October is GLBT History month.

[Behind the Aegis]

Not to be confused with June, which is GLBT Pride, October was chosen for GLBT history month because it hosts National Coming Out Day (October 11th) which commemorates the first national march on Washington, D.C. by GLBT activists in 1979. GLBT history month, like other "history months," allows a marginalized group to be spotlighted for the accomplishments of its members, which are often omitted from the history books. I encourage people to read about some famous gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people and what they accomplished and to recognize the contributions and trials and tribulations of individual GLBT people, including those of us on DU.

Please add comments about famous GLBT persons, struggles (personal and as a group), historical achievements, books, and movies for others to explore.

I will start with Bent a film about a gay man in the Dachau concentration camp.

Gays in the Military: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben -- a Prussian military officer who served the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and taught them battle techniques and discipline. He served under George Washington.

Currently, 7 nations have death penalties for gays.

On July 19, 2010, the full United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) voted in favor of a US-led resolution to grant the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) consultative status. IGLHRC is only the tenth organization working primarily for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) human rights to gain such status at the United Nations. (source)

Heterosexism: the belief that heterosexuality is preferred or superior to other forms of sexual orientation. It is also the action or behavior in which heterosexuality is considered the default position.

Labrys -- a double-bladed axe, thought to be a weapon of the Amazons and often used a sign for lesbianism.

Christine Jorgensen -- the first widely known person to have sex reassignment surgery (MtF) (source

Feel free to add more....

[Lucky 13]

1. a few more...

The Stonewall Riots
Matthew Shepherd
Ellen coming out
First Civil Unions

[Sabriel]

25. "Bullied," from the Southern Poverty Law Project

It's a short docu about Jamie Nabozny, the student who successfully sued his former high school and collected damages:

http://www.tolerance.org/bullied
http://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/nabozny-v-podlesny.html

Also the book Gay Bar, which is the updated and revised memoir of a straight woman who ran a gay bar in the 1950s:

http://www.amazon.com/Gay-Bar-Fabulous-Story-Daring/dp/029924850X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1286497808&sr=8-2

And finally, my sister, who survived a suicide attempt in high school and went on to live with and marry the love of her life for the last 30 years. It does get better.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Take GLBTs out of history and you'll have......

... a bunch of sad, naked heteros rubbing two sticks together to try to stay warm.




"Homosexuality," Plato wrote, "is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love-all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce."

[joeybee12]

4. Great quote!

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Mine........ or Plato's? nt

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Delete

[Sweet Charming Dem]

3. K&R

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. Alan Turing. Alan Fucking Turing.

No, wait, his middle name was actually Matheson.

He invented the computer and kicked Nazi butt with numbers. As a show of gratitude, he was forced to take poison (libido-suppressing hormones that made him grow breasts) which drove him to suicide.

[TriMera]

8. The Mattachine Society.

This little nugget of GLBT history has it all; political intrigue, police entrapment, labor unions, communists, etc.B-)

http://www.harryhay.com/AH_matt.html

[Jamastiene]

9. K&R

I've learned so much about gay history here. I love it when we have these kinds of get-togethers on DU, even though the GLBT community here is sadly missing a few great people nowadays.

[TexasObserver]

10. recommend

[Zax2me]

11. Hey, our work break room BB posted this.

A flier announcing it with the following web address -
http://www.glbthistorymonth.com(Warning - one popup window but easy to close)
Don't remember this last year so kudos to whoever in our office runs that board - don't really know!

[Smarmie Doofus]

23. It's phenomenal. That's a pesky pop-up though. nt

[Zax2me]

24. If you like the site and want to revisit...

I found that by clicking 'no thanks' at the bottom of the pop up rather than Xing out kept it from coming up when I returned later to the site.
At least it worked for me.

[terrya]

12. Henry Gerber

Started the first gay organization in the United States, the Society for Human Rights, in 1924.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

13. .

"Gays in the Military: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben -- a Prussian military officer who served the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and taught them battle techniques and discipline. He served under George Washington."

*giggle*

[terrya]

14. Kick this for GLBT History Month

[Smarmie Doofus]

15. John Maynard Keynes

WIKI:


>>>>>>
Keynes's early romantic and sexual relationships were almost exclusively with men.<7> Attitudes in the Bloomsbury Group, in which Keynes was avidly involved, were relaxed about homosexuality. One of his great loves was the artist Duncan Grant, whom he met in 1908, and he was also involved with the writer Lytton Strachey.<7> Keynes was open about his bisexuality, and between 1901 to 1915, kept separate diaries in which he tabulated his sexual relationships.<8>
In 1921 he fell "very much in love" with Lydia Lopokova, a well-known Russian ballerina, and one of the stars of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. They married in 1925,<7><9> leading to the widely repeated couplet of unknown authorship: "Oh what a marriage of beauty and brains. The fair Lopokova and John Maynard Keynes". Their union was by all accounts happy,<105> though childless; Lydia became pregnant in 1927 but miscarried. For the first years of the relationship, Keynes had maintained an affair with a younger man, Sebastian Sprott, in tandem with Lopokova, but he eventually chose Lopokova exclusively on marrying her.<106><107> Among Keynes' Bloomsbury friends, Lopokova was, at least initially, subjected to criticism for her manners, mode of conversation and supposedly humble social origins - the latter of the causes being particularly noted in the letters of Vanessa and Clive Bell, and Virginia Woolf.<108><109> In her novel Mrs Dalloway (1925), Woolf bases the character of Rezia Warren Smith on Lopokova.<110> E.M. Forster would later write in contrition: 'How we all used to underestimate her'.[>>>>>>

[Mimosa]

16. This LBGT hates 'designated months' for any history

I think inclusive history should be taught all the time with no months singled out. And G before L is sexist! ;)

[Smarmie Doofus]

17. I do believe you've missed the point....

... but everyone's allowed to play.

[Mimosa]

18. I guess i missed it when I was working for gay rights in the 1970s too

I don't miss much. I just don't believe designating months for anything is anything but symbolic at best.

[Smarmie Doofus]

19. Kick ........ Tchaikovsky

>>Musicologist and historian Roland John Wiley suggests a third alternative, based on Tchaikovsky's letters. He suggests that while Tchaikovsky experienced "no unbearable guilt" over his homosexuality, he remained aware of the negative consequences of that knowledge becoming public, especially of the ramifications for his family.<47> His decision to enter into a heterosexual union and try to lead a double life was prompted by several factors—the possibility of exposure, the willingness to please his father, his own desire for a permanent home and his love of children and family.<47> While Tchaikovsky may have been romantically active, the evidence for "sexual argot and passionate encounter" is limited.<47> He sought out the company of homosexuals in his circle for extended periods, "associating openly and establishing professional connections with them."<47> Wiley adds, "Amateurish criticism to the contrary, there is no warrant to assume, this period excepted, that Tchaikovsky's sexuality ever deeply impaired his inspiration, or made his music idiosyncratically confessional or incapable of philosophical utterance."<47> Professor Robert Greenberg of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music agrees, describes his turn towards a troubled inner world where he, “found a world of self-expression that he might never have discovered had he felt less alienated from society.”<52>
>>>>>

wiki

[Behind the Aegis]

20. Thank you. This is what I am hoping others will do.

:toast:

[Smarmie Doofus]

21. There's enough GLBT history to keep this kicked 'til......

.... *next* October.

We're just scratching the surface.

[Behind the Aegis]

22. I am just hoping for the month.

;)

[Smarmie Doofus]

26. Sir Francis Bacon

wiki:


Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.<2> His works established and popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method or simply, the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today. His dedication probably led to his death so bringing him into a rare historical group of scientists who were killed by their own experiments.
Bacon was knighted in 1603, created Baron Verulam in 1618, and Viscount St Alban in 1621; as he died without heirs both peerages became extinct upon his death.

[Behind the Aegis]

27. Sappho

Sappho (pronounced /ˈsæfoʊ/ in English; Attic Greek Σαπφώ /sapːʰɔː/, Aeolic Greek Ψάπφω ) was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired throughout antiquity, has been lost, but her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments. (source)

One of the most recognized names in regards to female homosexuality, her bithplace, Lesbos, gives us the modern word for female homosexuals, lesbians.

[Smarmie Doofus]

28. Stop all the clocks.....

W. H. Auden


Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.


Funeral Blues

http://audensociety.org/poems.html

[Starry Messenger]

29. Audre Lorde

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audre_Lorde

Her book Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance is one of my favorites.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/audre_lorde/biography

Audre Geraldine Lorde was a critically acclaimed novelist, poet and essayist. She was born on February 18, 1924 in Harlem and died on November 17, 1992. Her parents were immigrants from Granada who seemed to continually plan to return to the Caribbean throughout most of Lorde's childhood. Lorde recalled that as a child, she spoke in poetry. When she couldn't find existing poems that expressed her feelings, she began to write poems at age twelve or thirteen. She attended Hunter College High School and then supported herself with low paying jobs. Her first lesbian affair was with a coworker at a factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She attended the National University of Mexico for a year, starting in 1954. Upon her return, she entered the "gay girl" scene in Greenwich Village but was often the only Black woman in the bars. She recalled that she did not try to build ties to the other three or four Black women in the scene as it seemed to threaten their status as exotic outsiders. She began to study at Hunter College, worked as a librarian, and, of course, wrote poetry. She attempted to join the Harlem Writers Guild but the overt homophobia of the group led her to leave. She received a BA in literature and philosophy from Hunter in 1959 and an MLS from Columbia University in 1960.

For several years, she worked as a librarian in Mount Vernon and then New York City. In 1962, she married Edward Rollins, an attorney. They had two children but divorced in 1970.

Lorde's first book of poems, The First Cities, was published in 1968. She spent six weeks as a writer-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. This was of great important to Lorde's life as she met Frances Clayton. From that point on, she and Frances shared their lives together.

In New York, Lorde taught writing courses at City College and courses on racism at both Lehman College and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her second book of poetry, Cable to Rage, appeared in 1970. Neither it, nor The First Cities, contained any lesbian content. In 1971, Lorde publicly read a lesbian love poem for the first time. It was later published in Ms. Magazine but was rejected by her editor for inclusion in her third volume of poetry, From a Land Where Other People Live. This book was nominated for a National Book Award in 1974. The prize was awarded to her colleague, Adrienne Rich, but Rich indicated she accepted the award "not as an individual but in the name of all women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world" as part of a joint statement with Lorde and fellow nominee Alice Walker. Lorde's next volume of poetry, Coal, was published by W. W. Norton. Coal and its successor, The Black Unicorn, in 1978 was widely reviewed and reached a commercial audience.

Making Love To Concrete by Audre Lorde

An upright abutment in the mouth
of the Willis Avenue bridge
a beige Honda leaps the divider
like a steel gazelle inescapable
sleek leather boots on the pavement
rat-a-tat-tat best intentions
going down for the third time
stuck in the particular

You cannot make love to concrete
if you care about being
non-essential wrong or worn thin
if you fear ever becoming
diamonds or lard
you cannot make love to concrete
if you cannot pretend
concrete needs your loving

To make love to concrete
you need an indelible feather
white dresses before you are ten
a confirmation lace veil milk-large bones
and air raid drills in your nightmares
no stars till you go to the country
and one summer when you are twelve
Con Edison pulls the plug
on the street-corner moons Walpurgisnacht
and there are sudden new lights in the sky
stone chips that forget you need
to become a light rope a hammer
a repeatable bridge
garden-fresh broccoli two dozen dropped eggs
and a hint of you
caught up between my fingers
the lesson of a wooden beam
propped up on barrels
across a mined terrain

between forgiving too easily
and never giving at all.

[Roon]

30. There's a picture in the gay bar, the compound, from the 50's

back then the compound was a gay bar, but it was called the "gay inn"

[Smarmie Doofus]

31. Tomorrow is Eleanor Roosevelt's Birthday. Today, OCT 10...

October 10

October 10, 1949 – The periodical Newsweek published a story titled “Queer People” calling gays perverts and comparing them to exhibitionists and sexual sadists. It challenged the idea that homosexuals hurt no one but themselves.

October 10, 1953 – British newspaper “The Times” reported that Rupert Croft-Cooke was sentenced to nine months in prison and Joseph Alexander was sentenced to three months after they were accused of homosexual acts by two Royal Navy cooks. Croft-Cooke wrote about the case in “The Verdict of You All.”

October 10, 1987 – In Washington DC 2,000 gay and lesbian couples were united in a mass commitment ceremony in front of the IRS building. That morning, Rev Troy Perry, founder of Metropolitan Community Church, led a worship service at the First Congregational Church in Washington DC, and the crowd overflowed the church. The same day in Washington DC, a memorial service was held for Harvey Milk at the Congressional Cemetery at the burial plot purchased by the Never Forget Foundation to memorialize gay heroes.

October 10, 1990 – OutRage, a London direct action group, held a Kiss-In at Brief Encounter, a gay pub which had recently banned same-sex kissing.

October 10, 1995 – The US Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in the case of Romer v Evans, Colorado’s Amendment 2 which would have
banned all gay rights laws in Colorado.

October 10, 1997 – Lesbians organized a Daiku no Hi (Dyke Day) in Tokyo. It drew about 200 participants and received much media attention.

October 10, 1998 – Jackie Foster, a British broadcaster, actor, and lesbian activist, died at age 70.

http://www.365gay.com/living/lgbt-history-month-31-days-of-gay/

October 10, 1998 – The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America held a conference in Minneapolis Minnesota on gay and lesbian clergy.

October 10, 1999 – The Washington Post reported that a Harvard University research team conducted a study which demonstrated that gay men and lesbians are better than heterosexuals at identifying other gay men and lesbians.

October 10, 1999 – Catholic Bishop Pat Buckley of Belfast came out.

October 10 1973 – Toronto City council passes resolution banning discrimination in municipal hiring on basis of sexual orientation. First such legislation in Canada.

[Behind the Aegis]

32. October 10, 1999 - Harvard University study

"...a study which demonstrated that gay men and lesbians are better than heterosexuals at identifying other gay men and lesbians."

LOL! I didn't know about that one. So true, so true! But don't tell them that!

[Smarmie Doofus]

33. For this they need a study? nt

[Behind the Aegis]

34. Today, 12 years ago, Matthew Wayne Shepard (December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998) died.