1868: In a letter to an early sex-law reformer, Karl Maria Kertbeny is first known to have privately used the new terms “Homosexual” and “Heterosexual”, the words aren’t in print publicly until the following year. 1933: In Berlin, young Nazis attack and destroy the Institute of Sexual Research. A few days later, the institute’s priceless … Read More
1971: Andy Warhol’s play Pork opens at the La Mama Experimental Theater in New York City. Among the cast, making his acting debut, is an extremely talented, sixteen-year-old drag queen named Harvey Fierstein. 1981: After customs officials at New York’s JFK Airport find a gay love letter in his luggage, British traveler Phillip Fotheringham is … Read More
1958: Gay artist and icon Keith Haring is born. 1993: Tony Kushner’s Gay Fantasia on National Themes, “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches” opens on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
1989: Pioneering transsexual Christine Jorgensen dies of lung and bladder cancer at the age of sixty-two.
1972: Edgar Hoover dies of a heart attack at the age of seventy-seven. The main provision of his will — leaving the bulk of his $551,000 estate to his close companion of more than forty years, Clyde Tolson — renews longtime speculation over his sexuality. “I was in love once when I was young,” Hoover … Read More
1974: “Studio One” opens in West Hollywood. The labyrinthine establishment, one of the biggest of its kind (it has four bars, a dinner theater, a jewelry concession, and a game room), quickly establishes itself as L.A.’s premier gay nightclub, the disco to end all discos, drawing such celebrity regulars as Richard Chamberlain, Bette Midler, Elton John, and … Read More
1980: “Young, Gay and Proud”-the first gay-themed title from the Boston-based publisher Alyson Publications-arrives in bookstores. The publishing house, founded by gay activist Sasha Alyson, goes on to become the country’s principal gay small press giving many prominent gay writers their start. 1983: More than eighteen thousand people fill Madison Square Garden for what is … Read More
1983: Querelle-Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s last film, based on a novel by Jean Genet-opens in New York City. Starring Brad Davis and Jeanne Moreau, the film is almost universally panned by critics. 2011: The United States Department of Labor updates its internal equal employment opportunity policy to bar discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
1978: Following the recent gay rights defeat in Dade County, Florida,voters in St. Paul, Minnesota, vote to repeal their four year-old gay rights ordinance by a margin of 2 to 1. 1981: Former Beverly Hills hairdresser Marilyn Barnett files a multimillion-dollar “palimony” suit against tennis pro Billie Jean King, claiming the two had a lesbian … Read More