December 21 in LGBTQ History
1917: In Russia, the Bolsheviks repeal the entire criminal code in favor of “revolutionary justice.” Among the laws nullified are those relating to sex acts between men.
December 8 in LGBTQ History
1981: The NYC Gay Men’s Chorus becomes the first openly gay musical group to play at Carnegie Hall with their Christmas concert.
December 1 in LGBTQ History
1989: Alvin Ailey dies from AIDS-related complications.
October 28 in LGBTQ History
1824: The Marquis de Custine is beaten and left for dead after propositioning a male soldier in Saint-Denis. The scandal forces him out of the closet, but he recovers and lives the rest of his life as an open ‘sodomite’ with his partner Edward St. Barbe. Custine maintains a successful social life in Paris.
October 24 in LGBTQ History
2002: Harry Hay, leader in the early gay rights movement in the United States, co-founder of the Mattachine Society and the Radical Faeries, dies at age 90.
October 11 in LGBTQ History
1981: In Los Angeles, then twenty-one year old Prince opens for the Rolling Stones. He is booed off the stage with taunts of “Faggot!” and “F*cking queer!” 1987: The Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights (aka “The Great March”) takes place in Washington, DC. The march, demonstration, and rally also included…
September 18 in LGBTQ History
1980: The Toronto Board of Education adopts a policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation while adding a clause forbidding “proselytizing of homosexuality in the schools.” 1981: The film Mommie Dearest opens, simultaneously glorifying and condemning gay icon Joan Crawford. 2003: The bill to repeal Section 28 in the remaining parts United Kingdom (England and…
September 7 in LGBTQ History
1981: Larry Kramer and two friends put up a banner at the Fire Island dock that says “Give to Gay Cancer”. They make only $124. 2011: The United States Department of Health and Human Services issues a finalized guidance memorandum that creates an enforcement mechanism for the policy announced last year by the Obama administration…
August 26 in LGBTQ History
1904: Christopher Isherwood is born in Wyberslegh Hall, United Kingdom. 1981: In California, Governor Jerry Brown appoints Mary Morgan to the San Francisco Municipal Court. She is the first openly lesbian judge in the U.S. 1986: Jerry Smith, former Washington Redskins tight end, is the first celebrity to voluntarily acknowledge that he has AIDS. He…
August 11 in LGBTQ History
1981: Larry Kramer, whose 1978 novel Faggots took gay men to task for promiscuity in pre-AIDS New York, calls a meeting of concerned men in his Greenwich Village apartment. It is a precursor to the organization that will become Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York. 1995: South Korea marks its first Pride Celebration with…
