discrimination against homosexuals, who founded the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, he led the 1970 demonstration outside Barney's Beanery, the well-known West Hollywood bar, which had a bar sign reading "Faggots Stay Out!"

His activism was not limited to gay issues. He had been involved in union organising in the 1940's, and was later a prominent peace activist during the Vietnam war.

In 2003 the City of Los Angeles dedicated the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and McCadden Place, in Hollywood, California as "Morris Kight Square."

Morris died of liver cancer and pneumonia at age 83.

Related articles

• Pioneering Gay Activist and Advocate Co-Founder Aristide 'AJ' Laurent Dies at 70 (towleroad.com)

November 19th in Queer History

Events This Day in Queer History

1922 - Canadian immigration authorities allowed the Irish lover of a Canadian citizen to immigrate legally. This was the first time in North America that a same-sex relationship was used as the basis for immigration.

1933 - Christa Winsloe's book "The Child Manuela" was reviewed in the New York Times. It was a translation from a German book about a lesbian relationship in a school for girls. The reviewer referred to it as "a social document that is moving and eloquent."

1998 - Prosecutors in Laramie Wyoming presented an outline of their case against Aaron McKinney, who had been arrested for the brutal murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard.

Born this day

Clifton Webb (1889 –  1966), US. Actor,  Dancer, Singer

American actor, dancer, and singer known for his Oscar-nominated roles in film,and in the theatrical world for his appearances in the plays of Noël Coward.

Webb, who never married, lived with his mother until her death at age ninety-one in 1960. Actor Robert Wagner, who co-starred with Webb in the movies Stars and Stripes Forever and Titanic stated in his memoirs that "Clifton Webb was gay, of course, but he never made a pass at me, not that he would have."

Anton Walbrook (1896 –1967), Austrian. Actor
Austrian actor who settled in the United Kingdom, making a speciality of playing continental Europeans.


Nathan Leopold (1904 –  1971), US.  Murderer

Leopold and his partner Richard Loeb were highly educated young men from Chicago who saw themselves as Nietzchean supermen who were entitled to ignore the moral codes that bind lesser men. Beginning with minor delinquency, they embarked on a deliberate life of crime, leading up to the murder of a 14 year old boy, with the sole motive of committing the perfect crime.

Allegations that there was a sexual element in the boy's abduction and murder have not been proven, but their own relationship was sexual.

Morris Kight (1919 –  2003), US.  Labor and Gay Rights Activist.

Based in Los Angeles, Kight was active in many political, civil rights, and labor rights groups. He is considered one of the original founders of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement in the United States. A key figure in the West Coast fight to end discrimination against homosexuals, who founded the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, he led the 1970 demonstration outside Barney's Beanery, the well-known West Hollywood bar, which had a bar sign reading "Faggots Stay Out!"
In 2003 the City of Los Angeles dedicated the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and McCadden Place, in Hollywood, California as "Morris Kight Square."

Tom Villard (1953 –  1994), US.  Actor

American actor. He is best known for his leading role in the 1980s series We Got it Made as Jay Bostwick, as well as roles in feature films One Crazy Summer, Heartbreak Ridge, My Girl, and Popcorn.

Toward the end of his life, Tom Villard became one of the few actors in Hollywood in the early 1990s who chose to be open about his homosexuality, and the challenge of living with HIV and AIDS.

In February 1994 Villard made an unprecedented appearance on the CBS tabloid-style news show Entertainment Tonight, admitting to "...more than 13 million viewers that he was gay, that he had AIDS, and that he needed some help."

Timothy Conigrave ( 1959 – 1994), Australian.  Actor, Playwright, Activist

Australian actor, writer, and activist. His major work is the autobiographical Holding the Man (1995), the story of his 15-year love affair with John Caleo. They met at Xavier when John was captain of the football team and Tim wanted to be an actor. Conigrave finished the book shortly before dying of an AIDS-related illness.

Jodie Foster (1962 – ),  US. Actress, Director.

American actress, film director, and producer, the winner of two Acadamy Awards for best actress.

Foster is intensely private about certain aspects of her personal life, notably her sexual orientation, which has been the subject of speculation. However, in 1997 her brother Bud wrote a book titled Foster Child in which he stated "I have always assumed Jodie was gay or bisexual." In December 2007, Foster made headlines when, during an acceptance speech. she paid tribute to film producer Cydney Bernard,[58] referring to her as "my beautiful Cydney, who sticks with me through the rotten and the bliss." Some media interpreted this as Foster coming out.

Klaus Bondam (1963 – ), Danish.  Actor, Politician

Danish actor and politician. who got his breakthrough in the movie Festen and has starred in the series Langt fra Las Vegas as the sexually driven boss Buckingham. He stopped his acting career in 2003.

Died this day

Hans Heinrich von Twardowski (1898 - 1958),  German / US.  Actor

Twardowski appeared in numerous films from the 1920's to 1944, first in Germany, later in Hollywood. Thereafter, he continued to w rite and direct for the stage. He was homosexual, and left Germany in 1933 to escape the Nazi regime.

Louise Fitzhugh (1928 - 1974), US.  Author, Illustrator

American author and illustrator of young adult and children's literature. Her work includes Harriet the Spy, its sequels The Long Secret and Sport, and Nobody's Family is Going to Change.

Penny Port ( ???? – 2004 ) UK 
Murder Victim 

Sodomy laws in history, November 19

1925 — The Nebraska Supreme Court reverses the sodomy conviction of a man that was based solely on the deathbed declaration of a syphilis victim that he got syphilis from the defendant.

1959 — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit votes 3-0 to order the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to furnish an attorney to a man charged with solicitation and appealing his conviction.

Sources:

Wikipedia

Today in Gay History, Blue Pride

On This Gay Day

glbtq emcyclopedia

Gay History Wiki

Calendar of Sodomy, November

Gay History Wiki

November 18th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

1974 - The New Yorker published "Minor Heroism" by Allan Gurganis, its first gay-themed short story.

2003 - The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts rules that the state cannot bar same-sex couples from marrying and gives the legislature until June to rewrite the laws.

Born this day

Sir Edward Marsh (1872 – 1953), UK.

British polymath, translator, arts patron and civil servant. He was the sponsor of the Georgian school of poets and a friend to many poets, including Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon. In his career as a civil servant he worked as Private Secretary to a succession of Great Britain's most powerful ministers, particularly Winston Churchill. He was a discreet but influential figure within Britain's homosexual community.

Arthur Cecil Pigou (1877 – ) UK 
Economist 

Klaus Mann (1906 –  1949), German.   

German writer, the son of Thomas Mann. His most famous novel, Mephisto, was a thinly-disguised portrait of his former brother-in-law, the actor Gustaf Gründgens.

In early life, His homosexuality often made him the target of bigotry. Later, he moved to the United States, where he met his partner Thomas Quinn Curtiss.

Jackie Goldberg (1944 – ),  US.  

American politician and teacher, and a member of the Democratic Party. She is a former member of the California State Assembly. Goldberg is openly lesbian and was a founder member of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus. She married longtime partner Sharon Stricker in 2008.

Wolfgang Joop (1944 –  ), German.  

Fashion designer behind the now defunct JOOP! label of the 80s and 90s has recently made a critically acclaimed comeback with his Wunderkind line, founded together with his long-term boyfriend and former PR manager Edwin Lemberg.

Christian Siriano (1985 – ),  US.  

Fashion designer who first gained attention after winning the fourth season of American reality show Project Runway, becoming the series' youngest winner. Shortly after winning Runway, Siriano launched his fashion line, Christian Siriano, which as of 2010 has brought in revenue of over $1.2 million. Siriano is openly gay and lives in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City with longtime boyfriend, singer-songwriter Brad Walsh.

Died this day

Renee Vivien (1877 - 1909), UK.  

British poet who wrote in the French language. She took to heart all the mannerisms of Symbolism, as one of the last poets to claim allegiance to the school. She lived lavishly, as an open lesbian, and carried on a well-known affair with American heiress and writer Natalie Clifford Barney.

Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922), French.   

Novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past).

Mauritz Stiller (1883 - 1928), Finnish.  

Film director Maurtiz Stiller's principal claim to fame is his discovery of an unknown actress, Greta Gustafsson, whom he renamed Greta Garbo. However, this flamboyant gay Svengali to a legendary lesbian star also deserves recognition as a key figure in forging a national cinema that was eventually to become notable for its progressive treatment of sexuality and desire

Mike Connolly (1914 - 1966),  US.  

Magazine reporter and primarily a Hollywood columnist. Connolly was also known for his 1937–38 crusade against prostitution in Champaign, Illinois, and later for his battle against communism in Hollywood. According to his biographer, Val Holley, these campaigns were attempts by Connolly, who was gay, to feel part of the mainstream. His sexual preference was not made public until thirty-seven years after his death.

Gia Carangi (1960 - 1986), US.  

Fashion model during the late 1970s and early 1980s, considered by some to be the first supermodel. Carangi and her "bi-try Bowie-mad" friends hung out in Philadelphia’s gay clubs and bars. She was beginning to settle into a lesbian identity, but did not want to take up "the accepted lesbian style".Since Carangi's death, she has been considered a lesbian supermodel and icon and is said to have epitomized "lesbian chic" more than a decade before the term was coined.

William John Christopher Vassall (1924 -1996),  UK.  

British civil servant who, under pressure of blackmail, spied for the Soviet Union. In 1952, he was posted to the staff of the Naval Attaché at the British embassy in Moscow. In 1954, he was invited to a party (arranged, unbeknown to him, by the KGB), where he was encouraged to become extremely drunk, and where he was photographed in a compromising position with several men. The KGB used these photographs to blackmail Vassall into working for them as a spy. In 1962 he was arrested and charged with spying, for which he served ten years.

Dr. Evelyn Hooker (  - 1996). US.
Psychologist, whose research provided some of the earliest evidence that homosexuality is not a psychological disease, notably with the 1957 paper, "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual". Although not gay herself, and initially with little interest in studying homosexuality, she was challenged to do so by a student who by a student who asked her to study "people like him".

Her work became of fundamental importance. It exposed a false correlation between homosexuality and mental illness that had formed the basis of scientific classification of homosexuality as a disorder, by avoiding the use of a sample group that contained homosexual men with a history of treatment for mental illness. It is of critical importance in refuting cultural heterosexism because it shows that homosexuality is not developmentally inferior to heterosexuality. As homosexuality is not an illness, bias against it is irrational from a scientific point of view.

Paul Bowles (1910 - 1999), US.   

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.

Horst P Horst (1906 - 1999), German / US.  

Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann  who chose to be known as Horst P. Horst was a German-American fashion photographer. He and Valentine Lawford, a British diplomat, lived together as a couple from 1938 until Lawford's death in 1991. They adopted and raised a son, Richard J. Horst, together.

Ralph Pomeroy (1926 - 1999),  US. 

Poet, who at eighteen had already published poems in "Poetry", then pursued painting in Paris, and later worked as an editor, art critic, curator and exhibiting artist in New York City. Many years later, he was stabbed in the chest by a "fag basher", and also suffered a broken wrist while engaged in what a friend described as "S&M games with a trick."

Sodomy Laws in History, November 18

1910 — The South Dakota Supreme Court rules that the state’s "crime against nature" law outlaws fellatio.

1919 — A California appellate court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man and rejects his contention that his partner’s incestuous relationship with his brother should have been raised to impeach his credibility.

1925 — A California appellate court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man after photos and condoms found in his home were admitted into evidence against him.

1932 — A California appellate court rules that a trial judge need not visit the scene of the alleged act of sodomy.

1953 — The Illinois Supreme Court upholds a conviction for keeping a house of ill fame—a Gay bath house.

Sources:

Wikipedia
Today in Gay History, Blue Pride
On This Gay Day

glbtq emcyclopedia

Gay History Wiki
Calendar of Sodomy, November

Gay History Wiki

November 17th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

1999 - Methodist minister Jimmy Creech was stripped of his clerical status for presiding over a same-sex holy union.

Born this day

Lord Arthur Somerset (1926 - 1851),  UK. 

Aristocrat / Major

Rock Hudson  (1985 - 1925), US.  

Actor

Daniel O’Donnell (1960 – ) US.  

Politician

RuPaul (1960 – ), US.  

Drag Queen, Singer, Actor, Model

Jose Villarrubia  (1961 – ) Spanish.  

Comic Book Artist

Rebecca Walker (1969 –  ), US. 

Author

Died this day

Audre Lorde (1934 - 1992), US.  

Author, Poet, Activist

James Woods III ( ??? - 1995), US
Co-author of "The Corporate Closet: The Professional Lives of Gay Men in America," died of complications from AIDS at age 32.

Kurt von Ruffin (1901 - 1996 ), German. 

Actor, Singer

Aaron Webster (1959 - 2001), Canadian.  

Hate Crime Victim

John Craxton (1918 / 1922 – 2009), UK. 

Painter

Sodomy laws in history, November 17

1715 — North Carolina adopts all laws of England, making the buggery statute operative.

1960 — A county bar association in Ohio files charges against an attorney for misrepresenting a client arrested for sodomy. The Ohio Supreme Court disbars the attorney and refuses to reinstate him in 1967.

1975 — The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Tennessee "crime against nature" law.

1980 — The Rhode Island Supreme Court affirms that cunnilingus is a "crime against nature."

Sources:

Wikipedia
Today in Gay History, Blue Pride
On This Gay Day

glbtq emcyclopedia

Gay History Wiki
Calendar of Sodomy, November

Gay History Wiki