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

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

1953: President Dwight Eisenhower signs Executive Order 10450, banning homosexuals from working for the federal government or any of its private contractors. The Order lists homosexuals as security risks, along with alcoholics and neurotics. 1972: Testifying before Congress, J. Edgar Hoover assures the House Appropriations Committee that there are no gay activists in the Bureau, … Read More

1980: CBS broadcasts an hour-long documentary entitled “Gay Power, Gay Politics” that alleges to be about the emergence of gay political clout in San Francisco, but instead focuses obsessively on more lascivious aspects of gay sexuality, making them seem like the focus of the entire gay rights movement. In one segment, close-ups track the arrival … Read More

1965: An estimated 150 people participate in a sit-in when the manager of Dewey’s restaurant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania refused service to several people he thought looked gay. Four people are arrested, including homophile rights leader Clark Polak of Philadelphia’s Janus Society. All four are convicted of disorderly conduct. Members of the society also leaflet outside the … Read More